Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop

Hello, strangers.

I say strangers, because I took an unplanned sabbatical last week while working through a little depression. 

Actually, it was more like a sharp descent into a steep, lonely canyon where I tended sheep and sang plaintive cowboy songs to myself in order to retain sanity, because the sheep weren't talking.

That whole steep-walled canyon wandering began when I returned from the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop all high on inspiration and then looked at this blog the next day and saw how few people actually read my stuff. 

Geronimo!

Stats are the devil.

I was so exhausted the Sunday I flew home that I didn't discover I was truly home until the next day when I realized I had no clue whether the kids had food for lunch, clothes to wear to school, or where my own comfy sandals could be found. I had to wear high heels to drop them off.

My intention was to write about the conference right away, believe me. And I would like to say that I learned a lot while there, and I did - if one is talking about learning to laugh continuously for three straight days. There were so many stand-up comedians and humor writers leading the sessions - Alan Zweibel (an original Saturday Night Live writer), Wendy Liebman, Kathy Kinney (Mimi from The Drew Carey Show), Gina Barreca, Elaine Ambrose - that I only got a break from working out my abs through laughter when it was time to eat. I laughed and then ate to build up strength for more hilarity, laughed and ate. By Saturday night, the last of the conference, I was clutching my belly during Leighann Lord's brilliant keynote and exclaiming to my new friends Jeanine and Lou, "I can't laugh anymore! It hurts!"

You know I must have had a great time watching and listening to all those comedy pros, because when my husband came to bed Sunday night, startling me awake, I sat up and demanded, "Who's on stage?"

Like every message in life, what I heard at this workshop about the creative process, particularly the comic creative process, was not new, but it was said in an engaging and often hilarious way. It was, as the writer Elizabeth Gilbert points out in her book Big Magic, authentic. So what did I hear? Important stuff. How do I know? Because I have heard it from many successful and diligent people before.

Just write - every day. A writer writes! "If you're a writer, you can't help writing - especially when you're depressed!" - Amy Ephron 

Writing is a lonely process. Collaborate when you can. Get together with other writers.

Success is in creating what wasn't there before, in the completion of the work. "As a writer what you remember is not the product but the process." - Alan Zweibel. Once your work leaves you, "it's in the hands of other gods", as Zweibel said. You can't predict the response once you put it out there. As Wendy Liebman said, all you can control is the jokes, how you present yourself, how you feel and how prepared you are.

Persevere, follow your passion, be prepared for your big break. Have whatever your 1100 jokes are. (When Lorne Michaels asked Zweibel for an example of his work, Zweibel handed him a book of 1100 jokes.)

Books are written a sentence at a time. According to Zweibel who wrote a book with Dave Barry, by the 20th page your characters will start telling you what they want to do and say.

"Comedy comes from the same place as pain, touch your soul," says Zweibel. Pain breeds humor. "There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt." - Erma Bombeck.  Humor is redemptive, makes stories ours, something we can control, Gina Barreca pointed out.

Be specific.

"Every story you tell has the same message." - Judy Carter, author of The Comedy Bible. You're saying it the way only you can say it.

Connect with others to get feedback and support. Have "agenda-free" friends. Friendships are work, too. Work at them; it's worth it.

How would I sum up what I took from the conference? Joy, the kind you find in a community, your tribe. Sure, there were some moments when I took risks that didn't work out, like reading one of my pieces in front of a workshop and hearing crickets instead of laughter, then sitting there with a dumb smile on my face while others found kind things to say about my story. Or telling Judy Carter, who has had a very successful career in comedy and has written several successful books on the subject, on the shuttle back to the hotel that she has "a gift". Well, I never have been intimidated by fame or felt that my lack of it should keep me from complimenting a talented speaker!

At any rate, I learned from this grand experience at Erma Bombeck's alma mater, The University of Dayton, that I need to find a tribe of creative types here at home in Arizona, because the energy I feel and absorb while around other writers is powerful and fortifying. With all my heart I thank every speaker, presenter, faculty member, comedian and fellow attendee who made the 2016 workshop so magical. A special thank you to Teri Rizvi who founded it and who supports many writers' efforts through its website, humorwriters.org.

