NaBloPoMo Day 11: In Celebration of John Fowles

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November 5, 2003

She watched Nadya, sitting there across the aisle of the airplane, this woman in a black silk Anne Taylor skirt and accompanying blue pinstriped blouse, her high-heeled Mary Janes peeking out from underneath her hem. She had rather the air of a college student or high-school teacher, and she observed the woman across the aisle with great attentiveness. But why uphold pretenses?

What am I to do with you? You are so much stronger than I planned you to be.

I drummed my fingers on my knee, trying to figure her out. Nadya was supposed to have fallen in love, like any young woman of her imagination and dignity, but, instead, she started working at a publishing house and living on her own in a bayside split-level studio. She is made of stronger mettle than I thought. She was supposed to fall for a charming Welshman with an aquiline nose and smirking mouth, but she had instead become his ‘minder’ and a sister figure. I watched her sit there, legs crossed, head back against the broken-in upholstery. A copy of Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman lay facedown in her lap, open to about chapter 13. I wonder if she knows how pertinent that novel—indeed, that chapter—really is at this moment? Of course she doesn’t; she’s asleep, as she always is on airplane rides. It is a beautiful hardbound copy, obviously from her publishing house. Leather cover, golden-edged pages, a taste of history amidst modernity.

But I digress.

I had planned everything out for Nadya. She and that Roman-nosed darling of a man would become enamored with their relationship mortared by complementing personalities and shared passions for literature, life, and each other amongst other things.

I do not know what to do with you. Apparently, you–and other characters of my imagination—do not like to be lorded over, made to go here or there. You are unpredictable, balking at perfectly chalked out plans.

Then I realized what Fowles himself said was true. One cannot tell characters where to go and what to do, they decide how it will be done, regardless of the author’s ends.

 

NaBloPoMo Day 10: Day of Rest

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Most people consider Sunday as a day of rest but that’s kind of gone the way of the dinosaur for me. As the wife of a new pastor, Sundays are an incredibly busy day for us with Sunday School, worship service, and any after-church activities taking up three-fourths of our day sometimes. I tend to have very busy mornings, even before we leave the house, with Elizabeth’s breakfast, getting her and myself dressed, dealing with food if there’s a potluck after church, etc. There are some Sundays when I do in two hours what perhaps a lot of people get done in a full morning’s work.

Then, after church, there’s usually lunch with the family and then home for a few hours of playtime before supper and the bedtime routine for a particular little girl. After that, I tend to collapse, exhausted, onto the couch and fall into quiet and stillness for the remainder of the night until my own inevitable bedtime. The TV drones on in the background, mostly ignored, as I try to find something to exercise my mind and achieve some sort of fun, I guess, amidst the work of the day. I never thought that I would long for those days when I was a little girl and my mother would force me to lie down and nap after lunch on a Sunday. What I would give for someone to a.) give me the opportunity/time for that and b.) force me to do it now. I suppose I just never realized how busy a pastor and his family could be on a Sunday, what is almost everyone else’s ‘day of rest’. Sundays exhaust me more than almost any day of the week anymore, between getting my family out the door, wrangling my very energetic eleven-month-old daughter, and taking care of my family at home.

But the fact is that I still love Sundays. I love being in church with my little family, listening to my husband preach, and spending time with like-minded people whose lives show such happiness and fulfillment. Even though I count myself one exhausted woman by the end of the day as I write this, I still love Sundays.

NaBloPoMo Day 8: Shopping Blues

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I started my Christmas shopping today, and in the past I have found a joy in it. But not today, not really. I felt worse the longer I went on with it, though I did make a good dent in my list. But I felt depressed; I always do at Christmas time. And I think I know why.

I feel depressed because I always want to do more. I want to give my family more. More than just mere things. I want to give them trips, new experiences, chances to learn new things, see sights they have only dreamt of. I want to give them the world, but I don’t have it.

When I was in college, a friend of mine who couldn’t afford presents for her friends did something incredibly sweet. She gave each of us a letter and, in that letter, she told what she would have given us if she could give what she truly wanted. For me, she gave me the role of Lucy in Jekyll & Hyde on Broadway. It’s my favorite musical. That meant a lot – the thought, the gesture, all of it. And all without a physical gift.

I want to do great things for those I love. I want to give them the world, even if I can’t give them the world.

NaBloPoMo Day 7: 25 Random Facts

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In case you were interested. 🙂

1. I am so nearsighted as to be legally blind without my glasses, though I am the tiniest bit less nearsighted this year. So the doctor says.

2. I taught myself Shakespeare (how to read, how to interpret), as it wasn’t taught at my school.

3. I have a Bachelor’s of Science in English Education and a minor in Literature, because the minor only required one class more than the ones I was already taking..

