Unfettered

Last night, Demon Baby and I were the only ones home. We were going to play the Wii, but without Oldest Son to press all the buttons for me, I was unable to get it working.

"Well, Demon Baby, let's play pirates."

For those who don't know, Demon Baby firmly believes I am a pirate. My boat is in dry dock when I gave up the high seas because that life was too dangerous for my children. But when Demon Baby is old enough, we will sail together. I even have a gold crown on a back tooth to prove I am a pirate.

So Demon Baby made a map. And we went up to our ship (my bed), and the adventure began. We fought schools of shark, and he caught one and forced me to eat it since he felt I was looking a little weak. We tossed someone off the gangplank. He gave me his LAST container of fresh water since he is the BEST pirate in the world and not even THIRST can defeat him. I thought this a rather noble gesture for a pirate.

The game went on for two hours, growing more elaborate by the minute. We had magic blue beans and potions, we had gold coins, but also magic chalices. We mixed fantasy elements. We went wherever he wanted to sail. At some point, he was a guitar-playing Ninja pirate. We went with it. He entertained the other pirates.

If you want to be a mother, you have to spend some time in the world of your children on a basic heart-to-heart level. If you want to write for children, you have to enter their world.

Writing middle-grade fantasy fiction has taught me to toss away a lot of rules. It's an unfettered world. Like Demon Baby's pirate world, sometimes middle-grade will go in completely unexpected directions. In Magickeepers II, I have a scene that takes place inside a pyramid with chattering hieroglyphics. I have things happen that even I did not expect. Like who knew D.B. Cooper was a Magickeeper!? Gravity doesn't even apply sometimes in that world. After all, Isaac Newton WAS a Magickeeper.

I think the best thing a writer can do sometimes is daydream. It may not look like work, but it is. Unfetter your mind from some rules and just see what happens. If you're stuck, I can loan you Demon Baby.

Thoughts? How much of what happens in your books is a result of unfettered daydreaming? Do you make time to daydream? Ahoy, Mateys!

Crowded Around the Edges

A weird phenomenon has been happening lately.

My life is insane. I could go on and on about why and how, but four kids (one with a boyfriend who is here all the time), three dogs, two deadlines, assorted stresses, and chronic pain mean . . . life is more crowded than ever. Not too crowded (you can never have too many people to love in your life), but MORE crowded. More housework, more everything. I even have a new blog starting (announcement within a week, I think).

And so, despite major Shiny New Idea Syndome, I have simply told my brain "Uh-uh, not today. No time for that. SHUT UP!"

And so what does my brain do?

On the EDGES of my crowded life, it sends me signals. I walk past an open book and think, "What if . . . " I imagine magic happening. I find myself stuck at a light and thinking, "What if this character came back from the dead and was EVIL . . . how would that work?" I think of new idea after new idea. But not indulging it yet. Trying to shove it away. But then finding it creeping on the periphery.

Conversations spark ideas, so much so that I have to FOCUS on the talk in the here and now.

A song.

A person walking by.

A newspaper story.

Doesn't matter. All of it . . . crowded on the edges, I presume waiting for the full-on go-ahead. But deciding to push at me anyway.

Anyone else have this happen to them? Does your imagination respect boundaries?

The World

Oldest Son is apparently reincarnated. Oldest Daughter, too. Well, heck all four of them. They arrived on this planet and with NO direction from me, so to speak, they had passions. Oldest Daughter and violin--never saw THAT coming. She was THREE for heaven's sake. And Oldest Son has now discovered, at fourteen, "the woods." Stick that young man with a fishing pole out in the woods by a lake and you might not see him again for ten hours. He would love nothing more than for me to sell our house and us to move a few miles further into the country (which is, indeed, my intent in a few years). And while I love to fish, the kid has been camping only once or twice (I have promised to remedy this . . . which is kind of scary . . . I will be unplugging and camping this summer at some point), and this seems something very primal, very innate, very SOULFUL to him. My own Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Except that his mom is a novelist. And all I can think, if he is out of my sight in the woods . . . is . . . serial killers.

I can't help it.

And this is something innate to me. I have been checking under the bed since before kindergarten. What I expected to find there? Not sure. But by the time I KNEW what a serial killer was . . . that's what I expected to find. I was born to be a novelist, I think.

But I wonder, in my novelist mind, whether it all boils down to how you view the world. Is the world safe? Or unsafe? Do those labels change when you have children? Or when you suffer some experience? Or . . . depending on your faith, or your worldview?

