5% Fiction

I am a fiction writer, so I think it’s fun to say much of what I do is invent things, make things up. Thinking about it, though, I realize that not so much of what I write is fictional. It’s all of my life but under the guise of fiction.

I am an overly observant person. From people’s appearances to the ways the move and interact with others to the way they interact with me and how it makes me feel, I am constantly observing. I then create characters that feel real to me because…well, they are real to me. They have quirks that either I have or that I have noticed in others.

A lot of this is actually subconscious. I will create a character and it might take me weeks or months to realize the similarities they have to myself or people I have known. I have been reflecting on my current book and see where some of my characters originated. I am going to cite examples from my own writing as an exercise because I think it’s interesting how much fiction actually isn’t fictional. It makes me wonder – when I read books – who the authors’ inspirations were for their own characters.

Mr. Hwang

I am going to start with my absolute favorite character in my book. Mr. Hwang. He’s a Korean man – around 60 years old – who runs a small coffee shop that my main character frequents. Archetype-wise he is the “wise old man” of the book. He’s sweet and caring and treats my main character like a granddaughter.

I wasn’t particularly close to either of my actual grandfathers. One I have met maybe three times in my entire life. The other died almost ten years ago and while our interactions were always pleasant when he was alive, we weren’t close. I didn’t have a  “let me take you for ice cream and show interest in your life and come to your school play” type grandfather.

When I lived in Korea and taught English to businessmen, I had one student – Mr. Lee – who was the absolute sweetest man I have ever met. He was around 72 – my eldest student – and quite wealthy. But he was humble, open-minded, and clever. He expressed interest in my feelings, whether I was having trouble living in Korea. He took me to lunch sometimes and told me that if I weren’t his teacher, I could him “Grandfather.”

Living alone overseas is hard enough, but living there as a young woman – with hardly any work experience – was scary sometimes. I felt so alone on so many occasions, as if I was just floating around a bunch of people who didn’t know me or care to know me or ask me how I was feeling. His caring and understanding were appreciated more than he will probably ever realize. I thanked him many times, and chose – consciously – to incorporate a bit of him into my book. The character of Mr. Hwang helps my main character in times of crisis and is a shoulder for her to cry on. He gives her advice and views the world as a beautiful place. All of that is from Mr. Lee.

March’s photographic memory

My main character has a photographic memory. It works like a video recorder. She can go back in the store of past memories, pull them forward, and rewatch them whenever she wants. However, when she gets overly emotional, she can be bombarded by these memories – painful memories.

This comes from my own life. Since I was a child, being overly observant was a blessing once I channeled it into my writing. But until that time, it was terrible. I remembered the most upsetting and disturbing things I saw on TV or in movies, on street signs (once drove past a pro-life rally and I still remember all the bloody pictures. It made me too sick to eat for a day when I was around 7 or so.) I have the type of personality where I can’t stop thinking about things that upset me. I have read that this is part of being a writer – being obsessed with strange things. But I don’t enjoy it. It’s frustrating. “Think about something else” is advice that is repeatedly lost on me.

Thus, I channeled this to my main character. I thought – what could be worse than being really observant and obsessive? How about – literally not being able to forget any detail from anything that I have ever observed? I talk about times in her past when she watched a horror movie and ended up screaming in agony when the perfect memories of it came flooding to her when she tried to sleep. She catches her boyfriend cheating on her with her friend and the memories resurface at the most inconvenient times and consume her. It’s disturbing and horrible, but it’s her struggle. And her memory ends up being something useful when the story begins to develop. I almost feel guilty inflicting this on someone – despite her being fictional. But I think that’s what makes a good story.

Every mean character

I don’t have too many characters that are purely “evil.” I think often, in real life, there isn’t always a clear sense of bad guys vs. good guys. Therefore, even my most insufferable characters are real – meaning they have SOME redeeming qualities.

But lemme tell you guys…guess where I get those bad qualities from…

Ahem.

From the girls who were mean to me in middle school because  I was taller than everyone, to the men I have dated who treat me like I’m dirt, to the time my parents punished me, to the teacher who gave me a B on that paper instead of the A I should have gotten (because, dammit, I worked hard on that stupid paper for my senior seminar class! The professor was trying to push me because she knew I was a good writer and I rewrote my Beowulf analysis several times to get that A…but for every other class I could crank out a 15 page paper in 3 hours and get an instant A! /still bitter! haha) to that chick who gave me a rude look on the subway, to that guy who hollered at me from his car – “Hey, baby, what’s yo name?”

…

Every bad or irritating event or person I write has an origin somewhere. It might be from my own experiences or from horrid things I observe or hear about. But it isn’t all fictional.

It seems apt to end this with something a guy I dated a while back once said.

“I’m afraid if we break up some day…you’re going to write about the bad stuff I did to you in one of your books.”

Don’t worry, horrible ex-boyfriend. I won’t use your name.

25,000 Words Written

There has been much talk of goals around me of late. I’m typically bothered by it. “You should have goals,” people at work will say – bosses, coworkers with better titles than mine (which are most of my coworkers). “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have goals,” my mother says – and she is also a coworker with a better title than mine. “Write your goals!” says my father, who prefers a direct approach – which is either refreshing or intimidating, depending on the circumstance.

Yet, I find myself without goals in my professional life. Of course, if you count “making enough money to pay my rent and buy enough food to keep me alive” as a goal, that is mine. I do feel fulfilled by the work I do because I am helping others on a daily basis. But if I sit and think “What is the one thing I want to do?” the answer is always the same. It always has been.

Write. I want to write.

My ultimate dream is to be able to be a full-time writer. I don’t want this to be a dream that is realized because I marry a man who makes enough money for me to quit my job and write full time. I want it to be because I publish something that people want to read and have fun reading.

The problem with this is that people don’t think it is an acceptable dream. In the ever-loving and ever straightforward words of my businessman father – “Write a book? I meant a real  goal, Amber.” (I should mention here that he is always supportive of my writing, he is just terribly practical and well-versed in the difficulties life can throw at you. But you can bet that when I get published one day, he will basically be president of my fan club, carrying around my book and telling people his daughter wrote it. My mom, too. Co-president of my fan club. She is, incidentally, my current biggest fan, and she reads rough drafts of my chapters regularly.)

