A novel holiday contribution...

Well, seeing as you haven't heard from me for over a month, you can bet it's safe to say that NaNoWriMo was a complete and utter failure. I got nowhere near the designated 50,000 words and got too wrapped up in other things to allow myself to care much. Am I disappointed in myself? Perhaps a little. I mean, when you think about it, it's not THAT hard to write that much in 30 days. One of my friends who participated surpassed the goal with a whopping 60,000-plus words. It's not like a marathon where you can only do it if you've trained for it. Anyone can sit down and write that much at any time they want to. So to not even get close to accomplishing such an achievable goal did do a bit of a number on my self-respect and confidence.

Although I know it wasn't because I COULDN'T write that much. It was because I chose not to. I chose to believe other things were more important. And if faced with that same decision today, I'd make it again. Some things are more important than NaNoWriMo. Another month, another year would have been better for me, would have had less life-altering changes to combat with. But that goes back to the whole premise of NaNoWriMo and the reason people do it in the first place. I learned that this year and I will try to keep that in perspective next year.

And in that respect, NaNoWriMo wasn't a failure at all. I am so glad I at least attempted it and stuck with it for two weeks. I learned so much about myself and my writing. I learned to pay attention to the tiniest details and to always keep the reader in mind. It got me really excited for the memoir, actually, though my actions may suggest otherwise. And though I rarely designated my writing as more important than other chores, I always deemed it significant enough to include in the schedule. I never thought to myself, "I shouldn't be writing" or "I shouldn't bother writing." In fact, I often thought, "I should be writing," or, "I WISH I was writing. " The fact that I want to write and want to make time for writing gives me hope that I will see this project through to the end.

Therefore, I have decided that January is going to be my makeup NaNoWriMo. I'm gonna get out the tens of thousands of words I didn't write in November and achieve enough words to be able to call myself a novelist. I feel like I can't begin to work on the editing and the fine-tuning of the novel until I get it all out on the page, and really, this being a memoir, I should get it all down before I find myself forgetting anything. So I'm excited to get that finished and follow through with what I should have completed a month ago.

However, I do have another distraction tempting me away from my own memoir. This holiday, when we were all gathered at my mother's, she handed me a finished copy of HER memoir about her mother's death. I've been dying to read it since I even knew such a thing existed, but I didn't want to bug her to finish it or to show me because that's something she had to figure out on her own and something I didn't want to feel rushed. But as part of our Christmas gift, she gave each my brother and me a copy. You should have seen the beaming smiles on our faces. I was so proud of her, and I think she was really proud of herself.

We had always talked about (perhaps only joked) about how I could edit it for her when she finally did finish it. But she didn't seem too keen on the idea now that it was written. "Oh, Jen, I think you'll be disappointed when you read it," she said.
"But let's just say I want to change some things..."
"I didn't write this for publishing," she said.

But I could barely help myself. Only reading the first page, completely oblivious to the conversation in the living room, I found myself making all kind of mental notes on how to make it better. Not saying that it was bad. Goodness, no, that's not the case. I haven't read it yet, but I know before looking that, between her and me, we could make that into something really fantastic. She's got the story and I've got the creative flair. And really, what more do you need to write a smashing book? Hell, some people on the Best Sellers list don't have either of those things.

Really, though, I'm excited to read it, to know more about my grandmother, my family, and heritage, myself. And maybe I'll find some answers to questions I'm having about my own book.

Can you ever just be whelmed? I think you can in Europe.

Overwhelmed is a state I often find myself in. There is a phrase that goes, "when it rains, it pours." With me, it never seems to stop pouring. That's just how it's always been. The week my last semester of college started, I turned 22, my then-boyfriend broke up with me, and my paternal grandmother died... for instance. And now I'm trying to write a novel in the same month that I'm trying to renovate a house, or more correctly, finish renovating a house, a house I must move into the same month, oh, and of course there's a little holiday called Thanksgiving in there, too, which means driving back and forth across the state repeatedly. And I'm still considering taking a weekly hot yoga class, just to make things a little more interesting.

Usually when so many things like this happen simultaneously, my brain goes into overload, and I can get kind of depressed recounting everything that has to get done and realizing the improbability of any of it getting done. It makes me not want to do any of it. And the worst part is, I feel like I have a justified reason to quit. So I usually quit.

But then the most amazing thing happens. Everything ends up getting done. And the world doesn't explode. I still don't know how.

Up until this morning, I had justified to myself how ridiculous it was for me to agree to all these commitments and how foolish I was to believe I could accomplish any of them. I had given it the old college try, I told myself. I had learned some new things. I should be proud of what I've done up to now. Everyone will understand if I stop now.

Then I realized I should be used to being overwhelmed by now. And if I were to quit, I would just take all that time that I had devoted to projects and use it as an excuse to sit on the couch and feel sorry for myself. There are 200,000 other people out there right now who probably have just as busy of lives as I do, and I don't hear any of them complaining. In fact, I get emails from some of them (just randomly--I have no idea who they are) empathizing with the way I feel and then offering encouraging words to keep me going on. I always feel like my life is so much more outrageous than everyone else's, but really, I just like making excuses and letting myself off the hook. Being busy is just the American way. We like to bite off more than we can chew, even if we choke a few times getting it down our throat.

So last night I had decided to give up on NaNoWriMo, focus on finishing the house and getting moved and maybe get my grad school app done since December's lookin' crazy, too. And then this morning I changed my mind.

I'm 10,000 words behind. I think you are not surprised to hear that. I'm still not promising I'm going to be able to hit that 50,000-word mark. But I am promising to continue to try.

Because I'm desperate for every word I can get, I decided that when I'm writing, I just have to be as honest as possible. I'm writing everything I think and feel about whatever or whomever I'm writing about. It's been quite eye-opening. If I were reading my book as a complete stranger to my family and myself, I would think that I was a jerk and a brat. I've written some pretty terrible things about almost everyone, but it's not that I think terrible things about everyone. It's just, taken out of perspective, my opinions about things and people sound negative. I'll write a whole paragraph about my brother's perpetual tardiness and finish it with, "Well, this paragraph will never make it in the book," because I know it's coming off hurtful instead of intended funny (because it is comical--love ya, bro!). So that will be definitely a hurdle in the editing process.

Another major problem I'm finding is who this book is about. It's clearly about my grandfather, right? Wrong. So far, it's about me. And that's what memoirs are supposed to be about. But I don't know if I'm happy with that. Do I want my viewpoint only, even though it's so limited? Or do I want to include my extended family members, get their opinions, their stories, their memories? Or would that be opening a can of worms? I'm just not sure what would make the best story yet. Hopefully the answers to these questions will start revealing themselves the more I type.

I'm nearly 14,000 words, which sounds like an astronomical amount, but it's really only a quarter of the way and an entire week behind where I should be. But I'm feeling good. I'm not running out of steam yet. I have plenty still to talk about. In fact, probably too much.

Being okay with crap...

Well, we're five days into NaNoWriMo, and I only have 4,000 words written so far, 8,000 words away from what my goal is for Sunday. In my defense, it's been a rough week.

We started it in Florida where we were hoping to see the shuttle "Discovery" blast off into space. Discovery was having a lot of trouble the week before, little mishaps that kept popping up, but NASA engineers were working day and night to get her all patched up for her big ride. Well, the day before we were supposed to leave, NASA announced the launch would be delayed a day. We hurriedly changed our flights, added another night onto our hotel stay, and rearranged all our vacation plans. A friend who was supposed to come with us, though, backed out because he couldn't afford a new flight and an extra day off of work. Such is the businesses of space travel spectating. It's a risk you have to be willing to take, and he wasn't.

So he got a refund on his Saturday plane ticket while Chris and I cashed ours in, but just after landing on the tarmac in sunny Orlando and turning on our cell phones the minute the pilot said it was okay, Chris discovered Discovery was pushed back another day, another day we ourselves could not afford to stay. In other words, we had a black cloud following us around the whole four days we were down there. Don't get me wrong, it was a great trip. It was 85 degrees, 35 degrees warmed than we were accustomed to in chilly Michigan, and we still got to see plenty of awesome things, like the shuttle actually sitting on the launch pad. However, since we did things that were related to NASA and the shuttle launch, our emotions were confused. We would see something really interesting and astounding, and we were elated, and then it would remind us of the shuttle launch, and we were depressed. There was so much sorrow in our smiles. It was the epitome of bittersweet.

