Timidity in Writing

I’m reading James Frey’s “How to Write a Damn Good Novel II” and it is pretty damn good.

And hey, look, it’s 34% off! Yes!

I’ve been having a back and forth ‘conversation’ over email with another writer about the opening of one of his pieces. It’s pretty damn good. Damn, I’m really saying ‘damn’ a lot. Damn Frey, getting me to say damn all the time. Anyway, this guy I’ve been emailing is a great writer. He has a bit of a dilemma in that the opening scene of his piece reveals a murder. Soon to follow is the main character getting swept into the idea of solving the missing person mystery (who was murdered). So, do you let the reader know that the murder has happened and have them know that the search is futile? And let me tell you, there is some great stuff piled on the protagonist to ensure a great story. In fact, I would argue that because the reader knows that the missing person is dead, you are going to have a better, more unique story in the end. It will set this guy’s story apart in a pretty damn fine way. That is, if he can pull it off–which I think he can. It won’t be easy though and he’s going to have to ensure his nads have their brass coating on before he attempts it. Still, I have faith.

Anyway, we’ve been going back and forth a tiny bit about it today and then I come to this chapter about the seven deadly mistakes writers make in Frey’s book. I’m reading along about timidity. Interesting idea. And bam! There it is. He’s saying, “A writer can’t back away from what is strongly dramatic just because the fictional materials may offend someone or produce a lot of tension in the writer during the act of creation.” He goes on to say, “…if you want to make an emotional impact on your reader you must produce tragic situations. Tragic, or gory, or horrific, or whatever. You can’t pull back.”

Now I’m not sure if the writer I speak about has timidity issues, but I felt that this passage was more of a message at the right time saying, “Grab it by the damn balls and run for it.”

So, up for a run?

Vets: An Update

My new cat won’t cuddle me. She won’t even let me hold her. She’s pretty choked at me taking her to the vet’s yesterday. I’m not sure if it was the vet turning her ear inside out for a long couple of minutes while she tried to read the tattoo, or the immunization needle that missed and had to be repeated. Or it could have been when the vet picked Yuna up under the armpits and looked her straight in the face and called her a ‘pretty kitty’ before taking her to shave her neck so they could draw blood for a test. Or maybe it was when I had to hold her down so the assistant could shove a deworming pill down her throat. Either way, she ain’t speaking to me.

Not sure about the ‘ET’ part, but the rest is pretty dead on.

Vets: Did I Miss Something?

The vets in our area seem to have all taken the three day ‘Panic the Pet Owner’ seminar. Seriously. I have had a couple of vet interactions this year with three different cats and have come to the conclusion that they take the idea that a pet is a member of one’s family very seriously. Now, so do I, but somewhere there is a line. But where is it?

I value animals, I love animals. For years I volunteered at the Humane Society cuddling the animals. I believe in animal rights and I get livid when people neglect or abuse them. On the home front, I believe it is important to take my animals to the vet for check ups and I seek treatment and preventative medical care. I also feed them decent food, play with them, cuddle them, etc. So where do you draw the line with treatment? Do you cough up the money only for the most dire treatments and regular maintenance?

My issues with trusting vets began with my cat, Edgar. He developed an allergy to immunizations. Basically, they made his face swell until he looked like the beast, made him vomit and gave him diarrhea. Vets insisted that this indoor cat needed to have his vaccinations. It was URGENT. They’d give him an antihistamine. They’d give him the shot. I paid the bill. Finally I met a vet who agreed with me. No more immunizations for this cat. Whew. But then we got a different vet who guilted me. I didn’t submit.

A series of poor vet calls lead me to a very, very difficult decision last spring. My 11 year-old Edgar was very sick. I had choose to have him put down or spend over $1000 (which I didn’t have) and give him needles every day. While I didn’t feel that it was my right to take Edgar’s life, I also felt that as a pet owner, it was my responsibility to end his suffering as I had taken away his right to wander off into the bush to let nature take its course. Therefore, he was put down. By that point he had long since ceased being himself. I knew Edgar wasn’t well and I put off the vet appointment, knowing that what they’d tell me would lead me to a very difficult decision.

