I've been struggling with something in my writing the last couple days. Here's the thing. I have four manuscripts. Well, I have more than that, but those others don't matter. Just these four. Of them, they are in this set of done-ness:
1. Query-ready, previously sent to some agents and requested more from but so far no one's accepted it. However, owing to circumstances beyond my control, I can no longer submit it. It is no longer publishable for the present.
2. Needs last-pass editing, then will be query-ready.
3. In 2nd draft mode, needs third pass for beta readers, then last pass for query-ready.
4. In progress writing - this is my current project.
I only include #4 because it has to do with this dilemma.
I'm not sure which direction to go. I will continue writing #4 of course, and in a few months the first draft will be done. But I worry about what I should do with the other books, and here's why.
#1 would have been a great first book. It had plot and meaning, it was unique, exciting, and well-written. But sadly, it's out. I can't do anything about that and it sucks, so I have to move on.
#2 is more common story-wise. It's not my best story and while the writing is fine, the story is generic enough that if I concentrate on finding an agent for it, I will likely be harming my career. I don't think it would sell well enough, and honestly when I think about it in comparison to other things I've written my first reaction is, "I want you to read something else first." I don't think it's as good as my other stories. It's not the writing - it's the story itself, which is a simple romance with a religious conflict. Nothing unique. I worry that if I try to sell this one and it sells but not super-well, I'll have a hard time publishing a second book.
#3 is an interesting, fun premise that fits well into the YA market. If I edited it and got it into good shape, I think it would sell well. The problem? It's pure fluff genre fiction. Plot-based. Not a drop of literary in it. So for some people, that wouldn't matter, but for me, that's important. My goal in writing has never been to make millions, but to touch peoples' lives. The question becomes, do I want to sell this one at all? I could. It would be easy. But should I?
#4 of course is not fully written, but once it is, it will be more like #1 except slightly more literary. It is concept and character driven, has meaning but also has enough plot to be fun to read. If it was already in edit-ready or query-ready stage, there would be no dilemma - this would be the one I'd want to try to sell first. But it's not. I'm only 15000 words into it, and it's a slow-writing book that will take months to get to finished draft form. Then of course there's editing, beta reader edits, and final pass stuff. Likely it won't be in query-ready mode until 2011 at the very earliest.
So here's my problem. I've pretty much decided that I shouldn't concentrate on selling #2 because it would not be the best first book to sell. I can always sell it later on if I make a name for myself. The big question is whether or not I should try to fix up and sell #3, or if I should concentrate solely on writing #4. While that may seem like an easy choice, I really worry that I'm going to turn into one of those writers who writes but shrinks away from the selling aspect. I'll end up being like Emily Dickinson, hoarding manuscripts and stories. Only probably no one will find them when I'm dead and make them into anything important like they did with her poems. I know that there's part of me that would rather happily concentrate on writing and stop trying to sell things altogether because I hate hate hate sales. I hate everything involved with trying to pitch my books at agents. It feels dirty. But I know it's what I have to do, and I'm trying to face up to it.
The question really surrounds book #3 and what I should do with it. If I sell a book that's YA genre fluff, I worry that it will pigeon-hole me and it will be difficult to sell a more literary book in the future. Worse than that, I worry that some people will just decide I'm not worth reading because I sold a fluff book first. That makes me look at myself and ask - is it integrity or vanity holding me back? I don't know the answer to that.
And for that matter, what do I mean by touching peoples' lives? Why do I consider it not touching their lives to give them a fun book to read and enjoy? I'm redefining what I want out of writing, which puts me in a real confusing spot.
So I need your advice. What do you think I should do? Do you think that I should split my time between writing #4 and editing my #3 book to sell even if it's genre fluff? Or should I ignore the fact that I have several potential manuscripts to sell and only work on writing #4. Is it worth potentially sacrificing my integrity with genre fluff that people might enjoy reading for fun? Or should I say #3 was very fun to write but isn't terribly important, so I should just put it on the shelf and let it stay in its unedited form? What do you think?
Write what you...want?
