Some Cheese With That Whine?

Last week for three days I lived and breathed among thousands of writers who talked about writing. If you’re thinking, “I would rather have my skull drilled without I understand, completely. After all, I'm a writer.

Writers (me, myself, and I included) are often sullen and moody and off our freakin' rockers. And we have a predisposition to whininess about our writing. We’re always struggling with our characters, our plot, our landlords, late on the rent again. No money. No respect. No 40lk. If we could do anything else we would. Then why don’t we? I know a lot of you have thought this. If you haven’t come right out and said it. Well, the secret is deep down inside we love it! So, why all the complaining? I don’t know.

Maybe the truth is that we don’t know we love it? Or maybe after years of working three jobs and stealing time away from our families and friends with the only thing to show for it are mailboxes and inboxes stuffed with “we regret to inform yous,” we just forgot how happy it makes us. Yes, we married for love with no prenuptial agreement.

Or maybe the reason why writers are always complaining about their writing is the same reason native New Yorkers are always complaining about New York--too crowded, too cold, too hot, too many tourists. If we sing to the world, "there's no place else I'd rather be," everyone would want to move here, and there are already too many damn people crowding the subways.

The Lies Us Writers Tell

I tell myself that honest-gut-wrenching criticism is what I want to hear. This is what will make the work better because the work is what it's all about. It's not about me, Patricia. It's not about me, Pat. It's not about me, Tricia, Trish, Trisher, or any of the other names I'll answer to. It's not personal. It's about the work, the writing. Yes, I want to hear the good, but I want even more to hear the bad and the ugly--the whole truth, nothing but that truth. So, please, reader, go ahead and tear my work apart. Don't worry, I will put it back together and it will be better for it. This is what I say because I am a writer, and I'm full of shit.

When it comes to our writing, the words we drip from our souls, pour from our guts, suck from the right sides and the left sides of our brains, we don't want to hear the truth, at least not the whole truth. We want to hear "I Love it!" "It's perfect!" "Simply brilliant!"

Yes, we want to hear that our work is Brilliant, with a capital B! We don't want to hear the other "B" word. The "but" word or the but-phrase--"There's just one thing..." And we never want to hear the but-question--"What did you mean when you wrote...?"

We tell ourselves, our students, any inspiring writer who will give us the time of day, that criticism of our work put in question form will be easier to take in...Well,it's not.

It may hurt to hear your reader say, "Your dialog sounds wooden." But when your reader asks, "Did you mean for this character to sound wooden?" You're left feeling like an idiot who intended to write bad dialog.

Okay, so it sucks to hear anything about our work that implies that it is anything less than genius. Still, the truth is that after you absorb the good, the bad, and the ugly, after you cry yourself to sleep, after you curse the names of your critics (some of whom are your closest and dearest friends), and after you tire of your voodoo dolls, you can go back to your work and make it better. Or you can go into your kitchen and make a pastrami on rye sandwich.

Did You Call Your Mother Today?

Today I feel like winter. Okay, delete that. Today I feel like crap. Much better.


I tell my students "don't wait for inspiration!" I tell them that Inspiration is like spring. We think it's just around the corner, but it sucks up all our frequent flyer miles before it finally gets here. Well, I’ve never actually used that metaphor, but close enough.

I tell my students writing for just ten minutes a day is all it takes to keep the engine warm. When spring is finally here, and you once again have the desire to write for three or four hours at a stretch (praise the lord), you will be warmed-up and ready for the journey. You won't need to take hours, or days, to reconnect with your characters. It's like if you call your mother every day, even if only for a minute, when you finally see her for those long-hours-at-a-stretch visits, you will be warmed up and ready to thwart every attempt she makes to drill down deep into your gut. She will not drag out of you every gut-wrenching feeling that you have worked so hard to suppress.

