Eleven weeks seems like a strange amount of time to mark, unless that's how long you lived in a dome-shaped tent in the summer of '93. For eleven weeks, my sisters and I roamed Battle Run Campground, swimming, and storytelling, and roasting whatever would fit on the end of a stick.
Little bits and pieces of those eleven weeks are always with me. Of course there is the obvious, the crackle of fire and the green splash of lake water, but there's other stuff, too. Like when I unzip my duffel at the Writer's Conference, the noise is exactly like my bedroom door at the campground. Like any time I see initials carved into wood, I think of the names kids carved into the campground's climbing tower, which they tore down years ago. When I wrote my name there, in blue ink from the pen I always carried, I thought it would stay there forever.
In a way, it has.
Eleven weeks from today, BODY OF WATER will be released, and a kid named Ember will tell you about her summer in the campground, so different from mine – but I hope, just as permanent. Once we get there, if you would, take just a second and turn around and look back to this spot right here, and think about how much time that actually is to live in a campground. By the time we left, the tents were worn through and the fires burned low to embers. We were taller and tanner, older and wiser, and we knew how to make a place home.
It's a skill I've used plenty more times over the years. But that's a story for another novel.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
My Not-So-Fictional Characters
Funny what makes it in, what stays out. Every little animal I've ever kept has made it, or will make it, into a book. Henry's there already, in the form of Orange Cat in LIVVIE OWEN LIVED HERE.
You can meet Lola this October when BODY OF WATER is released – she plays the role of Widdershins, at least in my head.
And in my third book, which you will hopefully get to read at some point, my sister-in-law's mean and hateful little poodle, Chewbacca, makes an appearance.
I sort of hate that dog. He broke Lola's nose once, but that occurrence did not make it into either novel.
Sorry, I don't have a picture of Chewbacca. If you really want to know, he looks like a dirty cottonball. With fangs.
Buddy Sunshine, my oversized Rottie mix, did make it into a middle grade novel that has never seen the light of day.
And in my most recent novel, there is a cat named Stella who is a lot like my Sage-cat. Actually, Sagey-Boo was also in LIVVIE, in the form of Gray Cat (although she is clearly not gray).
You know who, quite conspicuously, has never made it into a novel of mine?
These guys:
That first one is Stuff, my very first horse. And the second is my current horse, Magnum.
As a kid, all I ever read were horse stories. When I wasn't reading horse stories, I was visiting a neighbor's horse, or cleaning stalls to pay for riding lessons, or, after I managed to get a horse of my own, out playing in the pasture with him. Sometimes I read horse stories and played in the pasture at the same time:
So guess what? For Camp NaNoWriMo, I am finally writing a horse story! Maybe someday some horse-crazy kid can lie on their horse's back and read it. That's the dream. I am super-serious about this. As serious as Magnum:
Also, eventually, my husband's new pup, Oscar, will have to make it into a novel. Because, OMG, cute.
So how's your Camp NaNo coming?
You can meet Lola this October when BODY OF WATER is released – she plays the role of Widdershins, at least in my head.
And in my third book, which you will hopefully get to read at some point, my sister-in-law's mean and hateful little poodle, Chewbacca, makes an appearance.
I sort of hate that dog. He broke Lola's nose once, but that occurrence did not make it into either novel.
Sorry, I don't have a picture of Chewbacca. If you really want to know, he looks like a dirty cottonball. With fangs.
Buddy Sunshine, my oversized Rottie mix, did make it into a middle grade novel that has never seen the light of day.
And in my most recent novel, there is a cat named Stella who is a lot like my Sage-cat. Actually, Sagey-Boo was also in LIVVIE, in the form of Gray Cat (although she is clearly not gray).
You know who, quite conspicuously, has never made it into a novel of mine?
These guys:
That first one is Stuff, my very first horse. And the second is my current horse, Magnum.
As a kid, all I ever read were horse stories. When I wasn't reading horse stories, I was visiting a neighbor's horse, or cleaning stalls to pay for riding lessons, or, after I managed to get a horse of my own, out playing in the pasture with him. Sometimes I read horse stories and played in the pasture at the same time:
So guess what? For Camp NaNoWriMo, I am finally writing a horse story! Maybe someday some horse-crazy kid can lie on their horse's back and read it. That's the dream. I am super-serious about this. As serious as Magnum:
Also, eventually, my husband's new pup, Oscar, will have to make it into a novel. Because, OMG, cute.