4. My first academic publication was in Parma Nole, the Journal of Heren Istarion: The Northeast Tolkien Society. It was my undergrad senior thesis paper, a joint effort for Norse Myth and Saga and Survey of English classes, taught by the same professor. It covered the real world influences on Tolkien’s languages and the echoes of Norse culture in the people of Rohan in his Lord of the Rings saga.

5. My first fiction publication was a story for a Sunday School paper when I was 14, sent in by a teacher of mine. I was paid $5, just like Jo March (Little Women).

6. I loved Disney Sega games, but could NEVER finish the final level. Ever.

7. My parents argued over what to name me. One wanted Melissa, the other wanted Sherri. I don’t remember who won, ie, who had which name.

8. I have a quasi-eidetic memory when it comes to movie dialogue. Show me a movie or TV show once and I can probably remember a third of the lines.

9. I kind of miss bike riding but I like walking better.

10. I fell in love with Frank Sinatra in college and have since transferred my love over to Michael Buble. Such a great showman.

11. I have never had my ears pierced, nor do I plan to.

12. I really hot black tea with lots of sugar/honey and lemon.

13. I am an Anglophile. I love British television, especially period drama like “Downtown Abbey” and “Call the Midwife”.

14. I am a combined introvert and extrovert. I hoard my ‘me time’ but I love time with people, though it is often in certain situations. I love to talk but I also like to listen while the rest of my brain retreats into my own world.

15. I have never written a novel. I have started several but never finished any of them.

16. Some of my best work is fan-fiction.

17. I have  a VERY short attention span when it comes to video games. I can only play it and be interested for a few hours and then I’m done.

18. I broke my four top front teeth with a lunchbox as a child and required root canals and silver caps on them all. So I had a mini-grill until my baby teeth fell out.

19. I have never broken a bone or had a cavity.

20. My first LARP character was a thrall for my then boyfriends Ordo Gangrel. I LOVED Aislinn.

21. Apparently, I don’t play REAL characters in DragonLance/DragonStar. According to my husband, I play props, e.g. his paladin’s epic mount/unicorn and a fire mephit used as a ship’s heating coil.

22. I make friends more easily with men than with women so the ladies who are close to me are really very special.

23. I love going to the Disney Store because it’s the closest I’ll get to Disney World for the moment.

24. According to some Detroit friends, I should not exist.

25. I still adore my husband each and every day. ❤

 

NaBloPoMo Day 6: Talking to the Wind

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I can hear the wind talking outside,

With its moaned vowels and blustering h’s.

It wraps its arms around my home,

Begging for a hug before it head off on its way.

The wind can never stay long;

It’s always so quick on its heavenly road.

But those moments when it speaks to me

Are like whispers caught amidst a throng.

NaBloPoMo Day 5: Taking a Risk for an Ace

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Evansville, all hail to thee.

True and loyal we will be.

And we’ll fight fight fight

With all our might.

Cheering with pep and vim for white and purple.

And with every victory

Our hearts with praise will fill.

And we’ll back you with a Rah rah rah!

All hail to our Evansville. UE!

I attended the University of Evansville and I am an Ace through and through. Yes, our mascot is a gambler and it’s rather apropos honestly. I have had to take some serious gambles, some risks in my lifetime. Risks with big payoffs.

I left home for college at seventeen, traveled thousands of miles away from home to attend, far from family, friends, or anyone I knew.

  • I had a wonderful four years at UE, learned from wonderful professors and mentors, made equally wonderful friends, and learned about myself and of what I am capable.

I married my first and only boyfriend, a man whom God brought into my life only days after telling God that I was done looking for myself, that I trusted Him to show me who He had for me.

  • I have never regretted that decision, not for one moment.   Not from the first conversation Ben and I had, complete with my food-flirting (stealing fries from Ben’s plate at DQ).

I decided to stay home with Elizabeth for the first year after she was born, giving up my job and our second paycheck to do so.

  • Things have been tight, yes, but I wouldn’t give up the milestones, the stories, the giggles, the cries, the snuggles, and the walks for anything; especially if this is the only year that I get to do so, as is often the way of the world we live in.

Life is full of risks, full of gambles, but I have been very blessed that the risks that I have taken have paid off and things have turned out well. And even if they don’t in the future, I know that I have family and loved ones to lean on and help me through it.

NaBloPoMo Day 4: How Did I Get Here?

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I have no idea how I got home tonight. It’s a twenty-minute drive from my dance class back home and I don’t know how I got from there to here. I totally zoned out as I drove. A hundred things must have gone through my head as I drove, one thought or train of them blending into another. Before I knew it, I was slowing down to stop at the STOP sign at my street. And, for the life of me, I couldn’t tell you everything I was thinking about. I just let my mind roam, though I know that I thought about some important things, I drafted a story beginning or two, and I had thoughts that made me tear up.

