. Spinning .

Last night our writers group finished up a delightful puzzle in an interactive fiction piece by one of our members. He is a history major and is already planning to use IF as a learning tool for his future students.

We also got in the critique of two short stories, one of which was mine, abandoned from a creative writing course a couple years ago. The great thing about a workshop is that you get to see the spots that may be flawed that you’ve been reading over and somehow missing (the same principle of missing your own typo errors applies to writing elements as well). This particular story was one that I probably would never pick up again to revise and play with, but had always liked the general story line and some of the imagery and meaning. The story was helped by the simple suggestion of changing the title from “Cooper’s Promise” to “Cooper’s Vow,” focusing the message within those two words alone. The feedback of the group has inspired me to pick this story up again and to rewrite, with a clearer picture in my head of what it needs.

Another thing I have learned that is critical; there is no need to adjust a story to an audience necessarily–unless one is aiming for publication in a particular genre or journal type. “Cooper’s Promise” is heavily backgrounded in Catholicism, and many who did not relate to it was for that reason. But a lesson is here for both writers and more importantly, for readers–and I’ve done this so often myself; if the point of view conflicts with the story being read because of the personal experience brought into the reading, there is new information being learned about a different point of view. Thus, as readers, we have just expanded our knowledge about human nature. Unless of course, the protagonist acts so completely out of character without good reason, we can as readers accept him doing what we ourselves might never do, and as writers, create a character that is unique and interesting.

Never, never be intimidated by critique; it is the mortar that fills the cracks and holds the wall together as it stretches around a place of interest, fear or comfort.

Early morning, clouded sky and darkened room. Mood is as dreary as the day. I smash a bug that alights upon my desk and as I brush him to the floor, a tiny green light glows, flickers and goes out.

Living through the night before with one less person in the world. Closer still; missing from her kitchen, an empty chair, food left over. Living yet in the eyes of each of us, hiding underneath the lids not ready yet to open full. Words between us three are tentative and testing. Can we say her name yet, can we laugh; yes, the time she stood on that same chair in her own kitchen changing lightbulbs. Jumped in fear, then anger at the zzzzzzt! my husband hissed. Then laughing with us, though not as hard. Her laughter hangs there still and joins with ours this meal, though ours is softer now with memory.

Politics and government, as all else, change with the times. Cycles good and bad will run their course by natural means with intervention by man’s nature, circumstance and vision. Memory changes all of time in time, ruled by these same elements as guiding force. As if a single man can be a god on earth, he is given homage while pelted by the opposition, as if the tribes cannot in fact agree on what is good and right. Countries do not fall to ashes in nine months, but are just standing on the brink from eight years of indecision and unrest, from quadrant terms multiplied by many, from all the past and all who’ve acted and have not.

Idealism believes that one man can change the world. Idealism blames one man when things go wrong.

Time and timing is the all of life, and politics as well.

Saturday I was a picture framer, retail pleasant and efficient and precise, though underpaid I be. Sunday found me pulling grass that’s grown to weeds around my gardens, happy working in the sunshine, cranky at the evils nature has thrown in to keep us balanced: moles and chipmunks, rocks and weeds with roots that go to China, and of course, the unseen slug that’s sat upon before it’s noticed. Sunday evening too I put my specs on, held my flashlight in my left hand, philips head in right and only called for help when I became entangled in the web of cords and scanners, pc’s, network cards, and modems, routers, screens. He came and rescued and unraveled me, free to work again, and now two out of three computers are on a network. The most important shall have to wait a day or two, although it is at least a wireless thing and I am grateful to it.

Today I fired up a forty, maybe fifty year old mower and walked in circles, squares, and up and down to trim and do the hilly parts within my father’s yard. I huffed and puffed and sweat rolled down my face to water grass and get it growing I would think, and yet I needed to pretend it was no effort, or this man whom I adore would feel badly that his darling youngest little girl should work so hard.

Tonight I hope to write a bit creatively, include the feeling of the moment looking up from doing dinner dishes to find someone still eating; the doe has cleaned out the bottom bird feeder each evening, and tonight she’s really early at the table.

But every one I am, though all are different, get along somehow, blend but are persistent still to get a word in edgewise in the final story that I hope to write.

“You went to a parochial school, didn’t you?” I’ll ask. 95% of the time they confirm it, and look at me in questioning surprise. “Your handwriting,” I say, “it’s evident in your penmanship.” From second grade on, we shall forevermore write with the rounded flowing script of the nuns.

Some things are taught and learned, some are pointed out and discovered, and most are continually changing and growing in knowledge with time. I do not have the patience and willingness to share required of a teacher. I do hold my own as a student, however, and while obedient to learning what was offered, with age have grown more selective about what is studied and retained. But it is amazing what is absorbed despite ourselves, whether lack of interest, memory or concentration, it enters into our short term memory in a classroom, then travels into the long term storage closet to settle on a shelf just in case.

What struck me today is that as dedicated as I may be to reading and writing, as much as I’ve supposedly learned and understood, while it most certainly has infiltrated my creative moments, it is almost as if I’d forgotten the lesson itself, but do it by rote. This is good, I am sure, that is, that it has affected and changed me. But must not it be frustrating as well to the professor, when the scholar performs well without consciously calling to mind what is learned, and often does not know how or why? Is it something, perhaps, like knowing without stopping to think, that the answer is “four” to the question of “how much is two plus two?”

I usually test ride new-found blogs via bloglines for a while before I add to my already overwhelming links of daily reads, but this entry from Mama Write rushed the site straight into my list:

“Chapter in My Head

Last night, I heard and saw and felt the first chapter of another story, beckoning to me. I wish I had my old micro-cassette recorder so I could have quickly dictated it, or else a notebook and pen. None was available, so all I could do is listen and watch and feel… and wonder.”

Honesty, as crisp and clear as blue-sky mornings, even clouds defined will blow on by. Nature teaches us to teach our children, never changing, ever changing moving angles; every season different views of what has been and ever will be same and stable, growing larger, living, dying in a day.

Truth is sad sometimes, but mostly happy. Truth is true and that is that. Prepare with truth the children to accept the possibilities and what is good and need be changed or not. Honesty is all around and in us, and no, deer aren’t really sleeping on the highways.