“So, perhaps I don’t have goals after all.” I began to think this and was disheartened. Then I ran across something kind of great.

One of my favorite YA authors, Marissa Meyer – author of the Lunar Chronicles – recently blogged about a letter she had written to herself when she was twenty-four.

She had written to encourage herself to keep writing, pretending that she was five years older and published. The letter is wonderful and reflects a lot of how I feel these days – at the same age she was when she wrote the letter to herself. It’s a difficult time, starting something that you know is going to be good but that isn’t there yet. It’s hard to keep sight of the end when you don’t know quite when that will be. It’s easy to get discouraged.

At the end of the letter, she included two lists that she made. Motivations for Writing, and Fears that Keep Me from Writing (and ways to work around them).

Using that as an inspiration, I have decided that it isn’t ridiculous to have goals as a writer. Though many might disagree, I don’t think it’s ridiculous that these are the goals that are most important to me. I love my work at my company but I am a writer first and always.

I am going to make my own lists. 25,000 words into my current project seems as good a time as any to reflect.

My Motivations for Writing

1. Telling the stories that these wonderful characters I have dreamed up want told, thereby giving them the respect they deserve by chronicling their adventures.
2. Offering readers the same escape from reality that books always have and always will offer me.
3. To entertain people of all ages with stories of magic and impossible things.
4. To give myself a world to enjoy other than my own (unmagical) one.
5. To improve as a writer and find my own voice.
6. To fulfill my university creative writing professor’s prediction that I am going to be a successful writer – don’t want to let him down!
7. To convey life, love, happiness, sorrow, and fun – and any other possible emotion – the way I see it in the hopes that it allows someone the chance to say “I feel that way, too,” and reminds them that they aren’t alone.

Fears That Keep Me from Writing (and ways to work around them)

1. Self doubt – fear that I have no original ideas or ways of saying things, that I’m just not that good. (Remember that no one is that good in the first draft. Remember that you like writing for the process – and the process includes crappy writing that can be fixed later!)
2. Comparing myself to other writers. (They’re published and you’re not, but that won’t always be the case. Remember that you have the potential to be on those shelves with them, even if you aren’t quite there yet!)
3. Revising before I’m done with the first draft. (Stop being so OCD. The best writing you do comes when you don’t over think. Remember that manic, can’t-stop-this-momentum, worry-about-the-edits-some-other-time free writing produces the most unexpected – and therefore most fun – results.

There we have it. Thank you, Marissa Meyer, and I hope to look back at this in five years when I’m almost thirty and find that some of it has come true!

Writer’s Block – We Meet Again, My Old Foe

It was bound to happen – given how well writing had been going for several weeks. The crushing blow that is writer’s block has struck with the angry force of a thousand boulders crashing upon me. Angry boulders with scrunched brows over beady red eyes. As they fall they shout things like, “You don’t know what you’re doing!” “Writing is pointless! Almost as pointless as this book – which is the most pointless of all books in the history of forever!” “Who are you to think you’d ever be published!?”

At least the writer’s block hasn’t deadened my ability to write about how much I hate writer’s block.

I probably won’t ever understand why one week I can read a few chapters I’ve written and think, “This is a pretty good story! This is fun to read!” and the following week read the same chapters and want to hurl my computer at the wall in despair – despair that comes with being the worst writer of all time. Including Stephenie Meyer and that chick who wrote 50 Shades. Yeah, writer’s block takes me to some dark levels of self-loathing.

I have reached the point with my current book where writer’s block claimed me for a good two months during my previous book attempt. It is that point where the beginning is over and we know the characters and everything is coming together . But most importantly – and most horrifyingly – things are actually starting to happen.

I am very good at beginnings. I like meeting characters and establishing things that will carry through to the end – relationships, plot points, twists. Then I hit this point – usually around the 25,000 word mark – where I start to hate all of it.

The hate isn’t mutual though. The characters are still bouncing around my head wanting to be written. And I want to write. But I can’t, because I simultaneously hate everything I have written and am ever going to write.

Despite the agony, I know that this too shall pass. I bought some notebooks and will attempt to write by hand because my computer screen makes me angry. Being a writer is being an artist, and artists are crazy and emotional.

The end.

Falling asleep while writing, and various other writerly oddities.

I think it has been fairly well documented through history that writers are weirdoes. We are, to put it as kindly as possible, a decidedly eccentric bunch. I thought I was insane and weird…that is until I decided – in my sophomore year of college – to change my major to literature. My study of authors led me to the realization that I wasn’t any less strange than I had thought, but there were plenty of writers far stranger than me. I pride myself on these eccentricities now…or, that is to say, they don’t cause me to cringe in shame anymore. And actually, I think it is due to my weirdness that I am even able to do any writing at all.

I ran across a blog post today titled “The Daily Routines of Famous Writers.” Most of these people are absolutely, delightfully off-the-wall, and I was happy to find some similarities between them and myself.

My favorite was Joan Didion.

“Another thing I need to do, when I’m near the end of the book, is sleep in the same room with it. … Somehow the book doesn’t leave you when you’re asleep right next to it.”

This was so fantastic to read. I do exactly this. Well, I should say, I do one of two things. I either bring the draft into my bedroom and keep it on my bedside table – in case I wake with an idea or can’t sleep and want to read it. Or, I fall asleep while I’m writing. Usually this is not in bed. I can’t write in bed, but apparently I can fall asleep on the floor of my living room with the laptop in front of me.

Last night, I decided the floor seemed like a mighty fine place to do some writing. My stupid couches offer no back support, and the floor seemed good enough. I laid down with a couple pillows to prop me up and was reading over some things I’d written the day before. Then before I knew it, it was 1AM and I was curled up in a ball under an afghan (no memory of grabbing that afghan or covering myself, so I either did it in my sleep or live in the company of extremely kind ghosts) and my laptop was still open by me.

