Wow, this blog is pathetic, isn't it? It's okay, just say yes, I know it's true. :)
Okay, so school has started back, and I'm no longer working at the restaurant. I did get my wish of being homeschooled this year, and it's interesting. Every coin has two faces, after all. On the not-so-bright one, being in closer proximity means Mom and I have more clashes; my self-discipline is getting rigorous exercise every day; and I'm not getting as much physical exercise as I used to, something I'm going to have to remedy. On the bright shiny face, I'm actually studying things I'm interested in for the most part, and actually learning things. Wow! Yea! Oh, and I have a life now, and I'm not tired all the time. That's a big plus.
British Literature is my favorite class. I actually do have a class for that, an hour once a week, after which we're assigned reading and/or writing to do at home. It's great! I love exploring these classics, things I might not have picked up to read on my own, and finding literary gems. This week is Gulliver's Travels. I've read through the first book already, the adventures concerning Lilliput. Swift has an interesting writing style; the story could be a children's tale, yet he has made every effort, it seems, aside from the fantastic places visited by the hero, to make it appear a real account of a man's journeys. I love that.
As far as reading outside of school, I'm nearly through the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer for the second time. Man, I love those books! People kept telling me about them, and they always said something like, "They're about this girl who falls in love with a vampire. They're really good!" Honestly, that didn't sound so great to me. What could possibly be so good about a girl falling in love with a blood-sucking monster? I thought of the vampires in cartoons and bad horror movies and in the one other vampire romance series I tried and failed to like (the Circle Trilogy, by Nora Roberts--I didn't even get through the first book, Moregan's Cross). But Twilight is different. Meyer's vampires are totally unique. According to human reason, they should be unbelievable. I mean, super strong, almost indestructable, rock-hard skin, no heart and no liquid of any kind in their veins, not even a need for air...but she hit the nail on the head all the way home and never missed it once. I was hooked, and still am. The love story of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen is a thing of beauty.
Aside from Twilight, I've been reading books about faeries and all their relatives--anything I can get my hands on that isn't really juvenile--because starting October 1, I'll be writing about faeries of my own. More on that later, though.
In other news, I've started applying for colleges. Yea. I really, really hope I get into UNCG, my first choice, because the school looks really awesome, and I already know people there, and I've heard they have a great English department. It looks great, too, from what they have on their website. Oh, and plus, it's just the right distance from home to make it a good idea to live on campus, yet I'd still be close if there was a family emergency or something.
I'm going to really try to update this blog more frequently and not let it get covered in virtual dust bunnies. But right now, I'm going to cut this short and go get some food or coffee or something before getting back to school; I need something to wake me up. No, I'm not tired all the time, but yeah, I'm tired right now.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Bottoms Up
Well, last night, after my post, I was all geared up for forward march. Should've known it wasn't going to be forward march. Nope. It's back to square one...well, maybe not quite, as I don't have medical research to do, but pretty much, from a writing standpoint. The plan? I'm formulating it as I write.
Let's see. I know what I'm dealing with now, at least as far as where I went wrong before and what I need to fix. I know where the line is now between character and outside force, if you will. So it's not technically outside, but you get the idea. That's good. And if my trauma victim were a girl, I'd have no further problems, very likely. I'm a girl myself, I know how woman's emotions work. Unfortunately, Brin is not a girl; he's a guy. A grown, married one. I like him, but I don't know him very well yet. He can be a hothead, that's for sure. He's really brave and a patriot who wants reform in the way his country is ruled. He’s also, from the perspective of a girl, a sweetie. I’ve heard men don’t like to hear that about themselves, but that’s just too bad, isn’t it? *smirks* Brin also blushes easily (for a guy—like when he’s angry…his wife is the only one who can make him blush for any other reason), which I thought was an interesting trait to pop up against the machoness. He’s a carpenter, and does small wood carvings in his spare time. Also hunts, with friends. He’s not into it enough to go at it alone. Hmm…what else? Okay, now I’m making up stuff as I go, but who cares? It’s working. Um, he sings, but only for his wife. He’s a good debater, quite eloquent, and he loves it too, and probably knows he’s good at it, deep down, even if he never says so. He’s in great physical shape, a good runner, has an amazing aim when he throws something (be it a stone or a dagger), and his favorite forms of competition are formal footraces and a board game called kings—a classic, really. Okay, so I know all that now. That’s cool, really cool. That’s more than I knew about him five minutes ago. Now there are just three things to solve.