And thank you to my husband Matthew who at this juncture in my journey is the one who pays me to write and who paid my way to this amazing conference without complaining even once about the cost or inconvenience.

I can't wait for Erma 2018!

A New Frontier

Each time someone figures out that all my children are now in school, I get peppered with comments and questions like:

"Are all your kids in school now? What are you going to do with yourself?!" 

"Well, I'm sure you'll enjoy all that downtime for a change."

"What will you do now?"

They make it sound like I'm being put out of work, like my "company" is downsizing and has no need for my services any more. I get knots at the thought of justifying my life at home and have so much trouble simply saying, "I'm going to try to get paid for my writing."

It's always the last thing I say after mumbling about projects and volunteering, as if I'm ashamed of it, as if it were not a valid occupation. I hate that I do that to myself, because write is what I'm going to do.

I think.

I've toyed with the idea that though being a writer, paid or not, is an essential part of my whole self and should not be given up, perhaps there is another road I need to take as well. For instance, getting a theology degree is something I've contemplated, but a. I feel like I would be stealing funds necessary for my children's education, and b. I study and read so many theology books and articles at home and never feel I have a complete grasp on the truth. Sometimes I just end up thoroughly exhausted from the effort of trying to understand and reconcile all the interpretations. I love Scripture, but I berate my own understanding. I love theology, but the subject is not an easy one. 

There are also so many laudable charitable organizations to which I could give my time in a way that might some day lead to a "job". And that is not a bad option at all, especially since my sense of social justice heightens with each world news article I read. If my family is in such a position that we do not need an income through my own efforts, should I not then give my time to improving the world on a larger scale? As a Christian I cannot view my time as mine alone, and as a mother it is impossible to do anyway.

Yes, volunteering will undoubtedly be a part of this new frontier. I will give energy to my kids' school now and to church as usual. But perhaps there is some other way I can and ought to be my brother's keeper, too - a way yet to be discovered.

As a lover of nature, perhaps I should look into becoming a park ranger. In fact, I have. A little.

I've always loved archaeology, too. I should volunteer on some digs, free menial labor in the cruel Arizona sun.

I understand where others are coming from with their inquisitions about my plans. They get up early each day and hurry to their job. Their jobs are often quite hard and under-compensated, and with that job they must balance family concerns. I think people who ask what on earth I plan to do with myself think I am going to watch a bunch of daytime TV shows while perusing fluff magazines and stuffing chocolates in my face as I compulsively buy stuff online - unfair! Or maybe that's just how my silly pride reads it. Still, I have not been a consumer of daytime television before; why would I start now if I wish to keep my self-esteem? I certainly do not intend to drink Starbucks every day/week or eat expensive chocolate; I am far too cheap, and I make no money. Fluff magazines make me feel bad about everybody. And I hate shopping and errand running, though the latter must not be avoided. 

So what's left? Is it scandalous to be at home, making a home by doing chores and projects that must be done (at least to maintain my own sanity in this place)? Is it shocking to want to write, to work with words? Because it is work, regardless of whether or not I get paid to do it. I have known many people who I believed could write very well, but they lacked the desire or the discipline to do it habitually. That's the difference. Yes, I love it. Yes, I am very lucky to have the time and energy and luxury to do what I love. Yes, I need to work harder at it, too. But it is work, and sometimes the words don't cooperate or simply don't come, and then my thoughts pace like caged, hungry lions in my head as I attempt to tame them. Still I keep trying.

Do not misunderstand. I do regret sometimes - often? - that I did not do as my pragmatic, smart husband did: go to college, get a degree in good time, and enter into a career posthaste after graduation. I don't regret at all that I missed out on college "culture", but I do bemoan the missed opportunities of the classroom, the delicious learning, and I do feel that my husband was the wise one, the grounded one. But I can't go back. 

All these years in the home, I have been truly grateful for the time with my children, for all the laughter and even tears, for the goofiness and craziness and witnessing all the firsts of the early years. I've been happy not to have to report to a different job after nights of seemingly continuous breastfeeding of infants and toddlers. I am so glad we did not have to spend a fortune on childcare or after school care and that my husband and I have not had to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, scarcely having time to say hello to each other. I love home. I love family time. I am so very grateful.

