I know, I know, it's been forever. I'm back. I've decided to just open my writing book at random instead of going in order. I needed some spice and unorderly writing. So we're going to go at random for awhile, then I'll fill in the blanks in the book and find the chapters I've missed.
So I opened up to Chapter 9 "Put Your Heart on the Page" of the second section (II. NOTEBOOKS, JOURNALS, and MEMORY)
In a letter to a Radcliffe student, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of the price she must pay for aspiring to be a professional writer:
"You've got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell."
Too many writers avoid their own strongest feelings because they are afraid of them, or because they are afraid of being sentimental. Yet these are the very things that will make beginning work ring true and affect us. Your stories have to matter to you the writer before they can matter to the reader; your story has to affect you, before it can affect us. William Kittredge says, "If you are not risking sentimentality, you are not close to your inner self."
THE EXERCISE
Make a notebook entry on an early childhood event that made you cry or terrified you, or that made you weak with shame or triumphant with revenge. Then write a story about that event. Take us back to those traumatic times, relive them for us through your story in a way so as to make your experience ours.
THE OBJECTIVE
To learn to identify events in your life that are capable of making you laugh and cry. If you can capture these emotions and put them on paper, chances are you will also make your readers laugh and cry as well.
As a child, I had a few terrifying moments that I do recall. Here's one of them:
I'm on the phone with my friend J and she tells me (radio on in background) "let's call the radio station and request it!" There was a particular song we both wanted to hear at that very moment and when we were children we didn't have the internet to pull up a new song we wanted to hear if we didn't already have the tape cassette or record album. So J immediately came over, she was only three houses down from me and we called the radio station together. I was talking to the announcer and discovered we were on the air!! Oh my gosh! Weird. But exciting! We had just won tickets to something. "Outrageous Fortune?" What is that? I asked the announcer. He said it's a movie and we won tickets to this movie. So he proceeded to tell me how to get to the radio station and pick up our tickets.
My parents weren't home. We were alone. Not such a big thing back in our day. We were maybe 12 and 14, I don't even remember. Definitely not an uncommon thing though as far as I know, not like it is these days. So we had to wait until my mom or dad came home to take us out there. This was all the way in Mesa and at that time we lived in Glendale. Long drive so I wasn't even sure my parents would take us that day. It was a saturday and we had nothing else to do but our usual hanging out, being creative and finding things to entertain ourselves. This was a big deal to need a ride to a radio station. We'd never been to one before. We'd never won anything before. Huge deal. We were so anxious for them to come home. Where are they? Why are they taking so long? We couldn't think of anything else. We tried to occupy ourselves while waiting but we were wild with anticipation. Fiiiiiiiinally my parents arrived home.
DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!! Guess what? Guess what? "What?" he asks. Can you take J and me to the radio station? We won tickets!! "You did? How? What kind of tickets? When did this happen? How did this happen?"
So we filled him in on the whole thing... and we desperately wanted to leave right then if he could take us. My mom wasn't saying anything. Just scowling as usual. I didn't know why nor did I care. She was always mad about something as far as I was concerned.
My Dad asked us which radio station and so we told him. He asked where it is at and we had no idea, we had never heard of Mesa... so we just said it's in Mesa somewhere. I didn't write the directions down when the announcer told me how to get there. (Lol)
Dad's eyes about popped out of his face when he replied "Mesa? ...Christy, that's kinda far, I don't know if we can make it there before they close." I begged and begged, pleaded and pleaded, told him how we'd never won anything before and this is a big deal. We really want to go.
Of course my Dad couldn't refuse two little excited girls wanting to pick up tickets won over the radio. He told us to go outside and wait for him. We did. We were restless. Practically having our souls squirm in our own little bodies as if they're too big for the tiny bodies that held them.
Dad came out of the house quickly and told us to hurry up and get in the car. "Mom's not happy about this, but we'll go quickly and get your tickets." he told us. I thanked Dad and told him how exciting this all is to us. I looked at J in the back seat as I was in front with Dad, and she just looked at me. Her eyes quiet, concerned and excited at the same time with her sheepish grin ear to ear. A little uncomfortable as our family has been in an upheaval since my parents have been fighting a lot lately.
I've wondered if they'd divorce. Unsure of it all. J kept telling me surely they are going to get divorced. Her parents divorced. Everyone divorces eventually, she would always tell me. Not my parents though. They always worked through the arguments. Our family gets along for the most part. We laugh and have fun. We have always done fun things together. Nah, not a divorce, they'd work it out somehow. I also knew though deep down somehow this was different lately. I had met my new half sister only shortly before all this. I never knew I had a half sister. Before then, I had never even heard of such a thing. I had to have it explained to me. This was the main cause of all the turmoil in our home. I didn't fully understand what was going on, I mean I was only 14 years of age.
My Mom had just returned from a trip to Hawaii with my grandma. My Dad paid for them to have a vacation and WOW Hawaii. How cool is that? So why did she come home mad? I figured surely she'd have a great time in paradise, come home happy and glowing. I don't know why I was so surprised to see her mad though, she always was mad and yelling. It was kinda embarrassing too. I'd have friends over and she'd yell at them that it was time to go home. "GO HOME J!" She'd yell. J would practically run out. I didn't like it. My friends always saw my mom mad and yelling. I didn't want to invite my friends over anymore. It became too much for one of my age when it was hard enough being 14. Everyone around me at school starting to date other people, puberty at it's high. I was just trying not to cry at school and try to focus on the subject at hand. I couldn't. All I worried about was what was going to happen in the next while? Would I be living with my mom or my dad? I had no clue.