Falling asleep while writing is like having a sleepover with friends as a child. Usually, it’s bedtime and that’s that, but at sleepovers there was talking and joking and games. It was a special treat. I felt like that yesterday. When I fell asleep, my main character was zooming on the highway toward her parents’ home because she suspected some bad people might be out to get them and wanted to make sure they were okay. Writing that was like having an exciting conversation with her. I like my characters to be around me at all times – and they actually are always in my head, bugging me.

When I am reaching the end of a piece of writing, I do like to have it with me at all times. Weird? Heck yes it is. But I own the weirdness.

I also found it interesting that so many of the writers talked about hating writing. I think many of us feel we didn’t choose to be writers, we just kind of are writers. I think this is true of most artists, whether they be musicians or painters or writers or whatever. You’re either artistic or you aren’t, and being artistic isn’t always the easiest thing to deal with.

I love writing, but writing isn’t a practical thing. It takes focus and it takes time and after a day of work I have neither. I chatted with a writer friend the other day about how it feels when you don’t write for a long time. It’s like there’s no release for these ideas and emotions. It’s frustrating and usually we get funky if we have not written for some time.

But there are aspects of writing that I hate. Aspects that will keep me from writing because I get too frustrated. One of these is writing descriptions.

I hate reading lengthy descriptions in books. Hate. I will skip them (yeah, I said it. Dear Every English Professor I have Ever Had – that 10 page description of a single blade of grass in that book that was written somewhere between 1800 and 1900 probably by a woman – DIDN’T READ THAT.)

There are descriptions I love because of the beauty of them, but I tend not to be overly descriptive when I write the first draft of a novel because I end up boring myself, and I don’t want to write something I wouldn’t want to read. Hello self-indulgent-writer-syndrome. However, description must be added, so I go back in a second draft and write it all in.

Example.

Here is how this scene was originally written.

March sat at her usual table in Coffee Co., a small coffee shop in a strip mall that was about halfway between her apartment and her parents’ home. She’d gone there a few times a week for the past three years to chat with the shop owner – Mr. Hwang.

It was late October in Virginia, which meant the weather hadn’t quite decided whether it was autumn or winter. On this particular day, a day that happened to be the three year anniversary of her grandfather’s disappearance, it was much more winter-like. The sun was setting and there was a chilly, misty rain falling. March had her phone on the table in front of her, a picture of she and her grandfather on the screen. They were smiling. She loved that picture and she loved him and she couldn’t remember why.

Every Friday for the past month, when March was through with work, she had gone to her parents’ home for dinner. They pretended it had nothing to do with how depressed March had been for the past three years and how she had gotten especially bad for the past month – since the incident with Dave. March shook her head so she wouldn’t think about that. She had decided that morning that she would focus on Grandpa August for the day. She’d deal with reality later. 

I got feedback that there wasn’t enough description. So, I recently revised it.

March sat at her usual table in Coffee Co., a small coffee shop in a strip mall that was about halfway between her apartment and her parents’ home. She’d gone there a few times a week for the past three years to chat with the shop owner – Mr. Hwang.

The shop was a collection of furniture and knick-knacks from around the world that went together perfectly only because absolutely nothing matched anything else. Mr. Hwang had collected things from his travels and thrown them all together, and there was scarcely a space on the wall that wasn’t covered by something. Each table was a different size and different wood finish, surrounded by chairs of various colors. Each table had its own theme – a country. Mr. Hwang always saved the Korea table for March, because it was his favorite. It was a cozy little place, much like something you’d see in a movie. A fireplace, warm lighting, quite chatter from the patrons enjoying coffee from “I heart NY” mugs and delicate Chinese tea cups.

It was late October in Virginia, which meant the weather hadn’t quite decided whether it was autumn or winter. On this particular day, a day that happened to be the three year anniversary of her grandfather’s disappearance, it was much more winter-like. The sun was setting and there was a chilly, misty rain falling. March had her phone on the table in front of her beside a tiny figurine of a Korean woman with a porcelain face and a pretty little fan in her hand. She was dressed in a colorful robes and had feminine rosy cheeks. On March’s phone screen was a picture of she and her grandfather. They were smiling. She loved that picture and she loved him and she couldn’t remember why.

Every Friday for the past month, when March was through with work, she had gone to her parents’ home for dinner. They pretended it had nothing to do with how depressed March had been for the past three years and how she had gotten especially bad for the past month – since the incident with Dave. March shook her head so she wouldn’t think about that. She had decided that morning that she would focus on Grandpa August for the day. She’d deal with reality later.

I also find that in my life in general I am terribly organized, but in writing I am a complete mess. I write, I throw drafts away, I get frustrated, where did I put that notebook with all the characters’ names?, my whiteboard with all my notes fell off the wall and when I tried – unsuccessfully – to hang it again, half the writing got erased when the board rubbed against my shirt. How old is this character again? I should keep better notes. I forgot about that character for fifty pages but they should have been there all along.

Etc.

Somehow, some way, though, I manage to write almost every day and have produced one complete book.

How?

Heck if I know. I am a mess.

It’s more than Kimchi – considering writing about my time in Korea

Before I moved to Korea in June, 2011, I did everything I could to prepare myself for the adjustment to that culture. This preparation included reading a couple of memoir-type mini-books written by former ex-pats who had taught English in Korea. The thing I loved about them was that they were informative…but the thing I hated about them was that they were informative.

Here’s the thing. These books were written specifically for those who – like myself – were considering moving to Korea. They talked about how to find a place to work, what to pack in your suitcases, what Korean food would be like, how much things would cost, what the Korean work environment was like. It was useful information…in a very very strictly practical way.

But these narratives were for the most part unemotional. They talked about how it was “sad to leave family and friends” or “exciting to meet people from another country.” They even mentioned how some Americans couldn’t handle the shift from our culture to that one. But that was it. It was all stated like that very matter-of-factly.

The narratives all tended to have the word “kimchi” in the title, too. As if the only thing that distinguishes that country from others is their spicy, fermented cabbage side dish.

Ahem. Untrue.

I have for some time been considering writing about Korea and what living there meant to me. Here’s the problem, though. I wonder if there’s any sort of market for these types of books. I couldn’t ever find any that didn’t have a practical edge to them. Are there any?