(But I must also here point out that one reason I have been able to stay at home with our children, to drop them off and pick them up at school and sports and other activities is because our family has lived frugally by design. In others' eyes I no doubt lack sufficient ambition, but earning money merely for more money's sake in order to buy more stuff has never appealed to me, especially if we are paying most of it for childcare. I'd rather live simply and stay at home, and I readily and humbly admit it's because of my husband's success in his career that I am able to do so.)

I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge how nervous I am about this new stage in my life when for many years I have been measured by the small children at my side. And being a mother will absolutely always be my most important job. We're forming human beings here who will form society. I feel my failures and mistakes, but I also bear memories of the triumphs and the redeeming moments, of the times I negotiated well with unreasonable individuals. That journey continues. But now it's also prime time for me to be a more productive writer.

Or something else.

I'll let you know.

My Reaction to A Child Called It by David Pelzer

My husband was out one night before Thanksgiving, and as I sat in a chair reading, I forgot that my oldest boy was still in the dining room. He was up way past his bedtime. He must have made a noise, because I was surprised and exclaimed, "Berto, what are you doing? Go to bed!"

He then slowly came over to me and said, "Mama, you won't believe this book I'm reading. This boy's mom is normal and then one day she changes for no reason and starts doing crazy stuff. She even stabs him!"

As a parent you don't look forward to your children saying such things about a book they've been reading - of which you had no knowledge.

"What? Let me see that."

He handed over the paperback. It was A Child Called It by David Pelzer.

I glanced at the pages where my boy was, examined the face of the little boy on the cover and asked, "Where did you get this, Berto?"

He told me a friend at school had been talking about it obsessively, how no one could believe what this boy's mother made him do. She piqued Berto's interest; he must have been listening and asking questions, because she offered to lend it to him.

As he was telling me this I was reading the words at the place he left off. He saw my face.

"You have to go back and read the beginning first," he insisted. "He gets rescued."

If I had known about its content, it was not a book I would have let him read at 12 years of age. I sent him to bed, and I was alone with this story of which I had never heard but knew with certainty had opened my son's eyes irreversibly to the bizarre, absolute evil in this world.

When my husband came home, I had read about half of it.

"We have to talk about this book our son is reading," I said. Then I, too, added, "You won't believe it."

My husband listened as I revealed the terrible details of this little boy's life, all the abhorrent, twisted punishments he suffered at his mother's hands, how his dad did nothing, and how his brothers ignored him or joined in tormenting him.

"It's awful. It's really bad. I can't believe Berto is reading this. Should we let him?"

"Well, it's too late now, isn't it?"

"Honey, it's really bad."

"It'll make him realize how lucky he is. We just have to make sure to talk to him about it."

I don't think lucky is the word, but I knew what he meant.

Sucked into David Pelzer's story by the need to speak with my son about the evil people do to one another, I was horrified and demoralized by what Pelzer endured as a child. The effect the book had on me was so apparent that my husband said, "No more for tonight. Let's go to bed. Come on."

I wept as I revealed more details to my husband. Then I tried to fall asleep. It was of no use. I couldn't stop thinking about Pelzer's excruciatingly long childhood nightmare. I crawled out of bed, grabbed the book and took it to our bathroom. Sitting on the hard floor, finishing that book, I sobbed as I dwelt on Pelzer's pain, mourned for every hurting child, and longed to wrap every abused kid in the world in my arms.

Such was the power of his story that I had many uncomfortable thoughts. I found myself regretting times when I lost my temper with my own kids, gave into anger and yelled so badly, I frightened them, and those thoughts caused me to regret any unpleasant memories I have given my children. I found myself regretting times when I noticed things that seemed off or suspicious in the life of another child and didn't say or do anything. At one point Pelzer reveals that his heart was flooded with hate for his mother, for his dad, for his brothers, and for every person who knew something of his situation and did nothing. And he said that he hated God most of all, because if anyone knew what he was going through, it was God, and I thought, I can't blame him for thinking that in his situation.

That was a very uncomfortable thought, for I love my Heavenly Father and know he is not indifferent, and I am not trying to be blasphemous, just honest about a reaction. I understood how a child could think that in Pelzer's chronically endangered situation. I know what Christians believe about free will, Original Sin, and Satan, the fallen angel whom Jesus described as a "murderer and liar from the beginning", but I also know that we address the problem of evil as "The Problem of evil" for a reason. We cannot fully explain it with our theology. There is no pat answer.

