Avery, first daughter of Doft the Mender, hunkered down and smoothed the damp sand at her feet. A stream trickled nearby and frogs sang, deep bass led out and the tenors joined in. As though directed the frogs stopped their song, and then like a cantor at a funeral rite, the bass led out again. Insects hovered around Avery and she brushed them impatiently away as she pulled a willow stick from her belt. With its narrow end she began to make a tentative mark in the smoothed sand. No! No, that wasn’t right. In frustration she brushed the marks away.

First paragraph of my YA fantasy novel, The Spell.

Today I’m going to go all Wil Wheaton on you. It’s a new phrase, I coined it myself.

I just started to read Wheaton’s memoir Just a Geek. Why did I pick that up? Am I just a geek? I don’t know if I would describe myself in that way, but I know way more about the Linux command line than your average 61 year old woman. Yup, you heard me right. That is the first really hard thing I’ve written on this blog. Not the Linux bit. I’m really proud of that, but when you are 61 (ouch) years old you hedge your bets because you get the distinct feeling that no one, absolutely no one gives a shit what an old lady like that might have to say. Especially an old lady who is still trying real hard to make it, somehow, somewhere.

Above you see a photograph. That’s me, kinda-sorta. I’ve managed exactly once in my life to make my hair look like that. Then it took me about a dozen attempts with my camera on a timer to get this shot. Remember the bit about my geekdom? I’m good with computers and I grok* the  Gimp and Photoshop. So that is me above, yes, but not the me that rises from my bed Medusa-headed and sleep creased. There are lots of mes, just as there are lots of yous.

When you’re sixty you’ve done a bunch of things. At three I had an epiphany. I realized that if I drew a sorta circle, with a couple of sorta circles and an line in the centre of it, other people knew what I’d drawn. Holy shit, that was amazing! I’d made symbols and other people understood them.  From that time on I wanted to be an artist, a painter, more than anything. I’m still working on that.*

About seven or so years ago I wondered if I could write a novel. It took a long time, but I did it and it even makes some logical sense. I was my three-year-old self all over again. I want to write and have people read my stories so bad I can taste it, but it’s a long road from wannabe to published author. I’m terrified that I’ll move straight from wannabe to has-been and never even see the in-between. All I can do in the mean time is to keep writing. Practise, practise, practise. Last year I wrote two 70,000 word young adult mystery novels, and 60,000 words of a science fiction novel. I’m getting better.

So what is all this about Wil Wheaton? Wil spent a long time trying to prove that he was more than a kid actor has-been and somewhere in his early days of keeping a weblog (his word, not mine) he learned that honesty had an amazing affect on people. It pulled people together, helped to make him and them whole.

I’ve had a blog for some time, it doesn’t have many entries. It’s not dishonest exactly, but I’m careful what I say. I’m used to hiding under a rock. The bright lights scare me. I have a Twitter account, and a Facebook account, and in my efforts toward getting published, I began to do what many other people in my position do. They friend established authors, editors and agents, they follow established authors, editors and agents. This is called networking. You know that little inner voice you have — mine is a skinny Mennonite girl with tight braids — well, mine’s saying, “That’s a lie. You might have read Val McDermid’s books, but you don’t know her at all and she doesn’t know you from a dust bunny, so how is it she’s your friend?  And that Sara, the agent, what’s she too you?”

That skinny Mennonite girl won’t let me get away with a thing, and she’s right. Hey, I’m an introverted person, it takes me long time of consistent deep conversation before I ever consider anyone a friend, and now I’m calling complete strangers friends. All this friending and following seems a bit creepy to me. So how do I keep it real, and honest? Can’t I just write a good book or paint an good picture and let the goodness do the work for me? Apparently not.

So, how do you do, Ms. McDermid. It is really nice to meet you, and Ms. Sara, I’m not going to unfriend you even though you turned down my agent query, because you seem like a really nice lady and I’m happy to have met you.

Wil Wheaton’s story has resonance for me and I think it might have for any creative person whether they are Just a Geek or not.  I don’t know whether I can carry this off, being this honest and forthright in a public arena, but I’m going to give it a try.

(Big breath, okay, okay — hit publish).

* to grok – from Robert Heinlein’s novel Stranger in a Strange Land. I is a Martian word that means  to intimately and completely share the same reality.  For Geeks it means understanding something, usual code, intimately well.

* You can see some of my paintings here http://tagonist.net/gallery2/main.php

It occurred to me that my short story Dust might in fact be a Mothers’ Day story. So I’m offering you the whole to read. Be forewarned that it is an uncomfortable read.  Samuel Dalzell longs to find his real Mama and in the end perhaps he does. I’ll let you decide.

(Download of Dust is closed)

Junked

When Mama Dosha waltzed into the room, Samuel slid back on the bar stool near the window and pressed himself into the wall, willing himself invisible. Mama staggered a little as she moved, swaying her hips and carrying her glass high. The announcer-man had finished with the news about President Nixon going to China and dance music blared from the television up against the big wall in the living room. Mama quick-stepped past the shabby reclining chair that sat in the middle of the floor. It, like all the furnishings, came from thrift shops or curb-side drop-offs.

Mama’s large behind shook in time to the music as she tilted back her head and drained her glass of the clear liquid Samuel knew was gin. Setting the empty glass on a tiny pie-crust table, its top already marked by rings of many other glasses, she closed her eyes. Samuel wished she would keep them closed long enough for him to slip by her and run away to the trees in the park, but Mama stumbled and her eyes flew open. She giggled and crooked her finger at Samuel.

“Come dance with me, Sammy-boy.”

Pushing farther back on the stool, he shook his head. “That’s okay, Mama, you’re doing fine. I’ll jus watch.”

Mama laughed again. She whirled, bent to snatch up the urn that stood beside the reclining chair, the urn that contained Auntie Vail’s ashes and held it to her heavy breasts.

Samuel let his breath out slowly. Mama had forgotten him. She had that far-away look in her eyes. The one she got when she thought about the long-ago days when she lived in the big house with Daddy Bob and her twin sister Vail. Sometimes it was good when Mama thought of those days, but not when she remembered Jixen. She danced slowly now clutching the urn to her. She kept dancing when the music stopped and the DJ talked his way into the next song.
Samuel wet his lips and glanced toward the door. Maybe he could get past the reclining chair and inch his way into the kitchen. He glanced back to see Mama stagger again. She’d drunk a quarter of the bottle of gin Heb Beezer had brought at noon. He knew that Mama’s happy mood could become dark and mean at any time. Mama smiled to herself and began a jigging step that didn’t match the music. She lifted the urn high into the air and twirled.

“Do you know what this is, Sammy-boy?”

Samuel knew, but he shook his head. “No, Mama. You tell me, Mama.”

She stopped dancing and glared at him. “You making fun of me, boy?”

He said nothing.

She looked down at the urn, lifted its lid and said, “There’s magic in this old urn. Ain’t that right, Vail?” She threw back here head and laughed. Holding the lid in one hand and the urn in the other she whirled again. Dust from the urn flew through the air. It sifted over Samuel, fell on the window sill where it startled a thick bodied-fly into flight, fell to mingle with the dust on the floor.