Jens October Road

Today, like all days, I wake quietly hoping for the sun to shine and the day to make sense. I have not written in a few days and feel full of thoughts.

I have to start by settling into my i-pod. I load it full of songs that stir my thoughts and keep me moving through my life, like flipping through a magazine.

Today, I am feeling the season changing, the weather has cooled down, leafs are turning and my mind is racing. It's "Little Big Town" singing "Bring it on home to me". One of my favorite songs...reminds me of last year.

I was sick, and faced with a health crisis. Not knowing what the outcome would be made me think long and hard about my life and how I was living it. I think at 30 something, I look back at the choices I have made and wonder why I made them. Little big town makes me think about love...something I am not comfortable thinking about, unless it is related to the way I feel about my girls or my dogs...relationship is something totally different and I don't like to think about love when thinking about me and my life choices for men and relationships.

There is a part of the song that says "I'm going to lie with you until you fall asleep". I cry, uncontrollably. I remember when I went to foster care, the first time I was sick. I had a fever and I was in a state placement, waiting for a foster home. I had a room that was shared with another girl, her name was Lisa. I remember there was an orange chair, hard and plastic. I put on my mother's robe, one she packed with a few of my things and she brought them to the place I would be calling home for the next year.

In the robe, I found used tissue in the pockets, gross to some but to me, a piece of my mom, a piece of home. I could smell Charlie perfume on the tissues and I held them while I sat in the chair with the covering of the window draped over the chair so I could feel isolated away from the reality I was in. I stared hard at the trees outside, trying to make the blocks of blurry window disappear so I could feel like I was outside, under the tree thinking and not inside in a life I didn't choose, one I was unsure of and afraid to face.

When I reported I did not feel well, a nurse came and took my temperature and then left again only to return later with medication, in a little cup. She stayed as I emptied the medication into my hand from the cup and then she gave me a grape flavored liquid to take the pills with.

There was no hug, not a pat on the back or a bedside talk to see if I needed anything or to rub my head or run her fingers through my hair until I fell asleep....she just gave me the medication and disappeared telling me that I would not need to dress for dinner in the cafeteria and that a tray would be sent to me.

It's not that being sick at home was the greatest, it's just that my thought of not being at home would have been for things to be better somewhere else. I thought somewhere else would mean someone cared more or remembered me and was not too busy to sit with me and I would not feel alone...or scared. I felt both...why was this not what I had in mind?

Missing dinner in the cafeteria was a relief, I remember the first time I went from the "Unit", that is what it was called I don't know why but that is what it was...unit C-3, I saw highchairs and little tiny chairs, like for babies and little ones. I could not believe we were all on this island together, it made me wonder what they could have done to anyone, why would they not have a mom and a dad somewhere wanting them.

Why are they here with me, I am 11 and maybe I am not wanted but how could they not be wanted? They are not old enough to have done anything wrong. I see in them the same thing I see in us all...fear and abandonment, I hated going to eat, I had to pass by them every day. I always smiled and made a little wave, I remember them smiling back and sometimes waving but even they knew better than to act without asking...mostly we exchanged faces, not so much motions. I loved them...

My fever burns day and night for a few days and no one came, just the nurse with that stupid cup, nothing more. A tray 3 times a day, now reduced to really yucky food, liquid, nothing to really eat. I am sick so I am being punished to yucky food I hate. I am punished to my room, the TV hall is off limits because someone will catch whatever it is I have...they never said but I guess looking back it must have just been a flu.

I look outside at the tree's, they are beautiful. I want to go outside. I want out, I don't know what I want into but I know I don't want to do this, hard chair, stupid nurse, yucky food and nothing more. Not my idea of a new life or a new adventure. How was I going to know that it wasn't just my mother who didn't want an 11 year old girl, it was most people. I had no idea how little value I was to anyone....being sick, alone and 11 seemed to sum it up for me.

So, Little Big Town sings it at 30 something and I realize, I never wanted to go to sleep alone. I made alone an OK place to be but really, I want to go back and tuck that sick girl in and stay with her, running my fingers through her hair until she falls asleep.

I guess the season changing always makes me look at change, past and future. I am not sure I want to spend the rest of my days alone in bed. I think after last summer I want to wake up with someone I fell asleep with.

