Reading, Writing and no Arithmetic!

Today was the 13th annual Francelia Butler Conference at Hollins.

I actually helped out with a lot of different parts. I helped collect doodles from different professors, wrap said doodles, set-up the auction items and various decorations, and I even did a little skit in-between some of the readers. I had to sing. I know. You don't have to tell me.

It was a lot of fun and I'm on the "future planning committee" so I'll have an even bigger part to play next summer. That is if I don't . . .

Go to LONDON FOR SIX FREAKING WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next week they will unveil next summer's trip to London and Oxford. OMG. It's so hard because one of my classmates who has been here for several years mentioned to me that I might be a good person to help co-run the conference next year. So there's that. But then there is a chance to study in the place where my particular field of study frickin began.

Unfortunately they only take 15 people, you have to pay a gazillion dollars on top of the normal tuition costs (keep in mind this is a private school), and I have to apply and probably write an essay to just kept a chance to go. However, unless they tell me it's going to cost more than Bryan and I agreed on, I will be trying. Maybe. Unless someone gives me a chance to do something really important for my career. So right now it's up in the air.

Back to the conference. Some of the highlights include hearing my classmates read; I especially loved the creative work and I was so thrilled that one of my pals won with her awesome story about a girl hitchhiking to a destination unknown. It was one of those great 60s stories with lots of good Southern dialect thrown in. Beautiful.

I also had fun trying to win things! We had a silent auction that raised buckets of money. I had my eye on a copy of Robert Heinlein's Grumbles from the Grave, two Chris Van Allsburg prints and a framed poster of a knight and lady. In the end, I only won the prints because I got into a bidding war with someone over the Heinlein book and when I found out who it was and we talked about it, she was willing to spend more money than me. We had to use kiddie lit. pseudonyms and I was Hermione from who know who. The prints are cool though and I imagine they will work well in some capacity some day--if anything, in my dorm room next year:

Both prints are of children sleeping. Sorry about the flash but it goes all blurry if I turn it off.

I also bought, from our in-residence craft lady extraordinaire, this frame:

It has a Peter Pan theme and it's simply perfect. I'm not sure what I'm going to use it for, but I'll think of something.

It was a fun day and I am really starting to mesh with some of my classmates and spend more time with them outside our classes. Today we are having our "Halloween in June" party and I really thought I would be checking out early on this one, but I bought some ridiculous gear and I'm going. One of my roommates is going to be a "Harry Potter Trading Card" and the other will be Hermione. Pictures will follow, but I'm not going to tell you my costume yet. You'll just have to wait.

Also, one of my favorite parts of today was meeting Michael Patrick Hearn. He wrote the Annotated Wizard of Oz and basically knows everything there is to know about L. Frank Baum. A few things he cleared up for us today:

1) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is not about early 20th century economics. The yellow brick road does not reflect the Gold Standard and Dorothy's silver shoes have nothing to do with silver values during Baum's life.
2) Dorothy was not dreaming when she went to Oz. It is a real place, at least in Baum's mind. The movie made it seem like she had been ill and that's why she dreamed it. Apparently that is not the case.
3) The man, W. W. Denslow, who illustrated the first book was partly the reason that L. Frank Baum became so popular with publishing companies, and yet he died a pauper and today very few people credit him with having anything to do with the franchise.

He's doing an annotated collection of Edgar Allan Poe's stories, which I will probably buy the second it comes out. And just in case some people don't know what I mean by "annotated," it means that he has gone back and researched EVERYTHING he can about the author, the work, its allusions, its vocabulary, etc. It's like a biography, history textbook, and novel in one.

Here's me with "da man":

Doesn't he look like the quintessential scholar?

Not to mention he's super personable. Not at all stuffy or high brow like so many scholars. You could actually have a meal with him and talk about sports or something. Very cool.

Even he seemed surprised I wanted a picture with him, but writers are my rock stars. Especially ones that can combine a knowledge of history with their own skills as a writer. Now if I could just meet Philip Pullman . . . I could die happy. For real.

Can I turn off my brain?

I'm not sure if it was a dream last night, but when I was trying to drift off to sleep I kept seeing flashes of light in front of me and hearing curse words in my head. (I know this sounds like something out of a Twilight Zone episode, but whatever.)

I turned over on my other side and the flashes went away. I drifted off shortly afterward.

While that event in itself is frightening, it's very reflective of my current state. I can't turn my brain off. I'm not going to go into all the things troubling my psyche right now, but I have way too much time to dwell on the most trivial of issues. A sampling would include:

What am I going to do with this degree?
Are my writing/thinking skills competitive enough to make a difference in this field?
What conferences, journals, call for papers, should I be hurriedly responding to?
How will I construct the two essays I've got to write?
When will I stop having to read a novel a day?

