Posts by Caryn Caldwell

Mother of all Droughts

Each morning, my abundant houseplants glower at me as they begin another day with many of their basic needs unmet. When I return from work, they weep for attention. And when I shuffle to the kitchen for a midnight glass of water, I hear their jealous whispers above the rush of the faucet. It is a fact — not a fit of paranoia — that my plants regret the day I chose them from the jungled masses in the grocery store, the gardening center, the house of a friend who was moving. Even if I couldn’t sense their barely contained emotions, I could figure it out because every time I water them they sprout fresh leaves to take advantage of the temporary moisture, and their existing foliage takes on a jubilant shine. “Hurrah!” they seem to shout, “The girl finally paid attention to us!” I won’t even talk about the chaos that ensued the time they heard I’d bought a little box of fertilizer. Imagine, if you will, a conga line consisting of a rubber tree, two schefflara, a ficus, and three African violets. I’m still finding torn leaves and spilled soil from that little party.

Don’t get me wrong — plants rarely die on me. I have a near-action-hero knack for rescuing them at the last second with a dripping jug of water, a repotting spree, and a little music. The fact that my thumb isn’t black is unfortunate, however, because the successes that come from sporadic focus on my indoor greenery encourage me to buy new plants or start occasional ones from seed, even when time and energy are an issue, as they are now with my self-imposed book deadline.

All this brings me to my shameful confession: I threw out a dead plant a few days ago, and I may need to seek therapy for my belated attachment issues. You see, it seems I care most about a plant when it’s dying — or, worse, after the fact. When watering a hither-to-ignored drooping plant doesn’t cause perkage, and it continues to wither into dust, I feel a remorse so great I have trouble eating, but when a plant dies my heart aches. I know I could never manage a murder, because I can’t even kill a spider plant without a near breakdown.

Despite the painfulness of the subject, I’m focusing on the tragedy in order to dissuade myself from creating or purchasing any new plants to replace the old — after all, nothing perks a place up like a little foliage, even if said foliage doesn’t have the energy to flower. Maybe I should just get another cat instead; I’ve managed to keep three of the furballs alive so far, which is more than I can say for my dearly departed pots of ivy.

Title in Progress

Yesterday afternoon I reached the sixty-first page of my newest manuscript — and the point at which I was officially sick of calling it by my protagonist’s name. Honestly, where’s the inspiration in Winifred—Book?

Since I’d already written my daily allotment of six hundred of words (716, actually), I decided a new title was the next order of business. After a half hour of puttering I came up with a list of titles, all rejects. Granted, I hadn’t given it a lot of time, but I called in reinforcements anyway. My husband took on the challenge, armed with enthusiasm and a dictionary of international slang. The former was helpful; the latter, not so much.

The story is a middle-grade novel with fairy tale elements, which is why we (very inaccurately) became stuck on the princess theme. Here are a few of the results, some suggested in earnest, some in fits of hilarity, many inspired by that blasted slang dictionary I could not wrest from my husband’s hands:

• Your Basic, Everyday, Standard Princess
• The Princess and the Peace
• Pretty, Pretty Princess
• Pretty, Gritty Princess
• Pretty Ugly Princess
• The Vainglorious Princess
• Proto-Princess

The end result is that I’m no closer to a title, and the word “princess” has begun to sound strained and strange from repetition, but at least I can say I gave it a shot. Titles are usually fun, so I’m sure I’ll come up with something eventually.

Many of you write — books, blogs, etc. How do you come up with your titles? What, in your opinion, makes a good — or bad! — one?

Pros and Cons

Let me just save you a big, long, whiny post about the Great Migrating Cold of 2008 and sum it all up for you.

The best part of being sick:

The worst part of being sick:

This public service announcement has been brought to you by The Book Lady. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog reading.

The Married We

In a far-away land many years prior to this, a statement such as, “My dear, I fear we must soon secure the windows with tapestries, as a storm approacheth” would mean something along the lines of, “Even though I’m a king, I myself will go close that window because my knees hurt and I think it’s about to rain”. Ah, yes. The ‘We’ that means ‘Me’. You may know this as the Royal We. Then there’s the ‘We’ that means ‘You’, as you (we?) will soon see.

