My Own Mythology

This weekend on NPR (PRI) on This American Life there was the history of a father with a directionless rudder allowing him to become whatever the tides of society dictated for that decade. It got me thinking about my mom and my life. I realized on some level the narrator and I shared a lot of the same experiences, only hers were more violent and damaging in ways than mine. Where her father lived in Movies like Ice Storm my mom lived in ones like Gone With The Wind and Donna Reed.

As easy as it is to always cram Mom into molds and say things like above, the truth of the matter is I live in my own Mythology. I guess we all to do some extent. I believe that I am a writer of worth yet with nothing published to make this myth reality. I believe that I am cultured and refined because I love opera when in reality I still cling to the morass of images displayed on the proletariat driven television. The list goes on and on I just don't want to bring all my faults into the light.

I have always wanted to be more than I am and in the past the simple desire has been enough to sustain me. Now that I'm reaching for the more authentic in life I find myself discontent on the mere morsels that mythology has to offer. I'm starved for the sustenance of the here and the now. Maybe that's what college was supposed to teach me but I was too disconnected with my desperate attempt to hold onto the mythology that I never allowed myself to grow. Now that I'm reaching forward, looking forward, living forward I find it difficult to feel my footing under me, to trust in the unseen hand of fate and faith.

I'm trapped in the netherworld between myth and authenticity. I guess my only recourse is to keep my eyes towards the light as I try to leave the world of shadows and hope to find myself, for the first time, on solid ground living the life I've always dreamed.

Look at this when your grumpy.

How can you look at this and not go AAaaaawwwww.

More Quotes

As promised over a year ago, here are more of my favorite quotes....

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If you think Genealogy is supposed to be fun you've either never had fun or never done Genealogy.

Carol Haws

Family History Class

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To come together is a beginning, to stay together is progress and to work together is success.

Henry Ford quoted by

KC Wu, Cisco Systems

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Enlightenment - That magnificent escape from anguish and ignorance - never happens by accident. It results from the brave and sometimes lonely battle of one person against his/her own weakness.

Bhikkhm Nyanasobhano

Landscapes of Wonder

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Worldliness is next to Ungodliness.

Cameron Shaw

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The soft bigotry of high expectations

Doonesbury

9/21/07

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More of an original word pairing than a quote...saving it for the moment of greatest impact....

Sphincter fatigue.

Rules To Live By

Be thankful for what you have

Pray for what you need

and

Work as if you've recieved the answer

Nothing says it better than a cupcake!

I've been feeling like a cupcake lately. Too small to do anything impressive, confined by one-time-use ruffled paper and thoroughly baked . Cupcake reality: no matter how pretty the cupcake, it's still just a cupcake.

That Wacky President of Ours

It's good to see that the POTUS is making use of the "Word of the Day" desk calendar Laura gave him for Christmas. Listening to his press conference this morning I heard him use several polysyllabic words without breaking a sweat.

What was fascinating to me were the phrase-pauses he took so the people with the approved Dick-isms can whisper them into his ear. I'm sure any deviation from the scrip will result in a reduction of cookies for snack and an hour more of afternoon nap time.

3 August 2006 & Counting - Fin

Not counting any more. In fact, I'm back in the dating game, so to speak. I hate the dating game. You have to gear up for the "big sale" only the sale can last upwards of eight tiring months of waiting for the big fish to bite. In this case, they bit me in the ass. I know the picture doesn't make much sense to the rant, but it's one of mine and I thought I'd share.

It's not that the whole rejection letter was bad, it was actually quite positive and complimentary, but to say it was a positive rejection letter is a really bad oxymoron. They said their reviewers gave it an "excellent" rating, and that I really got into the minds of what it was like to be a missionary. Their only criticism was my ending which didn't end the way they had hoped. I don't know what they were expecting, they are missionaries after all, it's not like they can have a kegger or something. I talked to my editor about it and she said I shouldn't change it unless it was something I was going to change in the first place, which I wasn't. It ended where it wanted to end, how can I change that? Everyone had learned the lesson they were supposed to learn and had applied it while they were there...so my question is, where do you take story from there.

I'm now in the process of trying to pick another publisher to send it to. I have the deadline for it to be in the mail of May 1, 2007. I'm going to give them about six months to consider it before I send it out to the next one and then just make it a habit of sending it out every six months. I don't want to have to wait for eight months to find out that they aren't going to take it. I could have had it on the desk of another publishing house for two moths had I initiated this policy before. I guess you live and learn. I think I've narrowed it down to a publisher that published a fictional story about the MTC, at least I think it's fictional. Maybe they'll be interested in adding to their missionary library....we'll see. Time will tell.

No Pressure

It is not sufficient for religious people to be involved with prayer. Rather, they are morally obliged to contribute all they can to solving the world’s problems.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

An Evening Quote

"He's one of those crazy liberal democrats that secretly is a closeted republican."

Denny Crane, Boston Legal

I laughed at first until the question echoed back...."is this me?"

Ex-Lax for Writers Block

I'm not writing much these days. Well, I'm blogging, but I really don't consider blogging as *writing*. It's more like a stream of consciousness thing where I can talk and express myself, chipping away at the boulder in front of me. There is this story that my mind to comfort me during this time...it goes something like this....

A man was told by God to push on a rock, and as an obedient servant of his Lord he got up each morning and began to push on the boulder with no success in moving it. Undeterred he did this every day for years. Years turned into decades and finally after the man had filled out, his arms and back rippled with muscles and his legs we like unmovable tree-trunks. In frustration he knelt down and prayed "Why? Why have you asked me to do this impossible task. I can't move this rock." The Lord, answered his obedient servant in loving dulcet tones. "Dear child, I told you to push on the rock, not to move it. Look at yourself. You are strong and you are determined. Now you are ready for that which I have prepared for you to do."

Only I know that this writers block isn't a huge trial before me and I'm tired of blogging in hopes to chip away at the mass to either find a vein of weakness and destroy it or chip away at it to be able to pass it. However, my favorite chisel and hammer are gone - Money. I don't *need* money to write, in fact, that's one of the things that I truly love about it, I can write with out any electricity at all. But the ability to buy research materials, to go to restaurants that provide the food that I'm writing about or just to do something that broadens the senses and quickens the mind is what money provides at a time like this.

106 Days and counting.....I think this is the stress that the block is made of. I'm worried that the fiction isn't strong enough to be believable, that the spell I wove with the words isn't strong enough to bind the reader to the page. Which stress bleeds over to the present project...what if I'm not making a cohesive tapestry and it's just a farce that I'm acting out to my own humiliation. I'm going to try and lull myself into a safe state of denial and try to believe that it takes publishers 150 days to read a manuscript and then, after that day, I can start to worry. That puts my fretting off until December 21, 2006. I think, no matter what my finances are, I should have a celebration. That is if I haven't heard back yet.