But I feel, too, that every person who was aware that something was terribly wrong in that young boy's life and did nothing failed as a child of God when they were so desperately needed. God uses us in community to help one another. We must be in tune to our heavenly Father's nudges. This is why I do not believe we should ignore the urge to do something or to speak to someone, even if we don't fully understand it.

I couldn't comprehend the horror to which Pelzer's spiritually and mentally ill mother subjected her son, but I did recognize in his story the truth of how evil breeds ever greater evil; it is never satisfied. We can't feed it by dismissing our vices or by giving power to an addiction that weakens us and alters us in increasingly terrible ways.

The only hope in the story is found when he writes of the courage and the wits he always kept about him to survive, the will and wits that bought him time when his mother attempted to burn him on a gas stove; when he sat in a cold, dirty bathroom and pushed all the puss from his stab wound while wiping off the infection with dirty rags; when he repeatedly scrounged for food while on the brink of starvation; and when he used his imagination to sustain hope as he sat on his hands for hours in some starkly inhospitable place, purposefully isolated from the other members of his family

How my heart ached and broke for this child! I can still see images from the book that distress me, such as the times when he lay submerged for hours in an ice-cold tub of water at his mother's command. Pelzer's mother attacked his dignity, his natural right to happiness, and his health in such vile ways that it seems miraculous he lived to write about it. His case apparently was the worst recorded case in California history, and one can easily believe it.

There is hardly any love mentioned, except his painful love for and misplaced trust in a very broken, cowardly father and his fascination with a baby brother with whom he was not allowed to interact. In the prologue he acknowledges that by the grace of God, he is able to know what love is through his relationship with his own son.

After his father left the family, abandoning his son to his evil mother, Pelzer wrote of desperately clinging to a package his dad had given him and, as his brothers ate their fast food in the car beside his starving frame, bowing his head and saying the Lord's Prayer. A couple of months later, he was finally rescued through the efforts of brave and compassionate teachers, a nurse, and administrators at his school.

A Child Called It haunted my Thanksgiving. Recalling vivid scenes of torment from its pages, I wept often that long weekend for David Pelzer and every child who has ever known anything like what he knew.

My husband and I both agreed that this book wasn't something we would have handed to our son, but we also believed that it would enkindle in him greater compassion for other children, that when he meets a kid who is dirty, smelly, wearing old or too-small clothes, or one who is being ostracized by other students because they're "weird" or "different" or just "not cool" he will remember David Pelzer's story and consider his actions more carefully, more fully respecting the dignity of everyone whom he encounters.

As for me, this is a book I could never forget, and I hope it will make many of us more aware, more courageous and more compassionate in confronting evil in our community and in protecting each child's rights to emotional, physical and spiritual health.

Introducing Ana, Writer

This is the time of year when I wish the world would just slow down a little. I love it but I dread it, this holiday season. I so badly want to ring every single ounce of enjoyment out of it in the company of family and friends, but I also feel like a loser in the organization/task-setting/gift-choosing department. And how I wish I could get out old-fashioned Christmas cards to all my childhood friends, abundant relatives, and closest family!

Around November every year some strange things begin to happen. My car radio starts playing nothing but Christmas carols, usually sung by choirs (my appreciation for choirs and chorales can purely be attributed to my lovely sisters and their high school music careers); my fingers itch to play the wine-colored guitar I have not touched in months; and I begin to badly miss my relatives in Idaho. That last is likely due to the fact that I spent Thanksgiving time with them a couple years ago, and that created memories that beckon me to little Idaho towns every fall. I wish it were easier to go home.

Well.

I wanted to share a piece of writing from the mind and heart of my 10-year-old daughter. Her teacher sent me an email a little while back extolling the insight Ana has in this short post she wrote for the class blog. My daughter does indeed have a huge heart. In the years since God brought her into our lives (less than an hour after we arrived at hospital!) I have heard many teachers, friends and relatives speak about her compassionate nature and her loving, open heart. I worry for her, because she is so sweet and giving, but I know God will guide her on the path.