I had planned on having a lot of time to write on day one and day two, because shuttle launches are all about hurrying up and then having to wait, so with all the down time we would have on the causeway waiting for the countdown on Monday and of course the airplane ride home on Tuesday, I figured I'd have plenty of opportunity to spit out a couple thousand words at least. But then our plans changed, I didn't have quite so much free time, and the little bit I did attempt to write I thought was terrible, and the trip had already been depressing enough.

But I still had my original battle plan of writing for two hours every day after work before Chris got home. Only when I returned to work on Wednesday, all hell had broken loose while I was gone, and my boss was practically begging me to do overtime. Now everyone loves a little cash in their pocket, but when's a girl supposed to find time to write? And of course every evening is spent renovating our house, so I was starting to feel up a crick without a paddle.

One of these nights, after a minor nervous breakdown, I told Chris I couldn't spend much time at the house because I needed to write if I was gonna take this pledge to NaNoWriMo seriously. (Haha it's hard to talk seriously about something called NaNoWriMo, but I digress) So I got myself a cup of tea and a slice of cake and I sat down at my computer and got serious.

Only everything I wrote was crap. Crap, crap, crap. I felt like I was in third grade again, writing pages of run-on sentences and boring plot lines strung together with "and thens."

In fact, overall, it hasn't been finding the time that's been the problem this week. You can always find the time if you look hard enough. It's getting motivated to face my monitor when I know all that's coming out is crap.

I argued with myself a lot this week, asking myself if it was worth it to spend so much time if I would have to rewrite my entire end product, and if I should bother wasting so many bad words when I could be writing better (though fewer) words. But I keep trying to remind myself that it's about words in general, good and bad, and just getting some on the page, which is a task that seemed to be eluding me before this month started. And yes, I'm writing a lot of stuff that will end up getting crossed out with the most brilliant red pen I own, but there's also little gems here and there, ideas I hadn't thought to include before, metaphors I hadn't pondered before, poetry I didn't know I was capable of before. That alone, I think, is the reason so many people believe in NoNaWriMo and want to be a part of it. I just have to keep reminding myself.

Luckily, I've got help. At least two friends on my facebook are "suffering" (though self-imposed) with me, both veteran writers who love to root this rookie on. They reassured me that writing crap is okay and even they, with their more advanced writing level, are still writing their share of crap and then some. One friend doesn't even bother looking back at anything he's written. In fact, he's got a writing program that only lets him see the last hundred words he's typed, which I think is friggin' genius. I find myself writing for a good fifteen minutes, hitting a wall for a moment, and then checking my word totals, only to find they've increased by a mere hundred or so. The other encourages me to not stop writing for anything, and to switch gears to a different plot line or character if I feel myself slowing down. Great advice from both and great encouragement!

But to be honest, the most helpful thing they told me was that they were writing crap, too. It reminds me I'm not alone.

So I will trudge on. Hopefully I can find some time this weekend between laying hardwood floors in our house to catch up on those 8,000 words. If it's one thing I've learned so far, it's that getting behind by even a day can really hurt your numbers, and after all, this really is all about the numbers (since it's certainly not about good writing). I guess I need to take Tod up on his offer and have a POWER WEEKEND!

NaNoWriMo!

I find myself sounding like my mother the older I get, which I suppose is only natural. I find myself saying "jeez oh pizza" instead of any of the other common expletives I'm sure most other normal 20-somethings use when they are surprised or upset. When the day doesn't go according to plan or the GPS leads us somewhere unknown, I often tell my husband to "think of it as an adventure." Mom had all sorts of little sayings and phrases for my brother and I when we were growing up, and at the time, she sounded like a broken record, but apparently her common phrases made their way into my brain and my everyday conversation, which is fine by me. I think it gives me a cute quirkiness. Haha. One of my mother's favorite sayings, one that is probably quite common among moms in general is "if it's meant to be, it will be." I spent much of my childhood believing that phrase. When I just started college, I actually put a lot of stock in it and became somewhat obsessed with the idea of fate. I wanted to find the signs all around me that would lead me to where I was supposed to go and what I was supposed to do. And I followed such "signs" until I ended up in an unhealthy relationship being lied to by someone I thought I could trust and lying to the people I should have been trusting. And then I realized maybe it was time to give fate a rest.

But even now, after all this time and all the hard lessons, I still have those moments where it seems that the universe is trying to tell me something. And as much as I don't want to believe it, it seems there's an unstoppable force guiding my life in a certain direction. I feel like that kind of happened with National Novel Writing Month, and even though it was a long process to get me here, the universe wasn't about to stop trying until it did.

It actually started last fall when my brother declared that I should just write a book already and stop complaining. Don't remember that? Well, click here and let me refresh your memory.

Anyhow, it was shortly after that that my brother emailed me the link to National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo. I still have the e-mail he sent on October 24th (thanks, Gmail for rockin' like that) saying he thought I should give it a try. "Not trying to pressure, just help fester the process," he wrote. I checked it out and thought it was a cool idea and I loved him for pressure/help, but it was starting in six days and I didn't have any ideas for a novel and I had a thousand other reasons not to do it, the main one being I wasn't ready to take myself seriously as a writer yet.

When I first started this blog and my project for my novel, the idea of NaNoWriMo definitely entered my mind, but I thought I wouldn't need any motivation to write at the time. I thought I would be a writing machine. We all know how that turned out.

Then I forgot about it until two months ago when my friend Tod posted on his Facebook that he was considering doing it. And I was all, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. But again, I didn't want to wait another two months to get some writing done. I wanted to write now. But then I didn't write at all.

So then October 19th of this year rolled around, and I received an e-mail from the Writers Group I have been shamelessly avoiding for the past two months of a fellow member who was doing NaNoWriMo and encouraged the rest of us "members" to join in on the fun. And then it finally clicked. It was time to get serious. I haven't written, yet I have so much to write. Why not just spend it all in one glorious month of reckless abandon and get it all out there with the encouragement of 200,000 other crazies who are attempting to write 50,000 words in only 30 days (thanks a lot, lame November, for cutting out the 31st on us).

I don't expect it to be publishable on November 30th. I don't even expect it to make sense come November 30th. But if ever I'm going to write, NaNoWriMo is my best hope for making some progress. And it all seems so easy in my head. I have two hours every day after work before my husband gets home, and I type 80 words per minute, so at that speed, I could have the novel done in two weeks instead of four. Then again, it took me 45 minutes to write my opening paragraph, and I'm still not happy with it. But NaNoWriMo says that this isn't about editing. "Editing is for December" they say. I think that will be the hardest part of all, not editing.

Not to mention, the whole renovating an entire house and then moving before November 30th, being gone to Florida the first and second days of the project, having Thanksgiving thrown in there, too... yeah, those parts will be pretty hard, too, I imagine.

There's always a million reasons not to do something.

(That's not Mom's saying, though. It's Jan's from "The Office." Haha, well, I'm sure it's not HERS, since she's fictional, but I digress.)

I feel really confident about this, though, and really excited. I feel anxious most of all. Ever since I signed up on the web site, it feels like a constant state of anticipation. My toe is tapping impatiently. My knee is bouncing. My pen is constantly being clicked. My hands are braced mid-air, waiting for the gun to go off, for the shout of "Go!" to break through the atmosphere, for the marathon to begin. I can hardly contain myself. I can hardly keep myself from sketching words on a blank page. I'm hoping this is a good sign.

So wish me luck. I'll do my best to keep updating on my progress, if for any reason, to just keep myself focused and motivated. They say sticking through it until the end and reaching the 50,000 makes you want to yodel--"And we're talking the good kind of yodeling here," they promise. And I love any reason to yodel!

Crown Royal on ice...