Let’s conduct a short quiz. A statement such as “Honey, I think we should close the window because the weatherman said we’re expecting a storm” may best imply which of the following:

a) “Don’t worry about it. Since it was my suggestion, I’ll get out of bed and close the window myself.”

b) “We can do it together! It’ll be so much fun, and a wonderful bonding experience. Afterward, we can brush each other’s teeth. I can’t wait!”

c) “You should do it, because you’re closer to the window and, frankly, I’m comfortable and don’t feel like getting out of bed, but it sounds selfish to say, ‘My dearest love, you should close the window’.”

d) “Aw, forget it. One of the cats’ll get it if it starts to rain. They hate water.”

If you guessed c, you were, of course, correct. And you’re probably married, too, or have otherwise participated in a variation of the Married We on occasion. If you guessed a, you’re sweet and naive, and I find it cute. If you chose b, I think you should know that your expectations in a marriage are a little unrealistic and not a tiny bit disturbing. And if d was your answer of choice, well, you need a therapist, STAT. You know the cats are too comfortable to get up, even to make their own tea or hunt for the remote, so they certainly won’t close your window for you.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, unlike the Royal We, the Married We is the ‘we’ that means ‘you’. But don’t let the double meaning, which is on par with beloved phrases such as “I’m not mad, you stupid lug nut.” and “Please, my grape, tell me your feelings.” get you down. Now you have many exciting ways to tell your spouse to do something without sounding the least bit selfish. Use it wisely.

In the meantime, I think it’s time for us to take out the trash. Honey! Can you hear me? The trash is overflowing, and we need to empty it!

A New Vow

After sailing through weeks of holiday cheer, we’ve chugged straight into that awkward phase of winter when the Christmas lights remain hung but not shining, the presents have been carted home but not forgotten, and the tree still lurks in its corner, unlit but not yet de-tinseled. The children are back in school, wearing clothes so new they bear the creases from their time in boxes beneath the tree. Across the street the blowup Santa that leered at us all December has deflated into a puddle of red and white plastic, spreading over the winter-brown grass.

Each year during this in-between-time after the festivities, and before the drudgery of winter and fulfilling resolutions and packing up the Christmas boxes for another ten months in storage have set in, I vow to appreciate Christmas even more the next time around. I promise myself to begin the carol blitz sooner, to write more cards, to really revel in the celebrations.

But after several successive seasons of diving into the holidays ever-earlier, so that by December first I want to hide in my house with the radio off lest I hear another droning version of “My Favorite Things” (which, come on, is not a Christmas song), I am making a new vow: from now on I will take the holidays as they come. The end will always seem abrupt and the detritus left afterward — those plastic Santas on the lawn, the unlit bulbs, the drooping trees — will always seem sad. I will relax more, and afterward I will shun the post-Christmas letdown, instead thinking of the joyous times spent with family and friends over the previous weeks and looking forward to the coming spring.

And that, six days late, is the only resolution I made this year.

My Mind Is Not Mine Own

I think I’m losing my mind. Even at the best of times my inner narrator provides an occasional play-by-play of my existence, but my current level of running commentary is reserved for the times when I’m almost exclusively absorbed in my writing, as I am now.

The source of this narratus intrusionous? I spend hours recounting the lives of my characters, and then I can’t seem to find the switch to turn off the narration. This means that I can’t do anything without a witness in my own brain observing all and synthesizing it into giant globs of first-draft text. Believe me, there’s nothing that will point out how mundane your life can be like having a blow-by-blow account of petting your cat or going to the bathroom. To illustrate, let me provide an especially riveting example from last night:

Caryn pulled open the fridge door and scanned the shelves, searching for a snack. Nothing. The pantry? Still nothing. Perhaps the freezer would come through. Of course, last night the freezer yielded a half-empty bag of dehydrated peas and a frozen pizza, but there was always hope…