Firstly, what makes him tick? Not him as a guy anymore, but him as an individual? What does he want out of life. I’d say two main things. He wants a family, and he wants a free, good, happy homeland free of the tyranny that rules it now. He wants his country to be able to really call herself “proud Charlane,” as the old songs say.
Now, secondly, what’s he like on an emotional level? What is it that really gets down there to his core. More importantly for what I’m trying to do here, what’s his breaking point? In other words, what makes him cry? That sounds like a stupid, insensitive question, and Brin would probably get tight-jawed and short with me if I tried to ask him in person (if that were possible), but guess what. I’m the author; it’s my job to ask stupid and insensitive questions sometimes.
The next one is even more insensitive. How does a guy like Brin react to utter helplessness? He’s imprisoned, told he’ll soon be executed, even taken out there and made to dig his own grave, having been told he’ll be tortured into unconsciousness and then tied, put in a coffin, and buried alive in the hole he has to dig himself. Then it doesn’t happen. He digs the grave, and the torture starts, and there’s a highly disruptive event. He’s carted right back to prison and liberated soon after. What’s that going to do to him? How horrific! Really, this ties back to the crying question. Everyone has a point where they lose control, and I’m trying to find his. I don’t want him to be a wimp, I don’t. I don’t believe guys that cry are wimps; in fact, I admire the courage it takes some of them. I’ve seen my dad cry in semi-public (church), and even though it made my insides squirm and my own eyes fill and overflow with unreasoning tears just because Daddy was crying, I don’t know that I could have sat in his place without wanting to run away and hide afterward, which he didn’t. But getting back to Brin. The flip side to that is I don’t want to fall back into old ways, either. I don’t want him to lose his characterization. Sure, this will shake him; how could it not? It will probably do more than shake him; he might never be the same again. And maybe I’m as afraid of that as he would be if he knew. How ridiculous. Maybe I’m going to have to wait and see what his breaking point is, what his reactions are like, and just pray and hope hard that I can keep his character firmly in place. And this is going to be even harder because it’s all from his wife’s POV. You can say I have the option of changing from first to third person so I can write in his POV, and sure I do. But I don’t want to. I like it fine that Eryn is telling the story; in fact, it gives it a little bit of a unique perspective. For once in a fantasy, the tragic hero or the magical person isn’t telling the story; it’s being told by a simple, ordinary young woman who loves them both.
So, thus far, what do you think of my guy? He’s the first one I’ve ever consciously gone into this much detail with. I’m going to have to find a way to work him in more; he didn’t have very much stage time before he was arrested.
On a slightly different note, I’ve begun reading All Quiet on the Western Front, in hopes to learn more. Bit of a hard book. Or I could just come right out and say it’s shocking, eye-opening, and extremely sad—and I’m just at the beginning. Still, thanks to True Patriot for the rec. I love the guy’s style and I think I’m in for another big lesson or two…or ten. I’m hoping to learn more about writing guys, and Brin in particular, by reading more guy literature.
Let's see. I know what I'm dealing with now, at least as far as where I went wrong before and what I need to fix. I know where the line is now between character and outside force, if you will. So it's not technically outside, but you get the idea. That's good. And if my trauma victim were a girl, I'd have no further problems, very likely. I'm a girl myself, I know how woman's emotions work. Unfortunately, Brin is not a girl; he's a guy. A grown, married one. I like him, but I don't know him very well yet. He can be a hothead, that's for sure. He's really brave and a patriot who wants reform in the way his country is ruled. He’s also, from the perspective of a girl, a sweetie. I’ve heard men don’t like to hear that about themselves, but that’s just too bad, isn’t it? *smirks* Brin also blushes easily (for a guy—like when he’s angry…his wife is the only one who can make him blush for any other reason), which I thought was an interesting trait to pop up against the machoness. He’s a carpenter, and does small wood carvings in his spare time. Also hunts, with friends. He’s not into it enough to go at it alone. Hmm…what else? Okay, now I’m making up stuff as I go, but who cares? It’s working. Um, he sings, but only for his wife. He’s a good debater, quite eloquent, and he loves it too, and probably knows he’s good at it, deep down, even if he never says so. He’s in great physical shape, a good runner, has an amazing aim when he throws something (be it a stone or a dagger), and his favorite forms of competition are formal footraces and a board game called kings—a classic, really. Okay, so I know all that now. That’s cool, really cool. That’s more than I knew about him five minutes ago. Now there are just three things to solve.