So writers know the phrase well: Write what you know. It's a valid statement and one that's important. If you're going to set a book in New York City, you need to know something about the city. You have to have done your research, and it'd be best if you'd lived there awhile. The more you know about it, the more realistic your book is going to be. If you're going to write a crime novel, you have to know about crime, forensics, police procedures, etc. If you're going to write romance, you need to understand interpersonal relationships.
It's a good rule. Write what you know. And I think most writers, if they've been writing for any amount of time, will gravitate towards the things they know. This doesn't mean they all write realism. You can write fantasy and still know your subject. Of course. No matter the genre, writers tend to put themselves into their work, either in the way characters feel, act, or react, or by pulling in pieces of personal experience and knowledge. That's natural.
Recently, though, I've had a thought going through my head. Writers don't just write what they know. They write what they want. They put their desires onto the page. They are pulled in their writing toward the thing they most long for.
I'll use myself as an example here. I wouldn't have believed that statement back in high school, when I was writing stories about people suffering horrible abuse, traumas, and tragedies. I was so depressed - I most certainly didn't want any abuse, trauma, or tragedy. I had enough sadness in my life. I realize now, though, that what I wanted more than anything then was an excuse to feel the way I felt. I wanted an explanation that my life couldn't provide. There was no abuse, trauma, or tragedy in my past. I had no reason - and therefore, in my mind, no right - to feel the way I did. And yet, I was lost in the mire of an indifferent depression and a cycle of disease it took doctors another decade to diagnose. I was looking for answers, and answers were what I wrote into my stories. Fictional answers, of course, but answers nonetheless.
Nowadays, I write about the experience of falling in love and about impossible/extremely difficult love. The last few novels I've written, started writing, or planned out have had these themes in them:
1. love triangle that ends tragically
2. love triangle that ends well
3. love triangle that ends ambivalently
4. love between two lives that cannot be together
5. love between two lives that come together only with extreme difficulty
6. love between two lives that must overcome major barriers to come together
In fact, the only novel that does not follow either a love triangle or a star-crossed lover line instead has two desires written into it: escape from daily drudgery of being a stay at home mom and a combination love triangle and star-crossed lover theme.
So what does this say about me? What am I looking for? A couple things.
First, having been married for over ten years, there is of course a part of me that would love to experience the feeling of falling in love all over again. The newness of romance. I didn't date a lot before I got married so this wasn't something I got to feel all that often. I'm in no way planning to go out and cheat on Jason, of course. Just because I long for new romance doesn't mean I don't love my husband or that I want to leave him. Writing this desire into my novels is my way of indulging in new love without actually doing anything wrong.
Second, I'm looking for the redemption of relationship. Sometimes love fails in my books, sometimes it conquers. But always, there is struggle. Love is hard. It is painful, and it smacks you down sometimes. This is experience (write what you know), not desire (write what you want). The want involves overcoming the experience. Whether or not my characters' relationships make it in the end, there is always some sewing up of relationship. Difficulty is overcome, even if only too late. There is resolution. Love can conquer. This is a hope. This is something I want, something I need. It definitely gets written into my books.
I know it's the same for other writers I know. I won't mention other people in specific as that wouldn't be appropriate, but I'd encourage my fellow writers to take a look at their books and see what wants and desires they are weaving into their pages. It's an interesting process and might help them understand themselves and their writing better.
It's a good rule. Write what you know. And I think most writers, if they've been writing for any amount of time, will gravitate towards the things they know. This doesn't mean they all write realism. You can write fantasy and still know your subject. Of course. No matter the genre, writers tend to put themselves into their work, either in the way characters feel, act, or react, or by pulling in pieces of personal experience and knowledge. That's natural.
Recently, though, I've had a thought going through my head. Writers don't just write what they know. They write what they want. They put their desires onto the page. They are pulled in their writing toward the thing they most long for.
I'll use myself as an example here. I wouldn't have believed that statement back in high school, when I was writing stories about people suffering horrible abuse, traumas, and tragedies. I was so depressed - I most certainly didn't want any abuse, trauma, or tragedy. I had enough sadness in my life. I realize now, though, that what I wanted more than anything then was an excuse to feel the way I felt. I wanted an explanation that my life couldn't provide. There was no abuse, trauma, or tragedy in my past. I had no reason - and therefore, in my mind, no right - to feel the way I did. And yet, I was lost in the mire of an indifferent depression and a cycle of disease it took doctors another decade to diagnose. I was looking for answers, and answers were what I wrote into my stories. Fictional answers, of course, but answers nonetheless.