So how's your Camp NaNo coming?
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Milestones
I started seventh grade from a campground. Battle Run Campground in Summersville, West Virginia, to be exact. It's a beautiful place, tree-shaded, lakeside. In fact, it's made up of a sort of sprawling peninsula, surrounded on three sides by shimmery dark-green lake water.
It is the perfect place to vacation.
Up until school started, it was the perfect place to live.
Let me tell you about school nights and school mornings in a campground. Campgrounds are not built for school days. They are built for hazy summer memories of campfires and marshmallows and bathing suits and bicycles.
And, apparently, beer and country music. At least according to the campers at Site 16 next door to me. The campers there stayed up well into the night, blasting Alan Jackson's newly-released "Chattahoochee" over and over.
I'm sure it was shocking to those drunken campers when, at one in the morning, a disgruntled twelve-year-old stuck her head out of her tent and screeched, "Don't you people know it's a school night?"
But it wasn't their fault I couldn't sleep. It was not because of the song.
Up until now, it had been summer. Summer was when you're supposed to stay in a campground, but now it was school time and school time is fall and fall is when you're supposed to rake leaves into neat piles on the flat lawn of your three-bedroom brick ranch-style house with the chain link fence and the one-lane street.
Well, we had the one-lane street. It looped and spun among progressively-empty campsites as September came.
I don't remember being nervous about school, but I do remember being cold. Five-thirty a.m., walking barefoot to the shower house and waiting longer each day for the water to get warm, I cursed the hour and the lack of sun. Why did school have to start so early, anyway? Why didn't they leave time for a swim first?
After school, I came home to the campground and unleashed my stress in the form of a swim, or a gallop on foot around the campground, or a bike ride. It wasn't till darkness gathered, an inch earlier every day, that I remembered about homework. Me and my sisters would stroll down to the shower house, most always empty these days, and set up shop in the laundry room, scribbing in notebooks and watching the storms come, occasionally remembering to do a math problem or to study a spelling word.
It was awesome.
Waking up, and coming home, in a place like Battle Run, well, that was blissful. It was the middle part of the day that stank. Seventh grade was a shock because it was different from anything I had known. People I knew -- a lot of people, since I had attended four elementary schools, two of them twice -- were suddenly taller and meaner. The pressure to conform, to fit in, to be like everybody else was immense, which was a challenge for a very literal kid, since no two people in that school were alike. Everybody had their own problems, their own situations, their own rude comments and their own little hang-ups.
As far as I knew, none of them lived in a campground.
For the first time, I wondered if maybe I wasn't supposed to like where I lived. But I still did.
A while back, I wrote a book about a kid living in a campground. For a lot of reasons, she doesn't love it as much as I did, but a big part of her loves it very much. Which is how most homes are. The book is called BODY OF WATER and it will start seventh grade -- I mean, it will be released -- October 25.
God, I hope it doesn't fit in.
It is the perfect place to vacation.
Up until school started, it was the perfect place to live.
Let me tell you about school nights and school mornings in a campground. Campgrounds are not built for school days. They are built for hazy summer memories of campfires and marshmallows and bathing suits and bicycles.
And, apparently, beer and country music. At least according to the campers at Site 16 next door to me. The campers there stayed up well into the night, blasting Alan Jackson's newly-released "Chattahoochee" over and over.
I'm sure it was shocking to those drunken campers when, at one in the morning, a disgruntled twelve-year-old stuck her head out of her tent and screeched, "Don't you people know it's a school night?"
But it wasn't their fault I couldn't sleep. It was not because of the song.
Up until now, it had been summer. Summer was when you're supposed to stay in a campground, but now it was school time and school time is fall and fall is when you're supposed to rake leaves into neat piles on the flat lawn of your three-bedroom brick ranch-style house with the chain link fence and the one-lane street.
Well, we had the one-lane street. It looped and spun among progressively-empty campsites as September came.
I don't remember being nervous about school, but I do remember being cold. Five-thirty a.m., walking barefoot to the shower house and waiting longer each day for the water to get warm, I cursed the hour and the lack of sun. Why did school have to start so early, anyway? Why didn't they leave time for a swim first?
