Throwback Thursday: May 28, 2013

Have you ever put so much energy and thought into a project, that it seems like forever since you began it?  I feel this way about my novel.  This is not, of course, the novel that is currently (I hope) being considered by an agent, nor is it any of the fledglings that have not yet hit their 50-page marks (poor darlings).  I am referring to the beast to which I am currently enslaved, the sci-fi creature which may someday be my masterpiece.  Yes, I am working on my masterpiece at twenty-three.  No, I have not considered what its being my masterpiece may mean for my future works.  But I digress.

This novel, the first of a series of four, is dubbed Youngest for the title character, which is an artificial intelligence.  And no, I was not using incorrect grammar in the previous sentence.  Youngest as it begins the story is sexless, although when it enters human society it takes on a feminine identity.  Disguised as a human girl, Youngest leaves behind a past of trauma and torment to learn about human society and whether it can become a part of it.  The story and its characters have consumed me ever since it first came into my mind, and it seems ages that it has been pounding on the walls of my skull, demanding to be set free.

So it was surprising to me, the other day, to look back at my progress record and realize that it was still in fledgling stage at this time last year.  At the end of May 2013, I hadn’t quite reached the fortieth page, which for me makes the novel just a baby, just a beginning.

One hundred and fifty pages in one year may not be all that impressive.  That’s only a bit more than two-fifths of a page each day, maybe three hundred words.  A 300-word assignment back in college was one I could roll out in half an hour.  But you have to realize that there were days—many days—in which I didn’t write at all, because I was away or doing other things, or because my infant-dragon muse was asleep on top of my bookshelf where I can’t reach her.  More than that, a novel of this magnitude doesn’t just involve sitting in front of a keyboard.  Hours of research and planning, outlines and revised outlines, maps and drawings and lists of names—there’s an entire notebook of my scrawls.  Not to mention a few months last fall when I wrote a large chunk of the story by hand, sitting at one of the tables at work.  I’ve done enough that I’m not terrified by the self-imposed deadline of two months to finish it, eight months to have it fully revised.  The end is that close, and it’s only been a year.

To me, this hammers home the true value of this time.  In this one aspect of my life, this one segment of my creative work, I have made a huge stride, and I am filled with that strange kind of humble pride, where you are amazed that you could have done such a thing.  It gives me hope, because if this is possible in one year, what might be happening for me in the next?

Throwback Thursday: May 9, 2012

Two years ago, minus one day, I spent a wonderful evening watching the very first performance of “Decision Height”, a play written and directed by my good friend Meredith.  The play was her undergraduate honors thesis project, and it was very much a nod to our university and the ties of sisterhood we learned there.  The play takes place in World War II-era Texas, where a school of aviation takes on a group of rather unique pilots: women.  Six women explore their reasons for flying, and their pasts, their successes, their failures, and their friendships make for a touching and inspiring story.

Of the many times I have seen this play produced—and it has enjoyed its own level of success, appearing twice since its debut in area theatres, as well as elsewhere across the States—the first performance remains my favorite.  I remember the tiny dark studio where it was performed, the familiar faces making up its cast and crew, the tossed-together sets and music which just so happened to include piano themes by yours truly.  I remember the rush of pride in my friend, the tears stinging my eyes at two different points in the story.  I had heard about the play for months, had been just down the hall for all the playwright’s stressful moments, had attended the very first experimental reading.  Back then I was still a part of the process, and I was honored to be a member of the sisterhood.

I think moments like this, moments of first success, are incredibly poignant.  They are filled with a strange kind of forward-facing nostalgia, an awareness of coming joy.  It is both an ending and a beginning, a branching of the path into new things and away from the old.  I felt that, watching my friend’s work come alive, and I felt it a few weeks later on the day we both walked across the stage and switched our tassels from one side to the other.  My wish for her, and for me, is many more such moments to come.

Epiphany

Sometimes, I am struck by the wonder of my existence.

Most recently, it happened to me yesterday in church.  I was sitting with the other musicians, looking at the back of the reverend’s head as he made the weekly announcements.  The same kind of thing that happens every week.  I was a bit tuned out—I blame lack of sleep—and so really I was just letting my mind wander.  And quite suddenly I thought, Where am I?  What am I doing here?  And I didn’t mean here in the cafeteria that my church uses as a facility, sitting on a plastic chair and waiting for the songs to start.  I meant here, inside this ball of bone and flesh, living in a nest of electric and chemical signals, looking out of a pair of human eyes. 

This feeling comes on me every so often.  I could be walking down the street, or reading a book, or talking to friends, and BAM.  I am filled with astonishment at the thought of myself.  In these moments, I try to picture myself, try to pull up an image of who and what I am.  Sometimes I think of the face I see in the mirror, that round-cheeked girl with big teeth, lots of unruly hair, and questioning eyes.  But other times I can’t think of anything.  In those times, I can’t pin myself down.  How did I get here?  I wonder.  Why am I here?

It isn’t just myself that amazes me, though.  It’s everything I see around me.  Yesterday I looked at the sea of cables and the faulty speakers that make up our sound system, and I think, someone made these.  Someone made them, and someone sold them, and someone bought them.  Someone knew exactly how to set them up, plugged in each cord exactly where it needs to go, can tweak and adjust them so that the very sounds we make are changed.  Someone does that every single week. 

Someone made that guitar, smoothing the wood, setting the glue.  Someone made those strings, and someone else uncurled them to stretch over the bridge.  Someone figured out exactly how to translate metal and wood and air into music.  Someone built these walls, and made this chair, and set the tiles in the floor. 

Someone made these fantastic red boots I’m wearing, and someone put the clearance sticker on them so that I could bring them home.  My clothes, my earrings, the hairspray in my hair—in those moments, everything seems to be a miracle, and I can feel the touch of thousands of people, how I am connected to all of them in even the smallest ways.  And each of them is connected to a thousand more, and a thousand more…

We can’t live alone.  We just can’t do it.  In this world, everything we see, touch, buy, eat, drink, was somehow brought to us by someone else.  We take it for granted, but it’s true. 

Someone made my clock, my vitamins, this keyboard I’m hammering on, the monitor where I watch the words rolling across the screen.  Someone put the tea in the bag, and someone arranged the pipes so I could put water into the kettle someone made, and someone wired my stove so I could heat the water, and someone made this mug in which I put the tea, and someone milked the cow and someone harvested the sugar… 

You see?  We live in a web of people who are making things and learning things and each working in their small way to help all of us survive.

This is why I go to church.  This is why I believe in a higher power, and submit to that higher power.  I can’t believe that all these someones just sprang out of chaos and, purely by chance, became these inquisitive creatures sitting inside our flesh.  I don’t want to believe that.  No—Someone made them, those round shields of bone, those firing synapses, the hands that make and hammer and grasp and reach.  That Someone wants them to keep making things, keep reaching out to each other, keep spinning the web.  That Someone wants us to be connected this way, and gives us what we need to do it.

I don't know about you, but I think that's amazing.