I don’t want to write about how you should pack cold medicine and fitted sheets because those things are hard to come by in Korea. I don’t want to talk about how to negotiate a contract with your school. For the love of all things good I certainly don’t want to talk about how smelly kimchi is the first time you try it.

I want to write about how being overseas helps you become the person you always suspected you could be – this adventurous, open excited person. I’d want to talk about what it’s like to be stared at constantly, objectified by the men there. What it’s like to get your heart broken overseas.

But the question arises – who would want to read this? Would anyone care?

I might start to write a bit about this – while still working on my other book – but my goal is this. I want it to be something that anyone can read – even someone who doesn’t give a crap about Korea. (like people who asked me whether I was moving to North or South Korea back in 2011. I mean…really?) I want it to be a story of how I lived in Korea, rather than a Korea how-to guide.

Oh. And the title won’t have the word “Kimchi” in it.

The Triumphs and Thoughts that this Weekend Brought

My younger brother graduated from college this weekend. Our family is the four of us – Mom, Dad, brother, and me. He is the baby, the last one of our unit to graduate. I couldn’t be more proud of him. He was so successful these past four years at a rather prestigious university. He is going to do great things, I’m sure of it.

Things are changing, as things always do. I remember watching my mother interact with her siblings when I was younger and I couldn’t imagine things being that way. Each sibling has their own life, their own family. They see one another a few times a year – on holidays and special occasions. I couldn’t – and maybe still can’t – imagine this with my brother, probably because he and I are so close. I have a special relationship with him because so many of our interests are similar. We have our own language – as family members like to say. He is my best friend.

And yet, I am watching him talk about applying to jobs in different states. I am realizing that things are moving toward what I saw with my parents growing up. We’re going to be separate, we’re going to have our own lives, and where this scared me before – it doesn’t anymore. I’m actually excited about it. I’m excited to see what he’s going to do, what he’s going to be. He’s an amazing person and I’ve had him for twenty-two years, so it’s only fair I allow the world to see what I’ve seen all along. He’s going to do so much good.

The thing about graduations is that they make me think about my future – whether it’s my graduation or someone else’s. I was always working toward something…always had some kind of goal. Graduate high school…graduate college…go to Korea…get a job back home in the US…

But, then what?

Career-wise, I am in a wonderful place – a better place than I ever imagined. I love what I do and I get paid enough to have my own place and live comfortably. I don’t know what else I could possibly ask for.

Yet, recently, oddly enough, I have been asked by my boss, my father, and a few others about what’s on the horizon. I am baffled by this. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know where I want to go in my career because I’m still surprised that I’m twenty-four and doing as well as I am. How could I say I’m thinking about promotions and making more money when I almost feel like any day my boss will wake up and realize she meant to hire someone older and wiser than me?

So for the past several weeks I was wandering around at work thinking I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do about my future…then I realized that I have had a goal all along. I want to get a book published.

Being around those graduates today – all of them full of hope about their future – reminded me that being happy with where I am doesn’t mean I don’t have goals and something to work toward. I have been writing every day and carrying my notebook and taking voice memos with my phone when I’m driving to remind me about any ideas I have for the book. I love my characters and I hope others love them, too. I’m almost 13,000 words into it – tens of thousands to go – but I’m excited about it. I’m living in my fantasy world for the first time since the last book I wrote.

Knowing this is the goal makes work even more fun. I look forward to my writing time all day. I daydream about being able to support myself with my  writing. I am thankful that my parents fostered this creativity and didn’t ever try to tell me I should be focusing on something more practical. My mother is my biggest writing fan and she makes me believe that I really will publish something someday. She reads my stories with great enthusiasm – as though it’s an exciting book she picked up at the store.

This weekend was wonderful. I am a proud big sister, a thankful daughter – happy mother’s day! – and happy to be passionate about my writing.

I anticipate many writing-related posts in the future.

Stories of panic and being apparently quite gigantic.

I have had a few times in my life where I have experienced what I like to refer as “crappy yet defining moments.” You know those moments – where you think, “Why the hell is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this?” You want to shake your fists at the heavens and demand an answer from a higher power. Those times when you feel so horrid that you are – in that moment – absolutely positive that nobody on God’s green earth has ever felt as horrible as you do right then. You know those moments?

When I look back on my 24 years, two of those moments smack me in the face with cringe-worthy memories. I will now share those two moments and the perspective I have gained from them.

I can’t exactly classify the first moment as a moment…as it lasted for approximately ten years of my life. From age 11 to age 20, I had quite bad anxiety and panic attacks. Most have experienced anxiety at some point or another – something I didn’t realize in the throws the turmoil that was my teenage years. However, most don’t get a panic attack several times an hour and become convinced that something is seriously physically and/or mentally wrong with them several times a day.

Ah…the memories.

I don’t have memories of middle school and high school that aren’t accompanied by my panic and anxiety. I built my world around things that I could do that didn’t cause me to panic. Of course…the majority of the panicking happened at school. I couldn’t get out of school. I tried. Pretending to be sick, crying in the morning, but my mom booted my teenage butt out of the car. [I know that it was hard for her to do, by the way, and I am grateful that she didn’t coddle me.]

I had trouble sitting through a class without pretty much hyperventilating. These episodes weren’t evident to anyone else when they were happening. Outwardly, it was nothing more than my fingers tapping the desk or slightly faster breathing. But it my head it was a cacophony of “I’m going crazy. Why is my heart beating so fast? Am I going to faint?” [Intense fear of fainting…even though I have never fainted…though perhaps that’s why I’m so scared of it?]

Then, during my second year of college, I decided I’d had enough. I began devising strategies to keep myself from having an anxiety attack. If I felt one was about to happen, I would begin evasive maneuvers immediately. I’d take a few deep breaths, focus on a spot on the floor, wait for my vision to uncloud. I began exercising to lower my anxiety level. I ate healthier food. I did a complete 180. It took a few months, but I was almost panic and anxiety free.

So you’d think things would be better, right?