Nowadays, I write about the experience of falling in love and about impossible/extremely difficult love. The last few novels I've written, started writing, or planned out have had these themes in them:
1. love triangle that ends tragically
2. love triangle that ends well
3. love triangle that ends ambivalently
4. love between two lives that cannot be together
5. love between two lives that come together only with extreme difficulty
6. love between two lives that must overcome major barriers to come together
In fact, the only novel that does not follow either a love triangle or a star-crossed lover line instead has two desires written into it: escape from daily drudgery of being a stay at home mom and a combination love triangle and star-crossed lover theme.
So what does this say about me? What am I looking for? A couple things.
First, having been married for over ten years, there is of course a part of me that would love to experience the feeling of falling in love all over again. The newness of romance. I didn't date a lot before I got married so this wasn't something I got to feel all that often. I'm in no way planning to go out and cheat on Jason, of course. Just because I long for new romance doesn't mean I don't love my husband or that I want to leave him. Writing this desire into my novels is my way of indulging in new love without actually doing anything wrong.
Second, I'm looking for the redemption of relationship. Sometimes love fails in my books, sometimes it conquers. But always, there is struggle. Love is hard. It is painful, and it smacks you down sometimes. This is experience (write what you know), not desire (write what you want). The want involves overcoming the experience. Whether or not my characters' relationships make it in the end, there is always some sewing up of relationship. Difficulty is overcome, even if only too late. There is resolution. Love can conquer. This is a hope. This is something I want, something I need. It definitely gets written into my books.
I know it's the same for other writers I know. I won't mention other people in specific as that wouldn't be appropriate, but I'd encourage my fellow writers to take a look at their books and see what wants and desires they are weaving into their pages. It's an interesting process and might help them understand themselves and their writing better.
Painting a description in words
I have been told by multiple people that I have a gift for description, both in my fiction and in the way I talk about people/things in real life. I don't think I always had this gift. It's only been the last 5 or 6 years that people have come out of their way to praise my descriptions. I remember the first time it happened, back in maybe 2003 or 2004, when I was telling Jason about a coworker. I described her as a middle-aged woman who wore boots, loved riding horses, and usually bought Chinese food for lunch. What I thought of as a simple description of a person, Jason told me created this whole portrait of a personality. The things I said about her weren't big things really - they were just the things I thought about when I thought of her. They were things I associated with her. Somehow, those associations came together to make a bigger portrait. As Jason said, if I'd just mentioned boots and horses, she could have been anyone (we lived in a rural-ish community), but adding the Chinese food gave her an extra element of three-dimensionality.
Since then, I've had a lot of people notice the way I describe things and people, especially in my fiction. Every week at my editing group, at least one person has to comment on my description. I never thought of this as one of my strong points, especially as in college it definitely wasn't. But apparently I've gotten to a point where I'm good at painting a portrait in words. I can't really explain how I do it, as I'm not sure exactly what makes my descriptions above the ordinary, but the other day I was writing and I realized something.
It's very difficult for me to see things in my head. I can't picture faces, even faces I know well, like my own or my husband's. It's impossible for me to focus on more than one feature at a time in my mind, leading to blank faces with a possible identifying feature or two on them. When I see a room or a landscape, I can't see the whole thing. I can only see specific points. When I describe something in my books, these specific points are the things that make up a description for me.
For example, recently one character invited another into his apartment for coffee. I had no idea what his apartment would look like, only that it was located on the basement floor of the building and thus his windows would be high and wide. As they walked in, I thought for a minute about what I could see in the room. After a minute, this is what I could see: bookshelves under the windows lining the walls, filled with books of all sizes. Two armchairs with a small table between them. One door leading to a kitchen, one hallway leading to back rooms. I see nothing else. I don't see the size of the room, the color of the shelves, the type of floor, the color of the armchairs, the lighting fixtures, whether there is a TV or not, or if there is any other furniture. When I describe that room, I simply talk about the bookshelves and the books on them, and the armchairs with the table between them. Those go in two different sections of description.
