30 DAY LETTER CHALLENGE: DAY 8 – MY FAVORITE INTERNET FRIEND

Dear CM,

The very first thing I do when I log in to Facebook every day is to look to see if you’re on too.  I always say hi when you are.  We’ve known each other through cyberspace since December 2009 – it’s kinda funny, really, since we’re part of the same extended family…  my dad and your mom are cousins.  I am unsure what that makes us, even though I know we have tried to figure it out once.  I forget how we became friends in the first place, but I know that my grandmother might have had something to do with it.  Since we both have a common goal in life (to be published writers), it is really no surprise that we hit it off.  I am very glad of this, since I think Facebook would be very dull without your interesting and funny posts to look forward to every day.

You were working on your MFA in creative writing when we became friends.  I’ve thought about doing this myself, but since my own four years of undergraduate studies were long over and I was constantly struggling with back pain, I just couldn’t take the leap.  I loved reading your thesis – you’ve got talent, girl!  Promise me that you won’t stop writing, no matter what.  Even if it is just a poem here and there, write your little heart out.  Never ever give up on your dreams.  You and I – we’ll keep each other on track.

We are friends, I know, in every sense of the word.  We share personal stories, worries/stresses, opinions, and everything else we can think of.  There is a huge mutual trust between us – We can say anything to one another without worrying about being judged for it.  The judgment in our friendship is nonexistent, and that is awesome.  YOU are awesome.  I know I’ve told you that before, but I do not know if you really heard me.  YOU are awesome.  It’s only a matter of time before the world knows it too.

I believe in you.  BElieve in YOUrself.

Love,

DC

 

 

 

 

30 DAY LETTER CHALLENGE: DAY 5: MY DREAMS

Dear Dreams,

I am unsure how to write this letter, since you are not a person, but a thing, or things – intangible things, so bear with me here.  I can’t touch you unless something tangible comes out of you, until you come true.  I dream of a better tomorrow.  I dream of a cancer-free world.  I dream of writing for a living.  I dream of so many things I have yet to put words to.  Most of my dreams are earthly ones, but some are rooted in heaven above.  Or heaven around us.  I dream of being free of this body, of physical limitations.  I know one day all of these dreams will come true.  One day.  I remind myself almost daily that the sky is NOT the limit – there are footprints on the moon, after all.  My most favorite quote of all time (and you know that’s saying something, because I just love quotes) is the one by Audrey Hepburn that goes like this:  ”Nothing’s impossible.  The word itself says ‘I’m possible.’”

Nothing’s impossible, even for me.  Or maybe I should say especially for me.  I can do anything and everything I want to do.  It may take me longer than everyone else, but I have faith that I’ll get there.  Sometimes, something will take root in my heart (like childhood cancer advocating) and it does not let go.  The fire I have for writing?  You know it started long ago, when I was seven years old.  I always knew what I was supposed to do, but I wasn’t always sure of how I was going to do it.  One step at a time is how.

I know I tend to live in my own little world most of the time – I think it’s easier for me to believe in myself when I’m alone, because there isn’t anyone to tell me no, I cannot do what I want to do.  If I chase you, my dreams, then I actually feel like I am living.  Without you, I would not be able to move forward.  You are my hope for tomorrow.  I look forward to you coming to life, becoming my reality.  As long as I keep moving forward with my eyes on the prize, I know I’ll be okay.

And who knows?  Maybe you will be more than I could ever dream you will be.

Love,

Danielle

Then and Now

 This week, I saw someone I haven’t seen since I was a junior in high school.  One of my favorite hs teachers, Sue, came to see me Monday afternoon.  I was happy to see on Facebook last week that she was coming to Washington, and even more delighted when she posted on my wall that she was coming to Cashmere to visit her parents.  She asked if I was going to be around.  I said yes.  I sent her my cell number via Facebook message.  Sunday night, I got a text from a number I didn’t recognize, but I knew instinctively, it was her.  But still…  I had to ask to make sure (you can never be too careful).