This commentary is disturbing for several reasons. First of all, I’m referring to myself in the third person. That in itself is a clue that I need to fire my narrator and get a new one. Nothing against third person — I use it in my writing all the time — but when it comes to my own thoughts, I should at least be the lead character in my own life. Which makes me wonder: if I’m not the one doing the narrating, who is? I’d like to say it’s a gorgeous muse with flowing hair and a benevolent smile, filling sheets of parchment with golden words. Her quill pen yields a graceful cursive, and every line is poetry. The truth is more likely a cranky woman named Dolores residing in a shadowed corner of my brain. She has a gravely voice, a smoker’s cough and the language of a longshoreman. In-between attempts to brush away the dust in the air, she bangs away on the keys of a typewriter that is at least as crotchety as she is.

Second of all, I hyperbolize, even when I’m the only audience for my self-narrations. Sure, the quest for dinner didn’t stop with the freezer, but we certainly have more than a frozen pizza and an old bag of peas in there. That doesn’t make for good copy, however, so Dolores reworked the truth to add a little tension.

And, finally, it’s boring, despite the venture into hyperbole. Which is what I rediscover about my life whenever my inner narrator kicks in: There’s not a lot of drama, and when any does come along the hag in the attic actually shuts up so I can focus. That’s why I write. I get to give my characters exciting lives full of adventure and mayhem. Not that I’m complaining, really. That excitement often includes betrayal, war, pestilence, murder, and mass amounts of family turmoil, none of which I want in my own life. What I do want is for the voice to go away when I turn off the computer so I can have a little peace. <!– ckey=”2942F58A” –>

A Year in Blogging (or Not)

I could spin some smooth and nostalgic prose about how this time of year is perfect for gazing back on those things we have accomplished and looking ahead toward the year before us, and — blah, blah, blech. You get the point. I won’t do that. But since I have been gone for almost exactly a year, and it is practically the New Year, I suppose I must do a little filling-in on what personal details I neglected to share with the internet in 2007. And so, without further ado…

Here’s what I haven’t blogged about, in (more or less) chronological order:

• Rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon with my mom. In July. For a week. During record-breaking temperatures.
• Finishing up a year of night school classes, further securing my place as the second-most over-educated person in my family
• Ten days along the South Carolina and Georgia coast with the in-laws. In August. During record-breaking temperatures. (As you can see, I’m a master of timing.)
• My trip to Reno just before Halloween. Costumed hoards of people roamed the crowded thoroughfares of Circus Circus, sporting disguises reminiscent of swing dancers, vampires, and clowns, to name a few. I thought it was Reno. Turns out it was Halloween. I think.
• My new car. It’s purdy. And it even has an outlet so that I can charge my laptop, make coffee, or toast a bagel while driving. Very handy.
• My brother’s lovely wedding to his lovely wife in a lovely setting.
• My new iPod, and the day when it was stolen — and then not.
• Losing twenty pounds. Then gaining five of them back, just in time for a new New Year’s resolution. Three cheers for holiday eating…

Here’s what I have blogged about:

• Santa is a stalker
• Snot
• My cat
• The day an evil company stole my blogs

As you can see, my priorities are on the right track.

Hijacked!

It’s been a year since I’ve blogged new content with anything resembling regularity. At that time I was happily ensconced in another domain, running both a photoblog (Photoplay) and a regular blog (Novelist in Training). I had commenters and archives and an exhaustive blogroll. I had templates to tweak any time I couldn’t think of what to write next (which was entirely too often).

Not that all was perfect. I’d taken on a new job and begun taking two night classes each week, so things were hectic. My posting rate slowed. I committed mass absenteeism from all the blogs I used to frequent. And then one day I mustered up the words for a post, only to discover that my host — and my domain right along with it — had been sold out from under me. No warning. No chance to inform my readers, set up site redirections, double-check my backups, take a snapshot of the template, or find a new host. My blogs, along with all the contents, feeds, and information on all my commenters, had been hijacked even as I tried to think of what to write about next.