But do you get a feel for the room? Do you feel its size, with a couple wide windows over the bookshelves? Do you get a sense of color even though I don't mention a single color in that description? I don't know if you do, honestly. I don't know if you should. But the way my mind works, my imagination automatically fills in all the other details. They are background details. They are unimportant to the scene.
Not every room or scene is the same. Sometimes color is a focus. Sometimes size. Sometimes something else entirely. When I describe a person, I tend to describe hair and one or two other defining characteristics. If I tell you a girl is curvy and has freckles and orange, shoulder-length hair, you can fill in the rest of the features yourself. However you wish. Her eye color is unimportant. The thickness of lips, the type of nose - those are not important. Not in this case. If I describe a girl as underweight with sunken cheeks and long straight black hair, that gives a full impression without saying too much. Your imagination fills in the rest. Or at least mine does.
This is how I describe things, and this is how I like things described in books. I get really, really annoyed when books describe every last detail of a room. I don't care one bit if the wallpaper has a cream fleur de lis pattern across a sage colored background that matches the gold, shiny opaque curtains and the sage colored armchairs from such and such period. Just tell me the walls are sage with gold accessories and I'll be happy. I don't care if a woman is wearing a red cable knit sweater from such and such store with white hip-hugger pants of such and such brand and red heels that are 3 inches tall and match her shirt and that she has lipstick that matches her shirt on thin lips below a thin pointed nose and green eyes with lots of eyeliner and brown straight hair that frames her face. Please! Just tell me she has brown hair and thin lips painted red to match her designer sweater. I can fill in the rest myself.
Overly descriptive writing often sounds stupid, but even in an experienced writer who manages to not sound stupid, my mind automatically blocks description after 1-2 sentences. This is why writers like Edith Wharton drive me crazy. I just want to shake her and tell her to let us use our imagination! This is also why the whole 1980s writing style where they spend 2-3 pages describing each outfit a character wears drives me nuts. Who cares?? This is why I like Scott Westerfeld's descriptions so much - he gives the details when necessary and lets you do all the rest. It's beautiful, perfectly done.
So I think I've totally gone off tangenting here, but the point is that in order to paint a scene, a room, a setting, a person, anything, the best thing to do is not to try to fill in all the details. Find the ones that are relevant, use them as a frame, and let your reader take care of the rest.
Or maybe I'm completely out of my head. That's possible. Definitely.
Since then, I've had a lot of people notice the way I describe things and people, especially in my fiction. Every week at my editing group, at least one person has to comment on my description. I never thought of this as one of my strong points, especially as in college it definitely wasn't. But apparently I've gotten to a point where I'm good at painting a portrait in words. I can't really explain how I do it, as I'm not sure exactly what makes my descriptions above the ordinary, but the other day I was writing and I realized something.
It's very difficult for me to see things in my head. I can't picture faces, even faces I know well, like my own or my husband's. It's impossible for me to focus on more than one feature at a time in my mind, leading to blank faces with a possible identifying feature or two on them. When I see a room or a landscape, I can't see the whole thing. I can only see specific points. When I describe something in my books, these specific points are the things that make up a description for me.
For example, recently one character invited another into his apartment for coffee. I had no idea what his apartment would look like, only that it was located on the basement floor of the building and thus his windows would be high and wide. As they walked in, I thought for a minute about what I could see in the room. After a minute, this is what I could see: bookshelves under the windows lining the walls, filled with books of all sizes. Two armchairs with a small table between them. One door leading to a kitchen, one hallway leading to back rooms. I see nothing else. I don't see the size of the room, the color of the shelves, the type of floor, the color of the armchairs, the lighting fixtures, whether there is a TV or not, or if there is any other furniture. When I describe that room, I simply talk about the bookshelves and the books on them, and the armchairs with the table between them. Those go in two different sections of description.
But do you get a feel for the room? Do you feel its size, with a couple wide windows over the bookshelves? Do you get a sense of color even though I don't mention a single color in that description? I don't know if you do, honestly. I don't know if you should. But the way my mind works, my imagination automatically fills in all the other details. They are background details. They are unimportant to the scene.