Sometimes it’s nice to just let the train take you where it will, even if you never know how you got there or where you came from.

NaBloPoMo Day 3, Part 2: Blast from the Past

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Author’s Note: This was my first competition piece, written on a whim in two weeks back in junior high (Spring of 1996, I was thirteen). It is unchanged and unedited since that time to give you an idea of where I “started”, as it were.

= = =

A Horse Named Black Thunder

By Melissa Snyder

“Easy, girl, easy!” A middle-aged man spoke in a soothing voice to a restless female horse that was about to give birth. He patted her neck, which was damp with perspiration; the trembling mare snorted as he tried to calm her.

“Dad, what’s going on?!” A young girl, about the age of 14, ran out into the barn. She had creamy skin, sparkling blue eyes and long, wavy, blonde hair. She quickly ran down the winding hall of stables. When the girl reached the mare’s stall, she was panting breathlessly. “Has she…?” Her voice was expectant as she tip-toed to see over the stall door.

“It’s a colt,” her father answered happily as the mare sat up, “And a handsome fellow, too.”

The girl looked over the stall door at the little bundle of fur that squirmed and wriggled as the mare tried to lick her foal clean. The man’s name was Robert Connell and the girl was his fifteen-year-old daughter, Allison. Robert, his wife, Sharon, Allison, and Ryan, her seventeen-year-old brother, lived on a huge ranch on the Virginia hills that was called the River Heights Acres. Their prized Arabian mare, Storm Cloud, had just given birth to a single colt, her first. He was as black as night, just like his sire Hercules. Hercules was the strongest, fastest Thoroughbred stallion on the ranch.

Soon, this little addition to the family, now only 45 minutes old, began struggling to get to his feet. After one failed attempt, where he fell, all four gangly legs spread out in a very undignified manner, the colt finally was able to stand up properly, wobbling only a little. Slowly, but steadily, he began to walk. Just tiny steps at first, but then he became more confident. Storm Cloud, now on her feet again, watched her little son, who was soon nudging her side with his muzzle. One could imagine the look on her face to be one of absolute pride.

“You have a right to be proud of him, girl,” Robert said to Storm. He’d always has the ability to interpret her looks. “He’s a persistent one.”

“Yeah. He is a fast little nipper, isn’t he?” Stan, one of the ranch hands commented.

Soon the young colt was nursing hungrily, his mother giving his back a last-minute washing.

“What are you going to name him, sweetheart?” Robert asked Allison casually as they leaned against the warm stall.

“You mean, he’s mine?” she said to her father in disbelief.

“Of course he’s yours!” he replied. “I told you that Storm’s first foal, boy or girl, would belong to you.”

“Thank you so much, Dad! You’re the best!” Allison jumped at her father and hugged him tightly, almost knocking him over. She’d never actually had a horse that was hers, all hers, before. Then, she ran back to the stall to watch the little colt. He stopped nursing for a minute and returned her gaze with big, round black eyes, as though he were sizing her up.

Allison smiled back at the young little face. “We’re going to be best friends. Just you wait, little guy. Just you wait.”

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NaBloPoMo Day 3: Willing Victims

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My characters know what they are signing up for when they first start talking to me. Or, at least, they should know. I am not kind to the characters I create. Their stories are often forged in pain and heartach as much as in growth and triumph, perhaps even more so. I have characters who have lost their families, who have suffered unspeakable acts, who have found that their perfect lives were little more than the shiny red skin on a rotten apple. I am very unkind to my characters.

Perhaps my husband put it most succinctly last night: “When it comes to characters, happy is boring.” And, oh, how right he is! When my characters are happy and content and all is right with the world, I get bored. So I’m just supposed to write happy moments, that’s it? No, I can’t do that. I need adversity for my characters to overcome, pain to write them through, losses to help them deal with. I can’t write strictly happy. One of my characters once called me the “self-torturing writer” and it’s true. Often, most of the issues that I end up having with my characters are of my own making. Because of my love for drama, my characters often aren’t in bliss for too terribly long, even if they have worked damn hard for it. I do like to see them happy but, as I said, I don’t often know what to write aside from picket-fence scenes.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my characters. Very much! They are complex and colorful and full of depth. They are smart, strong, caring, heartbroken, high-flying, deep-feeling, self-aware but self-deprecating, and I love creating great, intricate stories for them. They are wonderfully willing victims who give me the power to create worlds, castles in the air to which I can escape, new people to learn and new stories to tell, inner strength to develop, loves to find and lose, and triumphs to achieve from the rubble of failure. I wrap my stories around me like a cape and watch my characters walk and live upon its hem.