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.

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. 🙂

Why travel? – a writer’s perspective on seeing the world.

My neighborhood in Korea.

I cannot possibly stress enough what a difference traveling made for me as a writer. I have mentioned here before that it taught me compassion for others and taught me to be more independent…but it was so much beyond that.

Traveling abroad to a country as homogenous as Korea gives you the rare opportunity to bond with people you feel a sort of kinship toward – meaning other foreigners. It’s an interesting friendship, because I found myself becoming closer to the people I met there than I had ever been to most of my friends back home. I think it’s because you’re all going through the same thing and sort of have the same mindset. You all wanted to leave America for one reason or another and find yourself in this strange place where you get stared at and observed like animals in a zoo. There was something about the friendships I formed there that will stay with me forever. I don’t think it’s possible to form friendships like that here where I am American and so is everyone else.

I find this making it’s way to my writing and it’s fantastic. I think the relationships between my characters are much more real than they used to be. My current novel is about people with special abilities to see another realm that exists on Earth. They have superhuman abilities. Thus, I see their relationships with each other as very similar to my relationships with Americans in Korea. You bond because you have this common thing that the people around you don’t understand.

Interestingly enough, often you meet other Americans in Korea and judge them more harshly than you would back home. Maybe it’s that nerdy guy who you know is only there to get a Korean woman, or that girl who drinks and parties at the club every weekend because drunk in public isn’t against the law there. I met so many Americans there that I couldn’t stand. They kinda made a bad name for us, and it was frustrating.

This has made it into my novel as well. I have bad characters that should be good. The more people you meet, the more realistic your characters. It’s interesting, because I used to read extreme characters in novels and think, “That’s absurd. There aren’t really people like that anywhere in the world.” Then I went to Korea and met all kinds of people and realized that …I was wrong.

This was taken at my goodbye party the day before I left Korea. These were my closest friends and coworkers. Strange to think I’d have never met these amazing people had I not gone to Korea.

I think the most important thing traveling did for my writing though was to remind me that there’s something else beyond what I know. I often had these moments on the way to work walking past a bunch of people or on the subway where I’d look around and think, “These people have been over here living their lives and I never gave them a passing thought. I was practically ignorant to their existence.” It reminds you that everyone has their own story. I think this is vitally important to writing.

The smallest character needs to have his or her own story, whether your readers end up being ignorant to it or not. I think each character has motives and back stories and all of the things that make up a real person.

The thing is, I was told all of this in writing classes, but until I experienced it, it didn’t really make any sense to me. I got it in theory but not in actuality.

Thinking about all the people in all the countries around the world with their own hopes, dreams, and stories makes me feel so connected to everyone. It’s fascinating to think about, and I’m glad I got the chance to travel and experience it.

Travel.

Make yourself a part of those stories even if you’re just that American they passed on the street earlier today. See how other people are living. Gain understanding and perspective.

[Here I am making kimchi – a traditional Korean dish – with some awesome Korean grandmas…all of whom were born in North Korea. They went to South Korea during the war.]

Reverse Culture Shock and other difficulties

Before going to Korea, I took a TESOL teaching class to prepare myself, and my teacher was amazing. She talked all about traveling to other countries and learning new cultures, and then she talked about something that I will admit, I didn’t believe. Reverse culture shock.

Now…culture shock makes perfect sense, right? Specifically in countries that are so different from your home country, which Korea was for me. I prepared myself. I learned phrases in Korean. “안녕하세요! Amber 입니다!” I read about the culture, I made Korean friends. I was probably too prepared, because I never had any culture shock there.

The real culture shock happened when I got back to the US. I obviously should have listened to that teacher, but I just didn’t see how going back to your home could be difficult. But it is. You see, I think because you try so hard to fit into another culture, it’s weird to go back. You feel like a foreigner in your own country, and it’s worse than feeling like a foreigner in another country. You think, “No, what’s wrong with me? I shouldn’t feel this way. This is my home! I don’t understand!”

The first month I was back was brutal. I didn’t want to go anywhere, I barely wanted to see my friends, I was uncomfortable around everyone.

But, I was bored at home. In Korea, I was in a big city with tons of stuff to do at any time of day or night. Then suddenly I was back in Virginia suburbia wondering how I ever survived in such a boring place before. The only place open twenty-four hours is the gas station? What is this madness?

