Kelly Dwyer

It’s been nearly a year since the bottom fell out of our karmic balance. In the midst of the chaos and crises that battered us like waves preceding a storm surge, writing was hardly at the forefront of my mind. Sitting down and escaping to a fantasy world of my own creation would have taken more mental energy than I could have salvaged. As it was over the past year, focusing on health, happiness and simply surviving the turbulence depleted everything I had to give. It’s taken some time to move beyond bare subsistence mode, beyond recovery, and to stop mentally flinching in anticipation of the next hit.

Today feels like an important day in both its significance and its complete and glorious normality.

Today, my husband started a new job – a real job that will actually pay him what they’re contracted to pay him, a job that won’t hold a sword to his neck each day with the impending threat of lost funding or unemployment.

Today, I started a new pattern of homeschooling with my son. Almost 4 years old, he’ll be ready for kindergarden in another year and a half. But with constant “playschool-itis” exacerbating some recently diagnosed health issues, I’m happy to keep him home with me for this precious and unrepeatable time in his life where we simply get to play together. Today’s docket included getting dirty, getting grass stains on our butts, playing in the mud, planting some flowers, and climbing the Caboose. It’s been a good day.

Today, I opened up StoryMill and started writing again. I may not have written very much, and what came out and onto the screen certainly won’t be classified as anything but junk. But it was progress. Dusting out the cobwebs and opening up the shutters. Okay – it felt more like prying them open with a crowbar, but I know the words will come if I just keep at it.

I started writing fiction nearly three years ago as an exercise to sharpen my wits and dust off my right brain functionality. I’ve missed having story lines and characters to meditate on while sitting at the playground. I’ve missed jotting down little tidbits of conversations and observations as I’ve been out and about. And I know I should have come back to it sooner.

Giving myself the freedom to daydream, even in dribs and drabs, is that last step forward I needed to shake the vestiges of the past year away. Today I’m digging my toes in the grass, and listening to my little guy giggle at the worms, and knowing that it’s all going to work out just fine.

The new Q4-2010 edition of Abyss and Apex is online, and “Sunlight” is making its debut!

I had the great luck to foist the toddler off on unsuspecting (albeit delighted) grandparents for a brief time this past Sunday to see William Gibson on his Zero History tour at Politics and Prose in Washington, DC. He tolerated the rambling and excessively self-absorbed questioners with a dismissive wit that comes from many years of doing this sort of meet and greet. He answered the questions he wanted to hear, and admirably ignored the ones that made no sense. In fact, I collected some gems of interesting wisdom to mull over in his talk. Just a few tidbits that spoke to where I am now, just at the beginning of developing my writing process.

• He emphasized the importance of using “genre” as a narrative strategy, nothing more – that genres should be mixed up, blended together, challenging the reader and using the techniques of each genre to further the narrative as necessary.
• He talked about how point of view is always written through the diffracting lens of his characters, all of whom are unreliable narrators, in a way.
• And the last point that resonated with me was his personal reflection on the intensity of the physical cataloging of the world in his novels, and that it’s often the most intense when his characters are lost. This is one of those elements of his writing that I feel has bled a bit into mine, the almost obsessive inclusion of off-kilter detailing of the world and environment. I appreciated the reflection that the environmental absorption of the characters is deeply tied to their moods.

At the signing table, I passed on a brief thank you for being part of my inspiration to start writing, and mentioned that my first short story was being published in a week. It was a surreal moment to hear William Gibson himself congratulate me, wish me good luck and tell me to keep at it. With a genuine smile and a handshake, I might add. I might just be suffering from a few heart palpitations…

Among the things that will be banished from memory upon the falling temperatures and impending arrival of fall will be:

• Tree falling on roof and smashing large hole in said roof
• Rain entering attic through hole from tree and soaking into insulation
• Bedroom ceiling collapsing and spreading sopping wet insulation and fiberglass over bed, bedding, closet, etc.
• Tree impaling car with massive body damage
• Car taking 4 weeks to be fixed
• LARGE insurance deductibles
• 18 year old uninsured, unlicensed driver going through a red light and sideswiping my son and I in our rental car
• Illness
• Stress
• Virginia heat and humidity
• Stray cats who think my front garden is a litter box
• Missing Uncle Orson’s Boot Camp

And now, let us never speak of this summer again. Onwards to Fall! To school, to writing time, to chilly noses, to the aroma of cinnamon and apple, to pumpkin pies and scarves.

Sadly, my three weeks of buckle-down-and-write time came to an abrupt and unfortunate end at the hands (or infectious claws) of a rather nasty stomach virus contracted from my son’s preschool summer camp. Two weeks later and four pounds lighter, I found myself still playing catch up with all of the day-to-day things that got tossed to the side, like the contents of my stomach during that sad 3 day period, which we will never speak of again. Blech. I did make progress during that first week, but I have so much more work to do that the task of finishing this manuscript seems, yet again, to be monumental and wholly unattainable.

On the upside, I keep getting incredibly polite and personalized rejections for my short stories. And yes, I actually feel quite buoyed by personal notes from venerable editors at top 10 sci-fi magazines. It’s quite a complement. I’ve also been noticing a significant trend towards the same types of criticism. All of my rejections have said something along the lines of “great world building and atmosphere” but “not enough story to keep my attention.” Which really is understandable. I enjoy writing conceptual environments. How people interact with the world around them. What it feels like, sounds like, how it encompasses them.

So, I’ve decided to take a little time to myself and head on down to Uncle Orson’s Writing Class. I was too late to register for the Boot Camp this year, and frankly, I don’t have the luxury of dedicating a whole childless week to the workshop. But the writing class is only two days, hosted by Orson Scott Card, and dealing with a wealth of topics that I’m hoping will help me to expand my writing style and technique and learn a little more about the business. Should be a nice break to the endless summer without childcare or school for the little monkey. I can only set my sights on September and the start of playschool, which will bring a welcome return to a much needed and much longed-for writing routine.