She said her dad had errands to run in Wenatchee the next day (Monday), and if I wanted, he would drop her off at my house and pick her up on his way back home.  I got excited, and said yes, yes, yes.

I could hardly believe I was going to see Sue again.  I don’t remember the last time I saw her, but I know I was a few months away from turning 18.  She appeared so suddenly at the beginning of my sophomore year.  Her classroom was the best I’ve ever been in.  She had white Christmas lights strung around the ceiling, and she kept it dimly lit, especially for the first part of class – when we were writing in our journals.  It was very peaceful – calm and serene.

She had just gotten married the summer before, and has two step-kids.  It was very easy to see that her step-daughter, Brittany, who is the same age as my sister, adored her, and not hard to see why.  Sue has a very open and loving heart.  I remember once that I had missed a class for some reason, and she saw me in the halls before school started and asked me if I wanted to come catch up.  I did, so I followed her into her classroom.  She sat down at the student desks with me (they were in groups of four) and after I got my class journal out of my bag, she asked for my hand.  Confused, I gave her my good hand – my left.

She turned it palm up, and held it gently in both of hers, brushing her palm against mine.  ”You’re so young, Dani,” she murmured.

I was sixteen.  I looked down at my hand in hers too, and noticed that you could barely see any lines on it (not like you can now).  It was smooth and pale.  I have always known I look younger than I actually am (even today, people don’t guess I am 30).  Maybe that is a good thing, though.  Nobody really wants to look their age, especially if they are over a certain hump.

She released my hand, and told me to write down as many words I can think of to describe my hand and to craft a poem from those words.  Easy, peasy, right?

My hand – It’s a lightly drawn map to the end of time, holding its secrets within.  Nobody knows the stories it has.  It is stubborn – doing everything, leaving nothing for the other to do.  It is free, and it flies sometimes, across the keyboard, across paper, gripping a pen, writing, always writing.  My hand understands me, understands what it must do.  It understands what my mind does – that I am okay, even after the strange looks from my peers, even after the another silent day.  I hold my heart in my hand, even though no one sees it but me.  

That is not the actual poem I wrote back then, but rather a new one.  I was sixteen.  I didn’t keep everything I wrote, especially if I didn’t like it very much.  In many ways, I am a perfectionist…  if I put something down on paper, it has to be gold.  If not, I erase it or tear the page out.  I’ve ruined whole notebooks/journals doing this.

It is no wonder I don’t have a novel written by now.  I am working on it.  Baby steps.  Kaizen.    It’s a Japanese word that means improvement.  Nothing improves overnight – almost everything, every goal we have, takes time.  It’s kaizen time.

Anyways…

It was so nice to see Sue on Monday.  She loved meeting Buffy and the other dog, Kobe, and we talked about my friend Tammy, and I told her that I am going to be a bridesmaid in her wedding this summer.  I showed her the collage Tammy had made to ask me to be in her wedding and then I showed her the scrapbook album that Tammy sent me during the summer of 2010, while I recovered from the last major surgery I ever hope to have (Lord have mercy).  Sue loved it all.  She asked me if  Tammy was on facebook, and I said yes.  Then she said she’s going to invite herself to the wedding!  LOL!  I love it.  Tammy thinks Sue is awesome too, so I hardly think that will be a problem.

Throwing Off the Bowlines

Yes!  I have an idea.  Ever since it first came out, I have been enamored with “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold.  That book is thinking-outside-the-box at its finest!  Dead narrator, anyone?  And not just that – a murdered narrator.  There’s the hook, line and sinker, people.  I was enchanted by the novel from page one.  And when the movie came out, my sister and I went to see it in the theaters.  I loved that too.  And I loved it even more when I was able to watch the DVD with closed captioning.