Oh…if only …

When I became less of a slave to my panic attacks, I suddenly able to do anything I wanted without leaving the house with an escape plan – i.e. excuses for why I had to get up frequently during classes or leave a party early. But, I was left with very few close friends because…when they called me to go somewhere I said no. I was left with hobbies that meant I was cooped up inside my room alone – writing, reading. I didn’t know how to date or have a relationship. I was, socially, way far behind.

I had friends, don’t get me wrong. I think I’m quite a pleasant person to befriend. However, beyond talking at school, I didn’t speak to most of them. Only a select few. I was so closed off.

During this time, I remember how leaving my dorm to go anywhere and not having to worry about panic attacks made me kind of…angry.

“Why? Why couldn’t the past ten years have been this way? I have barely done anything with my life. This is pathetic. I am absurd. I am so mad at myself. Were all my friends living like this the entire time I was afraid to do anything? That is completely unfair. I’m mad at everyone but it doesn’t begin to approach the level of anger I feel for my ridiculous self.”

However, it has been about…let’s see…four years since I had to worry about panic attacks. For a while – I mean at least two of those four years – I was dumbfounded. I didn’t understand why my life was “so terrible.” [I’m dramatic.]

But I realized recently that…had it not been for my panic attack years…there’s so much that I’ve done recently that I wouldn’t have ever dreamed of doing. Travel to Korea? Heck no. That’s ridiculous. Get a job teaching? Speak at meetings? Make friends with people from all over the world – friends who feel as close as family.

I hadn’t ever had friends who felt like family until I went to Korea. I wouldn’t have gone to Korea had I not gotten panic attacks all those years. My biggest motivation for going to Korea was not wanting another second of my life to resemble what those ten years had been. It worked. I changed.

I also find that I am much more empathetic than I would have ever been had I not experienced all that. I care about people – the clients I work with on a daily basis these days, the students I taught in Korea, the friends from Korea who are my language partners. Even people I don’t know well. I know I have an interesting story and I like to figure most everyone does. I don’t know who else could be going through a crappy yet defining moment, so I try to withhold judgment.

—–

Okay, readers, are you with me so far? I am about to take this in the direction of my second and most recent crappy defining moment. It is so recent that it’s difficult to write about…yet I am me, which means I can also see the humor in it. Are you ready?

Here goes.

When I was living in Korea, I had a serious boyfriend. Remember that thing I said about having no serious relationships in high school and college. Well, that changed in Korea. I met a guy and fell for him and was head over heels. He was funny and cute and interesting to talk to. I hadn’t ever met someone I could talk to for hours a day that way.

When we had been together around three months, he told me he loved me. I was ecstatic. I loved him, too. However, on the same day, he told me, “Yeah, it’s funny…because when we met I was just curious about what it’d be like to…you know…sleep with an American. But I guess at some point I started to care about you.”

That should have been a red flag, right? Well, I’m an idiot, so I looked at it more like, “Aww I won him over with my awesomeness.”

Ohh…silly Amber.

After we’d been together for about…I think eight months, it was August of last year. 2012. Oh yes, the memories are fresh. He decided to have me meet his parents. This was when it all began to fall apart – no, not during those other moments that it should have fallen apart. Like…when he told me to lose weight and grabbed my stomach like I weighed 5 million pounds. Or…like…that time he told me I couldn’t hang out with certain male friends because they seemed to like me. Or…like…when he would get mad at me for not speaking to him in a cute voice and hang up the phone and ignore me for a day or two.

Nah. It fell apart when I met his parents.

I heard from him that his parents had differing views about me, but the common theme in the views was that they didn’t like me.

Oh, excuse me. Wait.

They thought I was smart and pretty and cared about him. They thought I had a wonderful personality and understanding of Korean culture. But, dating their son? Oh…that won’t work.

His dad thought it laughable. Literally laughed at me during the meeting at one point and said his son should just focus on practicing English with me since he was going to study in America. My ex’s proclamation of “she’s not my teacher” elicited more laughter.

His mother thought…oh…if only that girl were smaller and possibly Korean. People would laugh at us, she said, or stare at us. I was taller than him, and I wasn’t thin. That was unheard of in Korea. The girls should be smaller.

I cried about this. I was distraught. I ended up deciding to go back to America earlier than planned for other reasons but…if I’m being honest, the situation with him was a contributing factor. He agreed with his mother when he discussed it with me. “I mean…the girl IS supposed to be smaller.” We began to grow apart.

We ended things for good a month after I moved back to America. Meaning…we ended things five months ago. During the first month I was back, I had intense reverse culture shock…crying all the time, feeling disoriented. I reached out to him for support and got very half-hearted responses. He ignored me, he was mad that I left. He said horrible things to me.

Despite all this, I had in my head that he was coming to America in January and perhaps I would go to the state he was moving to and live with him. I proposed this. He rejected it. He said that since there were other Koreans on the campus who knew his father, he couldn’t have me there. People would talk.

So, after having him treat me like I was an embarrassment to him – someone he will gladly share a bed with but refuse to stand up for in front of family and friends – I guess you could say I’m a tad bit…damaged. It’s still a difficult thing for me to discuss. I was so hurt by the way he treated me that I think a part of me will always look back on it and wonder why I let it go on for so long.

However, with each passing month…I am gaining perspective. I am almost…grateful for what happened?

Firstly…there’s something about people outright insulting me that makes me 100% more secure in who I am and what I look like. I realized that I’m the only one who can make me feel good about me. You know what? I’m not disgusting looking. I’m not gigantic. I’m not these things because I don’t think I am these things. I look in the mirror and like the way I look. I dare someone else to tell me I’m “too big” or “too tall.” It’s laughable. Why should I care?

I have also realized that I am much more comfortable and confident talking to men since having that relationship. I am certainly not eager to jump into another situation like that, so I don’t view every man I meet as a potential date. I’m going to be much more careful that I was before. I am having fun meeting and getting to know men every so often. But there isn’t any pressure. I’m not obsessing over things that cute guy said or what that cute guy texted.