After school, I came home to the campground and unleashed my stress in the form of a swim, or a gallop on foot around the campground, or a bike ride. It wasn't till darkness gathered, an inch earlier every day, that I remembered about homework. Me and my sisters would stroll down to the shower house, most always empty these days, and set up shop in the laundry room, scribbing in notebooks and watching the storms come, occasionally remembering to do a math problem or to study a spelling word.
It was awesome.
Waking up, and coming home, in a place like Battle Run, well, that was blissful. It was the middle part of the day that stank. Seventh grade was a shock because it was different from anything I had known. People I knew -- a lot of people, since I had attended four elementary schools, two of them twice -- were suddenly taller and meaner. The pressure to conform, to fit in, to be like everybody else was immense, which was a challenge for a very literal kid, since no two people in that school were alike. Everybody had their own problems, their own situations, their own rude comments and their own little hang-ups.
As far as I knew, none of them lived in a campground.
For the first time, I wondered if maybe I wasn't supposed to like where I lived. But I still did.
A while back, I wrote a book about a kid living in a campground. For a lot of reasons, she doesn't love it as much as I did, but a big part of her loves it very much. Which is how most homes are. The book is called BODY OF WATER and it will start seventh grade -- I mean, it will be released -- October 25.
God, I hope it doesn't fit in.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Camp NaNoWriMo!
This morning, while attempting to type "Camp NaNoWriMo," I managed to post a whole blog that was nothing but the letter C.
Then, just now, while attempting to type "while attempting to type," I typed "tpyed."
Then, while attempting to type "Camp NaNoWriMo," I typed, "NanOwrImo."
Then, while attempting to type, "while attempting to type 'while attempting to type'", I typed "tuyped."
And then at some point -- I'm so lost now that I really don't know WHAT I was trying to type, except it included the word "typed" -- I typed "typied."
Maybe I should NaNo in longhand.
At any rate, it's that time. You in?
http://campnanowrimo.org
Then, just now, while attempting to type "while attempting to type," I typed "tpyed."
Then, while attempting to type "Camp NaNoWriMo," I typed, "NanOwrImo."
Then, while attempting to type, "while attempting to type 'while attempting to type'", I typed "tuyped."
And then at some point -- I'm so lost now that I really don't know WHAT I was trying to type, except it included the word "typed" -- I typed "typied."
Maybe I should NaNo in longhand.
At any rate, it's that time. You in?
http://campnanowrimo.org
Friday, July 15, 2011
Stopping and Starting
Every time the bus driver slams on his brakes at a stop sign – I don't understand, he drives this route ten times a day, does he not remember where the stop signs are? Do they sneak up on him? Are they camouflaged until the last second, whipping off their branchy costumes and leaping into the street? – my broken computer hinge gives way and the screen falls backward onto my knees so the computer is lying flat, looking up at the WIC ads and stroller guidelines and rate increase announcements on the ceiling.
There are a LOT of stop signs on this route.
So I'm writing and it goes like this:
I don't know what makes Monday different from every other sweat-in-your-butt-crack just-this-side-of-committing-murder-for-a-cold-drink early August day in Delbarton. Maybe it's the heat, which
*thud*
"Crap."
is holding in the nineties even hours after the sun's gone down. Or it could be Hyacinth's ear infection, which has caused her to scream for three straight nights while I have lain awake on top of the sheets, studying the dead bodies of moths in the light cover. Maybe it's the fact that I am
*thud*
"Crap."
halfway through an ice-cold jug bath, pouring gas station water out of a gallon milk container and shocking my system into full alertness, when I remember our water service was turned back on yesterday and I could be taking a piping hot shower.
Maybe it's Lock Rawley
*thud*
"Crap!"
dying.
And this is about the time I remember that I'm on the 6:45 to Barboursville, which is about as crowded as a bus can get, not counting the inbound Walnut Hills coming back from Wal-Mart. I've got headphones in, so I can't hear the repeating litany of thud-crap, thud-crap all the way out Route 60.
Odd, nobody else this morning is wearing headphones. Except for the lady who is asleep against the window with her purse slowly spilling off her lap into the aisle, and the woman with a cell phone pressed to one ear and her palm pressed to the other – presumably to block out the noise of my computer being shaken to pieces -- everybody can hear everything I'm doing.