Dear God, please bless the all the people who make Netflix.com possible.   BEST. IDEA. EVER.  And also, the local mail order library people.  I am so thankful for these things, without which my life would be less entertaining.  Amen.

So here is my idea:  write a novel about a woman (or maybe even a girl) who has a missing sister.  The sister is dead, although nobody knows that since they haven’t found a body.  I can juxtapose the sister’s narrative with the dead girl’s.   What happened to the dead girl?

(Insert frustrated scream here)

Why do the ideas keep coming?  Okay, God.  I get the hint.  I know what I am supposed to do.  And I will do it.  I know it will bring meaning to my life, bring everything into sharp focus.  Anything’s possible because with you make it so.  So I am throwing off the bowlines.  I am sailing away from safe harbor.  I am catching wind in my sails.  I am exploring, dreaming, discovering.  I am writing.

If my dreams come true, where would I go from there?

Today, I can only imagine how I would feel if my ultimate dream came true (the dream of becoming a published author and helping to vanquish childhood cancer – a tall order, I know, but with God, all things are possible).  Elated, no doubt.  On top of the world.  Invincible.  I would no doubt wonder why it took me so long to get there.  But everything happens when it does for a reason, right?  Or so I tell myself.

A family vacation would be first on my list.  It is kinda hard to plan a family vacation when somebody in your family coaches the high school girls’ basketball team (ahem, Dad).  There is a summer schedule.  Camps, practices, and tournaments.  There’s a couple weeks at the end of July where he’s free and then August comes and he goes back to work.  Next summer it would be fun to travel with my parents (and sister) to San Diego for my best friend’s wedding.  Thank goodness she is getting married the weekend after the 4th of July.  We can do this.  It might be expensive (maybe someday, I won’t even blink an eye at air fare costs or any other costs), but it will be worth it.  I am a bridesmaid in this wedding, so it will be super fun.

Disneyland is the first place on my wishlist to take my niece.  She’s on a Mickey Mouse kick right now, loves watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and saying “Up and away” over and over and over.  Oy vey!  Don’t get her started.  But seriously, she’s so fun.  Friday night, we watched The Little Mermaid together in my bedroom on my bed.  I haven’t seen that movie in such a long time.  Not since middle school, I believe. I asked her to say “Ariel.”  She goes, “Awiel.”  So cute.  It is moments like this, when she looks at me with her big, gorgeous, blue eyes that makes me determined to do everything I can for her.  For all my nephews-and-nieces-to-be.  I may not be able to be a mother in this lifetime, but I can be the fun aunt.

As for childhood cancer, well, I will just see where I end up with that.  I would love it if, one day, we can just give a child who is sick a shot or something with no serious side effects and then just send them on their way, to live a long, healthy, good life.  Not too long ago, I read that frankincense has amazing results with tumor fighting.  You can read the article for yourself here .  Maybe if they find out what it is in the stuff that kills cancer cells.  they can effectively treat cancer without tearing down the immune system in the process.  I now wish I paid more attention in biology when I was in high school.  I did not retain anything, except for the awful image of the poor frog I dissected.  Never mind.  I think I blocked that out too.

I would continue to write.  That’s not even a question.  I would love it if I could churn out a book a year like Jodi Picoult (like clockwork, she is, always the first week of March).  I have some stories in me about the Holocaust (yet another depressing thing).  I like the idea of being the voice that speaks for those who can’t speak for themselves.  I’d hire a personal assistant, someone to be my public voice.  That is how it works, right?  When you have a speech impairment and if you are a well-known published author?  I dunno.  I’d hire a driver too, because I can’t get from point A to point B by myself.  I’d kiss social disconnection goodbye for sure.  In my imagination, it would be quite the life.  I know I will ask myself, “What took me so long to get here?”

Everything worthwhile takes time, I guess.