I also am able to view the situation as…comical? I don’t know if that’s the right word. But I’m amused by it. I occasionally have moments where thinking about it makes me sad…and maybe it takes a while for that to go away completely.  But I think it’s kind of funny that the situation with him seemed like such a huge deal at the time. It has made me so much tougher and so much more relaxed and so much less likely to tolerate crap from people in all situations.

In the past six months, I have gone from rock bottom to working at a wonderful job that pays me well. I have my own place. I have new friends. I still talk daily with my friends living in Korea. I know that the chain of crappy events that led to where I am were all for the better. The next time I’m depressed about something, all I have to do is remember that I don’t get panic attacks these days and then glance in a mirror and remind myself that I think I look pretty darn good.

First drafts are the best and the worst.

I am working on a book at the moment and I’m running into the same problem I had when I completed my first book. I hate and love first drafts.

There are times when I get really obsessed with the writing. I am in the midst of one of those times. For the past couple days, any time I sit at my computer, I am typing like a fiend. I am loving my characters and pouring myself into the writing. My main character is awesome and the supporting cast is quirky and interesting. Everyone has their back stories and everything is working.

But I know from the last time I wrote a book that this feeling is fleeting. Actually, I have been working on this current one the past three months or so and have already hit the road blocks I am about to describe.

Writer’s block

Those moments when you don’t know what’s going to happen next and aren’t quite sure that anything you’ve written up to that point is worth keeping. Maybe you should trash the whole thing?

Writer’s despair

This is a piece of crap. Who would ever pay to read this? It will be one that I print for my parents to read and pretend to like. These characters don’t seem real. This character is an idiot and I’m an idiot for creating him. What’s the point of writing this anyway?

Writer’s complete and utter confusion

I have written myself into a corner. I have to erase half of what I have already written. I can’t use these twenty five pages. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner. Wait…who is this character on this page? Where did I introduce him? What does he look like? I should keep a record of this stuff…except let’s face it, I won’t. It makes me feel like I can’t be as creative if I have too much structure. But look where no structure has gotten you, weirdo. You don’t even know what the hell you’re writing anymore!

Yet I will continue to write and think about writing and act out fight scenes alone in my room like a weird 10-year-old imitating a character in a video game. (I mean…I do it so I can get the descriptions right…and also because it’s fun. Mostly it’s the description thing though.)

I will now describe my book. I have described it to zero people aside from my brother who is the best person to bounce ideas off of. He’s probably one of the few people who can hear, “And they’re from an alternate universe that is kind of on Earth but…really it isn’t on Earth.” and respond with, “Oh, okay.” as though it’s something he hears every day. Maybe he did hear things like that every day, as we lived together for almost twenty years.

My novel is told from the point of view of a girl named March Matthews (because I like alliteration and weird names) and she has a photographic memory. Her memory works kind of like picture and video files on a computer. They’re all stored in her mind and she can flip through them to access them.

There’s one problem, though. Her grandfather has supposedly passed away three years prior to the start of the book, and she has no memory of him. She’s told by family members that she and her grandfather were incredibly close. A therapist suggests that she represses the memories of him because it’s too painful for her to deal with his loss.

March decides to try to recover her memories of him and finds more than she ever expected she would. Human-like beings with extraordinary abilities. A secret organization – ACS – fighting against those beings that her grandfather was supposedly a member of. An alternate world where these beings reside.

March soon learns that she isn’t the only one searching for clues about her grandfather. She gets swept up in a conflict that pits her world against the alternate world – a conflict that may or may not have been started by her grandfather.

Her forgotten memories might be the key to resolution.

…

So, here is an excerpt from my first chapter. March has arrived at her parents’ home for dinner after a visit to a coffee shop where she saw a strange man peering through the window at her. He has followed her home and she doesn’t know why.

Disclaimer – this is really first drafty. When I finish this draft and go back to edit, I will remove the adverbs and repetitive verbs and what not. I probably overuse “look” and “watch” and “stare” and will think of more interesting ways to write sentences containing those verbs later. My main purpose in the first draft is getting the crazy mess of ideas from my brain to the page.

* * * * *

March pulled up to the curb by the mailbox and noticed an unfamiliar car parked on the other side of the street. She shuffled quickly through the memories of the neighbor’s cars and saw their SUV and their son’s Jetta but this car was different. The neighbor’s lights were off so they didn’t have a guest. March peered through her window at her parents’ home and saw four figures moving around in the dining room.

Her suspicion stemmed from the countless times during the past several years that her grandmother had taken it upon herself to invite young men to dinner to meet March. She cut the engine and drug herself to the door. Her mother opened it before she could even find the key.

“March!” she said. She gestured for March to lean toward her. Her mother was a small, slight woman. She hugged March, who had been taller than her since middle school, and released her quickly. Before she stepped back, she whispered what sounded like “Sorry.”

March stepped into the house and turned right to enter the dining room where she saw her father and grandmother seated on either side of an older gentleman who March recognized immediately.

“Dr. Carver?” she said.

“Hello, March,” he replied.

“Look who I ran into at the store today, March,” her grandmother said. Her left eyebrow raised up ever so slightly which – when checked in contrast of her store of unpleasant Grandma June memories – meant she was lying.

March took her seat across from her father and set her bag on the floor. She looked past her father’s head to the cars parked outside. She looked from Dr. Carver to his car and back at him again to be sure the memories were linked.

Her mother brought the first dish in and placed it on the center of a placemat that sat in the middle of the table parallel to two other placemats. Each of their place settings was identical – cutlery parallel to each other, plate at the center of the mat, cup at the upper right hand corner of the mat, each cup exactly three quarters full.

March’s mother shuffled to the kitchen and back again with two serving dishes that she placed at the center of the two other mats. She sat by March, surveyed the dishes, reached forward to adjust one, and then placed her hands flat on the table in front of her with an approving nod.

“The meal looks lovely, Millie,” the doctor said.

“Agreed!” March’s father chimed in.

They scooped food onto their plates silently and March noticed that her grandmother kept glancing from the doctor to her parents to March as though she were waiting for something to happen. Once they had all begun their meal, the doctor cleared his throat.

“March,” he said. “It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen you.”

“Isn’t that…good?” March said, looking to her father for support. He smiled.