Today, I still sleep alone and wake up alone. Well, my girls sleep with me! That is pretty fun, we fall asleep sometimes talking and laughing so hard! I am thankful for my girls and for the void they fill in my life. I am glad they will never fall asleep sick with no one. I would never leave them! I am the BEST sick mom ever! I take the best care of sick little girls! They have the best memories of being sick! Even their Friends like to be sick at my house! This makes my days alone seem worth it! Maybe I wouldn't be the best caretaker if I would have been taken care of, how would I know what someone might miss unless I missed it myself? I am glad for my ability to care for my girls when they are sick!

So, fall being one of my most difficult times in life, I am holding fast! I am remembering things come full circle and time is something I have. Hope is not lost for now, my head seems still and I am not as tired as I have been some days, this helps, I think I can make it.

On my road, I am going to make sense of everything up until now and piece it together to build what my life will be, out of what it has been! This will be a first, piecing it all together in writing. Feels scary, a little too honest but completely necessary. I can't come this far and not come out stronger, on the other side of things

Author's Note

Ignore grammar please. This will eventually move from a journal to a book.

Reviews

[Griffin Hill]

AUDIENCE: Who’s the audience?

STATUS:
• Rough Draft?

STRUCTURE (Keep in mind that I am not a grammar expert, but I’m pretty good at catching the obvious stuff);
• Spelling: OK
• Grammar: OK
• Adverb (overuse): OK
• Fragmented Sentences: para 4 - “Not knowing...”; para 13 - “Not my idea...”; para 18 - “Feels a little too honest...”;
• Run-on sentences: para 4 - “Little Big Town...”; para 5 - “I put...”; para 6 - “I could smell Charlie perfume...”; para 9 - “I thought somewhere...”; para 12 - “I am sick...”; “I am punished (?) to my room...”; para 13 - “I want out,...”; para 14 - “So, Little Big Town... [should be in quotes or italicized an is a run-on]”; “I made alone (?)...”; para 17 - “Hope is not lost...”;
• Passive Voice: Quite a bit, but probably appropriate in it’s present form; it’s just a first person narrative. It feels like reading someone’s journal which is a little unnerving since that’s not something typically shared. Para 12 - “...punished to my room...(?)”;
• Showing/Telling: This is a very moving story that would really benefit from more showing and less telling. (See below for my thoughts on S/T)
• Pacing: The pacing is good, the story moves along naturally.
• Suddenn Shifts: There are some sudden shifts. We start off somewhere ‘unknown.’ >> ‘State Placement’ (Is this a hospital?) >> Today. There’s no clear progression of scenes and we don’t we get very little description of scenes.
• Description: some good one’s but not enough for me to ‘see’ the experience.
• Excessive Exposition: basically one long first-person narrative. Which is ok...but I think it would make a very compelling story.
• Vocabulary/Repetiion/Word Choice: a bit. ‘Think’; ‘yucky’; were used quite a lot.
• Wordiness or confusing sentences: para 4 - “Little big town (initial cap)... relationships.“; para 6 - “I could smell Charlie perfume...”; para 8 - Whole paragraph is one long sentence.; “...disappeared telling...(?)”; para 9 - “I thought...”;

INITIAL IMPRESSION
I think you need a stronger lead. I’d like to see the action start right in the hospital. I’d also like to see more about the hospital and the character’s it contained. I only get fleeting glimpses of what’s outside of you. The story is in your head, not on the page. That’s not a bad thing, I just think it would be a stronger story if there were more showing.

I love the premise of not being mothered and being a mother and how the experience made you stronger, but you still struggle. That’s great tension, I want to know more about how this character grows from this experience. Does she really make it in the end? Or is her past too much to bear?

I wold move or cut the “song” references maybe to the before para 14: “So, ‘Little Big Town.’ I think the reference to music is good, it is the only thing during the hospital scene that gives you peace; later your daughters bring you peace.

SCENE
Setting: not clear
Character: not clear
Problem/Obstacle: not clear
Motivation: somewhat clear toward the end; to be a better mother than your mother
Resolution: not clear

CHARACTER
• Character Development: sketchy
• Continuity: jumps around a bit
• Dialogue: none
• Information Dump: no
• Most Compelling Character & why: narrator; some good descriptions of what’s going on in her head. I particularly liked: “songs...stir my thoughts...”; “...feel full of thoughts...”; both strong emotional descriptions.
• Least Compelling Character & why: nurse. All she does is deliver a cup of medication...we don’t know if it’s pills or liquid or what? More descriptions/scene here would have been interesting.