When I could put it off no longer, I took him in. Edgar had diabetes, kidney disease and poor teeth. The vet was quite willing to get his diabetes under control. But, it would have cost at least $500 to $1000, plus constant monitoring and insulin injections. Then she could work on the other issues. The problem that angered me was that we ended up in this poor-health predicament because of a vet’s earlier decision. It all started with bad skin. I later discovered on my own that Edgar had an allergy which led to his poor skin. That, unfortunately was after damaging his kidneys with vet prescribed medication. Because he had poor kidneys, I put him on the (expensive) protein reduced diet prescribed by another vet. I was being a good pet owner. But, the food caused the diabetes. By following their orders for a simple condition, I created two life threatening ones.

I’m so done with their fear tactics. I still feel guilty and angry.

Their fear tactics and persistent pressure guised as ‘if you are a good pet owner’ are more subtle now, of course. The new fear is that my 10 year-old cat is going to die of kidney, heart or liver failure because she has tartar build up. Yes, I do get the science behind it, but at the same time…$650? And who is to say that releasing all that tartar when they put my aged cat under isn’t going to cause those same very problems?

And ah, yes. Deworming. A strictly indoor cat. Three times a year. $12 a pill. Well! So I questioned the vet on how exactly my strictly indoor cat would obtain roundworms. Basically, my conclusion is that I have a better chance of getting the roundworms than my cat does. Maybe I should be getting dewormed three times a year. I wonder if they would squirt the water down my throat after the pill too.

I guess I just don’t get it. I promised when I rescued my kitties from the Humane Society and the SPCA that I would care for them. And I do. They have a great life and I love them. They are very important to me. At the same time, where do you draw the line with treatments? How can I trust their judgement and recommendations after what I went through with Edgar?

Down to Work

Now that I am back, I should get down to work, shouldn’t I?

I made a plan/goals chart before I left. So far, I’m a bit off track. How sad is that? The plan is only a month old and I’m already veering off. Then again, it is only August 4th. There is still time to reign this month in. Besides, I think my plan for the month was to do some reading and research–stuff that is easy to do when family is around and fun is abound. Only problem is that one of my critique partners came up with a nit pick that immediately morphed into this FANTASTIC black moment for my story. That means, I have to write it! Because I haven’t written it, because it didn’t exist before her critique–I had something lame instead. That big black moment was just another one of those small details I didn’t really think about when I wrote this story. So what this all means is that she is waiting for me to write this ‘moment’ because it is what happens next in the story so that she can critique it. And I am slowing everything down in our critique exchange. That means I have to put my head back in the game.

In other news, I finally got my crappy query chomped on by the Query Shark. She was actually pretty gentle and I LOVE her version. She rocks. I knew my query wasn’t so great. I wrote it before I beta tested Molli’s e-book chapter on queries. In other words, I was still pretty lost. Anyway, I am very grateful to Shark for doing the critique. Thank you!

I have three people waiting for me to critique their chapters. I better get on it!

Cheerio folks!

Highway Man

Driving across country you are bound to run into some crazies. Usually you expect a few car loads of kids waving frantically at everyone and anyone in hopes of entertaining themselves, a few lane cutters, a few fingers for miscellaneous reasons and whatnot. You don’t expect someone to adopt you and not leave your side.

We were happily driving along, a few provinces away from home when a vehicle passed us and the driver waved at us out his open window. Immediately we checked his license plate as that is often the cause for driver waves this far from home. But nope, no familiar red plate like ours. It was a friendly wave, so no need to pull over and check our car or rooftop carrier. So we smiled and continued on our way until we were stopped about twenty minutes later at construction. The driver of the car jumped out (he was in front of us) and came bounding to our window. Turns out he was from Alberta. Hubby asked, “Well why did you move here?” Crazy man (although his craziness was not yet verified) replied heartily, “I know!!”

The construction light turned green (great little invention these portable lights) and people immediately began honking at crazy man to get back into his car. And we were off through the construction. Well, not really. We got the red light, he got the green. So we waited despite him trying to wave us along after him. So when we get to the other end of the construction, who should be pulled over and directing us to pull over as well? Yep, crazy man.