Not every room or scene is the same. Sometimes color is a focus. Sometimes size. Sometimes something else entirely. When I describe a person, I tend to describe hair and one or two other defining characteristics. If I tell you a girl is curvy and has freckles and orange, shoulder-length hair, you can fill in the rest of the features yourself. However you wish. Her eye color is unimportant. The thickness of lips, the type of nose - those are not important. Not in this case. If I describe a girl as underweight with sunken cheeks and long straight black hair, that gives a full impression without saying too much. Your imagination fills in the rest. Or at least mine does.
This is how I describe things, and this is how I like things described in books. I get really, really annoyed when books describe every last detail of a room. I don't care one bit if the wallpaper has a cream fleur de lis pattern across a sage colored background that matches the gold, shiny opaque curtains and the sage colored armchairs from such and such period. Just tell me the walls are sage with gold accessories and I'll be happy. I don't care if a woman is wearing a red cable knit sweater from such and such store with white hip-hugger pants of such and such brand and red heels that are 3 inches tall and match her shirt and that she has lipstick that matches her shirt on thin lips below a thin pointed nose and green eyes with lots of eyeliner and brown straight hair that frames her face. Please! Just tell me she has brown hair and thin lips painted red to match her designer sweater. I can fill in the rest myself.
Overly descriptive writing often sounds stupid, but even in an experienced writer who manages to not sound stupid, my mind automatically blocks description after 1-2 sentences. This is why writers like Edith Wharton drive me crazy. I just want to shake her and tell her to let us use our imagination! This is also why the whole 1980s writing style where they spend 2-3 pages describing each outfit a character wears drives me nuts. Who cares?? This is why I like Scott Westerfeld's descriptions so much - he gives the details when necessary and lets you do all the rest. It's beautiful, perfectly done.
So I think I've totally gone off tangenting here, but the point is that in order to paint a scene, a room, a setting, a person, anything, the best thing to do is not to try to fill in all the details. Find the ones that are relevant, use them as a frame, and let your reader take care of the rest.
Or maybe I'm completely out of my head. That's possible. Definitely.
Goals update - Jan 2010
Well I'm back to tracking my goals by the month again. Strangely, this actually feels good!
I'll just go one by one here:
1. Reading Goals
My reading goals are to cut my reading in half from 2009, make sure 20-25% of my books are GLBT-related, make sure 50% were owned prior to 2010, and to read 2 FitG books.
-Total reading: 17 books - so I didn't end up cutting back at all. Writer's block in the first 3/4ths of the month lead to an overabundance of reading again.
-18% of my books were GLBT-related, and I'm reading another one right now.
-76% were owned prior to 2010.
-I read 2 FitG books: Great Expectations and Maus
2. Writing Goals
My writing goals are to write 500 words/day 5x/week which adds up to 2,500/week, to revise/edit Phantom based on beta-readers, and to work on submissions every week unless I have nothing publishable to submit.
-While I didn't follow the pattern the way I was supposed to, January's word goal equaled 10,000 words and I wrote 12,861 words. About 10,800 of them went toward Project I, the rest toward Phantom revisions.
-Since I have not heard back from all my beta readers, I haven't finished revisions on Phantom. I did some work on this but not as much as I needed to.
-Submission goal fell flat.
3. Social Goals
My social goals are to go to NYC in May for BEA and the Book Blogger Convention, and to contribute something to the lives of others every month.
-I signed up for BEA, the Book Blogger Convention, bought airplane tickets, and reserved my room. Yay!
-This month Jason and I renewed our sponsership for our child in India and we also donated money to Yele Haiti after the earthquake struck.
4. Health Goals
My health goals involve weight loss and to exercise 100 miles/quarter (about 34 miles/month).
-I didn't think I'd make my weight loss goal, but I did! I lost 5-6 lbs and am still on a downward trend. I've lost about 14 lbs altogether since the week of Thanksgiving. Not as much as I'd like, but at least it's losing.
-I exercised 40 miles, surpassing my goal.