Well nothing had happened yet, so I pushed all worries aside, and wanted to enjoy the moment. This was a happy moment. J and I would be getting our tickets and we'd get to go see this movie and enjoy the fact that we were winners!
Dad pulled up to the radio station parking lot. "Oh my gosh, this is it?!"
"Yeah, why?" Dad was confused.
"It's soooooo smaaaaaall. I figured it would be bigger. A bigger building."
"Christy, it's a radio station, they only need a small area for the person speaking on the radio, they don't have a lot of people coming and going."
"Well yah I guess, but we're coming and going." I commented back, and staring at the building. We got out and went inside and we were given our tickets. I don't remember any other details of the building because we were young girls and we just wanted the tickets.
After stopping and picking up slushes, on the drive home, J is looking at other drivers and making fun of them. "LOOK! That lady is picking her nose!" We laughed.
That's all I remember. "CHRISTY! Christy! CHRISTY, wake up!" I hear my Dad talking to me and shaking me, waking me up. I open my eyes and I'm crouched on the floor of the passenger seat of the car. Totally confused, I sit up, and looking down I had no idea what was going on. Where were we? Trying to gain consciousness, I observe my surroundings.
"Dad. What happened to the windshield?" It was cracked and shattered but only between the layers, it hadn't completely shattered yet. Weird. I look at my Dad and he has this very concerned and worry look in his eyes. He's asking me all sorts of questions. Wouldn't stop asking me if I was ok.
"Yes! I'm fine. Why?"
"Christy you were passed out."
"For how long?" I didn't feel like I had been out. He said I was out for about 3 minutes or so not very long but long enough to put him into a frantic worry.
I looked up and this big manly officer with a deep voice was asking me if I wore a seatbelt. "Huh? Why?" He didn't stop asking me. "No." And he asked why not. I told him I didn't like wearing them. Ended up in a lecture conversation as to why I should wear them. And I told him ok, I'd wear a seatbelt.
My Dad never wore seatbelts either. I guess I got it from him. Maybe I thought it was cool or something, I don't know. But it's certainly not cool hitting a windshield knowing I could've been thrown from the car at a lengthy distance. The cop painted quite the picture for me. I'd wear a seatbelt from there on, convinced.
The drive home was pretty quiet. We were all shooken up. Even though it wasn't a bad accident we had quite the experience. We were on the freeway and there was a lot of bumper-to-bumper traffic. I asked my Dad on the drive home what had happened. He told us that when J was mentioning other drivers, he accidentally turned and looked on impulse as a reaction, and the car in front of us had stopped but he didn't know it. And we hit. It was a light hit but hard enough that I hit the windshield. I was shocked that it was me that hit the windshield. I guess I didn't know how it had happened really... and was very oddly surprised by it. I was thinking aloud and said, "Wow, I did that?" My Dad nodded his head and said yes.
Uh oh, I broke the windshield. Mom would be mad for sure. "Dad I'm sorry. What about Mom? She's going to be mad."
"Don't worry about Mom. I'll take care of it." he reassured me.
We pulled up into the driveway of our home, Dad hadn't even turned off the car yet, and Mom was outside yelling already. I couldn't even hear what she was saying, but she was looking right at the side of where I was sitting and saw the broken glass.
J said she would just go home and talk to me later. I just nodded and quietly said ok. I sat in the car for a few minutes. I didn't want to get out. It would only be hell inside the home anyway.
I finally thought, well better to face the music than not. I slip out of the car and Mom is glaring at me. Instantly I felt guilty and didn't know why. She looked at the window and yelled at me, "What did you do?!"
I couldn't even look at her, I slowly looked up at her and she was towering over me with mean eyes and hatred filling her soul. I was scared. I thought she was going to slap me or something. So I told her, "we got into a car accident Mom. It was an accident. That's why they are called accidents." She continued to glare at me as though she hated me. So I just looked down and walked inside our home.
She yelled at me and told me to go to my room. That this never would've happened if I hadn't won those stupid tickets!
I went to my room. My brother and sister were in there since my sister and I shared a room. They were doing something together and looked at me as I walked over to my bed and just laid down. I was sad and didn't have any energy all of a sudden.
My sister and brother looked at me and asked what happened. Then they said, "Christy what did you do?!" I told them I didn't do anything. They didn't believe me. One of them replied, and I don't remember who said it as this was so many years ago, "It's because of you that Mom and Dad are always fighting. What did you do?!"
The tears just fell uncontrollably. I didn't know. Why are they always fighting? Is it because of me? The bedroom door flew open! Both my sister and my brother stiffened. Mom came over to me and started yelling at me. She was yelling so much I didn't even catch all the words coming out of her mouth. I got up from the bed and went over to the corner of the room when I realized it was because things were being thrown at me. She was throwing shoes at me and yelling at the top of her lungs, "I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"
I heard my Dad's voice, "You didn't have to do that!" And he tore out of the house. My mom followed him. I sat in the corner, crying and couldn't move. I just sat there for awhile with my head in my shoulders and staring at the floor, everything a blurr. I don't even remember when I finally moved.
I had a basketball game that night I had to attend for Hoopsters pep club that I belonged to and was a member. I had no choice, I had responsibilities. Halfway through the game, I was worried about Dad and called home. Mom said he hadn't come home yet and probably wouldn't be.
Shortly after that, Mom came and told us that Dad moved out. He's living in an apt now and we could come visit him on occasions. All I kept thinking was wow, J was right. My parents would be getting divorced too.