Curious by this character, we pull over. He was charming and boisterous. Within moments he comes running up to our car and indicates for us to unroll our window. I’m thinking ‘no thanks’ and leave mine up. The next ten minutes is an unending round of ‘guess who the famous person’ is as he leafs through a full 3 1/2 inch binder full of blown up photos of him with famous rock stars. In all, I think hubby passed his MTV Stars of the 90s Pop Quiz. I’m really glad I wasn’t in the driver’s seat as I’m pretty sure I would have flunked seeing as I’ve only watched about an hours worth of MTV in the past decade and a half. (Sad?) Having previously agreed to meet relatives for coffee in the nearby city, we finally were able to push off about 15 minutes later.

Sort of.

He insisted that we should follow him as a person can go 20km over the limit here and not get caught–so he proclaims. “Follow me, follow me! 110! Follow me!” When we saw him digging in the car and not getting into the driver’s seat, I told hubby to floor it or we’d be stuck there for another 15 minutes being drilled on song titles as we’d be forced to listen to his CD collection made by Snoop himself and which he luckily couldn’t find in his haste to pull us over and entertain us. Crazy man pretty much freaked out when we drove off without him and scrambled into his car, eager to try and get in front of us so we could follow him to the city. I tell ya, a city has never come fast enough for me.

I have to admit, crazy man was an entertaining bean. He insisted that he be our personal entertainment. Honestly, I think the guy was a bit lonely with his kids all back home with the ex wife. I mean, after his friends have already seen his famous people pictures once, then what? It was really cool seeing that passion in someone. Or you know, craziness. But where do you go from there?

So with crazy man slowing down to make us think that he was releasing us, he speeds up to stay alongside in the slow lane, taking his hands off the steering wheel to make emphatic ’110′ symbols with his hands. I have to admit, he’s a pretty good driver when he has no hands on the wheel and his attention anywhere but on the road. I wasn’t so scared about that part, it was when he was showing us another famous picture (Jesus) and then closing his eyes, taking his hands off the wheel and crossing himself and placing his hands in prayer position all while not letting us fall in behind or in front of him that freaked me out. Plus it was a bit stressful when he’d slow right down, forcing us to pass him and then not letting us back into the slow lane, causing the angered traffic behind us to jam up.

After all his tactics resulted in disbelieving smiles from his audience, he decided that we were his friends. Solid. Soon after he began fanning himself with money. Quite a lot of it in fact. Then he started shouting through our closed window, “McDonald’s! McDonald’s! I’ll take you to McDonald’s!” I think that was after his offer to share his big gulp and cigarettes by trying to pass them from his car to ours. I’m pretty sure that was before I suggested my mom take a photo of his license plate which was followed by a photo of him. (Yes, he took his hands off the wheel to primp and pose. Dear lord, it is a miracle we are all still alive.) Maybe that sort of influenced his impression of us.

So anyway, when we finally hit the city, we managed to ditch him. And yes after telling him we were parting ways and trying to fall behind we snuck between to two trucks before scuttling in behind a hotel. We have no pride, but we are alive. Seriously, the guy was offering to tour us through the city and if given the chance would likely have escorted us at 20km over the speed limit all the way home.

And then we got lost and were at least an hour late for our coffee with the relatives. They were pretty forgiving. I guess it helps when you have a good story. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Annnnnnd…We’re Back!

Whew! That was a lot of sitting. 4 Days of driving. 4 US States, 3 Canadian provinces…about 500 photos and a bunch of gas and here we are right back where we started again.

Anyway, before the refrigerator stores are even replenished, I’d like to introduce the newest member of the Oram clan: 

This folks, is Yuna. Abandoned to the S.P.C.A. for being a couch scratcher. Seeing as our furniture is already scratched–some of it even coming to us that way–that is of little concern to us. Especially since she is pretty nice. And very curious. She does not want to stay in the TV room, she wants to see the whole house. Maybe it’s the Barbie Mariposa movie my daughter is watching. (She’s happy to be in TV land again.) Anyway, M is sleeping in our room and Yuna is roaming eagerly rounding each corner with her quirky precautionary growl.

As for our cat, M (below). Well, she is not so sure this is such a great thing, but mostly she seems a bit overwhelmed. But judging by how the first hour has gone, I think it will all be okay–assuming her eyes stop being like saucers.