Uninspired (All over the place)

Right now, I feel totally unmotivated.  Totally uninspired.  It’s awful outside.  Maybe that has something to do with it?  It probably does.  By the way, I am writing this on Wednesday (yesterday).  I refuse to turn on the TV until I have at least one blog post written – which is what I really want to do.  I must write,  Yesterday, I didn’t.  Bad me.  I want to watch Glee and Ringer but I can’t.  My right hearing aid is in for repairs.  What fun is Glee if you can’t hear it very well?  And Ringer, well, I want to hear Sarah Michelle Gellar’s voice.  It’s important to me.  Voices are important.

I am just typing thoughts as they come.  Like that quote says above, I am trying trying.  I’ve read time and time again that even if what comes out of you is garbage, you should write.  It’s how you get better.  So I am trying trying.  I refuse to say I can’t write.  I refuse to say I have writer’s block.  Maybe there is no such thing as writer’s block?  Maybe when we are feeling like that we are doing it to ourselves on purpose?  Sabotaging ourselves needlessly.  Or maybe it’s not me.  Maybe it’s the world.  The world is a depressing place.  Children getting sick, getting sicker, and then dying.  Whole families starving.  Wars.  Devastating earthquakes and other natural disasters.  Children disappearing.  Adults disappearing.  Without a trace.  What the frak, people?  Is this what we have come to? I know we don’t have any control over natural disasters, but seriously?   This is what we made the world into?  No wonder I don’t watch the news.  It’s too depressing.  I prefer fiction to reality sometimes.  Is that wrong?

It’s starting to get dark outside.  Maybe that is why I feel so uninspired.  I need sunlight to thrive.  I need wide open spaces full of light in order to be creative.  The world is my canvas, but people are not cooperating.  They want to be sad.  They want to be miserable.  Don’t they know that they have the right to be happy?  All they have to do is choose it.  Choose happiness.  Choose the light instead of the darkness.  Try trying, people.  Somewhere out there, there is somebody who is where we need to be.  Somebody who once was where we are now.  Those “others” are proof that it can happen for us, and that it will.  All you have to do is BELIEVE.

I should probably take my own advice, huh?

2011 Checkpoint

2011 is almost over.  How can that be?  I have realized two things this year.  Number one, I want to write.  ”You are writing,” you might say.  Well, I want to write more –  more than this blog.  I want to change the world with the impact of my words.  I do realize that actions speak louder than words, but words have to count for something, right?  So, 2012 will be a writing year for me, hopefully the first of many to come.  I already got some time down.  And number 2, I want to help end childhood cancer, by finding a cure.  It may not be in my lifetime, but if the world is closer to a cure when I die,  my life would have been worth something.

This is the year I finally woke up to what’s really important.  Do you realize that by the end of December 2011, 2,555 kids will no longer be alive because of childhood cancer?  Is that okay with you?  It’s not okay with me.  And also, 16,790 will have been diagnosed.  Is that a rarity?  NO.  These are CHILDREN we are talking about!  I will never ever understand why this is being glossed over by the whole freaking world.  By two of our past presidents, even.  Did you know that the 2nd President Bush had a sister who died of leukemia when she was just 3 years old?  Not many people do. Her body was donated to science in the hopes of finding a cure, but I am hard pressed to find any information about that.  As one of my friends said, “Priorities, effed sideways.”  This tells me that people are purposely shoving childhood cancer out the door and pretending it doesn’t exist.  Well, guess what, people?  It doesn’t work like that.  Life has a really bad rep.  It has a way of pulling the rug out from under you when you least expect it.  Those of you who read this and don’t feel anything inside, I pray that your children don’t ever get diagnosed with cancer.  It’s horrible.  Just ask my parents.  Ask any of my aunts and uncles and grandparents.  They remember what I do not.  Ask any parent who is watching helplessly as their child fights to live.  Ask any parent who is grieving because their child has died.

2012 will be a year of fighting for me…  I’ll do EVERYTHING I can to help bring a end to childhood cancer.  I will write and write and write until I begin to get heard.  Life may be short, but in the end, it is the only thing we have that is worth anything.  Cherish everything good and precious.  Cherish the children in your lives, and if they’re healthy, thank GOD everyday for that.