Here is the piece her teacher sent to me:

What age would you choose to be if you could stay one age forever? What would you answer if somebody asked you this question? I believe that in most circumstances, I would simply answer " ten." If all the ages in the world were orbiting around me, I would hastily run towards the number ten until I caught it. The simple joy of being any age in life is maybe one that we do not posses however, because at any age there is more to learn in life, more for us to ponder at. The age twenty allows you to drive and the age fifty allows you to know almost all the answers to questions, but what would I give to just settle down with the age I am? To me life is right where it should be. There's nothing so good as now, the present, a gift of life.

I woul d choose ten because everything is still new to me and for other reasons and feelings. Maybe some day I will get tired of being ten forever, but sometimes life goes it's own way. In a few years, everything might change, and by then I might want to be twenty-three! My world might be someday just a little wisp of a dream. I at least want to live life right now to it's fullest so that I will always have memories. So for right now, let's make things happen!

The road I should have traveled (a warning for other wayward pilgrims)

This post is my gift of experience to my few readers to show to the young, foolish people in their lives.

I didn't go to college. I regret that. It's been on my mind for some time.

I'd like to justify my poor decision by saying that I could have gone if I wished to do so, that I could have gotten scholarships to pursue my chosen career path, but that means so little since I didn't even try.

The whole regimen of school made me nervous, gave me chronic anxiety on weeknights for years. Tests, especially standard performance tests, flipped me out, and I had to steal mantras from Beatles songs, writing them over and over on scraps of paper, to shore myself up in the face of possible failure. I hated school. Oh, I had friends, and I made consistently very good grades. There was no reason for my hatred other than my own character flaws: my love of the home environment, my lack of drive to pursue the extraordinary, my strong dislike of any regimen that stole me from my family and my own quiet pursuits and interests.

I remember once in my senior year, the guidance counselor wanted to see me, and I avoided his office like the plague until my friend Sarah dragged me down the hall toward it, my shoes leaving scuff marks. I thought he was going to inquire about my grades, college plans and the steps I was taking, and I acted like a child and created a spectacle in my fear at encountering his queries. You see, at that point I had already decided that I was not going to college. I was going to write novels, and novelists didn't need to go to college; they needed to write. But I felt certain he would pressure me about furthering my education in light of my school record. Turns out, he only wished to see me about some petty issue. Perhaps he had given up on me. I wish he had pressured me, told me emphatically that a writer should go to college, if for no other reason than to learn basic marketing, design and computer skills in case she or he ever became a weblogger.

You can call me lazy, but I am intelligent enough and talented enough - just not educated enough.

It is very ironic that I knew what I wanted to do very young. I knew I wanted to be a writer at age nine. Now I write, but I am not really a writer, not a professional writer. I'm a blogger, heaven help me, in a sea of bloggers, and within that sea of bloggers there are many who never dreamed to be writers who have found great success and quickly. The majority of them went to college and worked at other careers, gaining valuable skills. Some of them are far better writers than I am. Ironic.

Many times, tottering on the edge of dejection, I have said to my husband, "I should have gone to college and gotten a journalism degree, and then I would already be doing what I love and getting paid for it."

Should have, would have, could have. Now it seems silly to spend a fortune on my higher education when our four children will be pursuing theirs quite soon. Sure, an investment, a good example - but a really expensive one. At any rate, whatever I decide, my children are not blind to my regrets, I am certain.

What was it that Mark Twain said? If you write for three years and no one is willing to pay you for it, it's time to try something else...?

Here I do what I love, and freely, but it is not looking like I will ever find "success", may never even be paid for it. I do not call myself a failure. My humor pieces have been published elsewhere, but no one has offered me even a piddly check. Still, I write, because if I didn't, the depression and regret would be worse - a basic mental, emotional and spiritual need unfulfilled. And I have an audience. Just to know that several people, mostly my family and close friends, read my words consistently is something, better than writing for nobody at all, stacking lifeless paper in a desk drawer to be recycled on my passing.

But most great writers graduate college. They love academia as they love words. Many are professors. I should have gotten a college degree. I could be writing for one of those old-fashioned circulars called newspapers.

A good friend told me once that I was lucky that I knew what I wanted to do with my life creatively and professionally, because many people never do. How much better would it have been for me if, knowing the road I wished to travel, I had been wise and lucky.