Still, I don't call my mother every day. She usually calls me, every other day. When she does call, if things are going less than perfect, I don't tell her this. I try and spare both of us from the ugly stuff, but it never works, and I have yet to learn that when denied what she believes is her mother's right (the right to hear her children bare their souls), my mother will always manage to rip the ugly right out of me, even it means she has to sacrifice a vital organ to do it. You think I'm sounding a bit over dramatic? Have you ever heard one of our conversations? Here's how they usually start:

"Trisher, what's wrong."(No, I didn't make a mistake and put a period instead of a question mark. My mother always sounds like she's making a declarative statement even when she's asking a question.)

"Nothing's wrong.

"Don't lie to me. Now, tell me what's wrong."

"Ma, I'm telling you, there is nothing wrong!"

"I know my daughter, and I can hear it in your voice."

"EVERY THING IS WONDERFUL!"

"Then why don't you sound like your usual bubbly self!"

Well, you get the point. If you don't, let me spell it out for you. My mother is like writing. I love her and I want to call her every day, but she drives me crazy, so I don’t. Also, she does know her daughter. Well, I'm never bubbly... Okay, sometimes I am a little effervescent, but that's only after a night of really great... In the unlikely hood that my mother finds this on the internet, I won't finish this statement, but you get the point. If you don't, call me.

Where was I? Yes, my mother is like writing. They both can be very distracting, and as much as I hate to admit it, like writing, my mother doesn't let me get away with anything. She will emotionally and spiritually kick my freakin' ass to keep me honest. When she fails, we both know it.

(I apologize in advance to all of you self-help writers, whom I greatly admire, for the sentence to follow.) Shouting "EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL" until I'm ready to chomp down on my cell phone, isn't going to make everything wonderful when everything feels like crap.

Or will it?

This is where I try and redeem myself. This is where I have my epiphany and I actually shut-up and listen.

I know that I'm not wrong when I tell my students writing every day, even for ten minutes, will help them stay close to their characters. Just like I know telling my mother what's really going on with me will bring us closer and more connected. So then, Maybe I will practice what I preach. I will write every day for ten minutes. I will be honest with my mother when she states, "Trisher, what's wrong!"

The truth-- I probably won't write every day, and I know I won't call my mother every day, and when she calls me I won’t answer every statement she makes with an open and honest answer. But, maybe, just maybe, if I click my heels and say "everything is wonderful," spring will be here.

Everything Happens for a Reason.... Does it Really?

I’m one of those people who loses most things: keys, credit cards; wallets with and without cash; library books and text books, usually the night before an exam; drivers licenses, passports, birth certificates, pretty much all forms of ID; even my kid, but only for five minutes in Target (and that was just once) but never have I lost a car--until last Sunday night, that is.

My son Ali, my nephew Jack and I spent the unseasonably warm and sunny February day with friends, watching the 11th Annual Chinatown Parade. After we ate dim sum and gelato and shopped for art supplies it was time to go home.

But when we walked to where I parked the car, there was no car. For two hours we searched the streets of Soho, Little Italy and the edges of Chinatown but still no car. Finally, after Ali and Jack sat down on the sidewalk and refused to take another step, I hailed a cab. The driver with the GPS that sang directions in Russian drove around the same territory we had just roamed on foot trying to find my car, but when the meter hit $7.50 I told him to take me to my brother’s place in Pelham.

“Don’t feel bad,” the driver said to my reflection in his rearview mirror. And for the next forty-five minutes, the entire trip back to Westchester, this very sweet man shared all of his lost car stories. I know he was just trying to make me feel better, but I felt worse. All of his stories started with “he was so drunk,” and I was completely sober.

As the driver swiped my credit card to cover the $68 fare that would put my bank account once again in overdraft, again he said, “don’t feel bad,” only this time adding, “remember, everything happens for a reason.” I wanted to tell this very sweet man to “f**k off, but I thanked him instead. I understood he was only trying to make me feel better, but as I shuffled my blister-footed son and my yawning nephew into my brother’s house, I couldn’t help wonder if anyone is ever comforted by those words: “everything happens for a reason?”

