The Girl in the Red Rubber Boots

My mother tagged me to be part of a meme, which, in my day, was called a “tag.” (That was back when blogging was for social media purposes. Now that blogging is all artsy fartsy, it’s no wonder they changed the name to “meme.”)

The rules:
Post these rules.
Each person must post 11 things about herself on his/her blog.
Answer the questions the “tagger” listed for you in her post.

Here are the questions I was asked:

1. How long have you been blogging, and how often do you post?

I have been blogging for six and a half years. Since I was fifteen.

I posted 256 posts on my xanga site, and then I moved to wordpress and posted 242 more posts. That makes a total of 498 posts, which means this will be my 499′th, and the next will be my 500′th post. Wow!

Approximately one post every 4-5 days.

2. Have you had anything published, and if so, what and when?

Yes.

A memoir.

A few articles for my college newspaper.

Some CLP short stories which I was terribly embarrassed by.

Some articles for a website called Ypulse.

3. Who is the author who best speaks your language and who you would most like to be like, in style and message?

Emily Smucker.

Oh wait, do I not count? Well, I want Jerry Spinelli’s characters and Louis Sachar’s plots and Gail Carson Levine’s fairy tale world and C S Lewis’s way of adding spiritual meaning to stories and Robin McKinley’s magical way of stringing words together and Sharon Creech’s realness.

(Yep, they’re all Newberry winners, only with CS Lewis thrown in for good measure. Anyone want to guess what award I dream of winning someday?)

4. What do you see as the unique message God has given you to share with the world?

There isn’t one.

5. Who or what has made you believe in yourself as a writer?

My mom, obviously. All the people who follow my blog. My editor, when she decided that my writing was good enough to be put in a book.

6. Who or what has done the opposite?

Nothing. Okay fine. I am sure there was something, but I obviously wasn’t too scarred by it, because I can’t think of anything.

7. Besides blogging, what types of writing have you done? (journaling, poetry, news articles, letters, short stories, etc.)

I write EVERYTHING. Songs and scripts and ideas and quotes. Poetry incorporating my love life with random things I’ve been learning in college. Essay about why I hate the game “king’s base.”

There is always ink on my left hand and my right leg. I just write.

8. Where would you like to be, writing-wise, in five years?

Disciplined.

9. What would need to happen to move you from here to there?

Discipline.

10. Any advice for beginning bloggers/writers?

Yes. People would rather read something fun and funny than something deep and full of long paragraphs.

If you get good enough at the fun and funny stuff, you learn how to write the deep stuff without the long paragraphs.

Then people will actually read what you have to say.

11. Just for fun: what’s a skill you have that almost no one knows about? (example: I know how to develop black and white film in a darkroom.)

I used to teach myself morse code and how to play the spoons while I was waiting on my slow computer. Now days I just read a book or do homework.

Now I am supposed to tag people, which I don’t feel like doing. Instead I will invite you to ask whatever random question of me you wish, and I will answer it in my next post.

So many things.

I am reading a book right now called “I capture the castle.”

The main character lives in a house built on the ruins of an old castle. Her Father once wrote a very literary book called “Jacob Wrestling,” but hasn’t been able to write anything since. Thus, they are all dirt poor.

About the middle of the book, the Father changes somewhat. He starts becoming obsessed with random things. An old blue willow plate, a moth-eaten carpet bag, a herring skeleton…he finds them fascinating and drags them up to the gatehouse where he spends his time.

Sometimes his wife or daughter will think he is writing again, but when they actually get a peek at him they realize he is doing something silly, like crossword puzzles, or taping comic strips all over the walls.

He is thinking about his next book though. All the patterns and textures and shapes are meaning something, he just isn’t sure what. If he could just take his ideas and make them fit together somehow, a lovely thing would result, and he could begin to write it down. But they won’t fit together.

…

That is how I feel right now.

That is how I feel about life.
That is how I feel about writing.
That is how I feel about God.

SO MUCH and SO BEAUTIFUL and SO MANY THINGS but they are not forming together into anything practical.

I call this feeling “The Bear Under the Bridge” because the title doesn’t make sense and neither does the feeling.

A few cellular phone snaps of my life.

There was a beautiful sunset today, so Jenny went on the roof and danced the hula.

I love my sister.

When I see a hole in fabric I have an intense desire to rip the hole as big as possible. I don’t know why.

I think my mother may have been playing with my phone. I do not recall taking this picture. But it made me laugh.

Monday I watched chicks hatch for the first time in my life. So amazing!

Also on Monday, I began to teach my writing class about poetry. I asked them to write a free verse poem, and one young man decided to write about my cell phone:

the black verizon
small
scratches on screen

It made me laugh, though one kid pointed out that it is not a verizon, it is a samsung. Also, it is purple. But I still thought the poem was cute.