What is truly silly about these mostly rhetorical questions is that they won't matter the second I step foot on Raleigh soil again. As much as I love the mountains and the camaraderie and the discussions, we are almost too closed off here. I'm used to having day-to-day concerns, but here, other than eating, I'm left mostly to my own devices. Which, for someone apt to over thinking situations, is not a good thing. I'm going to be OK as soon as I move away from this computer and stop googling various young adult-related journals, but still . . . .

I had Tourette's for like five seconds last night. What's up with that?

And for a completely random conclusion--there's a bunny outside my window. Awwww.

Fairy Tales

I was a fairy tale junkie when I was a kid. I had my mom's old copies of Grimms and Hans Christian Anderson, which I would read over and over again. I lived for Disneyfied cartoon versions of these tales and I think I watched Aladdin about 50 times one very boring summer. Part of me just loved the cheesy romance and the other part of me loved the fantastical elements. Now I've grown up and become "the biggest feminist" that Chris Baskett (one of my students) knows. Whatever I may have believed about romance is now countered by six years of a happy but very real marriage. I still love fantasy but modern fantasy is easy to digest because many novels have strong female protagonists and there are even stories that don't feature a love interest. Thus I could give a future child any number of fantasy stories and feel that I was giving him/her good literature.

But let's review a canonical fairy tale, shall we?

Cinderella:

This is the tale of a woman who allows her "evil" stepmother to force her into household service (wimp). She calls on birds to assist her with her chores (helpless). Then she decides that she must go to the big ball (materialistic) where she meets the man of her dreams who loves her based on her looks (shallow). Rather than show him who she really is she attempts to escape (the "real" story had her attend several balls, not just one) and the day of the last ball, she drops her shoe (dainty). After having no luck with getting the shoe on the big-footed step-sisters (thus signifying their lack of femininity which becomes their downfall), the shoe fits on the lovely Cinderella who has incredibly tiny feet (Chinese ideal). And she lives happily ever after. If I were to teach this story literally, here is what my students would (in theory) learn from it:
1) Whatever crappy things happen to you, you just have to take it because eventually it will get better.
2) That when facing any difficult task in life you will have help to overcome it (birds, fairy godmother).
3) That one must hide one's flaws (Cinderella hiding her poor attire).
4) That step-families are evil.
5) That a man will rescue you from your crappy life if you're attractive enough.

With the popularity of the Disney Princesses line, I think it's a good thing to at least look at what ideas we're introducing our children to. Admittedly, I read this tale and watched the Disney film many times as a child, and I still was able to see past the superficiality of the relationships within it. However, there are lots of little girls (and teenage girls) who believe some of these ideas about beauty and men, so not everyone hears the tale without being influenced by it.

The Cinderella "formula" has been around since the 7th century, so it does promote an ancient concept of love and a woman's place within society. In other words, it's dated. And there are several good novels out as well as the film Ever After that try to update it. But the Disney Cinderella is still out there (apparently you can buy a standee of her for $32.95 since that's where I got the picture above). Should we encourage young girls and boys to read fairy tales which often describe women as helpless until a man comes and rescues them from their various dilemmas? What's really awful is that the fairy tales that didn't follow this formula, like one called "Tattercloak," fell out of circulation in the Grimm and Anderson collections. So anything that might have offered a different perspective died out because they weren't as popular as the traditional tales.

I don't know what the answer is--there is a part of me that would want my daughter and/or son to read and watch films that do not make her/him feel like she/he has to be this caricature of womanhood/manhood. However, I grew up loving those films for their sentimentality and cute supporting actors (namely the mice or whatever creature was the hero/heroine's assistant). So why shouldn't children of the 21st century get to have their own say? I guess the compromise is to expose them to it but talk to them about what they think of Cinderella's decisions and how the story ended. I don't believe in censoring literature for language or unpopular ideas, but I also think that fairy tales can be dangerous because they don't specify a specific time or place, so in theory, they could be happening in a small European country somewhere. Whereas tales of women being mistreated in ancient Rome are historical and not timeless. We can look at them and say, "Aren't we glad it's not like that anymore!" With fairy tales, they are archetypes, so they live on forever in several chic lit. and romance books out there. Thus they stop being "once upon a time" and become very much a part of the modern world. As with all things, the discussion is necessary even if it does yield a definitive answer.

AHHHHHHHHHHH!

