Full on Whining

Argh, seriously, I am pretty sure the only thing I can write 80,000 words on is how I cannot write 80,000 words on something. I’m trucking along tonight, feeling all good about my progress and I have five pages. Five measly pages. Five pages of, basically, a cocktail party. A cocktail party in which no one has a cunt like  walrus nose, but I guess you probably get that on the rewrite, right?

Oh lord.

But at least I have gotten Hannah to the part where she has been accosted by a minister in the downtown library and is just about to meet with him and the priest.

I’m ready for the Devil to show up, because at least I know how to write him. He can have a cunt like a walrus nose when it suits him, no problem.

Ha ha ha.

Seriously, all night I’ve just been repeating to myself “The first one sucks, that’s part of the process.” I don’t know if that means “draft” or “manuscript” but that has been my mantra to move me forward.

I read this awesome meditation on writing and being queer. And I am going to memorize the full disclosure in it and say it to myself when I need it, which hopefully will not be as often as I need to remind myself that the first one sucks.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Part of this was my fault. We teach people how to treat us. If you absorb a certain amount of abuse, they start testing the fences for weakness. Once you’ve taken on that siege mentality you try to play it safe, you try not to offend, and your writing nosedives.

I always make the mistake of believing that absorbing abuse proves I’m tough and I can take it. I need to remember that it’s just tempting people to test for weakness.

Pastors’ Kids are All Over

I had lunch with the Professor and her friend, who is also a minister’s kid.

“The fishbowl,” she called it, that scrutiny you live under, where your every behavior and your parents’ reaction to it is interpreted as a constant audition for whether your pastor parent is good enough for his or her job.

At the debate, there were three ministers’ kids, which seems like a high percentage, seeing as there were maybe a dozen people in the room.

I don’t have any deep thoughts, except to say that it’s a weird way to come up and always nice to meet folks who have been through it.

Qavak Songs over at Qarrtsiluni

I am blown away by these. I mean, just still almost shaking to read them. How can something sound both so utterly strange and so deeply familiar? “My cunt drips,/ wet as a walrus snout.” is just hilariously spot-on and bad-ass. And listen to the magic in this: “My son, the man I made myself.” I mean damn.

I want to read them a million times, but I don’t want them to become so known to me that they lose their magic, you know?

If I Ever Get to Wales…

I have to go to St. Tecla’s well. I wonder if one Teckla walking down the street in Llandegla is considered a parade in honor of their patron saint?

Well, This is Sure to Win Over the Youngsters

I pass this along without comment, because I’m too busy laughing.

Wade and Matt and [sic] perfectly nice young men but neither has the experience, background or competence to administer the technical aspects of the Party’s institutional functions (county reorganization and upcoming 2012 Delegate Selection to name just two critical institutional functions that must be competently handled) or the ability to manage the necessary fundraising operation that sustains the party.

To give you another way of looking at this:  I am a private pilot legally rated to fly single-engine retractable airplanes. But if you got on a 747 and saw me in the pilot’s seat I’d advise that you exit the plane immediately.  That is what your vote is doing—giving the control wheel of a 747 to someone rated to fly a single-engine airplane.

Okay, I will say something. Often, you learn to lead by leading. If young Democrats are just supposed to sit around and wait for the people older than them to be done leading and to think the kids are finally ready, the “kids” won’t have any of the necessary experience to do it effectively.

 

Did My Quilt Fix Chapter Four?

I was working on my quilt last night and it was kind of going like hell. But it gave me time to think about the book. The main problem in the book is that nothing happens. I just didn’t find anything that resonated with me emotionally about any emotional struggle Hannah has with turning into a bird, because she has always been a character to whom weird things have happened. This is just one more weird thing that’s happening to her. She’s not doing it.

Really, of anyone in the universe who would handle spontaneously turning into a flock of birds, she is it. She’s just not that conflicted about it. She’s nervous and wants to figure out how to get the first time over with (ha, so it’s like a story of her virginity, maybe?), but she’s not conflicted.

And the religious angst is what it is. It’s also not that compelling.

There’s no conflict. But here’s what I’m thinking. She’s met Abigail and her possessing spirit, Lurancy. She starts meeting up with other ministers’ kids. And she’s here in Nashville, so the Methodists become aware that she’s running an ad hoc support group for ministers’ kids. And they ask her to help them with a particularly troubling case of a minister’s kid abandoned by her father in a small town.

So, she goes and gets the kid with the intention of turning her over to the Methodists. But then she realizes that the kid is the Devil’s daughter. And that the Devil sneaked her out of Hell. Now it’s interesting, right? Did the Devil sneak her out to unleash her on the world? Did he sneak her out to protect her from his job? If so, does that make him a tiny bit good? Does the Devil’s good deed throw off the balance? Do the Methodists plan on having a potluck dinner and then returning her to Hell? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Will Hannah turn her over? Etc. etc.

Is it corny?

Hell yes.

Is the book already slightly corny? I say, yes, so what can you do? At least something will be happening. I almost want to play hooky and get it started.