5. Lifetime Goals
My lifetime goals involve doing two of my Before I Die goals in 2010.
Nothing on this yet.
6. Family Goals
My family goal is to take the family somewhere this year.
Nothing on this yet.
7. Personal Goals
My personal goal is to take one photograph every day as a sort of daily journal.
So far I have suceeded at this and took a picture every day in January. Many of them suck but that's okay. :)
I'll just go one by one here:
1. Reading Goals
My reading goals are to cut my reading in half from 2009, make sure 20-25% of my books are GLBT-related, make sure 50% were owned prior to 2010, and to read 2 FitG books.
-Total reading: 17 books - so I didn't end up cutting back at all. Writer's block in the first 3/4ths of the month lead to an overabundance of reading again.
-18% of my books were GLBT-related, and I'm reading another one right now.
-76% were owned prior to 2010.
-I read 2 FitG books: Great Expectations and Maus
2. Writing Goals
My writing goals are to write 500 words/day 5x/week which adds up to 2,500/week, to revise/edit Phantom based on beta-readers, and to work on submissions every week unless I have nothing publishable to submit.
-While I didn't follow the pattern the way I was supposed to, January's word goal equaled 10,000 words and I wrote 12,861 words. About 10,800 of them went toward Project I, the rest toward Phantom revisions.
-Since I have not heard back from all my beta readers, I haven't finished revisions on Phantom. I did some work on this but not as much as I needed to.
-Submission goal fell flat.
3. Social Goals
My social goals are to go to NYC in May for BEA and the Book Blogger Convention, and to contribute something to the lives of others every month.
-I signed up for BEA, the Book Blogger Convention, bought airplane tickets, and reserved my room. Yay!
-This month Jason and I renewed our sponsership for our child in India and we also donated money to Yele Haiti after the earthquake struck.
4. Health Goals
My health goals involve weight loss and to exercise 100 miles/quarter (about 34 miles/month).
-I didn't think I'd make my weight loss goal, but I did! I lost 5-6 lbs and am still on a downward trend. I've lost about 14 lbs altogether since the week of Thanksgiving. Not as much as I'd like, but at least it's losing.
-I exercised 40 miles, surpassing my goal.
5. Lifetime Goals
My lifetime goals involve doing two of my Before I Die goals in 2010.
Nothing on this yet.
6. Family Goals
My family goal is to take the family somewhere this year.
Nothing on this yet.
7. Personal Goals
My personal goal is to take one photograph every day as a sort of daily journal.
So far I have suceeded at this and took a picture every day in January. Many of them suck but that's okay. :)
Upcoming Write-a-thon
Well the next "write your @ss off day" (or, politely, the write-a-thon) has been announced. There was one last summer that I thought about participating in but didn't because I was severely blocked. This year I want to participate.
The guidelines have changed a bit. Instead of just a single day, we're given a block of four days and can choose whichever we want to use. The dates are Friday Feb 5 through Monday Feb 8. Because weekends are always difficult for me with the kids and Jason home, plus write-ins and book clubs and who knows what else, I'm choosing Friday for my day. I'll be writing for 8 hours that day (per the rules) and hope to get at least 3-4 thousand words in. I know that's not much, but it's a slow book I'm writing and maybe I'll surprise myself!
So, who's with me? Anyone else want a boost to their writing?
The guidelines have changed a bit. Instead of just a single day, we're given a block of four days and can choose whichever we want to use. The dates are Friday Feb 5 through Monday Feb 8. Because weekends are always difficult for me with the kids and Jason home, plus write-ins and book clubs and who knows what else, I'm choosing Friday for my day. I'll be writing for 8 hours that day (per the rules) and hope to get at least 3-4 thousand words in. I know that's not much, but it's a slow book I'm writing and maybe I'll surprise myself!
So, who's with me? Anyone else want a boost to their writing?
Sad eyes, pretty eyes.
Another thing I've been thinking about for maybe the last six months or so.