Two weeks ago, as dance class was wrapping up, Dr. Love (so our instructor likes to be called, though I'm 99% sure he is NOT a doctor) gave us a preview of another routine we would be learning later in the session. He said it was to a song called "Crown Royal" which made me beam uncontrollably. I didn't know the song, but I'm guessing if anyone saw my ridiculous grin, they probably would have imagined it was my favorite song of all time. It wasn't the song, but the liquor that had me smiling from ear to ear. The mere mention of that specific beverage was all I needed for my own little moment of personal serenity that Monday night.

Crown Royal is very significant in my family, and no, not because we're a bunch of alcoholics. In fact, I'm not sure there's anyone who actually enjoys drinking it. Out of my immediate family, at least, my husband is the only one I know of who will pour himself a glass on a weekday night, usually after a hard day of work and usually when there's no beer or wine in the house.

It was a holiday recently, maybe our engagement dinner at my mom's house last year that I ventured out and bought my first bottle. It would have to have been a special occasion for sure, because that's the only time our family drinks it. And we drink it on special occasions because my grandpa drinks it on special occasions, or most accurately, drank it on special occasions.

Without fail, every Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Easter, we were always at Grandpa's, indulging in a loud, large potluck with all my aunts and uncles and cousins in attendance. Aunt Beth would always bring the betty salad. A sports game was always on the television in the living room. We'd always hold hands around the kitchen table, all 40 or so of us, and recite our prayer together. And all the men would always gather in the kitchen for their favorite ritual, a shot of Crown Royal while the womenfolk took pictures and cheered for them.

Most of the time, I was in the basement playing with my cousins during this event, though saw plenty of performances of this ritual while passing through to get another glass of Mountain Dew or to sneak a cookie before dinner, but it's not like I understood what was going on anyway. And when I was old enough to understand, I still didn't find it interesting enough to ask anyone why they bothered with it.

When I was finally at the age that was legal for me partake in such beverages, it hadn't occurred to me to ask to be involved in their ceremony. Even as an aspiring feminist, I didn't even bother pulling out my equal-opportunity card, questioning why it was only men and why couldn't the women join in. I just accepted that it was always done this way and I never had the motivation to mess with the tradition.

Then my cousin Jamie married Courtney, and she threw a big wrench right into the tradition. I thought it was a Christmas Eve, but it would have been any such holiday occasion that the men got up to do their ritual shot of Crown Royal and Courtney got up off the couch to go join them. No one had asked her to go, not that I noticed anyhow, but she was a spontaneous, outgoing kind of person, so I wasn't surprised that she would include herself. In fact, if my husband's family had had a ritual like this, I probably would have hopped up and partaken just as Courtney did, whether I was asked to not.

On her way to the kitchen, however, she turned back to me and said, "Come on, Jenny, let's go." I don't remember if I even bothered putting up a fight or making an excuse. But eventually, I ended up in that kitchen with a shot in my hand, surrounded by all my uncles and the patriarch of the entire Gotha establishment, toasting each one of them and entering a rite of passage my brother hadn't even had the privilege to experience yet.

(My brother was absent that night, the reason now escapes me--hell, the specific holiday and specific year escape me, so what did you expect?)

In hopes to be able to write more extensively on the subject of the Crown Royal tradition in what hopes to be my book, I turned to my mother for answers on all the questions that surrounded this age-old ceremony. Come to find out, my mother had the exact same mindset as I did; it never occurred to her to ask why it happened, it was just the way things were done. But she said that Crown Royal was more expensive than Seagram's or Canadian Club, so it was only reserved for holidays and Friday night card games. My grandparents were quite the frugal pair, but still knew how to have a good time.

It is funny to think back on the tradition and how it evolved over my lifetime, how my cousins eventually got old enough to take the shot, how their wives eased into the ritual themselves, how I, the baby of the family, finally got my chance at it. At my wedding, we handed out Crown Royal shots and my grandfather got up and told me he loved me, and we all had a shot together, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, everyone. It is a moment I will never forget.

At his funeral, towards the end of the night when most people had cleared out, and with the undertaker nowhere in sight, good old Courtney grabbed a stack of Styrofoam coffee cups and we all filed silently out of the back door into the parking lot, where my brother revealed from behind his back the majestic purple bag. We passed it around, splashing some into our cups, and I raised my glass, swallowed hard, and then said, "To Grandpa."

And we all brought our glasses to the center and then downed the potent liquid. We all shivered, but smiled proudly with our mouths open to let out some of the sting so that it might float up to heaven.

When Chris returned from the NASCAR race in Bristol with his dad, we presented me with a gift of a Crown Royal t-shirt that he had bought from the Matt Kenseth trailer. I almost broke into tears. To think, I didn't think there was anything he could bring me back from the NASCAR race that I would enjoy, and here he brought me the most perfect gift of all.

It's a shame "Crown Royal" the song has nothing to do with the whiskey. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's a song my grandfather would not approve of. Dr. Love designed all the moves around the words of the song, so he is constantly reciting all the vulgarity over and over again while he is showing us sequences. There's a high school boy in the class, and after one such explicit lyric, the boy said, "That's nasty!" And we all chuckled.

But just knowing what the song is called makes me smile at dance class anyhow. And I told Dr. Love I would be sure to wear my shirt next week so I would be dressed for the occasion.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of death.

I'm not sure how or why I got onto Barnes and Noble's e-mailing list. I haven't bothered to get myself off of it because sometimes they send me good coupons, but I happen to live in a city with lots of library options, so I very rarely buy books, especially ones I haven't read, which I realize might sound weird and might take all the fun out of reading for people, but for so many years of my life, I had books taking up space on a countless number of shelves, books I never read or intended to read, books I attempted to read and hated, so I've decided that I will not spend any money on a book that I'm not sure I will love (holy run-on sentence, Batman). Therefore, most of the time, I get a book out of the library, take it for a test spin, and then, if it tugs at my heartstrings and makes me catch my breath, I go out and spend the money on it so that it may rest peacefully on my bookshelf not wasting space but serving a purpose. Although, chances are, it may sit there the entirety of my life never having its binding broken open, because I rarely read books twice.

At any rate, shortly after I spent that long weekend at home with my mother while my husband was on a father-son trip, I got an email from Barnes and Noble that caught my eye. My mom and I had just seen "Eat Pray Love" in the theater, which I loved (but mostly for the part where they're describing how Italians talk with their hands because it was SO TRUE), and the subject of the email was "Powerful and Uplifting: A Mother-Daughter 'Eat Pray Love'." So quite unlike myself but driven by curiosity due to current events, I actually opened the B&N email to find a book recommendation for "Traveling with Pomegranates" by Sue Monk Kidd, who some of you may know through her unmistakable novel-turned-movie "The Secret Life of Bees." I am unfamiliar with that work, only know of it by the trailers I've seen during commercial breaks on television, so the fact that she had penned that particular piece was really of no interest to me. What caught my attention, however, was that not only was it a memoir, but it was a shared memoir, alternating essays written by herself with essays written by her daughter.

Naturally, I looked it up on my city's library catalog to see if this was something I could borrow first to see if it was even worth my time. And I found it currently in stock sitting on the shelf waiting for me. And then my husband came home from work and asked if I wanted to go to the library to look for instructional books on how to lay hardwood floors, which he plans on doing in our new house. It was like it was meant to be.

And it was meant to be. The book, while I still have a third of it yet to read, has been such a delight and I plan on buying myself a copy, as well as a copy for my mother and mother-in-law, because I feel it is just too good not to share. I mean, it takes place in Greece and France, had oodles of Greek mythology in it, and I feel it has a rather accurate representation of my current relationship with my mother and is relevant to the periods we are both in in our lives.

But what I seem to like most is the constant presence of the Virgin Mary and what Mary means to these women and all women in general.

I've never been very religious. I've tried to be religious many times in my life, and sometimes I've tried harder than others. I still want to be religious, but haven't quite come to terms with how to do that yet. But I've always felt a connection to Mary. I've always found her to be the most interesting character in all of Christianity, and yet I feel like she is constantly overlooked. Which is perhaps why I like her even more. It's like her and I have a little secret that no one has quite caught onto yet.