Firstly, what makes him tick? Not him as a guy anymore, but him as an individual? What does he want out of life. I’d say two main things. He wants a family, and he wants a free, good, happy homeland free of the tyranny that rules it now. He wants his country to be able to really call herself “proud Charlane,” as the old songs say.
Now, secondly, what’s he like on an emotional level? What is it that really gets down there to his core. More importantly for what I’m trying to do here, what’s his breaking point? In other words, what makes him cry? That sounds like a stupid, insensitive question, and Brin would probably get tight-jawed and short with me if I tried to ask him in person (if that were possible), but guess what. I’m the author; it’s my job to ask stupid and insensitive questions sometimes.
The next one is even more insensitive. How does a guy like Brin react to utter helplessness? He’s imprisoned, told he’ll soon be executed, even taken out there and made to dig his own grave, having been told he’ll be tortured into unconsciousness and then tied, put in a coffin, and buried alive in the hole he has to dig himself. Then it doesn’t happen. He digs the grave, and the torture starts, and there’s a highly disruptive event. He’s carted right back to prison and liberated soon after. What’s that going to do to him? How horrific! Really, this ties back to the crying question. Everyone has a point where they lose control, and I’m trying to find his. I don’t want him to be a wimp, I don’t. I don’t believe guys that cry are wimps; in fact, I admire the courage it takes some of them. I’ve seen my dad cry in semi-public (church), and even though it made my insides squirm and my own eyes fill and overflow with unreasoning tears just because Daddy was crying, I don’t know that I could have sat in his place without wanting to run away and hide afterward, which he didn’t. But getting back to Brin. The flip side to that is I don’t want to fall back into old ways, either. I don’t want him to lose his characterization. Sure, this will shake him; how could it not? It will probably do more than shake him; he might never be the same again. And maybe I’m as afraid of that as he would be if he knew. How ridiculous. Maybe I’m going to have to wait and see what his breaking point is, what his reactions are like, and just pray and hope hard that I can keep his character firmly in place. And this is going to be even harder because it’s all from his wife’s POV. You can say I have the option of changing from first to third person so I can write in his POV, and sure I do. But I don’t want to. I like it fine that Eryn is telling the story; in fact, it gives it a little bit of a unique perspective. For once in a fantasy, the tragic hero or the magical person isn’t telling the story; it’s being told by a simple, ordinary young woman who loves them both.
So, thus far, what do you think of my guy? He’s the first one I’ve ever consciously gone into this much detail with. I’m going to have to find a way to work him in more; he didn’t have very much stage time before he was arrested.
On a slightly different note, I’ve begun reading All Quiet on the Western Front, in hopes to learn more. Bit of a hard book. Or I could just come right out and say it’s shocking, eye-opening, and extremely sad—and I’m just at the beginning. Still, thanks to True Patriot for the rec. I love the guy’s style and I think I’m in for another big lesson or two…or ten. I’m hoping to learn more about writing guys, and Brin in particular, by reading more guy literature.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Shoot, darn, hang, blast, confound and confusticate the whole ruddy thingymajigger!
No. Do not laugh at me. Do *not* laugh at me. Well, you can. Just don't tell me about it till I look back on this and laugh too and say how stupid that title is...as I undoubtedly will.
