In Memory of Zorro

We had to say goodbye to our big, sweet boy this morning.

We're all heartbroken.

The. Best. Kitty. Ever.

We'll miss you terribly, Zippy-do.

Character(s) and the quality of being “Heroic”

I realize that, as a new generation moves into the spotlight and shifts our cultural paradigm, definitions change and new boundaries are formed and genres are tested and reconfigured and so on. During my lifetime, I’ve seen previously rigid formulas become increasingly flexible and I've watched as women and minorities have become quite comfortable in the role of "hero," which used to be reserved exclusively for white men. And with my friends and sisters and colleagues, I danced and cheered and celebrated.

But even as “who” could be a hero has evolved, the quality of being heroic traditionally hasn’t—at least, not dramatically. Perhaps Hollywood and the mainstream media have had an impact that’s finally showing up in our romances (I’ll resist the urge to call it a trend), but I’m beginning to encounter heroes and heroines that do, well, distinctly un-heroic things.

A quick example: in the mainstream romantic suspense novel The First Sin by Cheyenne McCray, the heroine beats the unarmed villain to death while several armed law enforcement agents stand by and watch. It’s brutal, descriptive, and gory, and unfolds, blow by literal blow, over three disturbing pages of broken bones, serious blood-letting, and strangled screams.

And ten pages from the end, I stopped reading a 340 page book.

In the romance genre as I’ve known it from my early adolescent years, our heroes and heroines are supposed to be a little stronger, a little better-looking, a little more successful, and a little more principled than the average person. The heroine doesn’t kill the bad guy, not even from a distance, and not even in self-defense, because regardless of how much he (or she) deserved it, she would always be deeply disturbed by the idea of taking another human life. At the last moment, some other character hits him over the head or shoots him or whatever—it isn’t left up to her to gouge out his eyeballs one at a time, glorying in the sensation of his warm blood flowing over her hands.

At least, not my heroines.

In romances, heroines don’t cheat on their spouses. They don’t get abortions. They don’t gossip. They don’t lie (without a very good reason). They don’t cheat or steal. They don’t use the television as a babysitter. They don’t flip off the guy who cut them off in traffic. They don’t lose their temper with a child or an animal, ever, not even on the worst day of their lives. So don’t tell me that it’s about “realism,” because lots more of us do these things in the “real world” than use a can opener to pluck out a man’s eyeballs.

Perhaps I’m a throwback, an old-fashioned Mrs. McGillicutty, and if so, I’m fine with that distinction. What I find problematic, though, is a world in which our heroines—those whom we look up to, befriend, identify with, and aspire to be like—are not distinguishable from the bad guys in principle, but only in the legitimacy of their organization.

The means do not really justify the end, and justice should always be tempered by principles and reason. That’s why we have a legal system instead of mob rule, and it’s why vigilantes end up in prison just as quickly as the bad guys…

What do you think? What kinds of qualities do you define as being heroic...or not?

Hollywood, End-of-the-World movies, and Mount Redoubt

Okay. I've lived through tornadoes--seen a few up-close-and-personal-like. I've done blizzards, bitter cold fronts, and 100-mph-straight-line winds. I've lived through ice storms that had trees cracking and falling all around our home. I've even done a hurricane in a mobile home, piled up with my five brothers in a bathtub with a mattress over top of us for seven hours straight. (No, it wasn't pretty, and I may still need therapy to get past that particular trauma...) In the past three weeks, I've been through at least half a dozen earthquakes. A little creepy, but kind of cool, considering that none of them have gone over 5.8 on the Richter scale.

But what I haven't done--and honestly never expected to do--was experience a volcanic eruption. And the Alaska Vocano Observatory tells us that it's coming. Since Mount Redoubt is 100 miles from Anchorage, we really shouldn't need to worry about lava. But we will get ashfall from the estimated 9-mile-high pyroclastic cloud.

Ashfall. Hmmm....sounds kind of soft and benevolent, doesn't it? And from what I remember from the movie Volcano with Pierce Brosnan (which I've seen about nineteen times, thanks to my love affair with End-of-the-World movies), the ashfall was really the least of anyone's worries, right?

Wrong. You can't drive a car in ashfall. Do you remember the big Suburban in the movie, plowing through piles of ash and winding carefully through fiery bits of volcanic material? Yeah, well...ash makes your car stall. Kaput. Once there's ash in your air filter, you're not going anywhere. And you know how they casually use all of those phones, microwaves, seismic equipment, etc.? Yeah. Um...you can't do that during an ashfall, either. The AVO recommends I wrap my laptop in saran wrap prior to the ashfall. TV? Same goes. Needless to say, that means the power goes out, too...no TV, no fridge--do you remember anyone stocking up on gallons of water or cans of soup? No, me either.

Worse, though, is what the ashfall does to the human body. Apparently, ashfall from a volcano isn't like the stuff at the bottom of your fireplace. It's made up of pyroclastic rock fragments and glass. You can't go outside in an ashfall without a mask and goggles, and even that's not advised. So what? Hollywood didn't think we'd still think Pierce was a hottie with goggles and a face mask on? Puhleeze. We couldn't possibly be so shallow, could we?