Not only does this statement imply that randomness doesn’t exist in the universe and that there is a reason for every event that occurs, but there’s an implication that these reasons are all for the best. Yes, all of the trials and tribulations in your life happen just so something meaningful and life-changing will result from them. On my better days, I believe this. And I can tell you that some really shitty stuff did lead to some pretty amazing stuff, like my marriage. It may have ended in divorce, but because of that relationship I have this incredible kid. And a speeding ticket I got for doing 25 mph in a 20 mph zone did save my life.

The night I got that speeding ticket I was driving under the speed limit when the largest deer I had ever seen (a humongous-antler type) jumped in front of my car. If I had been driving just five miles per hour faster, my car (and most probably my body) would have been crushed.

So I want to believe that every shitty thing that has ever happened to me has led to some unexpected but wondrous end result, but I can’t say I know this to be true. What I can say I know to be true is that in the moment when I’m in the middle of that shitty thing happening, the last thing I want to hear is that “everything happens for a reason.”

While my sister-in-law fed the kids who were now starving (the dim sum and gelato had long ago been digested) my brother checked online to see if my car had been towed. I couldn’t imagine how this was possible; I had no outstanding parking tickets, and I had parked legally, I was sure of it. I had even checked the sign twice—no parking from 7 to 7 weekdays. And it was Sunday. So, there was no way my car should have been towed. But if not towed, then what? Stolen?

My brother made a call to a cop friend who said that stolen was a possibility, but doubtful. When I was my son’s age, a missing car in NYC was assumed stolen. Today in that area of New York cars are rarely stolen anymore.

But if not stolen or towed, then where the hell was my car?

I called my dad for advice. He’s lived and worked in the City for most of his life; few people know New York better. He suggested that he and I return to the scene of the crime and search the area one more time. I insisted there was no way the car was there. After all, didn’t the three of us walk up and down those streets ?

Dad reminded me of all his missing car stories.

The first time he had reported his car stolen, he found it a week later in the corner supermarket’s parking lot. Apparently, after buying corn for dinner, dad had left the supermarket and walked back home, totally forgetting that he had driven there in the first place.

The second time he reported his car stolen, he came out of work and his car wasn’t where he thought he had parked it. A month later, the police called to say that they had found his car in a bus zone and with 15 parking tickets on the windshield. Apparently, my dad had parked his car on a parallel street--an honest mistake. When I asked why in the world it hadn’t been towed, my dad said, "The City was different then. Cops had better things to do or just didn’t give a f**k."

Because my dad’s stories didn’t start with, “I was so drunk,” and because it is true that I am my father’s daughter, and because Ali chimed in and reminded me how most things I had lost were found exactly where I had left them. I figured it couldn’t hurt to look one more time, but I was still positive the car wouldn’t be found.

Of course, I was wrong, and of course, my Dad and my ten-year-old were right. My car was exactly where I had left it. In my defense, it was parked on a street the boys and I hadn’t looked. We’d walked past this street about a dozen times, but in my memory, I had parked on a narrow street. So when Jack had suggested we look on Broadway, a wide avenue, I (in my best know-it-all-adult tone) said, “that would be a waste of our time.”

Mark the words of an arrogant parent.

Just to add one more shitty-thing to the list, I had parked my car illegally, too. I’d been so busy looking up at the sign with the parking rules and regulations that I’d missed the fire hydrant down on the street, which was right in front of my face. Between the ticket, the cab ride, and the toys I bought the boys to keep them motivated and walking (this was before they dropped down on the sidewalk in protest) the day cost me $280 dollars (not including the dim sum and gelato).

I unlocked my car and turned to my dad, but before I could thank him for driving me to the City (and for understanding who I come from), he said, “You know, Tricia…” Oh, my God, he was going to say those words that right then wouldn’t (or couldn’t) make me feel better.