I know it all started when my grandma died. I was only five at the time. But ever since then, I've always associated my grandma with Mary. I guess I thought they would get along very well in heaven. Everyone always said my grandmother was a saint. So I guess this was my way of making her one. Besides, I was five. What I knew about death and heaven was so very limited (not that I've learned all that much about it since then). I knew who Mary and Joseph and Jesus were, I knew they were in heaven, and now I knew my grandmother was in heaven. So I suppose it was only natural that I put them all in the same clique up there.

Of course, too, there was the song that they played at her funeral. I don't remember anything about the funeral. I don't remember anything about her sickness or her death. I sometimes think I do remember, but I'm pretty sure it's just the stories that people have told me that I remember and not the actual events themselves. But there is this song that is very common in Catholic churches, especially in the spring, called "Hail Mary, Gentle Woman" that was played at my grandmother's funeral. It's a terribly sad, but beautiful song. My brother hates it... he says the harmony is annoying. I think he either hates it because he's not a woman and doesn't have a connection to Mary or he hates it because he remembers it being played at the funeral (him being 9 at the time and fully capable of remembering) and it makes him sad. And while I myself don't remember it being played at the funeral, what I remember is that every time it is played in a Catholic church to this day, my mother (and aunts, if they are there, too) break down into sobs. And now that I'm old enough to be the kind of sentimental where I cry at happy endings of movies and sappy songs on the radio, I am usually sobbing in the church pew right along with them.

Still, it wasn't until I spent some time in Italy that my infatuation with Mary was brought more to the forefront. As Catholicism is the official religion of the country, Mary is everywhere. She's in the churches, in the museums, but even just on the street corners and painted on apartment walls. I would say the point in my life where I respected religion the most was when I was living in Italy. And perhaps it was when I was the most spiritual.

Because I was "studying" in Italy (technically, I had already graduated, so the classes I didn't care about so much as the whole being in Italy thing), our group went to every single museum in Florence and saw COUNTLESS paintings of the Virgin to the point where they all started to look the same and frankly were starting to get a little boring. But when we got into the Uffizi, I saw a new portrait of Mary that I couldn't take my eyes off of. It was called "Madonna of the Chair." I've posted it at the top of the entry, but I'm not too techy with this whole blog thing yet, so I couldn't get it to go where I wanted it to go. But you can click on it and make it bigger.

ANYWAY, I just thought Mary looked so HUMAN in it. So many other paintings she's depicted as a saint or as royalty, which she is and deserves to be depicted that way, but she was also human, and I think it's the human aspect of her that makes her so appealing. I mean, the woman gave birth in a field, people, with a man she wasn't even married to. I'm married, and my husband is capable of a lot of things, but I don't think I'd let him birth my baby in the middle of g.d. field. And she raised the SON OF GOD. Like, she had to put him in time-outs when he acted up and had to protect him and take care of him. And she had God to answer to if she didn't do her mothering job right. But this painting, it doesn't feel like a painting of Mary and Jesus. It feels like a painting of a mother with her son. She's got a loving, protective grip on him. She seems to know she's gonna have to let go of him, but you can tell she doesn't want to. And all the while, she seems to be giving a look to those watching her that says, "You mess with my baby, you mess with me."

Later in the trip, our leader/instructor took us to an artisan shop to show us that things are still handmade in Italy and that generations of families stay in the same business, and I found that exact picture buried in a pile of plaques, outlined in beautiful gold paint, handcrafted in that very shop. Now I don't know how popular this image is in Italy. But the Uffizi is just ONE museum in Florence and it alone has thousands of paintings in it. What are the chances I would that painting in an artisan shop down some isolated alley? Like it was meant to be.

My mother took a tour group over to Italy the year after I had lived there. I couldn't afford to go with her, which broke my heart. She asked if she could bring anything back for me. I said the only thing I wanted (besides nutella gelato) was a necklace with Mary on it. And in an artisan shop that sounded much like the one I found my Madonna of the Chair in, she found the perfect, most absolutely beautiful Mary cameo and she bought it for me. I still wear it all the time over three years later.

I wear it as a reminder of what I want to be. I don't want to be the next Mother of Christ. I can't be the next virgin mother. That ship has sailed. But Mary, despite being saint royalty, was once a very human woman, a hard-working woman, a proud woman, a woman who did what she had to do without complaint. And from what I've heard about my grandmother, she was a lot like that, too. If I can be half the woman my grandmother was, I would consider my life a success.

Gentle mother, peaceful dove, teach us wisdom, teach us love.

Sometimes I worry that this book is going to be an epic failure, that no one is going to want to read 200 pages about death and grieving, that no one will care about my life or my grandfather's life. But "Traveling with Pomegranates" isn't all happy-happy. In fact, it's mostly not. And yet I can't seem to put it down. After all, death and grieving is a big part of what makes us human, no?

We are all just prisoners here of our own device...

I don't know how people who work from home do it. I had an afternoon all scheduled for writing and drinking champagne on my deck, but in the allotted hour I gave myself, I ended up hanging clothes up (I hadn't anything to wear that was already in my closet), drying my hair (which seemed to be drying faster than normal, and if I let it air dry, I would look ridiculous and I had plans that evening), cleaning off the patio furniture (because I couldn't write on a table covered in potting soil), moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer (because if I didn't do it right then and there, I would certainly forget it altogether), and cleaning off the champagne glasses (because we usually never drink champagne, so they had a good year's worth of dust on them) that by the time I was sitting down to write, I had a mere 20 minutes left, and then I went ahead and wasted five more minutes whining about it here.

And yet here I am with whatever little time I have left because it's about damn time I start sticking to my guns and actually do things I say I'm going to, which I've never been too good at doing in the past. Thus, the reason I've been absent so long. There hasn't been anything worth writing about--well, of course there is always SOMETHING to write about, but as far as the status of my writing or new things I've been learning, new leaps I've taken, there simply haven't been any.

Failure, of course, is something worth writing about and something I'm getting to be an expert at for certain. However, I'm not particularly fond of writing about my failures, mostly because my failures tend to be self-inflicted. I'm perfectly aware that if I don't write, it's simply because I haven't taken the time. There is no one to blame but myself. As the Eagles might say, I'm a prisoner of my own device, stuck in a continual Hotel California not even trying to find a way out. I can't complain about my life not going the way I want because I am capable of changing it. What a powerful statement. I am capable of changing my life. I am capable. I choose not to.

And to write about my failures would feel like I was only complaining when I have no right in which to complain. Thus, I have remained quiet, not facing my life or my failures, watching time tick by, nearly three months into the project and still the same ten pages to show for it.

If it's one good thing I can say about the past month, it's that I've forced myself to go back to hip-hop dance class. At least I'm doing some extra-circular activity that gets me out of the house and gets me thinking about what I really want out of life. Believe it or not, dance classes are a great place to think, or at least they are for me. It seems like I would be too distracted with counting and memorizing move sequences and trying not to look like the white girl ironing board that I am compared to my smooth, sexy instructor who probably came out of the womb popping and locking.

But in a dance studio, I spend my entire time staring into a mirror, realizing all the flaws and imperfections, every move that is correct and every move that is incorrect, my facial expressions when I miss a move, when I get a move right, the way I feel the music and the movements. It's no internet blog that I can hide from and avoid for a whole month. Everything is laid out in front of me; all the problems that I have to fix are unrelentingly reflected back at me. And most of the time, I'm scared shitless that my classmates or Mr. Smooth Sexy Instructor are watching me, judging every one of my mistakes, but then I realize it's just me and the mirror. Everyone is focusing on themselves, finding the errors within themselves and attempting to repair them each time the music restarts.

I suppose that's what makes it hard about trying to make friends in a dance class. Sure, there are times where we're all joking about a move or helping each other out with some sequence, but for the majority of the class, we are each in our little bubble, alone with the music and the mirror. I've been meaning to stay a little later after class, try to talk Mr. Smooth Sexy Instructor about any other dance opportunity he may know of for 20-something ex-baton-twirlers or find out how the other girls in the class spend their free time. But I guess I find it exposing enough that these people see me struggle with moves and constantly misstep. I guess by the end of class, I'm just ready to get back to my safe cocoon that is my car and my normal boring life.