So now I'm making a conscious effort not to throw a minor hissy fit every time the bus skids to a halt, and it seems to me like the bus driver is making a conscious effort to come to a sudden stop at least once per mile. I think his goal is for my computer screen to detach completely and fly up the length of the bus and shatter on the “Passengers Must Remain Behind The Yellow Line” sign.
I think it is safe to say I'm not going to get much writing done this morning.
This office sucks.
There are a LOT of stop signs on this route.
So I'm writing and it goes like this:
I don't know what makes Monday different from every other sweat-in-your-butt-crack just-this-side-of-committing-murder-for-a-cold-drink early August day in Delbarton. Maybe it's the heat, which
*thud*
"Crap."
is holding in the nineties even hours after the sun's gone down. Or it could be Hyacinth's ear infection, which has caused her to scream for three straight nights while I have lain awake on top of the sheets, studying the dead bodies of moths in the light cover. Maybe it's the fact that I am
*thud*
"Crap."
halfway through an ice-cold jug bath, pouring gas station water out of a gallon milk container and shocking my system into full alertness, when I remember our water service was turned back on yesterday and I could be taking a piping hot shower.
Maybe it's Lock Rawley
*thud*
"Crap!"
dying.
And this is about the time I remember that I'm on the 6:45 to Barboursville, which is about as crowded as a bus can get, not counting the inbound Walnut Hills coming back from Wal-Mart. I've got headphones in, so I can't hear the repeating litany of thud-crap, thud-crap all the way out Route 60.
Odd, nobody else this morning is wearing headphones. Except for the lady who is asleep against the window with her purse slowly spilling off her lap into the aisle, and the woman with a cell phone pressed to one ear and her palm pressed to the other – presumably to block out the noise of my computer being shaken to pieces -- everybody can hear everything I'm doing.
So now I'm making a conscious effort not to throw a minor hissy fit every time the bus skids to a halt, and it seems to me like the bus driver is making a conscious effort to come to a sudden stop at least once per mile. I think his goal is for my computer screen to detach completely and fly up the length of the bus and shatter on the “Passengers Must Remain Behind The Yellow Line” sign.
I think it is safe to say I'm not going to get much writing done this morning.
This office sucks.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Unpacking
Things I found in my duffel bag while unpacking from West Virginia Writers Conference:
-Six new pens, three new pencils, and 14 bookmarks advertising every type of book, from romance to murder mystery to picture book
-One of my dress shoes. If anyone at Cedar Lakes comes across a high heel, I ... don't need it back, actually. I had to ditch them halfway to the dining hall anyway. Who wears high heels to a lakeside conference that feels so very much like a dreamy summer campground from childhood?
-My room key, about which the conference center was very gracious in allowing me to mail back to them instead of charging me $10. I thought I'd locked the key in the room. Turns out I had, for reasons that escaped me, neatly packed it next to my toothbrush. (Seven hours sleep all weekend, folks. This is what happens.)
-An unpopped bag of popcorn Julee gave me (thanks, Julee!) at two in the morning when I realized I hadn't brought snacks and I was hungry, but then I fell asleep before I managed to locate the microwave
-Hand-outs from some excellent workshops and classes
-Scribbled messages in notebook margins: "Remember chicken poem." "Open with exercise?" "B-fast 7:30." "Change 'second' to 'last' in final poem in FV." (Which I forgot to do.) And my favorite: "Casualties: 111111111" -- I kept track of all the times somebody likened deleting passages from your book to murder. Twice it was me and I don't even like that metaphor.
-One dirty sock. Seriously, between the shoe and the sock, I feel like I ought to check and make sure I came back with both feet!
-A bunch of beads that fell off my flip-flop. But for every bead I managed to find and bring home, I'm sure I left at least four in my room at the lodge.
-So much relaxation, inspiration, and excitement it didn't fit in the duffel bag and I had to carry it in my feet that won't stop skipping and my lips that won't stop smiling and, most importantly, in my pen that won't stop moving.
I can't wait until next summer!
-Six new pens, three new pencils, and 14 bookmarks advertising every type of book, from romance to murder mystery to picture book
-One of my dress shoes. If anyone at Cedar Lakes comes across a high heel, I ... don't need it back, actually. I had to ditch them halfway to the dining hall anyway. Who wears high heels to a lakeside conference that feels so very much like a dreamy summer campground from childhood?