I’d like to say I took it calmly, and at first I really did. But soon the emotions crowded in: anger at the violation of having my sites yanked out from under me without warning, frustration and despair at the prospect of having to begin all over again, sadness over the posts and comments that had vanished and, most of all, embarrassment that subscribers and visitors to my site would be confronted with ads instead of blog posts. They would think I’d abandoned them, given up without a word. The thought made me cringe.

In the ensuing year many of those who had linked to my sites discovered my abrupt departure and removed the links. Some bloggers have gained a wide audience and are now out of my league, while others have folded. Many, I’m sure, have forgotten me — after all, what’s one more blog, especially from one who proved to be so unreliable (even if unintentionally so)?

But I’ve had this time to recover, to miss blogging enough to make it worth the tedium of setting up a brand new site and re-building everything from scratch. And so I am back. My blog backups, which I had made so religiously, were corrupted (yet more fuel to feed all that anger and despair), but I was able to salvage some of the posts nonetheless. Lest they be lost in the abyss forever, I will be integrating those old posts with new as I build this site, selecting only what I feel are the best and/or most appropriate at the time. Most of the entries (such as this one) will be new.

With time, I hope that those who were hurt by my sudden disappearance will trust me again and begin to visit this new blog; I know that I will be visiting their sites again. I will take it slowly, deliberately, but with any luck this time I will be in it for the long haul.

Yes, it really is good to be back, even on a nearly-blank blog with (as of this point) no readers. And so I will send this post out into the wilds and continue to build anew. Wish me luck, gentle reader.

Puzzled

I just can’t figure out why today’s book revisions are taking so long. Anyone have any ideas? Maybe I’m low on sleep. Or on chocolate. Then again, it could be the weather. Yeah, the weather. That must be it…

(Yes, I do freely admit that taking pictures of the meddlesome beast and then posting them on the internet probably doesn’t help my already-hampered efficiency. However, it’s much more fun than tossing The Basil into a room, closing the door on his face, ignoring him until he quits howling for attention, and getting back to work.)

Stalker Claus is Comin’ to Town

Not to dwell on Christmas, but I have to confess that the song “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” really creeps me out. As the lyrics to this cheerful tune unwittingly reveal, Santa has some issues, and it’s about time we addressed them.

First of all, no song about a nice guy begins with the threat, “You better watch out” because he’s “coming to town”. Things these phrases actually call to mind: Dark alleys. Blood. Whimpering. Slipping something into the milk and cookies. A thugly guy scowling over a prone body, warning the victim to “take it like a man” (or, to be more accurate, “You better not cry! You better not pout! Oh, and don’t call the cops, or you’re toast! Got it?”) Only a few lines in, and I’m already wondering if this is a Christmas tune or a Mob movie.

So clear is the image presented by the first verse that when it switches from visions of muscle-bound goons and impending doom to a dark stalker fantasy, the change requires a pitch shift — and gets it.

Before we go any further, I want you to ask yourself one thing: What kind of old guy is so obsessed with little children that he spends that much time watching them? Not a nice one, okay? Which is why “He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake…” makes me feel less than cozy — and I slipped past his radar twenty years ago.

Of course, his favors only come if you’ve been “good”. Vague much, Santa? Because what, exactly, is “good” — other than a watered-down and subjective word? Honestly, I can only hope my standards for “good” are not the same as Santa, considering what that guy’s been up to. In which case if I am still under his surveillance I’m bound for the naughty list, which means what, precisely? Here again things get a little vague, which, as those horror movie buffs out there know, is often scarier than knowing exactly what misfortune will befall those who don’t follow the rules. According to some, letting the imagination devise possible punishments for the victim is the number one rule of writing suspense.

As if to hide these threats from Christmas-crazed listeners, the entire song — shades of mobsters and stalkers and all — is done with three times the speed and fifteen times the pep, letting the message slip into our subconscious. Seriously, envision it slower, and in a more menacing voice. Now don’t you feel nervous, too?