PLOT
• Exposition: all
• Rising Action: no; short vignettes.
• Climax; no
• Falling Action; no
• Denouement; no

• Did any plot shifts pleasantly surprise you? no, but weren’t annoying either...just seemed out of place but it was easy to tell where we were, but not why we were there?
• Did you feel lost at any point? Yes.
• Plausible? Definitely

OVERALL IMPRESSION
Strengths: Has tremendous potential for a very compelling story; lot’s of emotion here under the surface.
• Favorite Passage: “I load it (iPod) full of songs that stir my thoughts and keep me moving through my lie,...”
• Passage felt most present: “In the robe, I found used tissue...”

Weaknesses
• Least Favorite Passage: Para 4 - all the run-on about “Little Big Town” - I’m not familiar with the song and the text doesn’t tell me why it matters other than somehow it matters to the narrator. I would develop it more to make it meaningful or cut it. If you keep it, I would move further down the story. I think the story needs to start with the dominant scene; the reader doesn’t know where they are until para 5 and the it isn’t really clear.

This has SO MUCH potential. I really think you should work on this story more. I would definitely want to know more. Tell me more.

—
Here’s my two-cents of Showing vs. Telling:

Showing vs. telling is an important aspect of creating effective description.

“Telling” refers to the process of creating text which does not speak to the imagination of the reader. Writing which “tells” is plain and straightforward, yet often has difficulty involving the reader. An example of a “telling” sentence would be, “Kathy was sad.” This sentence tells the reader what judgment needs to be made about Kathy, yet does not provide the evidence to support that judgment. For example, how do we know that Kathy is sad? How is she behaving? What does she look like?
“Showing” generally incorporates vivid descriptive detail in order to help the reader evaluate evidence in order to make the appropriate judgments.
• The first method for showing more in your stories is to include the senses. Everything we learn comes to us by way of: sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste.
• Emotions are another tool to draw the reader in.
• Avoid unnecessary dialogue. Consider:

“Mmmm...pie,” Rachel said hungrily.”

Seems pretty straight-forward, huh? Yes and no. It does cut to the chase and tell the reader that Rachel is hungry, but it falls flat. In other words, it’s rather boring and doesn’t grab the reader and entice him to continue. Now consider this:

“Rachel eyed the pie and zipped across the room to where it sat on the counter, tempting her with its sticky, sweet aroma.”

There are a couple of things at work here. First, I took out the unnecessary dialogue (dialogue in itself is okay, as long as it is furthering the story, which the previous example was not). Second, I used interesting action verbs. Notice, I resisted the temptation to write ‘immediately zipped,’ because it would have been redundant (‘zipped’ implies quick movement). Third, I added detail. Now the reader knows it was the pie’s aroma that enticed her to hunger for it.

Your goal is to strike a balance between SHOWING and TELLING; telling is not always bad. If you need to tell, one trick is to make sure it’s in the POV’s voice. As long as it’s something your POV would think/say/wonder, it usually flows seamlessly with the text.

Showing vs. Telling Checklist:
Symptom: Too many cerebral verbs. Your characters think, feel, hope, suspect, fear, regret and understand.
Solution: Rather than naming emotions, describe what’s going through their head.

Symptom: Weak verbs such as entered, moved, went, fell, rose, describe outcome rather than effect.
Solution: Show specific actions “Jorge lumbers into the room or Lydia glides”

Symptom: Use of the verb to be (is, were, are) produce static writing that doesn’t demonstrate action.
Solution: Rephrase using stronger verbs “It was a hot day day when Jorge found a dead man who was slumped over the workbench” could be rewritten as, “The heat pounded Jorge’s back as he heaved open the garage door and found a dead man slumped over the workbench”

Symptom: Adverbs, they weaken action and tell readers what’s happening rather than show them.
Solution: “Jorge belted/charged/raced along the sidewalk in pursuit of the purse snatcher is more evocative than, “Jorge ran quickly.”

Symptom: Missing senses. Visual detail is usually in abundance, often overlooked are the other four.
Solution: Try and incorporate all five sensory details in your work.

Symptom: Nonspecific adjectives. (an old man, a decrepit house)
Solution: Tell the details (Liver spots (eeew) weathered siding)

Symptom: Generic nouns. Children, building, vehicle...
Solution: Move the camera a little closer to reveal toddlers, teenagers a warehouse or corner store

Symptom: Narrative summary. Condensing a potential scene into one sentence. “Jorge and Lydia met for lunch.”
Solution: Use full scenes rather than narrative summary to convey significant action, include action, reaction and interaction.

Symptom: Overload dialogue. Dialogue that is too long or weighed down with information.
Solution: Use a light hand. keep exchanges short and oblique. Avoid “info dumping”. Read your dialogue out loud to see if it sounds realistic.

[Griffin Hill]

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