Which is a shame, really. I have found in the past that the bond shared between people with the same passion is the strongest bond of them all. I often think fondly of a specific moment in my past, standing around a piano late at night at Adrian College when most people are back in their rooms, surrounded by strangers who quickly became family at a summer camp, my dear friend playing a song from Les Mis his fingers have memorized and all of us singing along casually, poking at each other and laughing all the while. It's a kind of camaraderie you only understand if you've had it before. And even just standing around a piano singing warm-ups or a song everyone knows, what fun we all had. It was all we wanted or needed in that moment. It may sound silly, but I miss standing around a piano with people like me.

Sometimes I think all of this would be easier if I had chosen to hang around people who had the same life goals and passions as I do.

It all goes back to what John said that first night I attended Writing Club. He said writing is a lonely business. And it is. I keep fooling myself into believing that I can write and NOT be lonely, that I can spend time with my husband, our families, our friends, and STILL write. But that's not the case, not all the time anyhow. To achieve my dreams, I need to instill discipline in my life and I have to be willing to sacrifice, even if sacrifice means being alone, even if only for a temporary time. And I guess I haven't been willing to sacrifice yet. It's funny, really. Writing is what I really want to do, but I'm not willing to sacrifice what's necessary to get it. I suppose that's something I'll have to come to terms with.

A funny ending to a rather pensive entry: My husband came home and gave me a kiss hello, quickly followed by a, "Have you been drinking?!"

"Just a glass of champagne," I batted my eyes innocently.
"It's not even 5pm!"
"It was just one glass!"
"Yeah, right."
And then giggles ensued, which did not help plead my case in the least.

Taking ownership...

Chris and I didn't even bother getting out of bed on Monday until nearly noon. After all the running around we did on the weekend, we were determined to have a lazy Labor Day. But eventually we got out of bed, cleaned up, and went for a drive. Chris was out of gas from our trip around the state, visiting both families and both sides of Michigan, so we stopped at the corner gas station. It was raining, so I waited in the car while Chris filled the tank. I was staring off at the traffic on 28th street when Chris tapped on driver's side window and mouthed some words to me about a book. "Huh?" I scrunched my eyebrows to get the point across. He reached back and then held up a book for me to see, a sorry-looking left-behind token, wrinkled and wet from the dripping rain. He laughed and turned to put it back where he found it. I tapped on the glass and waved my hand towards me. He opened up the door and said, "You want it?"

"I want to look at it," I said. It was called "Stealing Buddha's Dinner," which interested me right away because I had been thinking about Buddhism a lot and about how important balance is and how I might incorporate more of it into my life. When I flipped it around to look at the synopsis on the back cover, I realized it was a memoir. At the very least, I could use it as another example of what a successful published memoir looks like and try to mirror it in my work. And then I opened up to the first page and read, "We arrived in Grand Rapids with five dollars and a knapsack of clothes." And I had to have it.

Now, I don't condone stealing, but it was obviously abandoned. And besides, for all I know, it very well could have been a gift from Fate, an opportunity for change in my life. Although I haven't put much stock into Fate since I was a freshman in college, I have been trying to be better about exploring such opportunities that present themselves in my daily life. For example, I took that hip-hop dance class in the spring BY MYSELF without knowing anyone else. That was big for me. I learned how to knit at a knitting club that was offered at our apartment complex (and learned I'm not too great at it). And I joined a Writing Club, which is even more risky because I put myself out there to be judged by total strangers. I recently met with a man who is starting his own business and needed a "creative writer" to help him with some of his projects, and I've also interviewed for a ballroom dancing instructor position. My reasons for doing such things? Because I thought they sounded interesting. Because I don't want to sit on the couch every evening. Because I want more adventure in my life. Because I didn't have a good reason not to.

My long-lost summer camp friend and fellow blogger (though she is much more advanced at it and much more popular than I am) Rachel Wilkerson has been inspiring so many people on the web, including me, with her world-renowned concept of OWNING IT. She says people need to stop feeling guilty and instead of saying "I'm sorry," say, "Sorry, I'm NOT sorry." If you're one the few on the net who aren't down with her message yet, see it for yourself here.

So I'm owning the fact I stole an abandoned book at a gas station. And I'm sorry I'm not sorry.
And I'm owning the fact that I refuse to settle for a life that doesn't have adventure and passion.
I'm owning that I like Usher's "Love in This Club" and dance around to it in the bedroom.
I'm owning that I eat junk food and watch old "Grey's Anatomy" DVDs after work before my husband gets home.
I'm not sorry for any of it.

As hypocritical as this may seem, I didn't end up taking the "creative writing" position or the ballroom dance instructor position. At first I did feel guilty about it. I felt like I wasn't doing more to change my lifestyle and to get out of my dead-end job. I felt like maybe I was throwing opportunities away. But then I owned up to what it is I really want out of life. No matter how long I've been out of school, no matter how many stupid jobs I've had, there's always been one thing I wanted, but I've been too scared to go for it. And I've been hiding behind lots of lame excuses so I could avoid putting myself out there to achieve it. And the creating writing job and the dance instructor job, while I'm sure I would enjoy them and perhaps even be successful at them, AREN'T WHAT I REALLY WANT, and it's time to stop settling and get what I want most out of life.

I'm owning that I want to go back to school. I'm owning that I want to get a better degree. I'm owning that I want to write. And I'm not sorry.

So, hopefully, Rachel, this is part of "getting it." In her words...

Don’t ever settle. Everything you’ve ever wanted is within reach. Everything. Seriously…everything. So get it.

I still have a long way to go. There are still plenty of things I'm still sorry for and feel guilty about. And every day, I feel like I have to "get" things all over again or remind myself not to settle. But I suppose that's just life.

In other news, when I saw my mother this weekend, she had a box for me. As I removed the newspaper wrapping, I had to laugh. In it was the tree mug and retro '60s mugs from my grandfather's kitchen, the ones that I spent most of my time haunting a few weekends ago. Maybe grandpa's mug will give me more inspiration for my book. Perhaps I'll make a cup of tea in it later and see what kind of memories steep onto the page. Then again, Grandpa never drank much tea.

Going home again.

I got on my writers' group's web site last night to RSVP for the next meeting and quickly realized that I had missed this week's gathering. It hadn't even occurred to me that two weeks had gone by already. It definitely didn't feel like a fortnight, that's for sure. I guess it didn't matter all too much. I hadn't done any new writing, only had gone back and tried to work on all the critiques of last meeting, which did end up adding on two more pages to the "novel." So now I have six pages. My grandfather has been dead nearly a whole two months and I have six pages to show for it and only 10 months to go.

I suppose it's only natural that I've been a little flaky the past two weeks with the whole house hunting process. We did find a house already and have had our offer accepted, which is super speedy from what I've heard when it comes to buying a house. In a way, I'm glad that it only took two weeks, because it's such a demanding and chaotic process. So while the idea of paying both a mortgage and a rent payment for two months because we can't break our lease scares the bejeebus out of me, at least I have little excuse not to write now.

And you would think I would be full of words after last weekend, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Chris left town with his father for some male bonding time and I stayed at my Mom's, talking about Grandpa, going to Grandpa's house, visiting his grave. My senior year of high school, I lived with my grandfather for five months and I know I thought it was terrible at the time, but I can't remember why. So I even dug out the journal I kept senior year and stayed up late at night reading it in hopes of figuring some of that out. Unfortunately, I was involved in a very ridiculous drama-filled high school romance at the time and the majority of the journal was riddled with "love is grand" or "boys suck," with a few "I hate living in Grandpa's house" thrown in there, and that was about it. So no help from that.

