Category — Reading Materials

In case you’re worried about me and/or the state of FtR, I figured I better tell you a few things:

1. I’m alive and well.

2. I’ve been doing stuff, namely writing and reading.

I know, I know. It seems like I’ve been doing the opposite, and I guess, in a way, I have been. I haven’t been blogging. I’ve barely been Twittering. And, though I’ve made a few quick runs across the Internet, I’ve been letting my feeds pile up till they reach the triple digits and the only sensible thing to do is hit “Mark All Read.”

But I have been writing and reading. I’ve actually been behaving like a writer — writing, sharing, critiquing, reading other good writing, revising, talking to myself, staying up late, and other assorted stereotypes you surely already know. And I’m probably going to be doing it for a while.

That’s not to say FtR is dead or that I don’t have anything to blog about. . .

One of the things I read is The Mysterious Benedict Society, which Lex recommended — I’d link to where he wrote about it, but in case you haven’t noticed, that’s not an option — and it’s incredible. Caelyn’s been doing some funny stuff like whispering, “Gosh,” and some scary/gross stuff like choking at Tin Star and semi-puking on me. If Chris was writing this, he’d add an extra backslash and “hilarious” because he gets a big kick out of my involuntary responses to things like throwing and/or hocking-up. Chris has been doing some amusing stuff too, like deciding we should bake pumpkin bread, checking the cabinet over the stove for ingredients while I was in the shower, and then clearing out the whole thing in utter disbelief of his wife’s ability to make such a mess, much less create culinary masterpieces in it. I’ve been watching some awesome tween television, although not as much with all the writing and reading. The Office premiered, too, and I’ve been listening to some good music. Chris and I don’t have any more weight to lose, so we’ve been checking out local burger joints. I’ve almost decided my tooth hurts bad enough to go to the dentist and that I can’t take the noise in my ear anymore — it’s only been 3 years. Oh, yeah, and we watched my father-in-law go up in a hot air balloon. You can see all about it on Flickr.)

. . . But, you know, I started this blog to try to get back into my own voice.

I feel like I’ve told you this before, but I can’t remember. Before Caelyn came along, I was an editor/writer for a ministry in North Dallas. Essentially, that involved helping other people develop their distinct voices (which is something I really like doing) and writing gobs of stuff in a voice that’s the total opposite of mine (which is something I don’t like doing) and then letting someone else put their name on it (which isn’t a complaint; I wouldn’t want my name on it.). I did some more formal ghostwriting and stuff too, even though my artistic sensibilities consider that a betrayal. Anyway, writing like someone else 8+ hours a day, 5+ days a week can wreak havoc on your own voice. I probably should’ve been writing my own stuff that whole time, but what can I say? I was pregnant.

But the point is, I think I’m starting to get it back (or at least I’m working on it in a more formal way). FtR has helped me with that, but it’s also kind of caused me to develop My Voice, Blogging Division. That’s a division that I want to call on sometimes, particularly when I work on reviews or humorous stuff. But, although I have a lot of fun doing those, they’re just not the majority of what I write.

Of course, I know FtR has developed other purposes, important ones that I’m pretty fond of, so I’m not saying it’s over. But I am saying that I’ll be focusing my energy somewhere else for a while. (Before you suggest it, I’m not posting poems/short stories/whatever on here, no matter how nice you promise to be. The biggest reasons are personal, but there are some professional ones too.)

So. There you go. Just because we’re on a break doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.

Unfortunately, I still don’t have those Official English Paper files from middle school, jr. high, and high school. I will one of these days, though, and I’ll share something from them when I do. In the meantime, how ’bout a couple writing samples from my baby book, which, for some reason, I do happen to have?

I was about five-years-old, maybe six, when I wrote these. As you can tell, I had great concern for both the animal kingdom and the Kingdom.

And lots of confusion about apostrophes, commas, and possessives. (But check out that semi-colon use, eh?)

I don’t think this first one is supposed to be a poem. My blue-crayon handwriting just took up a bunch of space per line. (I’ve preserved spelling, punctuation, and line-breaks.)

“Sam The dog”

to Dad

Sam is a dog.
Johny is his,s oner.
Johny play,s with
sam. and Sam
play,s with Johny.
Sam loves
Johny. and Johny
Loves sam.
Sam like,s cats; sam does
not clime fenses. Sam
is a boy dog. Sam
likes pepple too.

Later in the year, I figured out how to spell “fence” and the difference between an apostrophe and a comma. Apparently, I was also learning about using commas with conjunctions. I hope some instruction on pronouns and antecedents followed shortly.

(FYI, this story also included pencil illustrations of Tom, Sam, and the cross on a hill with flowers. There’s also an “I *heart* You” enclosed in a rectangle at the bottom of the page, though the recipient is unclear. Mom taped it to the back cover of my baby book, but, if you look closely, you can see some math work, involving dollar signs, on the other side of the paper.)

“Tom’s Cat”

Tom had a cat. His name was Sam. Sam was a good cat, but one day Tom fowned that he was on the fence and was chaseing a cat up a tree! Sam was a bad cat that day. But, God and Jesus helped him to be better because he died for us that we mite be saved, and that’s just what he did. And, that is how he got saved. And that was that!

As a bonus, here’s a poem (of mine) from 2003 that I’m not particularly fond of, but I’ll share it anyway, because, thematically, it fits well in this post and eliminates any doubts about the authorship of the earlier pieces. (Relax. It’s just a poem, not a theological statement.)

Searching for Maverick at Midnight

The night we left town for
a restaurant where no one
we knew could find us,
my sister called to say
Maverick was missing.

You tried to convince me
he was alive, we wouldn’t
stumble over his body,
the tips of his fur lifting
and falling with the wind
of passing cars. You said
wait until morning, we’d
get a call from the shelter.

Still, you gave up the dinner
we’d traveled three hours for,
headed back to Abilene.

We circled the neighborhood
with the windows down,
slower at my command,
the flashlight illuminating alleys
the moon couldn’t touch.
You didn’t complain about
the cold or ask me to stop
whispering his name, remind me
dogs aren’t worth crying over.

You didn’t laugh when I
suggested prayer, reverting back
to eight years old. You didn’t
scold me for believing dogs
have souls, and even if they don’t,
a God as big as ours could save
the soulless if he wanted,
could whisper one word
and raise a dog from the dead,
make a hole in the dark sky
with the slightest gust of wind,
let light shine right on Maverick.

You just smiled at me for loving
dogs as much as people and
pulled your coat tighter, aimed
the headlights down another road.