Routine

I've gotten into a very consistent routine here. I get up around 7:30AM. Do the shower thing and get ready. Eat breakfast. Ride my bike to class. Sit in class for three hours (which is easier than it sounds). Go to the gym (Mon., Wed. and Fri.). Ride back to the apartment for lunch. Read /write for two hours. Take a nap. Read/write some more. Eat dinner. Read/write some more. Go to bed.

I know. Boring, right?

The consistency can be a little unnerving at times. There is ALWAYS ANOTHER BOOK TO READ! I like reading; I would go as far as to say it's my favorite past time, but this is required reading to an extreme. Plus this weekend we've got the Butler Conference which is a student-run critical/creative paper extravaganza. We get to sit and listen to 14 folks read their papers (about 15-20 min. each) and then listen to a keynote speaker talk for who knows how long. Some of this will be very interesting. Some of it will be mind numbing. Afterwards they are having a Halloween in July party but most of the people I've talked to just laugh because most of us are probably going to go home and crash.

It's tough because I had such a good time with Bryan last weekend and as much as I will enjoy hanging out with my classmates, I will be sad that I won't be having a repeat experience of last week. :-(

In addition, I finished my first Hollins paper and I think it definitely exhibits some suckage, so I'm going to try to get my professor to give it the old once-over tomorrow and help me out because I've gotten to that place where I've read it too much and I just can't look at it anymore and be objective. As a teacher, I know how annoying it is to read long rough drafts (this one clocks in at 7 pages, which is 3 more than it needed to be), so I'll see what I can get out of her. The good news is that our class is the only thing she's working on right now so in theory she's got the free time. We'll see.

On rereading this entry, I sound maudlin and I don't mean to be--I think the fact that I have to go to the gym before class tomorrow (eek!) is weighing on me a little. Getting up at 6:30AM is too reminiscent of the school year for me. And even then I usually didn't get out of bed until 6:50. So it's going to be an early day. However they are having a screening of Serenity tomorrow night so if I get all my homework completed like a good girl then I can go. Fingers crossed.

Paper Time

It's 1AM, and I'm about three pages into my first essay for Hollins. It's not due until Friday, so, no, I am not procrastinating.

Today I read my third "flying off to Mars" book for sci-fi. The only problem with this one was that it had really pathetic romance scenes in it that overwhelmed the science portions of the book. Yes, I am one of those people. The kind of people who lift up their noses to books with high-heeled shoes on them or people discussing what brand of purse THEY MUST HAVE within its pages. I hate "chic lit." as they call it. I hate romance novels. I feel that both are fluff and should be treated as such. So whenever a romance writer gets all high and mighty about how his/her work should be respected and treated with the same reverence as Joyce Carol Oates or Tom Wolfe, I want to remind them that their books feature "aching bosoms" and "shoe fetishes" and thus are not works that I would ever consider taking seriously for a split second. Sorry. It's not that we shouldn't have such books because obviously there is an audience for them, but they shouldn't be expecting to be featured in the New York Times, that's all I'm saying.

I'm Back!

Let's start off with the good news.

I got to see Bryan!!

The bad news is that it took me four hours to get to him. Even now I can't tell you what went wrong. On Saturday, I got in my car at 8:15AM and drove down the street to the McDonald's to get some breakfast. I turned around, got on what I thought was 220 South and happily zoned out as I thought about my upcoming reunion with "meus vir."

About 45 minutes into the drive, I noticed that none of the signs were counting down the miles to Danville or any other town in southern Virginia. In fact, they were talking about Richmond, which is in the eastern part of the state. Then I looked for a highway sign--and saw one for 64East and 81North. Huh?

I pulled over at an exit and checked out the 1990 U.S. Atlas that is in my car and I realized what was wrong. I WAS DRIVING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION! Yes, after an hour in the car, I figured out that I was going north instead of south. Somehow I had turned onto 220 North instead of south and that led me to the two interstates mentioned above. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to cry or scream because now I was going to be late AND Bryan wasn't going to know what was going on because, again, he doesn't have a cell phone.

Using my trusty atlas, I tried to figure out an alternate route so that I wouldn't have to back track all the way to Roanoke and then back down to Danville. I thought that I could take a smaller highway and cut across to an interstate that heads right into Danville, so I turned around and went south and took the appropriate exit.

However, I couldn't find the minuscule highway I needed to use to cut across, and, after pulling to the side of the road at least three times, I gave up and headed back to Roanoke.

My inner fury at that point is hard to describe now. I was so frustrated. I get to see my husband for maybe 26 hours and I just lost two of them to my own stupidity. For those of you with GPS crap in your cars, I don't want to hear it. I like my archaic way of traveling and even though some computer telling me how to get to Danville would have saved me all this grief, it would not have been as good a story. So blah.