No, nothing is seriously wrong. At least not by sane standards. I'm just in a towering temper and dying to just blow my top completely and scream bloody vengeance at something. And if you're guessing I'm enjoying the use of colorful non-profanity, you'd be dead right. I'm also very much enjoying the sensation of pounding computer keys with my mean, lean fingers. Okay, now that I've just written that, I almost feel ready to laugh. Mean, lean fingers? Shoot! That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard--why am iI not surprised it came from me?
So, why am I mad anyway. Well, let's see. It will be interesting to find out if any of it is logical.
1. I'm exhausted as crud. And I have no idea why. It's only Tuesday, for crying out loud! I can't afford this junk!
2. I'm a girl, plain and simple. Girls have moods. So do I, and right now they're really, really super-dee-duper not fun ones. Maybe that should be number one, because it's probably the root of everything, but I'm too lazy to switch them.
3. Probablyy a general build-up of the things that linger in the back of my mind and keep me awake at night when I think about the future...though that's more of an "if" these days, as usually when I go to bed I'm so tired I can't think further than to hit the button that starts some relaxing music on the stereo.
4. Something wrong with something to do with my lot of recording equipment. Again! Man! What's this, the billionth time in less than a month?! What am I going to do? I don't belive in luck and I'm not superstitious, but I'm seriously starting to wonder if I'm supposed to put that dream aside...even while the bare thought makes my heart contract and starts a tiny little flutter of panic somewhere so deep I can't name where it is. I'm sure if I put my music aside, my writing would go, too, and then what would I be left with?
5. I finished reading Angels Fall. And I guess that one deserves some explanation. First of all, it's good. I mean it's really good. The characters are amazing, alive, you love them and in some cases hate them at the same time. They warm you, touch you, fill you up and wring you out and make you breathless. But I wouldn't recommend the book to my friends. I said to Shelley in an e-mail last night that it was "risque" as far as romance scenes and stuff. Uh-uh, this is a little bit more than risque. There was more in that book about what goes on behind closed doors and in heads and hearts while two people touch than I ever wanted to know, in marriage or out of it. Maybe what's bothering me is the fact that it's *not* bothering me. Not at all. I could just read it, watch casually, without blushing, without cringing or thinking of putting it away, without blinking an eye. Not that I've never read similar (even for school purposes); but the other things I read that come to mind disgusted me at the time. With this, it was just like listening to the rain and realizing that's what it sounds like, if that makes any sense. But then, should I really be surprised? After listening to a girl across the table discuss her sex life over lunch at school on a number of occasions (pardon my bluntness, those of you who might be sensative, but that's what it is, and it might as well be said), after having to deal with something I won't mention because this is the internet and it was highly personal and more traumatic than I'm used to, should I be surprised that I'm no longer a child, no longer an innocent little girl to be made rosy in the face by the mention of the word, to have to turn my back and eat my sandwich on my lap while this girl talked about the details of her and her boyfriend's "playing around" so that she and her friends wouldn't see my color and laugh at me for it? Should it surprise me to find that I've grown up and become hard? No. I suppose not. And now that I've finally said it, I want to cry. Just cry. Like a child. But I won't, I won't, I will not...I'm seventeen. Almost eighteen. I'll be out in the world soon; it's high time I lost my innocence, I guess. Sometimes I think it would be less long and excruciating if it weren't taken bit by bit but just ripped away all at once. But then I realize that if that happened to me--as it has to others--it would crush me, break me, possibly kill me. So God knows what He's doing, I guess...I know. Even if it does hurt a little bit.
Moving on, I did have a reason for continuing to read that book after I found out it wasn't quite as innocent as I thought it was. I'm not a dirty little feminine peeping Tom (Tammy?) for nothing. As I said before, the main character, Reece Gilmore, suffers from PTSD...and it's worse than I could know from the movie. Flashbacks, nightmares--awful nightmares, nightmares that made *me* shiver--panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, phobias (I can't list all of them, I'm not even sure I know all of them), neuroses, etc. She really did need to spend time in that psych hospital; she was losing touch bad and fast. But that's not what defined her character. No, if I was going to describe her, I'd say a lot of things. Like she loves to cook like I love to write. Like she's got a good sense of humor and an even better head on her shoulders. Like she's as tough as nails, maybe tougher. Like she's brave, and feisty, and heart-warming. She's compelling; she makes you care about her, from the thin, pale face and the big eyes to the heart that beats beneath the scar where the bullet pierced her--a scant physical sign of the pain she's endured, and still endures in the story. PTSD? Well, it adds a layer of character. But she isn't it, and it isn't her. She's just an ordinary woman, fighting with all she's got against the currents of chaos in which float bits of refuse from her life before, trying--and doing a good job of it--to get back to the shore of normalcy. Just like any of us would. And in watching her on one of the harder stretches of her long journey, I learned something from her, a lesson for which I was long overdue.