“It is,” Dr. Carver continued.

“Then…why are you here?” March said.

“March Matthews!” her grandmother said as though she were a child who was about to be grounded. “That sounded rude.”

March clenched her jaw to keep from retorting.

“I just wanted to talk,” the doctor said. “Casually.”

“What would you like to talk about casually?” she asked.

“We don’t have to be defensive, March,” he said.

“We aren’t being defensive. I’m being defensive.”

“It was three years ago today that your grandfather passed away, wasn’t it?”

March stared out the window, unwilling to make eye contact with the man.

“March?” he said. “You must remember something by now.”

March kept her eyes on the window and clenched her jaw harder, so hard that her temples began to hurt.

“Maybe you all can talk after dinner,” she heard her father say.

“She’s okay,” her grandmother said, slamming one of the serving dishes onto the table. March’s mother reached over to adjust it and her grandmother slapped her hand away. “Go ahead, March. What do you remember? Tell the man.”

“I remember…going to the lake with him.”

“Okay,” the doctor said. “The lake.”

“She has a picture on her cell phone of the two of them at the lake,” her grandmother said.

March looked at her grandmother. “I guess that’s what sparked my memory.”

“Then what did we do that day at the lake?” her grandmother asked.

March didn’t answer.

“June,” her father said. “This is hardly the time for this.” Her father had a wonderful way of saying things softly but with great authority. He was the only one her grandmother couldn’t rattle. March and her mother on the other hand were far too affected by Grandma June.

Her mother was staring at the plate blankly that Grandma June hadn’t allowed her to move. Her father reached over quietly and adjusted the plate so that it lined up with the other and her mother sighed and smiled again.

“I’m concerned about her. I think she might be lying,” Grandma June said. “What did August say about me those months before the divorce? The two of you were always off together talking in hushed voices. He told you he was leaving me, didn’t he?”

With each syllable, the pitch of Grandma June’s voice had risen until she sounded almost hysterical. March stared at her, wide-eyed. The woman hadn’t ever said anything like that before. March knew – from stories her mother told her – that Grandma June and Grandpa August had gotten divorced a few months before he passed away, but her grandmother didn’t talk about it.

“Ma’am,” the doctor said. “It is quite possible that March doesn’t remember. Traumatic events can sometimes not be dealt with immediately. As all of you have told me, March was very close with her grandfather. Losing him might have been too much for her. When we can’t deal with something…some of us simply don’t.”

“I’ve heard quite enough,” Grandma June said.

“I’m sorry if I upset you,” the doctor said.

As her grandmother stood to leave the room, March noticed something behind her, through the window. Movement.

She focused on the window, and sure enough, there was someone walking up the lawn toward the house. The figure was tall and lean and she assumed male. He held a flashlight in either hand that were pointed toward the ground, casting light on the fallen leaves. He trudged right over the flower bed and through the shrubs so that he could press his nose up to the window.

March didn’t have to go back far in her memory to remember him. The man from the coffee shop.

Panic began to creep in and March’s breathing became uneven. Had he followed her? Why? Her parents were saying something, having a conversation with Dr. Carver, and they didn’t even glance at the window.

He still wore the sunglasses and the mask, but as soon as he reached the window, he removed the mask. He had a square jaw and a stubbly face. He then removed the sunglasses. He looked at his hands as if he were studying them and March followed his gaze with her own.

She wasn’t quite sure what she saw. He wasn’t holding flashlights as she had originally assumed. His palms were glowing – a soft white light. The light reminded her of street lamps or car headlights. She squinted her eyes and attempted to recall if she had ever seen anything like this before but the more she tried to access those memories, the more her head began to throb right behind her eyes. She blinked hard a few times, but the last time she shut and then opened her eyes, she and the man locked eyes.

March heard herself shriek as though she were elsewhere, outside herself. It was her but she didn’t feel attached to the voice. A white hot pain shot from the back of her skull to the front and blinded her. She jerked her body sideways in an attempt to throw her arms up and felt herself fall. She collided with whomever had been seated by her. Was it her mother? She couldn’t remember, couldn’t think. She vaguely sensed the ground beneath her and heard another shriek. She was screaming and she couldn’t get her mouth to close and she couldn’t get the pain to lessen. Her body seized up, and then she couldn’t feel anything.

* * * * *

She’s not dead. I promise.

Or is sheeeee!?

She isn’t. 🙂

Enough was enough

You can be told a million times that nothing will change until you change your attitude and start believing in yourself. It’s wonderful and true advice, but when you’re in the middle of something awful…it’s hard advice to take. You want the opposite to happen – for your situation to change so you can have a better attitude as a result. That might happen to some extent, but a change in circumstance without an initial change in attitude won’t allow for as much happiness or appreciation.

I say all of this because I have been living this way. I got back from Korea almost six months ago after being there for almost a year and a half. Getting back meant feeling like I went back in time. I had changed and grown so much …but everything here was the same. I began to slip back into my old ways.

Prior to moving to Korea, I was stuck. I went to school, went home, wrote, talked to my family, and that was pretty much it. I was terribly shy. I was also unwilling to get to know anyone and make close friends other than ones I had from high school. I knew I had to change something. I decided to go to Korea. I changed.

I made amazing friends who were as dear to me as family. I had a boyfriend for whom I cared so deeply. I became this vibrant, outgoing, caring person that I didn’t know I could be. I am sure my family knew that about me but few other people did. I put up major walls.

Then I came home.

I was alone. My friends were so far away. My boyfriend and I broke up. I was depressed. I found myself staying in bed too long. I spent Christmas night alone in my room crying over the break up and how alone I always felt.

I was pretty depressed from November to February. That’s when it all began to change. I got a great job. I had purpose again. I had to get up early and I had responsibilities. My circumstances had changed before my attitude had.

Was I happy? I don’t think so. I was happier but I wasn’t happy.

I don’t mean to write this as a religious post – but I am a Christian, and being a Christian to me means living a life that others can look at and respect. I had one evening that was so horrible about three weeks ago. I had been having a great time at work. I was working hard and getting praised. Despite all that – even though my situation was wonderful – I found myself crying one evening. I was home alone and didn’t know who to turn to…so I prayed.