I'm not really sure I got the closure I was looking for being in Grandpa's house. I think it made the wound more open, to be honest. I was hoping that I would get to explore the house on my own, to have some quiet time with my memories, but my godparents were there when we showed up, so no luck. I'm not sure it would have made a difference. I'm not even sure what I was really looking for. I felt like I was the ghost in the house, not Grandpa, haunting every room, lingering for no reason in places, trying to take it all in before having to give it all up. I spent most of my time hovering near the coffee cup tree, touching a coffee cup that Grandpa didn't even use, but I felt that coffee cup alone summed up all my memories of that house. I traced the black lines on the dirty-colored porcelain with my fingers, outlining the design of vibrant oranges and their leaves, thinking about how my father used to drink his morning coffee on Sundays from those mugs, how Aunt Beth would take the pot to the living room, first filling up Uncle Jim's mug and then Grandpa's even though no one asked her to. Mom asked me more than once if I wanted to take the mug home or if I wanted the entire mug tree, but I kept saying no. What would I do with a mug tree? What would I do with these hideous '60s mugs? Part of me wanted to take everything home, and part of me wanted everything to stay exactly as it was.

The house wasn't anything like it should have been. So many things have been cleared out and what was still left was stacked against walls on top of each other, often in boxes. It didn't really matter. It was still Grandpa's house to me. I could still see it how it should have been. My cousins are moving into it, changing things around and painting, but I think no matter how they decorate or renovate, I'll still be able to walk into that house and see things just as they always were, rewind the clock and see everything in its proper place, my grandfather rocking happily in his plush mauve lazyboy in the living room.

Que sais-je?

I was attempting to hold a book hostage from the library this week. Apparently, you can only renew books once, which I had already done, and so it was demanding to have its book back. I called the library and said, "Hell, no, I'm keeping the book and you have to pay me a quarter for every day I don't return it." Oh, wait. They charged me a quarter for every day I didn't return it. I guess that whole hostage situation didn't turn out too great for me. So eventually I gave in and returned it, and with the money I owed the library, I went to Barnes and Noble and bought my own copy.

It's a really insightful how-to-write book by Bill Roorbach called "Writing Life Stories." If you're trying to write a memoir or an essay or what have you, I think it's an excellent source. Even if you already know all the tips he gives you (which I definitely didn't), it's still overflowing with inspiration, and one can never have too much of that.

One particular such inspiring passage talked about this writer from the 1500s named Michel de Montaigne, whom I had never heard of before. Apparently this writer wore a gold medallion around his neck that had the inscription "Que sais-je," which is French for "What do I know?" It's a rather interesting question for writers, definitely, but for anyone really. I liked it so much, that in true Jenny fashion, my first instinct was to get it tattooed somewhere. But my husband would talk me out of that in the end anyhow, as he tends to do every time I want to tattoo something new on myself, which happens more often than you might think.

So what do I know? Generally, I feel like I don't know much. I don't know much about mortgages (but I'm learning with our ongoing house hunt). I don't know much about politics (except what my husband's opinions are). I don't know much about anything, really, or so it seems. But sometimes I think not knowing is what makes a writer great. It can give a connection to the reader and the writer and let them figure out things they don't know together.

However, Roorbach insists that people know a lot more than they think they do. He said Montaigne "was an expert on himself (as we all are, or should be) and so reported confidently, as an authority... Look inside yourself. What do you know? The answer is that you know a lot, about myriad subjects."

It makes perfect sense. If it's anything we should all be experts on, it's ourselves. Which works out for me, trying to write a memoir and all. But isn't it such hard concept to keep in mind from day to day? I know I often feel like I don't know more than I do know, but I think most people feel that way.

Where the book is involved, though, I definitely know a lot about myself and my relationship with my family and my family, in general. Which I'm sure will come in handy. What the writing group pointed out to me this week, though, is that I don't do a very good job of sharing that knowledge with the rest of the world. Turns out that since my family's habits and personalities are so second-nature to me, I don't explain them for the rest of the world to understand. For example, I wrote about how my Aunt Louise smiles and people thought it was weird she was smiling at a funeral. But Aunt Louise is always smiling, no matter the circumstances. I don't think I've ever not seen her smile. Any other person wouldn't know that, though. They would just think she was being insensitive in such a serious atmosphere. So that's something I have to go back and work on.

Also, I'm having another problem with tone in my story. I don't want it to be all ho-hum because it is taking place at a funeral, but I think I've overcompensated and made the mood too light. Some people thought it was clever that I was making light of such a gloomy situation, but other people thought it made me an unreliable narrator. Which is a funny concept, being an unreliable narrator in a story about you written by you.

And then there's also the problem with dialogue. Someone suggested I have more of it. I've never been good with dialogue. I feel it's boring. But I guess I had better give it a whirl anyhow.

So many times, especially this week when our schedule has been so unpredictable and choatic, I feel like I don't know anything about writing. And then I go to writing club and I feel like maybe I know a little about writing, but definitely not much. I never feel discouraged, though, which is a good thing, I guess. I asked the group flat-out if they thought my piece was boring, and they all said encouraging things without really answering the question. I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Then I got home and I was reading through my comments, and one person wrote down, "I didn't think it was boring." So thank you, fellow writer, whoever you are (I couldn't tell by the handwriting). It's nice to know I'm not boring.

So off the top of my head, here's what I know right now:
1. John, the amazing writer who rhymes at Writing Club has bluer eyes than I do, like freaky ridiculously blue eyes. So even though his face looks tired, his eyes are always awake.
2. House hunting absolutely consumes your entire life to the point where it gets obsessive, always checking online to see if a new house has popped up or if perhaps you overlooked one.
3. I cannot have the TV on and expect to get anything productive done, unless I'm in the kitchen, but then I can barely hear the TV anyhow, so it's really not the same thing at all.

Unfortunately, none of those things will help me with my book at all.

Julie, Julia and Jenny.

I have a habit, and I think I probably share it with many women in this world, that, come Sunday night, I make all sorts of resolutions about how I'm going to change my life around. Like Monday is an automatic fresh start, clean slate, even if I ate nothing but burgers and hot dogs and sat on the couch watching "Dirty Jobs" all weekend. All is forgotten come Monday and life starts over.

Well, when I wrote my last entry, I had decided that I was going to write out a whole section of the book this week, at least get a rough draft on the paper. I'm glad I didn't write that into my post, because wouldn't you know it, I didn't do it. In fact, I barely wrote at all this week. And I ate fast food every day and only went to the gym once. I did floss twice this week, which is a new record. Doesn't really seem like that should be pat-on-the-back worthy, though, considering I should floss every day, as my husband lovingly reminds me as he picks through his own teeth.

I did have one goal on Monday that I actually did accomplish this week, and that was finish reading "Julie & Julia" by Julie Powell. See, when I had originally thought about writing this book, I thought it would center around my struggle to recreate some of my grandfather's famous family recipes (I've since abandoned that premise because I've found way too many other things I want to write about, but I will still probably find a way to incorporate that idea into the book). My main connections to my grandfather are his house and his cooking. I'm the one he made the applesauce for, because he knew, come Sunday morning, I would be asking for it. And all of my cousins knew which of Grandpa's cupboards to go to to find freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. So Grandpa's food was always a big part of my life and a big part of my memory.

But to write a book about cooking? I had no idea where to start. So my first order of business was to find a role model of sorts, and what better place to start than the recently world-renowned phenomenon that is "Julie & Julia." Well, I had made the mistake of seeing the movie first, long before I had ever set it in my mind to write a book. And I was in love with the movie. I loved the chronological juxtaposition of the their lives--really everything about the way the story was told. And the Julie Powell in the movie was so likeable. I wanted to be her friend and go to her dinner parties.

Unfortunately, the things I loved about the movie were nonexistent in the book. But then I suppose my expectations were entirely unreasonable. But what expectation I didn't think was unreasonable was that she be able to write well. And in that aspect of the book, I thought she completely failed. I HATED her writing style. I felt like she was constantly breaking all the rules I had been reading about in my how-to-write books. And not just because she was a rebel. Just because she didn't know any better. It gave me a glimmer of hope for my work, though. If SHE can get published, hell, so can I.

She did have some interesting insight into the blogging world, which I will quote from her novel now because it was basically the only passage I liked in the entire book. And pardon the cursing in advance... she has a really dirty mouth.