I guess my fascination began with a book called The Bronze Bow, by Elizabeth George Speare. There's a character in that book named Leah, who is afraid of almost everything and everyone and who absolutely will not leave the house. She was fine until she was five, when she saw her Father and some others crucified. This being set in Biblical times, the people thought she was possessed by a demon. I'm not ruling that out, but weird demon, if that's what it was, to just scare her and leave her perfectly sweet and gentle otherwise. I asked my mom what she thought it might be, and she replied, "She was traumatized." Then I set out to learn what that meant. In those days, that didn't go beyond a few dictionary definitions.
Then there was LOTR. Frodo was not the same after the Quest to destroy the Ring; anyone can see that, even if Tolkien did dull and flatten it considerably--I guess he had to, considering the space limitations surely in place by this time, and the fact he was a war vet himself and probably didn't want to remember it. I don't blame him there, not at all; I can't even imagine...Anyway, something in Frodo aroused pity so profound in me that it brought me to tears more than once, and made me desperate to do something, anything. I wanted to jump into the story and carry him up the Mountain myself, soothe him afterward when the wounds ached so and the shadows came back to plague him. Poor dear, he'd endured so much and he still had to bear the pain. I first found a vent in songs--songs of a comforting and lulling nature--lullabies, in short, though at first they were written specifically for him. (Before anyone asks, I don't have them. At least not the first ones. They were horrific. And the later ones, whatever some may say, are not much better.) Then I started on fanfic. I was totally obsessed, though by that time there was more to it than wanting to ease Frodo's pain. It was in the midst of this that I started to understand what it truly meant to be "traumatized."
As a writer and admitted angst-addict, I wanted to try this out. I still have some of my first attempts, when I'd hardly done any research, and they're ludicrous. I've gotten more informed over time, and less morbidly obsessed. But reading Reece's story has made me wonder if my near-present attempts aren't just as awful as my first. I think of one character in particular who suffers PTSD, and I see now that I've let that define her whole character. No wonder I had such a hard time with her, and no wonder I don't really want to finish the story now. I can't blame myself because she came in as she was, and the story is not from her POV, so it's difficult to build a background. But not impossible. Basically, I took a problem, added some looks, a name, and a shadow of a personality, and called that a character. Uh-uh, there is no way, and I can't believe I did that. I state in the book that she has a sense of pride etc. etc. But how can that really be true, when she takes pity and pampering like a little lamb lying down? I can understand someone doing that if they're helpless, an invalid and do it because they must, or a child, but an adult? If I met an adult with so little iron in her, I'm not so sure I'd have much patience with her, mostly because she wouldn't feel real or right. As humans, unless there's something seriously wrong, we don't do that. Think about it. Have you ever cried in front of someone? Had them hold you, pat your back, shush and murmur something like "There, there, it's okay, honey." Maybe you wanted comfort. Maybe you were so upset that it was actually soothing. But how did you feel afterward? It's not embarrassing to cry, yet we get embarrassed. And as for story people who always know exactly what to do when comforting, they're nice, and there are people really like that. But for the most part, especially if the one needing comforting is our equal, we're pretty awkward creatures when it comes to dishing it out. I like to think I'm a good comforter (ha, ha, ha), and I've been called motherly more times than I can possibly count. But when someone really and completely loses it, I don't know what to do. It doesn't even take that. A lot of times if I seem to know what to do, I really don't; I'm really just freaking out and winging it. It's all very sweet and warm and fuzzy to read a story in