Is it a novelist's affliction to read this . . . and think, "Creepy . . . but a good book idea"? Do we gravitate to this stuff, no matter what we write?

And I can tell you, this is a house of love. We try to be optimistic around here. It's a house full of Buddha statues. It's a house where we hold hands and pray--OUT LOUD. When we pass an ambulance, we all pray for the people inside. All of us. It's a reflex. So I don't know that it's how I live my life . . . I don't cower from the world.

But man . . . I am not happy the kid wants to go off in the woods.

Thoughts? Do novelists' imaginations necessarily color their worldview?

Clouds Go By

Two days ago, Demon Baby and I were outside. It was unseasonably warm. I lied down on the driveway, flat on my back, and stared up at the winter sky as clouds swam past. Demon Baby lifted up my shirt, and put his cheek on my belly and joined me. I don't know how long we stayed there, the two of us. I watched clouds. I stared at the outline of winter trees against a gray sky. I watched the birds. (My mom has been stringing popcorn and cranberries and we try to think of imaginative ways to leave them on the trees for the birds . . . they think this is brunch at the Ritz-Carlton).

And I thought about how I am often asked by kids about how to become a writer. And sure, there are bits of advice. Read. Keep a journal. And so on. But maybe I should say . . . have unscheduled time to watch clouds go by. Daydream. Don't overschedule yourself to death. Worry less about the fifty afterschool activities you seem to need to get into Harvard and worry more about being a good person and having time to just BE in the moment. That's when your imagination is unfettered.

Just be.

Maybe that's really the best advice.

Thoughts?

Games Writers Play

Oldest Daughter and I watched The Wonder Boys on Saturday night. It is one of my all-time favorite movies, from Robert Downey Jr. arriving with a transvestite who plays the tuba to Tobey Maguire's brilliant performance. And of course, that it is about writers and editors makes it all the more fun.

And one of my favorite scenes is when Grady (Michael Douglas's writer/professor character)and his agent play a game inside a bar. They see a man who looks a bit like James Brown in a quirky sort of way, and begin inventing this history for him. "He's a former boxer who got that scar on his nose from a prize fight, and his name is Vernon, and he went to prison and . . ." and soon they have invented this colorful life for a man named Vernon (except his name isn't Vernon and he's none of those things).

I realized, watching it Saturday, that I do the same thing. I fill in the blanks on lives in airports and coffee shops. I meet people and imagine what their marriages are like or what keeps them awake at two a.m. If I see them line up their sugar packets neatly before tearing them and putting them in their coffee, I imagine perfectly arranged sock drawers and anal-retentive checkbook balancing and cupboards that are alphabetized.

I don't gossip. I don't take these imaginary filled-in lives and repeat them. I know it's all in my writer-mind. But I constantly fill in the blanks. I imagine full lives all around me.

I play games in my head. All the time.

So what games do you play?

Overactive Imagination

So today, Lydia the Python, who lives in my son's bedroom, came out from under her rock cave, and poked her head up to the lid of her tank. As if she was trying to escape. The tank is locked. But nonetheless, I took one look at this and said, "Lydia's got to go." Which was greeted by protests by my family, all of whom love Lydia for some ridiculous reason that I cannot yet fathom.

Now, to be clear, Lydia is a ball python. Her head is smaller than my thumb. They are docile snakes, perfect for "first-time" snake owners. She will max out at about 3.5-4.5 feet. And she absolutely FREAKS ME OUT. I envision her escaping, slithering to my bed, wrapping around my neck, and killing me in my sleep. I cannot be any clearer about how much I HATE THIS SNAKE. But my son is the kid in the family who never, and I mean never, asks for anything. This totally mellow math genius . . . so when he asked for a snake, I said okay. There was a small amount of begging involved. But when we got Lydia . . . she was the size of a pencil. Now? She is the size of my son's ARM!

Little did I realize how this is NOT the pet for a writer. Not the pet for someone with an overactive imagination.

Because that's my brain. On hyperdrive all the time. It's not enough to think, "The snake might escape one day." No, I have to go to some Anaconda-esque horror movie scenario. Like going from 0 to 50 in 1.3 seconds. That's my brain.

I think the creepy man up the street with the too-clean porch, without ANY adornment, neat as a pin house . . . he's a serial killer. He peeks out from behind his curtains. I KNOW it. He's got livers chillin' in his fridge.

It's like a profession, making this stuff up. Oh . . . yeah . . . I'm a writer. That's what I do.

So how about you? Any scenarios that run through your mind? And anyone want a free python?