The second month wasn’t easy either. I continued to feel uncomfortable around people. Then, my boyfriend and I broke up, and I felt that my connection to Korea was cut off. He was Korean, and my first love, and my best friend all rolled into one great guy. But it wasn’t working long distance. This threw me into what felt like another reverse culture shock. I didn’t have him to talk to anymore, I was incredibly lonely. I didn’t have many friends in my town, because I was shy in college and knew I was going to Korea, so I didn’t get close to many people. I felt so alone. This continued through Christmas, when my mother came upstairs to bring me the phone so I could talk to my grandma later that evening and found me in tears.

Being in Korea was big for me. I was so shy and awkward and closed before I went, because I had had extreme anxiety for all of middle school and high school and some of college. I felt, when I got back, that all of the change I went through in Korea – becoming more confident, learning to be close to people, falling in love – was for nothing.

I was spiraling.

My imagination, the thing that has helped me as a writer for so many years, was suddenly my worst enemy. This is when being a writer is the worst. I began imagining every horrific, disturbing, irritating, irrational, absurd thing that I had ever heard or seen. I was making myself sick. I was depressed.

But the strange thing about being a writer is that times like these can be great for writing. Obviously, I’d rather not be depressed. But I have been using my writing as a distraction, something positive. I have started a new novel, and I am so thrilled with the characters and have actually be successful when plotting! It’s unprecedented! haha.

The new year arrived at exactly the right time. I’m working at my mom’s office part time, and I am having a good time there, because the people are so nice. I get to be productive and meet new people, so I am feeling better around people again. Not quite normal, because I was a recluse for so many weeks, but better.

Goals for this year include the following.

• Get a job that I enjoy, preferably one where I help people. Counselor, teacher, human resources.
• Write novel, edit novel, attempt to publish novel.
• Try to play violin again. I have signed up for lessons with my teacher from high school, and I am hoping to be able to play in the orchestra in my city.
• Be more involved at church – Bible study, maybe playing violin sometimes.
• Get a car.

My biggest goal, though, is to not be so hard on myself and get so upset about everything. I was strong enough to travel to Korea and survive on my own, so I can be happy here, too. I don’t think Korea was for nothing. I think I need to remember that I won’t be perfect and try to relax a bit.

Here’s to 2013.

There will be a post about my new novel soon!

Can I Not Be a Writer Today

I was having a conversation with a friend once about what it’s like to be a writer. I was explaining to them that I had always loved writing and making up stories since I was a kid. Their response was, “Wow, you’re lucky to have known what you’ve wanted to do for so long.”

Well. Yes and no.

I love being a writer, because I have a great imagination, a strong sense of empathy, and high expectations for myself.

But I hate being a writer, because my imagination is hard to control, my feelings and emotions are too strong, and I am really hard on myself.

I think writers are an interesting breed of human. I think we’re never quite all there, in the moment. At least this is true for me. I am constantly analyzing, thinking, and pretty much making myself miserable at any given time. I have been like this since I was young. I am morbidly fascinated by things that upset me, and I get things stuck in my head.

For example, when I was younger – elementary school, probably – we passed a bunch of pro-life campaigners who were holding signs of dead babies that had been aborted. It was horrific. There were limbs, blood, and words like “Do you want to kill YOUR baby?”

Now, the fact that I remember this so vividly nearly twenty years later I attribute to either a. Being crazy or b. Being a writer [not that there’s much difference between the two in my case.] I kept thinking about that incident that day that it happened to the point that I felt sick and couldn’t eat my dinner. I couldn’t get the image to go away.

I’m still like this now, but I learned to use it for my writing. I get fixated on things that I don’t want to think about and let it upset me to no end. But then I turn it into something or other in my story. My current heroine has a photographic memory, which gave her nightmares as a child. She couldn’t watch horror movies because she’d wake up panicked because of the images.

When I was young, my stories were fairies and princesses and happiness, but now I know that they need to be real. I am scared of things, I have experienced hurt [quite recently, in fact, with the ending of a year-long relationship] and it’s all going in my new book.

There were times I wish I weren’t a writer, though.

I feel like I can’t not write.

I wish there were some kind of switch in my brain that I could use. One day, I could flip it and be a writer, but the next day I could not be. I could just live in the moment and enjoy my life more instead of constantly analyzing everything.

But I am a writer every day. That’s a lonely thing to be.