I really didn’t say much. I remember saying “I’m broken. My heart is broken and I can’t do this by myself anymore. I don’t know what to do.”

The following morning was Palm Sunday. I went to church and found that the sermon was all about how God heals the broken-hearted. Literally that was what our pastor said. I couldn’t believe it. I remember sort of looking up and thinking, “So you really heard me yesterday, huh?” The message of the sermon was that once God heals us…we can help others.

It was interesting how…from that moment I found that people were cropping up in my life who were just great people. Interesting, fun, kind. I felt less inhibited by my recent past and all of the heartache that I had endured. I stopped going right home after work and going to my room. I read and wrote at a coffee shop or bookstore. I stayed later to chat with colleagues who were fast becoming friends. I started to meet two Korean girls from my university to show them around the city and help them get acclimated. I spent time with my parents watching TV or movies or just joking around. (I have great parents. Have I mentioned that?)

I started to remember why I had been so outgoing in Korea. It was because of my attitude. I had to have a good attitude because I was in such a foreign place. Having a bad attitude meant you’d spiral really quickly. I saw it happen to other ex-pats. I realized I had to apply those principles to being home. I had to allow myself to be happy in the face of adversity.

These past several weeks have been a complete turn around. I realized there isn’t anything stopping me from being happy. I even realized that part of what I had to do to be myself was live on my own again. This past weekend I thought, “Hey, what’s stopping me?” I left home Saturday morning, found an apartment, put a hold deposit on it, and the application was approved this week. I move in a week and a half.

For a while, I felt going to Korea was the wrong choice. I was certain during those difficult past few months that it had done more harm than good. But I know now that it equipped me with the tools I required. I just had to remember how to use them.

On being an adult…sort of?

I know people who talk about their high school and college days fondly. They talk about those crazy parties and those wild times and being hungover in class and dating as if those were the good times and being an adult is all responsibility and monotony.

I’m not one of those people.

Listen, I didn’t hate college. I did a lot of growing and learning…however I wasn’t outgoing enough to have the college experience we see in movies. I studied and wrote papers and talked to people in class sometimes…and that was it. Once I switched my major from music to English I got great grades. I felt like college was a pitstop on the way to something better.

But this is my problem. I have always felt like what I was doing at any given time was a precursor to something else. I can’t honestly say that I ever took the time to be thankful for where I was in my life at any given time. There was always something better to look forward to.

When I finished school, it was Korea – the bigger and better thing. I moved there, I loved it, but I knew it was temporary.

Korea was a weird thing. It was the first time in my life that I let myself appreciate what I was doing…but it felt…shallow? I don’t know if that’s the right word for it. I guess it was almost fake. It wasn’t my real life. It was like… the Korean currency was like monopoly money. My bills were magically taken from my account every month and I didn’t care. I drank and smoked cigarettes – gross habit that I don’t have anymore – and I dated. I had a serious relationship – the first I had ever had.

Korea was different from other stages of my life though. I wasn’t watching the calendar and counting the days until something better happened. I was trying to have as much fun as possible before I had to go back to the States and be an adult…which to me seemed like the absolute worst thing ever.

In my mind, adults were people who had it all together. They were people with marriages and mortgages and organized plans for everything. They had steady – albeit mind-numbing – occupations and talked about the weather and budgets and whatever was going on in the Middle East.

I can’t go back and be an adult, I thought to myself on many an occasion. I don’t have it all together yet. I’m emotional and anxious and insecure. I still like wearing headbands with cute bows. I like my Hello Kitty wearing sunglasses t-shirt. I’m not married. I’m so disorganized. And I never know what’s going on with the war on terror so however will I converse with anyone. If I happen to find myself in a waiting room of some sort and my reading material choices are limited to newspapers…you had better believe I’m going to read the arts and leisure section. Politics? I don’t think so. What a drag.

But as circumstances would have it, I found myself back in America trying to find a full-time job and feeling too much like a child. Where would I fit in? I had had a full-time job in Korea, sure, but that was Korea where I was away from reality. I hadn’t given the work I was doing much thought. I showed up, taught English, then got drunk 4-5 days a week with friends or coworkers.

So…I get this job I have now…by the grace of God…and the first few weeks were surreal. I wore my professional clothes and talked with adults and had meetings and taught classes to people two and three times my age. I did this all while thinking I was a child compared to everyone. How would they take me seriously…?

Then…the turning point. I was in a meeting with my team – the three of us trainers – and my supervisor asked what concerns we had since we were both new to the training world. I brought up that, “When I’m teaching adults, I feel like I can’t be the authority.”

My supervisor said, “You say ‘adults’ like you’re not one.”

And then my coworker, who is a good 6-7 years older than me, said, “Oh yeah, I feel the same way. You just have to fake it until you believe it.”

Wait a minute. My coworker was an adult…and she still felt this way…? That made absolutely no sense to me. She was supposed to have it all together, right?

Then, through this time I have been teaching, I have talked with my students candidly about their lives. One conversation I had with a woman who is a mother and grandmother has stayed with me.

“Sweetheart,” she told me. “I wish I had it together as much as I did when I was in my twenties. I had all my stuff together. I don’t know how I kept so organized with my kids and working and going to school. I had it all together. I can’t do that anymore.”

So… do any of us feel like we have it all together?

These first few months at this job have been some of the most meaningful and rewarding in my life. For the first time, I don’t feel like I’m waiting for something better. I want to do the absolute best that I can to teach my students. I have met so many people traveling to different locations in this city and it has made me much more outgoing. I am happy. I’m not wondering what I can do after this because I’m too busy having fun.

This, I have decided, is what being an adult is for me. I’m still as emotional and eccentric as I was when I was a teenager. My laundry still sits in a basket until I decide to put it away…maybe two or three weeks after. I don’t feel like I have everything together …and if you bring up politics I’m probably going to awkwardly excuse myself from the conversation. I don’t quite know what’s going on in the Middle East, but I did watch Argo so that counts for something, right?

Being an adult is much more fun than I had anticipated. All it took was being happy with where I am at this time.