In the painfully white but surprisingly dark glare of the tiny LED plug-in night light in the bathroom at 4:00 am this morning, the counter appeared straight out of some turn of the century chemist’s lab. Balancing the kiddo’s sleepy dead weight on one hip, I stirred dollops of honey into warm water with a long handled tea spoon, trying to get the cough drop stuck to the bottom of the glass to dissolve. The steam from the shower was causing his hair to stick to his forehead and the vapor rub to ooze off of his neck and onto my arm in long trails of sticky menthol. Various medicine droppers, liquid measures and industrial sized bottles of neon pink antihistamine were barely discernible underneath the littered collection of snotty tissues, amassed in less than 5 minutes.

It had been a long night.

As the common cold wreaked havoc on our nightly routine and the lil’ man’s ability to get any real sleep, I desperately searched for ways to get him to stop fidgeting and stay still for those critical 20 minutes of breathing hot, moisturizing steam to ease his chest and nasal congestion. Or stay still, laying upright on my chest against a heaping pile of pillows to drain his sinuses without kneeing me in the chest or flipping upside down every few seconds, in that unavoidable, incredibly kinesthetic way that little boys interact with the world.

All it took was a simple thing. A story.

Starting a few days ago, with the snuffling, oozing, squirming mass of perpetual motion cuddled to my chest, I’ve started telling “Diamond Age”-style Primer fairytales. Those messy, strange and all-together uncomfortable tales of quests and wishes, of encounters and battles. I usually let the kiddo fill in the first few blanks and take it from there (it seems to keep his attention longer and calm his twitching feet and tickling fingers if he’s invested in the topic from the start). All of yesterday’s stories were about a little fish. The day before, it was a little dinosaur.

From a writer’s perspective, I’m rather proud of myself for being able to weave a simple story into such a powerful tool of sedation and engagement. They all use the same tropes of repetition to ensure he’s following along the complicated parts, and the same structural elements to reinforce the messages and interactions. But from a mom’s perspective, I’m finding myself shying away from the big bad guys, the evil doers, the less than tidy endings. I can’t seem to bring myself to write things where something bad happens to the hero (because it’s always a little boy of some kind, of course) that isn’t resolved into a positive thing. I tell stories where a character has a problem to solve, or a journey to take, or something to do. And whatever he actions he takes will have consequences. And if his actions are positive, the consequences will be positive.

Maybe it’s the Mom in me looking at the toddler who is locked in the epic age-appropriate struggle to understand the idea of cause and effect. Or maybe it’s the fact that most of these stories are told in the dark of night, with a sad, tired boy who just needs that escape from feeling sick, an escape from the discipline and battles that pepper his day, an escape from just how tiring it is to be almost three. I know children need those strange and messy stories, the Grims, the fables. But for now, I just want to preserve for him the idea that the world is uncomplicated, beautiful and fulfilling. That friends are there to help you, problems are there to be solved, and Mothers are there to love you unconditionally. No matter how many times you kick me in the nose.

Today’s stories are all about a little bear, who has red hair and likes to eat cupcakes.

I’ve spent most of this relaxing (and thankfully) quiet Mother’s Day preparing for what I’ve dubbed “Novel Boot Camp.” I will have three mostly uninterrupted weeks of writing time coming up in the middle of June while the kiddo is in daycamp from 10:00 until 2:00 each day, and then a few extra hours while he’s asleep for nap time if I’m lucky.

I started writing this novel in 2007 and got a significant way into it (about 65,000 words) before putting it aside to write short fiction. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy working on the book – it was just that with the very short amount of time that I get to write each day or week, I wasn’t making much progress with the broader structural/plot issues that needed to be resolved before I could proceed. Those short little blips during naps or just after bedtime when I could sit down for just a few minutes and write were far more conducive to writing short stories or flash fiction. And far more satisfying at that point as well. Up until then, I hadn’t ever really seen my work through to an end point – polished, edited, submitted, rejected, submitted again…etc. The novel was too big, too overwhelming, and not at all close to completion, In other words, rather depressing.

But I’ve cycled back to it, out of sheer determination to make it WORK. I’ll be taking those entire three weeks to whip it into shape. Tackle the major issues, timeline, plot outline, flesh out characters and structure the entire end of the novel. My goal for the end of the Boot Camp is to have divided out scenes that I can easily sit down and write in one of those short sittings that I get during my average day of chasing around an almost-three-year-old. I’ve taken down the pictures in the dining room in preparation for the post-it tape timeline, colorful sticky notes, photos and sketches that I plan on adhering to every available surface. I shall dub it my War Room.

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
–Henry V

Taking the plunge and finally taking my personal blog offline in favor of a professional presence on Digilutionary hurt a little more than I thought it would. For some time now, I’d been feeling the ticklings of worry, those tiny thoughts that filter into your daily web surfing about someone, somewhere out there taking advantage of all of the rich amount of data about our lives that I’d shared on Digilutionary. Having been an active blogger since 1998, I was sad to see the accumulated posts and comments just wiped away off the server after so long (don’t worry – I’m a strong believer in redundant backup solutions). They were a record of my life, the little tidbits that years later you will have forgotten, replaced by the pressing concerns of today, not the memories of yesterday.

With the advent of Facebook, and it’s wonderfully customizable personal information filters and security, and with the sale of my very first short story, it was time. So welcome to the new and improved Digilutionary. I hope it’s every bit as stimulating and interesting as the last.