writing

I was at the Treehouse Museum this morning for the 2nd annual Writing for Charity event. (I had forgotten how faraway Ogden was). WfC is where a bunch of Utah authors donate their time to talk about writing and then critique a first page or text of a picture book. The participants have to pay and that money goes to charity. I did it last year and it was fun.

Have you ever been anticipating some exciting event and then when the day arrives you're just tired and cranky? So the event isn't as great as you feel it should be? Yeah, that was me today. I'm tired. And I've been struggling with a bad attitude for the past few days. I'm totally going to bed early tonight.

But that is off topic. On topic, it was good. The last part where we were in small groups critiquing is always hard for me. I an not good with sharing an opinion on writing until I've had a chance to reread and think about it. Also, I am not good speaking in front of groups unless I know them. I didn't know anyone. So I finally get the courage (how old am I? and this is still hard?) to talk out and I don't explain what I mean very well, but I'm wrong. Completely wrong. And I felt completely stupid. So of course I couldn't offer any more advice on anyone else's pieces. And things like that kind of ruin my day and when I'm tired already it's hard to combat.

I think I enjoyed last years better. But that could be because it was last year and I have a tendency to romanticize the past.

Anyway, here's my first page (from The Masters' Key):

Rule #1: You must never be noticed
In my very first memory I’m three or four years old. I’m walking down a beach somewhere with my aunt Bunny, crying because I don’t like the feel of the sand between my toes. Bunny isn’t a particularly patient person and after I repeatedly ignore her reprimands about crying in public, she finally picks me up and holds me in her arms. That might sound like a tender thing to do, but really she’s pushing my face into her shoulder to quiet my sobbing.

I remember the exact words she whispers in my ear. “Poppy, you must never be noticed. Do you see everyone looking at you? Do you want to be taken away from me? Because if you make a scene, they will come and steal you and I’ll never get you back.”

I stop crying.

That hadn’t been a onetime warning. With every move, with each new school, Bunny explained that my safety depended on blending in with everyone else. Attention was dangerous because “they” were always there, searching for me. So I studied groups of people, how they moved together, each individual person faceless when taken as a whole. And I blended. I became practically invisible as I moved through schools, a faceless nobody in a sea of nobodies.

With that sort of fear gnawing at me for so many years, I was rather surprised that on my very first morning in Riverdale I started screaming incoherently while kicking my car’s tire, stuck by the side of the road.

I was in Riverdale to begin with because my aunt had decided it was time to move. Again. Without anymore warning than her picking me up from school the day before, we’d driven to the smallest town I’d ever seen. Where she expected me to live.

I was on the side of the road because some girl had rear ended me at the only stoplight in the whole, horrible town. To make the situation worse, the stoplight was only one block away from the high school and every student that passed by was staring straight at me. Straight. At. Me.