I'm really impressed, though, with how the various organizations are working so hard to inform the general public about the potential dangers and precautions they should take. UAA sends me a daily e-mail update; Alaska Daily News has links to the latest info on the AVO website; our Squadron 1st Sgt. (i.e. Lonnie) has very thoughtfully e-mailed and called spouses with loads of useful information; our Squadron RAV has done the same.

It's a good thing, too. Even with all of the hours I've spent watching End-of-the-World movies about volcanoes, Hollywood did nothing to prepare me for the real thing...

New Project...

Okay, I'm working on a new project right now--I already mentioned it to Lisa on the phone briefly--about a sweet widow who runs a non-profit long-term doggie daycare for troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. I was doing research this morning and ran across this video. I bawled like a baby! Had to share...

How to Write an Effective Writing Prompt

Okay, so I couldn't think of anything I really felt like blogging about today, so I did what I normally do when the river runs dry: I went out wandering around on the web, looking for inspiration. I spent more time traveling than I perhaps should have--I'm sure I could have found a more productive use for my time--especially since, in the end, I decided I really didn't want to blog about the 4-year-old who shot his babysitter for accidentally stepping on his toe or the cross-dressing Harvard-educated dermatologist who hung himself after shooting his wife. Really--what do you say?

So...being both an English teacher and aspiring writer, I was excited when an idea occurred to me: use a writing prompt! I googled "writing prompts," "writing creative prompts," and "writing romance prompts," and several sites came up. I started scrolling through each of them, looking for something to jumpstart my creativity, when I realized that most people really have no idea what a "writing prompt" is--and isn't. So this blog will be dedicated to educating the GP on "How to write an effective writing prompt." :-)

Basically, a writing prompt should start in the beginning or middle of the action, and it should end before the action is concluded. It should inspire the writer to complete the thought and/or story with his or her own ideas.
Not effective: "Describe someone you know."
Why? While it inspires you to write something, it doesn't really spark any creativity. Instead, you could use: "She's the most amazing woman I know, and I'm better for having known her. Her gift to the world is..."
Not effective: "You find a person you are attracted to has a dark secret."
Why? This is a summary of a plot point. This is not a writing prompt.
Effective: "Tessa gazed at Gary, her teeth nibbling worriedly at her lower lip. It was only a matter of time before he discovered that..."
Why? This is a writing prompt. The writer is prompted to finish the sentence and the story: before Gary discovered what? That Tessa was a vampire? A single mom? A convicted felon? A cross-dressing Harvard dermatologist who had just shot his wife? (naa-nobody would believe the last one...)
Not effective: "Girl meets guy and they fall in love, only to learn that he is still seeing his former love interest because she’s strung out on drugs and threatening suicide. Guy doesn’t want to be the cause of that happening."
Why? Again, it's a plot summary--not a prompt (and a really convoluted one, at that).
Better: "Jennifer shot out of chair the instant Mike left the room, snatching his phone from the bedside table. Quickly, she thumbed through his text messages, skimming each one until she found..."

The point, of course, is that a writing prompt, well, prompts. I should want to finish the thought. It should stimulate my creative juices, send me off and running in a direction that I hadn't even considered.

So...to ensure that each of you has mastered the objective of this mini-lesson (to identify and create an effective writing prompt)--and just for fun!--share a prompt or two with the rest of us! We can always come back here when our muse has abandoned us... :-)

Letting Go...

Saturday was a difficult day for me. Matt and Cindy are both enrolled in college classes this fall, and I knew that their first Philosophy paper was due Saturday night--along with a big test over the first unit--and I was worried because when I spoke to them on Friday, they still hadn't finished either. I avoided giving them a lecture on the consequences of procrastination, instead encouraging them to call me for help--regardless of what time it was or how close to the deadline they finished.

So Saturday rolled around, and I tried not to think about it. I puttered through my day, took the dog for a walk. Watched a movie with my husband. Tried not to watch the clock. I finally broke down and called around 3pm (my time), and Matt assured me that they had everything under control, that they would call if they needed me.

They never called.

I went to bed Saturday night, my mind racing in big loops that had me staring at the dark ceiling until close to 2am. Matt finally called the next day: they had both finished their papers and tests and turned them in on time, and had both earned perfectly respectable grades (I suppose it's easy to grade assignments really quickly when you don't write a SINGLE comment, but simply post a score...but that's a whole other rant.) I read Matt's paper, and was really impressed with the quality of his ideas about choosing "The Middle Path" and with his structure, style, and tone; it was just a bit short of the minimum length requirement, which is what prevented him from earning an "A."

And Matt was thrilled. Proud. He'd done it all on his own, and he'd succeeded. When he asked for his dad so he could tell him all about it was when the realization hit me...

It was better for him if he could do it for himself and get a decent grade than it would have been to have my help and received a perfect grade. This was perhaps my greatest downfall as a parent--that I had trouble letting go, letting them succeed or fail on their own. After all, I reasoned, with my help, I could ensure their success. What I didn't realize was that in their minds, it then became my success, and actually undermined their confidence in their own ability to succeed on their own.

What's frustrating is that I'm coming to this conclusion now, when they're 19 and (almost) 22. You know that old cliche about hindsight being 20/20? So true. Four years after he grew up and left home, and four months after the birth of his first child, I'm finally learning the importance of letting go...