which someone whose pain defines them gets comforted by someone who is magically good at it (and my mind is flitting back to hundreds of LOTR fanfics, some of them mine), but is it realistic? I think not, after all. Not if you're real; not if you know anything about real life. Sorry, doesn't work that way. There are people that seek attention by trying to get pity (which is the form of attention-seeking that I most despise and look down on--how low can somebody go, and how conceited would a person have to be to do that?), but for those of us who at least try to be sensible, we like to find our feet and stand on equal ground with those around us, not have them lean down to pet us on the head and say "There, there." I wonder some brutally honest person didn't see that all my trauma victims (or nearly all, certainly the most profoundly affected) seemed to be all bad memories and tears and shudders and pale faces and no backbone or real character and point it out to me. Or maybe people did see, and just didn't want to hurt my feelings. Either way, I'm rather ashamed. Not only is it bad writing, it's disrespectful to those who really know what it's like firsthand, like making fun of that. And that was the last thing I ever, ever wanted to do. I might have a fascination for what some call morbid (effects of trauma, psychological conditions, mental illness, etc...I'm sure nobody wants me to keep going here), but I really do respect all those things and the people who deal with them in everyday life, and I hate misrepresenting things that really are important in writing. I hate it when people do it with blindness--makes my skin crawl--and I hate it even more when I do it to something else. So. I guess my next task is to learn to deal with my trauma victims without stripping them of all dignity of character, whether they realize they still have it intact or not, they have to keep it. And I have a trauma victim coming right up in a few chapters of my novella, how handy. Yea. Romance and trauma at the same time. And I'm no better with the former than I am with the latter--worse, in fact. Goody. Joy. But really, I might be sarcastic, but I love the excitement of the challenge.
And I feel considerably better now. Still tired, still with homework awaiting, now hungry, and a little bit snippy, but I think the towering temper has shrunk to a stacked couple of blocks. Now, somebody tell me if any of this makes any sense at all. Actually, on second thought...don't.
No, nothing is seriously wrong. At least not by sane standards. I'm just in a towering temper and dying to just blow my top completely and scream bloody vengeance at something. And if you're guessing I'm enjoying the use of colorful non-profanity, you'd be dead right. I'm also very much enjoying the sensation of pounding computer keys with my mean, lean fingers. Okay, now that I've just written that, I almost feel ready to laugh. Mean, lean fingers? Shoot! That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard--why am iI not surprised it came from me?
So, why am I mad anyway. Well, let's see. It will be interesting to find out if any of it is logical.
1. I'm exhausted as crud. And I have no idea why. It's only Tuesday, for crying out loud! I can't afford this junk!
2. I'm a girl, plain and simple. Girls have moods. So do I, and right now they're really, really super-dee-duper not fun ones. Maybe that should be number one, because it's probably the root of everything, but I'm too lazy to switch them.
3. Probablyy a general build-up of the things that linger in the back of my mind and keep me awake at night when I think about the future...though that's more of an "if" these days, as usually when I go to bed I'm so tired I can't think further than to hit the button that starts some relaxing music on the stereo.
4. Something wrong with something to do with my lot of recording equipment. Again! Man! What's this, the billionth time in less than a month?! What am I going to do? I don't belive in luck and I'm not superstitious, but I'm seriously starting to wonder if I'm supposed to put that dream aside...even while the bare thought makes my heart contract and starts a tiny little flutter of panic somewhere so deep I can't name where it is. I'm sure if I put my music aside, my writing would go, too, and then what would I be left with?