 

Dear 16-year-old me

Dear 16 year old me,

Hello there.  It’s me, fourteen years later.  I know you have it in you to believe it.  After all, once upon a time, I was you.  You believe in so much magic but you don’t believe that any of it can ever happen to you.  Why is that?  I know why.  It’s because you are afraid.  I remember the fear of those long ago days, the stink of it is never far from my memory, though I would like to give a big heave and push it off a big cliff.  I wouldn’t look away before it crashed to the ground – oh, no – I’d take major satisfaction of watching and hearing the crash.  Goodbye, fear.  Wasn’t nice knowing you.

Would you do me a favor?  Once a week, would you write a letter to Mersie?  She loves you so much and you’re not going to have as much time with her as you would like.  She’s starting to get sick.  And you know how every time you see her, she asks you to write to her.  So do it.  Don’t be afraid of having nothing to tell her.  Just telling her you love and miss her if nothing else comes to mind.  It’s what’s important, and someday, when you can’t tell her those things, you will know you did all you could for her, to make her happy in this life.

And as for school, well, there’s really no reason to be afraid of it.  It’s just school, after all.  Soon, this thing called high school will be nothing but a memory.  I know you already cherish your friends, but also, don’t take them for granted.  And don’t be afraid.  They’ll still be here for you when you are thirty.  I know how awful it feels when a teacher tells you class to break up into groups, and in a blink of an eye, you’re the only one whose desk hasn’t moved.  It’s totally embarrassing when that same teacher has to ask a group to include you too, I know.  You just want to earth to open up and swallow you whole.  But it’s not everything.  I know it may seem like it is, but it’s not.  Look around you.  Someday, these people are going to grow up, and you will grow up too.  High school will be a memory, and you’re all be, more or less, friends.

You will go to college, first at the local community college and then away at university to get your Bachelor of Arts.  Can you do me a favor here?  Can you major in Philosophy instead of English, and minor in Creative Writing?  The English major required classes are mostly boring.  Who needs to read Old English in this day and age?  Most of the required reading is really hard to read, hard to get into.  I know you will have a bad philosophy 101 experience at the community college, but stick with it.  Research accommodations the disability center has to offer, and know to ask for a transcriber right off the bat.  This will change your whole education.  Trust me.

The year after you graduate from college will be spent in pain.  The rod the doctors fused to your spine two years ago will be breaking down, and you need to get it fixed sooner rather than later.  In fact, just tell them to fuse the whole dang thing while you’re at it.  It will save you some time, back pain,  and it will save you from the pain of falling down the stairs a couple times.  This surgery will prompt your parents to build an extension to the house so you can have a room on the main floor.  By the time you get your dog in 2008, you will already have a back door and stoop, so you can go out with her.  It will save you frustration, believe me.

And my last piece of advice is to WRITE!  Start a blog when you’re recovering from the surgery, to help get you through the antagonizing summer and fall that follows.  You will be bored otherwise.  Write short stories.  Write screenplays.  Write a novel.  Just write.  Enter contests.  Send stuff to publishers and literary agents.  Don’t worry about what comes after.  I tell you this because I am still afraid of it.  Just go with the flow.  Trust God.  Above all else, TRUST GOD.  You’ll get to where you need to be when the time comes.

Love, Me

On Good Writing

To write well, you have to… you’ve got it…  write!  After all, practice makes pefect.  The rules have let up a lot over the years, and now, in the 21st century, anything pretty much goes.  Do you think “Room” by Emma Donoghue (narrated by 5 year old Jack) has good syntax and grammar?  Nope.  It reads as if it was written by a 5 year old, as it should.  That was the point.  Donoghue could have told the story in third person, or even from the point of view of his mother, but I don’t think the story would have been as good.  We needed the story in Jack’s voice.