-My room key, about which the conference center was very gracious in allowing me to mail back to them instead of charging me $10. I thought I'd locked the key in the room. Turns out I had, for reasons that escaped me, neatly packed it next to my toothbrush. (Seven hours sleep all weekend, folks. This is what happens.)
-An unpopped bag of popcorn Julee gave me (thanks, Julee!) at two in the morning when I realized I hadn't brought snacks and I was hungry, but then I fell asleep before I managed to locate the microwave
-Hand-outs from some excellent workshops and classes
-Scribbled messages in notebook margins: "Remember chicken poem." "Open with exercise?" "B-fast 7:30." "Change 'second' to 'last' in final poem in FV." (Which I forgot to do.) And my favorite: "Casualties: 111111111" -- I kept track of all the times somebody likened deleting passages from your book to murder. Twice it was me and I don't even like that metaphor.
-One dirty sock. Seriously, between the shoe and the sock, I feel like I ought to check and make sure I came back with both feet!
-A bunch of beads that fell off my flip-flop. But for every bead I managed to find and bring home, I'm sure I left at least four in my room at the lodge.
-So much relaxation, inspiration, and excitement it didn't fit in the duffel bag and I had to carry it in my feet that won't stop skipping and my lips that won't stop smiling and, most importantly, in my pen that won't stop moving.
I can't wait until next summer!
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
The Class I Failed
How many minutes in my life have I spent staring through golden mist on a morning highway? I remember it being the most romantic, intoxicating feeling. At six years old, chocolate milk in one hand and crayon in the other. At ten, Coca Cola and a pencil. Sixteen, coffee and a Bic. Scratching out the story with every mile: where I was going. Or where I wished I was.
When I was a kid, I thought every highway would go exactly where I wanted it to. I thought the mist would always be golden.
This time last year I had a foot on each end of the highway. Sold the house, moved three hours away, two weeks before school let out, and commuted to finish out my contract. Every morning I was in the car by four, driving down and down on roads that crumbled and steepened the further south I went.
This morning, children woke up there, in houses next to the crumbling highway, where the mountains are so tall the sun doesn't rise till eight. The highways run in circles. The mist is gray. I spent a year trying to get those kids to tell me their stories, to dream big, to tell me where they wanted their highway to lead.
They didn't understand the question.
Ten months I taught them and they never understood the question.
It has taken me a year to even be able to look back on those months in the coalfields. My anxiety level ratchets up several notches and my mind tries to change the subject, tries to find something else to dwell on before I have to remember each specific face, so adult, so tired and old, so tragic on a seven-year-old. How I hated that look in their eyes. How I hated that year, trying to teach my kids something that can't be taught. Hope and dreaming and a little bit of peace. How to be a damn kid for a minute.
Some days – every day – I wish I could have another shot. Do better by those children. But this time last year, I couldn't force myself to stay. I put in my resignation and the nightmares stopped. I put a For Sale sign in the swampy yard of the house with messed-up plumbing and locked windows. I jumped on the highway at the first opportunity, drove up and up until the mist turned gold.
Left those kids behind.
When I was a kid, I thought every highway would go exactly where I wanted it to. I thought the mist would always be golden.
This time last year I had a foot on each end of the highway. Sold the house, moved three hours away, two weeks before school let out, and commuted to finish out my contract. Every morning I was in the car by four, driving down and down on roads that crumbled and steepened the further south I went.
This morning, children woke up there, in houses next to the crumbling highway, where the mountains are so tall the sun doesn't rise till eight. The highways run in circles. The mist is gray. I spent a year trying to get those kids to tell me their stories, to dream big, to tell me where they wanted their highway to lead.
They didn't understand the question.
Ten months I taught them and they never understood the question.
It has taken me a year to even be able to look back on those months in the coalfields. My anxiety level ratchets up several notches and my mind tries to change the subject, tries to find something else to dwell on before I have to remember each specific face, so adult, so tired and old, so tragic on a seven-year-old. How I hated that look in their eyes. How I hated that year, trying to teach my kids something that can't be taught. Hope and dreaming and a little bit of peace. How to be a damn kid for a minute.
Some days – every day – I wish I could have another shot. Do better by those children. But this time last year, I couldn't force myself to stay. I put in my resignation and the nightmares stopped. I put a For Sale sign in the swampy yard of the house with messed-up plumbing and locked windows. I jumped on the highway at the first opportunity, drove up and up until the mist turned gold.
Left those kids behind.
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