"Today when we blog about our weight-loss problems and our knitting and our opinion of the president's IQ level, we do it on the blithe assumption that someone gives a shit... Nowadays, anyone with a crap laptop and Internet access can sound their barbaric yawp, whatever it may be. But the surprise is that for every person who's got something to say, it seems there are at least a few people who are interested. Some of them aren't even related."

I give her mad bonus points for using "yawp," mostly because I believe she learned that word, as I did, from the movie "Dead Poet's Society" and not from reading Walt Whitman. And for the record, I have a desktop computer, though now that I am getting friendly with my kitchen table, I'd settle for a crap laptop instead. And half of my comments thus far have been from relatives, but that means half are not. Then again, there's only been 4 comments total so that's not saying much.

As torturous as I felt this book was to read, I figured I had to finish it anyway because if I was going to talk badly about it for the whole world to see, I should at least have read it cover to cover. And truth be told, I'm glad I did, because the last five pages hold more insight than the 302 that precede them. And while she was writing about Julia Child's death, it felt as if she was writing my novel for me.

She writes, "I have no claim over the woman at all, unless it's the claim one who has nearly drowned has over the person who pulled her out of the sea... When you don't believe in heaven, death is about as 'The End' as you can get... I believe that her body's buried... and the brain and heart and experience that made that body Julia have been extinguished. All that's left of that is what resides still in our memories. But that's a kind of afterlife, too, isn't it?"

So while I got a few poignant thoughts out of Ms. Powell, in the end, it turns out that reading that novel was, in general, a waste of my time. Where she was writing a book about writing a blog, I am writing a blog about writing a book. And it just goes to show that I need to spend more time writing and less time reading. So this Sunday night (my in-laws are coming this weekend, so it can't be any earlier... besides weekends are free zones, remember?), I'll make another resolution to write write write my heart out and hopefully get some pages done. And to make matters worse, my husband and I are going to start looking for a house, which only means my already hectic life is about to get even more crazy and sporadic, so I have to take time for writing now and get it into my schedule so when life throws me curveballs, I'll be able to dodge them.

Also, I've been thinking maybe I should also be trying to find magazines that take submissions of articles, get used to writing things on certain topics and deadlines and sending them out. "Creative Nonfiction" magazine is taking articles about food (could they pick a more broad topic?!) until September, so I'm trying to think about something to write for that. I figure it'll only prepare me more for the toils that lay ahead. If anyone knows of any other outlets I could write for, send 'em my way. Please and thank you.

The gloomy balloon that rolls on the floor after a bad party.

I've been working on this book for two weeks now. I've written a lot in the meantime, but as far as the actual book goes, I have exactly one page written, which I workshopped all last night and still am not happy with. My mom asked if I was following any sort of outline or time line, and as of yet, I'm not. It's hard to come up with an outline since I'm still not entirely sure what all I want the book to contain. I figured I'd just write like a banshee for a few weeks and see what resulted. But if I've only written a page in two weeks, I think it's time to find some kind of schedule to stick to.

I've come across a few obstacles so far with this writing business. Firstly is my husband. I'm sure he doesn't do it on purpose, but he is great company and a fabulous companion. So during weekday evenings when we usually watch "The Office" or "Dog the Bounty Hunter" reruns and talk and laugh and cuddle together on the couch, I am now armed with pen and paper at the kitchen table or glued to the computer. Choosing writing over TV time with the man I love is definitely a hard sacrifice to make. It's as John from the writing group said, writing is a lonely business. It's sitting at the table by myself all evening long with only my thoughts to keep me company.

If I have to be alone anywhere, though, it's nice that it's the kitchen table. I find it's my favorite place to work. It's a nice solid surface for scribbling in my composition book. I just grab myself a glass of iced tea from the kitchen and get to work. My table is open to the living room, and there are many windows that look out to the all the trees that surround our apartment. And I can soften the dining room light with the dimmer switch that Chris and I installed when we first moved in (which was a task and a half, but that's another blog). It's a very cozy feeling.

Kitchen tables are made for important memories, I think. It's where meals are served, daily conversation is had, Easter eggs are colored, toothpick bridges are built. My mom spends a lot of time at the kitchen table paying bills and working on projects. It's always the place to find her in the evenings. In both the house of my childhood and in her current house, you can see the kitchen table from the door. She always has the front door open when the weather allows it and oftentimes, as you walk up the sidewalk, you can see her sitting here working, unaware of her approaching visitor. It's a rather comforting image for me, which is probably why I find the kitchen table such an encouraging workspace.

The kitchen table can only hold its trance over me for a certain amount of time, however. Because my topic of choice is my grandfather, who is newly deceased, another obstacle of the writing process is my own emotion. After about an hour, I find myself getting caught up in all the memories, and writing about it becomes unbearable. In a way, it's keeping the wound fresh. Everything about this experience is emotional, it seems. For example, the last two weekends, I've juggled back and forth about whether or not I should make a trip home to gather some of Grandpa's things and recipes for inspiration, but mostly just to walk around his house again before anything in it was changed. My cousin and his wife are considering moving into his house, and it may be sooner or later, so I was determined to get home again before that happened.

My husband, the voice of reason, tried to help me understand how unnecessary that was, reminding me of how far away home really is. It's not like I can just "run home." It's a two and a half hour drive, so even if I were to stay only a few hours once I got there, it would consume the entire day, most of it spent staring out of the car window at the same old boring farmland that spans from one side of the state to the other. It would be a large waste of gas (an expensive waste, too) for what? The house will still be there next month. "Nothing will be different," he assured me.

"Everything will be different!" I exclaimed. His things will be moved. His smell will be gone. His spirit will have wilted and it will just be another house. I needed to touch the furniture, the counters, I needed to climb the stairs and stand in that bedroom that I called mine at one time. I needed to have that last moment with him in his house, my last chance to experience his presence, to feel his comfort. It was an encounter I craved, not only for the book's sake, but for my sake.

The furniture has been moved already, most of it removed. And my aunts and uncles have organized what remains, arranging things in boxes or taking some things home with them. I'm hoping none of that will matter when I finally get my chance to go inside.

When my grandmother died, we would pay to have Mass in her honor a few times a year. It would always be a Saturday evening Mass. My grandpa, my cousin, and I would take up the gifts during the collection. We would all go out to the cemetery after Mass and Father would say a few words, and we'd all let go of balloons, sending them up into heaven for her to enjoy.

In my current book-about-how-to-write-books, I read a blurb written by a student in some writing class, a name that was changed to protect anonymity, called, "On Grief" that went like this:

"Time heals nothing. Those that are gone, stay gone. Your heart is like a balloon with it, a gloomy balloon. The kind that rolls on the floor after bad parties. Swollen and dejected. Might explode at any minute... In grief, the air around us is filled with the heaviness of loss and our chest is filled like a rising balloon. A sinking balloon. Our chest is filled too full with some gas heavier than air."

I love that image of the balloon rolling on the floor after a bad party. Is there anything so sad as deflating balloons? I don't think so.

A lonely business...

When I had initially thought about starting a blog, I searched my local library's catalog for any books that might offer me some guidance. I happened to stumble upon a bunch of books that were about learning how to write books. I find it kind of strange that there are books out there about how to write books, but I was willing to take any free advice that came my way and have since checked out several of the genre.

One of the common tips among such books is that I should find myself a writing group, some fellow peers to read and critique my work. So I finally got around to google-ing "Writing Groups Grand Rapids" and lo and behold, the first hit was for a writing group at my local library branch. They even had a fancy web site and everything. So I RSVP'ed for the next meeting, that upcoming Tuesday, and sat down at the kitchen table to write something.

I have a tendency to commit to parties, get-togethers, and outings way ahead of the scheduled event and then when the event finally arrives, I find myself scrounging for any excuse to get out it. And that Tuesday was no different.

I had worked overtime at work that day, so I didn't have any time in the afternoon to get errands done. I had a headache. I had to make dinner. I hadn't been to the gym in a week. I had laundry to fold. I had something written, but it wasn't typed up. I already had plans for Wednesday and Thursday nights, so when was I supposed to have time to relax anyway? Besides, "Wipeout" was on TV and there a bottle of wine with my name on it.