I know my writing is far from perfect.  Sometimes it reads smoothly, and sometimes it is just awkward.  But that’s all right.  Here, I am blogging, typing away as fast as I can.  Sometimes I don’t even look over it before I publish.  Most of the time I don’t even think about it.  I should think about it, but I don’t.  I am rushing, tumbling head over heels toward the next post.  I get ahead of myself.  Luckily I know how to spell.  Luckily, I know about punctuation.  Sometimes I get my past tense and present tense mixed up.  It’s still a learning process.  I think it will always be a learning process.  Did you know that in stories you can have dead narrators?  I did not, until I read “The Lovely Bones”.  I want to do that – I want to think outside the box.

Do you think that everything can be written has been written?  Maybe that is true in some ways, but we all have individual brains and individual thoughts.  It’s okay to take something from another writer, play with it a little, poke at it, change it around, and make it our own.  For example, I love Jodi Picoult’s way of using multiple narrators.  I think if I write that way, I will not become bored with the story and stop writing it.  If it’s just one narrator, you get only one side of the story and you’re limited in what you can do. But with multiples, you’re giving other characters a voice too, and the possibilities are endless.  You can also resurrect characters from other authors and use them or the idea of them in your writing.  I remember watching “Lost in Austen” a couple years ago.  In it, a modern day Austen fan ends up (like Alice in Wonderland) with the Pride and Prejudice characters, lost in the book.  Wayward character.  This delighted me to no end.  I could have a blast doing this in my own writing.

With writing, there is always, always, always room for improvement.  I know I have a lot to work on.  I procrastinate a lot.  And I mean, a lot!  I am not particularly mindful of the way I construct my sentences.  I write how I think.  Sometimes in fragments.  Sometimes in long rambling sentences that don’t really say anything other than the fact that they got away from me.  I don’t always catch my typos.  Sometimes my writing is passive.  And sometimes I make factual errors, talking a wild guess and typing whatever I want.  But that is the beauty of fiction.  Anything goes!

Risk

Years ago, probably in high school, I came across a short little poem that spoke volumes of truth to me.  It was called “Risk” and it was written by Anais Nin.  It goes:

And then the day came,

when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to blossom.

Those eight lines, short as they are, say so much.  It costs us to hide away, just as it costs us to live up to our potential. It costs in different ways.  In the former, we are denying ourselves the world, and denying the world the chance to get to know who we are.  When I don’t write, when I do nothing but procrastinate all day, I don’t get anywhere, as far as life goes.  Tomorrow comes, and I am still in the same place.  The good news is that I am no longer stuck.  I am no longer waiting for the perfect time.  The perfect time is now.  I am inspired.  Life has inspired me.  I have so many ideas and it is time for them to come out.  And they will.  My ideas will blossom and I will move from Procrastination Island to Productive City.

First on my list:  the short story, prompted from the image of the path I posted a week or so ago.  It’s dusk.  Shadows everywhere.  Main characters are teenagers, a boy and a girl.  They’re together.  Holding hands.  The boy is running, dragging the girl along behind him.  She protests.  Says she’s scared.  He promises he won’t let anything happen to her.  The girl stops, so the boy does too.  The girl looks to the sky.  She says they should go back, before it gets dark.  But the boy insists on continuing, and so they do.  The girl trusts the boy.  Where are they going?  Where does the path lead?

I do not yet know.  I have to listen to my muse.   It’s a risky thing, writing this story.  The story itself will be about risk, and it’ll be a risk for me to write it because I have never written anything like this before.  But if I don’t do it, I’ll be missing out.  Shying away from my true potential.  Staying in my safety zone.  The truth is, though, the life of a writer is all about taking risks.  Yes, I will be rejected more times than I care to imagine.  I will just do what Richard Castle did in the ABC show Castle:  frame my first rejection letter.  Staying positive is the only way I can see to live MY life.