To alert Bryan of my situation, I called 411 (sorry, Mom--you can send Bryan a bill) and called the motel we were staying at (and meeting at) to see if they could keep an eye out for him and give him the message that I was going to be about 2 hours late.

At noon, rather than at 10, I pulled into the Innkeeper's parking lot and encountered my husband coming out of a room with a smile on his face. He had gone into the office when he got there to get something to drink and they asked him if he drove a big red box-like car (my description of his Element) and gave him the message that I would be late. Apparently he was quite incredulous at first, "What do you mean she went the wrong way?" But they let him check in five hours early and watch some TV while he waited for his tardy wife to appear.

Thus, it was a very rested Bryan who greeted me. I was so happy to see him that I didn't even care we had lost two hours because we still had 24 to go. The Innkeeper actually turned out to be a decent hotel. It was the cheapest place we could find on hotels.com, but it was clean and they had a decent breakfast buffet this morning. Here are some pics:

The sign I had been waiting for! For FOUR HOURS!

Our snazzy room. To be fair, it had a microwave, fridge and a king-size bed (quite an improvement from the twin I've been sleeping in for the past week).

Danville itself is not very interesting. The park I had investigated and printed out maps for was really intended for mountain bikers, and since we were sans bikes, we walked for about an hour and a half and left it at that. Danville also doesn't have a Target, which was unfortunate because I needed to buy a new bike helmet because mine is missing one of its clips. In addition, Danville has the most confusing highway system I've encountered in a while. They have a mixture of four highways with various bypass and business labels and it was not a system we could master in the 12 hours we were driving around it. We made a lot of u-turns. Thus, our feeling, at the end of our stay, was that Danville sucks and we'll be trying a different town for our next meet-up. However, they have very funny signs including this one that I snapped on the way out of town:

Needless to say, I did not see this sign stop flashing on the 40mph road it was on. I love U.S. speed limit laws.

Generosity

Today one of my professors called me "incredibly intelligent." Ha. Coincidentally we dissected a children's book called Neenie Coming, Neenie Going where the protagonist is full of herself because she lives in the city now and is visiting her family on a small island off the coast of South Carolina. In one picture she looms over her grandmother and cousin because her "head is so big." So today I'm kind of like this:
Just be glad that you don't have to witness it for yourself. The whole reason it came up was because I volunteered to be on this Southern Humanities Council that one of her colleagues is operating and she has to fill out a recommendation form for me. Since she has only known me for a total of six hours of class time, I asked her if she wanted me to send her a resume or something to help her find some things to talk about. She said that she'd think about it and get back to me because she already had some sense of my abilities and that's when she gave me the ego boost that frankly I needed because I'm among a lot of very talented writers and it was nice to know someone sees some potential in me.

Now on to why I called this entry "generosity." I went to a reading tonight by Nancy Ruth Patterson who is one of the most engaging speakers I have ever encountered. Funny. Personal. Encouraging. She had "presence," as I like to say. She did say one thing that I will definitely take with me though and that is the idea that our writing should be seen as an act of generosity rather than as a means of earning an income or entertaining others. This idea goes along with her belief that writers should write their dedication page first because then their work truly is a gift to someone--the person he/she dedicated the book to. For some reason that makes my first novel easier to write because I know who I want to write the book for and I know why I want to "give" them that sort of novel. So a book that was about fun in my mind is now a testament to the way someone lived his/her life.

Tomorrow I get to see my husband, which is also why my head and smile are so big right now. I will not be updating until Sunday when I get back from the exciting town of Danville, VA, where we will be rendezvousing tomorrow in an effort to shorten a 3.5 hour drive for one person to 1.5 to 2 hour drives for both of us. I have no idea what we're going to do in Danville for 24 hours, but, you know what, I really don't care. After this visit, it will be two weeks before I see Bryan again so I am going to try really hard to enjoy every minute and leave my computer at Hollins along with whatever novel I should be reading this weekend.

I will leave you with some of Nancy Ruth Patterson's beautiful words:

"Because I do remember so many people from my own life fondly, I keep on writing, even though it is usually a struggle for me. I do not ever want the goodness I have found in life to be lost. I want the best I know of life—the strength of my mother and the optimism of my father, the goodness of my grandmother and the honesty of my grandfather, the spirit of my brother and the faith of my friends, my gratitude for my students and the encouragement from my editors—to live on through the characters in my books. I want the lives of those I love to live on through my words. That, quite simply, is why I am a writer."