5. I finished reading Angels Fall. And I guess that one deserves some explanation. First of all, it's good. I mean it's really good. The characters are amazing, alive, you love them and in some cases hate them at the same time. They warm you, touch you, fill you up and wring you out and make you breathless. But I wouldn't recommend the book to my friends. I said to Shelley in an e-mail last night that it was "risque" as far as romance scenes and stuff. Uh-uh, this is a little bit more than risque. There was more in that book about what goes on behind closed doors and in heads and hearts while two people touch than I ever wanted to know, in marriage or out of it. Maybe what's bothering me is the fact that it's *not* bothering me. Not at all. I could just read it, watch casually, without blushing, without cringing or thinking of putting it away, without blinking an eye. Not that I've never read similar (even for school purposes); but the other things I read that come to mind disgusted me at the time. With this, it was just like listening to the rain and realizing that's what it sounds like, if that makes any sense. But then, should I really be surprised? After listening to a girl across the table discuss her sex life over lunch at school on a number of occasions (pardon my bluntness, those of you who might be sensative, but that's what it is, and it might as well be said), after having to deal with something I won't mention because this is the internet and it was highly personal and more traumatic than I'm used to, should I be surprised that I'm no longer a child, no longer an innocent little girl to be made rosy in the face by the mention of the word, to have to turn my back and eat my sandwich on my lap while this girl talked about the details of her and her boyfriend's "playing around" so that she and her friends wouldn't see my color and laugh at me for it? Should it surprise me to find that I've grown up and become hard? No. I suppose not. And now that I've finally said it, I want to cry. Just cry. Like a child. But I won't, I won't, I will not...I'm seventeen. Almost eighteen. I'll be out in the world soon; it's high time I lost my innocence, I guess. Sometimes I think it would be less long and excruciating if it weren't taken bit by bit but just ripped away all at once. But then I realize that if that happened to me--as it has to others--it would crush me, break me, possibly kill me. So God knows what He's doing, I guess...I know. Even if it does hurt a little bit.
Moving on, I did have a reason for continuing to read that book after I found out it wasn't quite as innocent as I thought it was. I'm not a dirty little feminine peeping Tom (Tammy?) for nothing. As I said before, the main character, Reece Gilmore, suffers from PTSD...and it's worse than I could know from the movie. Flashbacks, nightmares--awful nightmares, nightmares that made *me* shiver--panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, phobias (I can't list all of them, I'm not even sure I know all of them), neuroses, etc. She really did need to spend time in that psych hospital; she was losing touch bad and fast. But that's not what defined her character. No, if I was going to describe her, I'd say a lot of things. Like she loves to cook like I love to write. Like she's got a good sense of humor and an even better head on her shoulders. Like she's as tough as nails, maybe tougher. Like she's brave, and feisty, and heart-warming. She's compelling; she makes you care about her, from the thin, pale face and the big eyes to the heart that beats beneath the scar where the bullet pierced her--a scant physical sign of the pain she's endured, and still endures in the story. PTSD? Well, it adds a layer of character. But she isn't it, and it isn't her. She's just an ordinary woman, fighting with all she's got against the currents of chaos in which float bits of refuse from her life before, trying--and doing a good job of it--to get back to the shore of normalcy. Just like any of us would. And in watching her on one of the harder stretches of her long journey, I learned something from her, a lesson for which I was long overdue.
I guess my fascination began with a book called The Bronze Bow, by Elizabeth George Speare. There's a character in that book named Leah, who is afraid of almost everything and everyone and who absolutely will not leave the house. She was fine until she was five, when she saw her Father and some others crucified. This being set in Biblical times, the people thought she was possessed by a demon. I'm not ruling that out, but weird demon, if that's what it was, to just scare her and leave her perfectly sweet and gentle otherwise. I asked my mom what she thought it might be, and she replied, "She was traumatized." Then I set out to learn what that meant. In those days, that didn't go beyond a few dictionary definitions.
Then there was LOTR. Frodo was not the same after the Quest to destroy the Ring; anyone can see that, even if Tolkien did dull and flatten it considerably--I guess he had to, considering the space limitations surely in place by this time, and the fact he was a war vet himself and probably didn't want to remember it. I don't blame him there, not at all; I can't even imagine...Anyway, something in Frodo aroused pity so profound in me that it brought me to tears more than once, and made me desperate to do something, anything. I wanted to jump into the story and carry him up the Mountain myself, soothe him afterward when the wounds ached so and the shadows came back to plague him. Poor dear, he'd endured so much and he still had to bear the pain. I first found a vent in songs--songs of a comforting and lulling nature--lullabies, in short, though at first they were written specifically for him. (Before anyone asks, I don't have them. At least not the first ones. They were horrific. And the later ones, whatever some may say, are not much better.) Then I started on fanfic. I was totally obsessed, though by that time there was more to it than wanting to ease Frodo's pain. It was in the midst of this that I started to understand what it truly meant to be "traumatized."