Years ago, back in Wisconsin, Morrigan had this little toy that probably came from Culvers or something. It originally was a mix and match monster, with different faces, bodies, etc. We don't have anything left except the head (a different face on each side), and we only kept the head because of something Morrigan said to us one time. He was really little, maybe 3 years old?, and brought it to us. He showed us one side and said, in a melancholy voice, "Sad eyes." Then he flipped it over, and in a happy, bouncy voice, he yelled, "Pretty eyes!"
These are the eyes, first sad, then pretty. (Don't ask why he thought those were "pretty.")
About six months ago, Sad Eyes Pretty Eyes (as the toy came to be known) showed up. It had been buried in the boys' toybox or something, but it's been sitting on my desk since Jason found it. That's how long I've been thinking about this post! Because what Morrigan said at first just seemed funny, but then came to seem very profound to me. He made Sad and Pretty opposites. While they aren't true opposites, of course, what he was really telling me was this: Happy = Pretty.
Really, I have to believe that's true. When people are happy, they are beautiful. I know personally when I'm happy, I feel much better and I feel much prettier, just because my happiness radiates out. In other people, it's the same way. Recently I watched a video on youtube of these women in Africa singing traditional songs - actually, I'll just embed it so you can see.
The lead singer is not what we'd consider traditionally beautiful. Her skin sags, she's missing teeth, etc. But...at the end, she's smiling and laughing at the camera, and you can just see: she's happy. And she's beautiful!
I am trying to rid myself of all traditional notations of beauty. I've been reevaluating what I love in the things I see, and this is one of the great lessons I've learned, out of the mouth of a toddler. Happiness can transform a person and make them beautiful. Now that's not to say sadness doesn't have it's own beauty...maybe it's just strong emotion that creates beauty. I don't know. But I'm happy to have the little lesson anyway. :)
PS - the kids goofing off in this video is my favorite part.
Years ago, back in Wisconsin, Morrigan had this little toy that probably came from Culvers or something. It originally was a mix and match monster, with different faces, bodies, etc. We don't have anything left except the head (a different face on each side), and we only kept the head because of something Morrigan said to us one time. He was really little, maybe 3 years old?, and brought it to us. He showed us one side and said, in a melancholy voice, "Sad eyes." Then he flipped it over, and in a happy, bouncy voice, he yelled, "Pretty eyes!"
These are the eyes, first sad, then pretty. (Don't ask why he thought those were "pretty.")
About six months ago, Sad Eyes Pretty Eyes (as the toy came to be known) showed up. It had been buried in the boys' toybox or something, but it's been sitting on my desk since Jason found it. That's how long I've been thinking about this post! Because what Morrigan said at first just seemed funny, but then came to seem very profound to me. He made Sad and Pretty opposites. While they aren't true opposites, of course, what he was really telling me was this: Happy = Pretty.
Really, I have to believe that's true. When people are happy, they are beautiful. I know personally when I'm happy, I feel much better and I feel much prettier, just because my happiness radiates out. In other people, it's the same way. Recently I watched a video on youtube of these women in Africa singing traditional songs - actually, I'll just embed it so you can see.
The lead singer is not what we'd consider traditionally beautiful. Her skin sags, she's missing teeth, etc. But...at the end, she's smiling and laughing at the camera, and you can just see: she's happy. And she's beautiful!
I am trying to rid myself of all traditional notations of beauty. I've been reevaluating what I love in the things I see, and this is one of the great lessons I've learned, out of the mouth of a toddler. Happiness can transform a person and make them beautiful. Now that's not to say sadness doesn't have it's own beauty...maybe it's just strong emotion that creates beauty. I don't know. But I'm happy to have the little lesson anyway. :)
PS - the kids goofing off in this video is my favorite part.
Writing FAIL
But not in a bad way. Yesterday we had a write-in for our NaNo group. While I don't think any of us got much done - I managed a good 185 words, yay! - we had a blast. I know I put this picture up on my invite-only blog, but it was too good to keep private so I'm putting it here, too:
We are such dorks. Everyone's making the new FAIL sign that Jason made up yesterday at lunch. I expect all my readers to start using this sign now. I want to see random strangers using it one day. :D
We are such dorks. Everyone's making the new FAIL sign that Jason made up yesterday at lunch. I expect all my readers to start using this sign now. I want to see random strangers using it one day. :D
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