I decided to go to the meeting in the end. I figured if I was hoping to make some connections in this group, whether they be professional or personal, I shouldn't start off with the bad impression of being a flake. Besides, only two other women had RSVP'ed on the site, so how long could the meeting possibly last?

When I arrived at the library a few minutes after the scheduled starting time (I didn't want to be the first one to arrive and sit around awkwardly waiting for others), I went to the information desk and asked the lady there, "There's supposed to be a writing group..."

"Through the double doors and down the hallway on the left. Just follow the voices," she directed with a smile.

I wandered through the double doors and tiptoed down the hallway on the left and did indeed hear quite a few voices. I poked my head in a room of quite a few people all sitting around banquet tables that had been pushed together, all involved in conversation and not stopping to notice the new face that had appeared in the doorway. I took a seat in the only available chair left and quickly realized that I was one of two present who were under the age of 50 and one of three present who were under the age of 75. Oh, God, I thought to myself, this is going to be a colossal waste of time.

The only other person who appeared to be under 30 was apparently the one running the show. He started off by explaining the process of how their meetings ran for us new attendees. One by one, we were all to read our piece aloud and then everyone would have a chance to voice their opinions about the piece. He said he'd ask for a volunteer to go first, and they'd move clockwise around the table after that. I must have been still recovering from the shock of how many elderly people were present when he gave that last directive, because when he asked for volunteers to start things off, the man to my left said he would go first, which meant that I would be last in the group to go. That bottle of wine of mine would have to wait for another night.

The man to my left was clearly over 70 with gray hair and a plaid shirt and his skinny legs popped out from under what I am going to call golf shorts, because he looks like he had just come from the course. He didn't have much to read, just a few interesting ideas he had for magazine articles, but he actually had good comments throughout the night for the rest of the group and he was armed with a red pen which he used to correct grammar mistakes on the printouts people passed around. Perhaps he was a teacher of sorts in his earlier life?

The second man to go was the man leading the group, and he read a part of a novel that he was writing, which was decent enough, though the group still had plenty of criticism to dish out.

The third man was middle-aged with just a touch of gray hair starting on the edges, but he still had plenty of hair left and wore a black t-shirt and jeans. He looked like perhaps he rode a motorcycle or played in a rock band. He read for us a rhyming tale about a fantastical world called Dullardsville and he spoke with a soothing voice that hypnotized me and left me struggling to stay focused with a critical eye on the words in front of me. It seemed the whole group got completely caught up in his story and all we could do was sing his praises when he was finished. Eventually, I offered a comment that he seemed to find very helpful, which made me glow with pride, because really, the piece seemed positively flawless in my eyes. He was appreciative of all our approval, confessing that he had spent eight years working on the piece as a whole. We were all certain that something wonderful would come of it and that all his work would not be in vain.

Granted, that was indeed a hard act to follow, and the elderly gentlemen who went next definitely disappointed me. He had a book proposal that he passed around, basically telling the entire life story of a man, his time in the military, his marriage, tragedy he suffered, recovery he obtained, love he obtained again, but then another downfall suffered leading to him killing a man and on and on and on. And the book, already written, wasn't even enough words to constitute an actual novel! It was too short. How can one tell the entire life story of a man and not even exceed 50,000 words? Plus, he parodied his title to a Dickens novel, which one should never do because readers will compare your work to the legendary author. But he had to be at least 80 and I'm sure the book had taken a long time and I really didn't feel like crushing the poor man's dreams, so I kept quiet during that critique.

An elderly woman who was working on an alphabet book went next, and she was followed by another woman who was trying to write the sequel to a classic fairy tale but failed miserably at it. When she finished reading her piece, the whole room was so silent, you could honestly hear the crickets chirping outside the window. The elderly man sitting next to me had fallen asleep on his hand. The man who wrote the absolutely brilliant piece was the only one who tried to find something helpful to say, and in the middle of his comments, the man sitting next to me started awake and, immediately aware of what he did, cleared his throat and tried to jump into the conversation while I did my best to stifle my laughter.

Then finally it was turn. I read my piece much more quickly than I intended, which I hoped people didn't mistake for nerves, even though it probably was nerves. When I finished, the alphabet-book woman smiled at me and say it was lovely, which warmed my heart and brought a smile to my face. Everyone had really nice comments, but they were not without criticism. I had told Chris before I left that I had written a piece about Grandpa's funeral, which was partially true, but really the entire piece was about him. However, people thought I presented him as impolite and self-centered and the alphabet-book woman asked with concern, "is everything all right between you two?" So I definitely must work on that, for my husband is the farthest thing from impolite and self-centered.

With my piece all wrapped up, the meeting was over and we all made our way out to our cars. The man who wrote the brilliant piece (I believe his name was John and I had learned he worked at the local newspaper for 40 years) walked next to me and asked, "So you've been writing for a long time, huh?

I tried not to blush. I said I was trying to pick it up again and that it was a big complement for him to assume such a thing.

"It can be a lonely business," he stated as he climbed into his red hatchback and gave me a wave. It was apparent to me that he knew a thing or two about the lonely business of writing.

You could be, like, a writer.

"Write a book," my brother said from his comfy spot in my new Ikea lounger across the living room. "Just write a book already," he repeated, as it is was the obvious solution all along.

"Seriously, Jen, what is it you want out of life?" he asked.

"I want to be a literature professor, I want to open a dance-slash-exercise studio for women, and I want to write a novel."

"Okay, so start with the one that's the most attainable."

I didn't have a PhD, I wasn't a professional dancer, and I definitely wasn't a professional writer, so I really wasn't sure which one he was suggesting.

He continued on as if I had smacked my hand against my forehead and proclaimed, "OF COURSE!" "If you write for an hour a day," he advised, "think how fast you could write a book."

"Write a book" seemed to be my brother's answer to all of life's tough questions. He had been saying the same thing to my mother since he discovered that she was hiding a 20-year-old manuscript up in the attic. Nevermind that our mother wasn't a writer, never had been, and the manuscript was probably 50 pages in total double-spaced. He believed finishing her "book" would solve all her financial problems, let her quit her job, give her closure with her dead mother and may even help her meet a sophisticated businessman who loved to travel to live out the rest of her life with. IF ONLY SHE'D FINISH THE BOOK.

"You're sitting on a gold mine," he'd tell her, "If only you'd finish the book."

I wanted to tell him to sit down for an hour every day and try to write a novel and see how easy he thought it was then.

Besides that, I wasn't a writer, either. I got my degree in literature, which you would think would mean that I could write, but really, all it means is I can read. The only things I have experience writing about are those things that I read. To actually write something creative that was worthy enough (and long enough--good gracious!) to be published was a whole new ballgame entirely.

Go ahead and disregard the fact that I'd been writing since I was six, typing away stories on my aunt's commodore 64 all summer long, stories about stealing freshly baked banana cream pies and taking adventurous walks in haunted forests, then printing out my literary masterpieces on her tractor-feed printer paper, proudly creasing and ripping the edges off before stapling the multiple pages together. It's astonishing that I, a writer with so much experience, a multiple-time Young Authors Award winner, was now, in her late 20s, cowering at the idea of writing a novel, not when I had had so much promise.

But it was true, as sad as it was. When I became old enough to be self-conscious and when my teen years started to resemble fantasy fiction more than actual life, my creativity disappeared with my pigtails and different-colored socks.

A whole ten months passed before my brother brought it all up again. My grandfather had just passed away and I had written an essay to read at his funeral, my own little eulogy of sorts, a last chance to say all the things I've always wanted to say. Well, it turns out most of the family got a chance to read it a whole two days beforehand because my proud mother, who believes everything I write is pure gold, e-mailed it to all my aunts who then forwarded it onto my cousins. The night before the funeral when we were all gathered for his showing, family members kept coming up to me saying how wonderful my speech was before I even had a chance to speak it. My brother's girlfriend even had already read it, to which she commented, "You could be, like, a writer."

"Thank you!" my brother belted out, throwing his hands into the air. That was only what he had been trying to tell me all along.

So fine, you win. Here I am, giving it a try, testing the waters to see if I'm any good at this writing thing and whether or not my brother was right all along.