As a writer and admitted angst-addict, I wanted to try this out. I still have some of my first attempts, when I'd hardly done any research, and they're ludicrous. I've gotten more informed over time, and less morbidly obsessed. But reading Reece's story has made me wonder if my near-present attempts aren't just as awful as my first. I think of one character in particular who suffers PTSD, and I see now that I've let that define her whole character. No wonder I had such a hard time with her, and no wonder I don't really want to finish the story now. I can't blame myself because she came in as she was, and the story is not from her POV, so it's difficult to build a background. But not impossible. Basically, I took a problem, added some looks, a name, and a shadow of a personality, and called that a character. Uh-uh, there is no way, and I can't believe I did that. I state in the book that she has a sense of pride etc. etc. But how can that really be true, when she takes pity and pampering like a little lamb lying down? I can understand someone doing that if they're helpless, an invalid and do it because they must, or a child, but an adult? If I met an adult with so little iron in her, I'm not so sure I'd have much patience with her, mostly because she wouldn't feel real or right. As humans, unless there's something seriously wrong, we don't do that. Think about it. Have you ever cried in front of someone? Had them hold you, pat your back, shush and murmur something like "There, there, it's okay, honey." Maybe you wanted comfort. Maybe you were so upset that it was actually soothing. But how did you feel afterward? It's not embarrassing to cry, yet we get embarrassed. And as for story people who always know exactly what to do when comforting, they're nice, and there are people really like that. But for the most part, especially if the one needing comforting is our equal, we're pretty awkward creatures when it comes to dishing it out. I like to think I'm a good comforter (ha, ha, ha), and I've been called motherly more times than I can possibly count. But when someone really and completely loses it, I don't know what to do. It doesn't even take that. A lot of times if I seem to know what to do, I really don't; I'm really just freaking out and winging it. It's all very sweet and warm and fuzzy to read a story in which someone whose pain defines them gets comforted by someone who is magically good at it (and my mind is flitting back to hundreds of LOTR fanfics, some of them mine), but is it realistic? I think not, after all. Not if you're real; not if you know anything about real life. Sorry, doesn't work that way. There are people that seek attention by trying to get pity (which is the form of attention-seeking that I most despise and look down on--how low can somebody go, and how conceited would a person have to be to do that?), but for those of us who at least try to be sensible, we like to find our feet and stand on equal ground with those around us, not have them lean down to pet us on the head and say "There, there." I wonder some brutally honest person didn't see that all my trauma victims (or nearly all, certainly the most profoundly affected) seemed to be all bad memories and tears and shudders and pale faces and no backbone or real character and point it out to me. Or maybe people did see, and just didn't want to hurt my feelings. Either way, I'm rather ashamed. Not only is it bad writing, it's disrespectful to those who really know what it's like firsthand, like making fun of that. And that was the last thing I ever, ever wanted to do. I might have a fascination for what some call morbid (effects of trauma, psychological conditions, mental illness, etc...I'm sure nobody wants me to keep going here), but I really do respect all those things and the people who deal with them in everyday life, and I hate misrepresenting things that really are important in writing. I hate it when people do it with blindness--makes my skin crawl--and I hate it even more when I do it to something else. So. I guess my next task is to learn to deal with my trauma victims without stripping them of all dignity of character, whether they realize they still have it intact or not, they have to keep it. And I have a trauma victim coming right up in a few chapters of my novella, how handy. Yea. Romance and trauma at the same time. And I'm no better with the former than I am with the latter--worse, in fact. Goody. Joy. But really, I might be sarcastic, but I love the excitement of the challenge.
And I feel considerably better now. Still tired, still with homework awaiting, now hungry, and a little bit snippy, but I think the towering temper has shrunk to a stacked couple of blocks. Now, somebody tell me if any of this makes any sense at all. Actually, on second thought...don't.
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