“Dad, please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t say it.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“Yes, yes, I do.”

“Just like you knew the car wouldn’t be here?”

“FINE, if you’re going to say it, then just say it already."

“Tricia, you’re a writer, make something of it.”

I don't know if those words made me feel better or worse, but they did get me to write this blog entry. So after all, maybe everything does happen for a reason. Then again, maybe not.

Ode to Self-Help Books

I’m burnt right now. I really can’t seem to put words together today. Maybe it’s this blogging thing. And when I’m not blogging I’m writing emails to people who I want to love me-- love my work--buy my work. Yes, buy my work.

I have been in love with the idea of being a writer since I was a very young girl. All it took was my third grade teacher putting my four, or maybe it was three, line poem, “Why I love Christmas” in the P.S 71-Rose E Scala year book to sucker me into a life of wanting an audience. Yes, I wanted fame. I dreamed of fame, yearned for it. Stayed up nights tossing and turning for it, but fortune was never on my radar. Hence, a checking account that is in overdraft most months.

Thirty-Seven years later and I still want the fame. Yes, I want people to hear my name and say, “Patricia Dunn! Your work, your words, changed my life. I can’t look into a mirror without thinking of you. [Reference to my YA novel] Your words got me off antidepressants. Your words helped me to open my heart. I have found the love of my life because of you. Your words made all of my dreams come true.” Delusional? Oh, I don’t think so.

Why can’t I have what I want? If I’m going to want, I’m going to want BIG and NOW!

Only now I don’t just want the fame. I want the fortune too.

This is where the self-help books tell me to envision what I want—
I see myself in a beautiful and big house on the beach where all of my friends, and on occasional holidays my family, come and visit me, and the sound of the waves breaking against the rocks bring us peace, and, love, and fill us with joy. “Happy and peppy and bursting with love, ” I sing the words of Felix Unger. Yes, I can feel it. I can feel the peppy popping out of my pores, and I can see the unlimited amount of cash filling my pockets. I can see myself sending FedEx envelopes filled with cash to strangers whose names I picked out of a phone book. Yes, I can be a patron of the arts, a patron saint, my own patron. And all this will be possible because of those words. Those words that my third grade teacher loved enough to publish—“Why I love Christmas”… I don’t remember the rest of that poem, but if I were to write it now, it would go something like this—

“Why I love Christmas?
I love Christmas because it’s a day
when I can give it all away,
and know that the next day there still will be plenty in reserve.”

Those Who Can't Do Teach

The first time I heard this cliché' was in my tenth grade journalism class. I can't even remember the teacher's name. She was sweet, but she was also a self-identified woman who couldn't write, and so she taught. So she said.

On any given day, if you were to look around her classroom, you’d see students (those who bothered to show up) sitting on desks, their backs facing Ms… what was her name?, talking to each other, or singing “I Will Survive,” or dancing the YMCA dance in the aisles (1979 was the most popular year for disco.) These kids were doing anything but paying attention. The only students who seemed to ever be listening were the inseparable threesome: my best friend Maria who was only taking the class because I begged her, and that's what best friends did they backed you up; our guy-friend Jimmy who wasn't even enrolled in the class, but preferred hanging out with us to geometry; and there was me. I was the girl with the dream of being a famous investigative reporter for the NY Times. (That dream was crushed after a summer in post-revolutionary Nicaragua when I saw how mainstream media was more about seeking profit than truth.)

Still, all I remember about that class were the words, “those who can’t do teach.”

In fairness to the one whose name can’t be remembered, my high school wasn't the most inspiring environment for teacher or student. We had a principal who stayed in his office and watched cartoons. Occasionally, he’d come out into the hallway shouting, "why aren’t these students in class,” until his assistant shuffled him back to his office explaining, once again, that the bell had just rung. It was rumored that he had had a nervous breakdown, which was pretty obvious, but no one cared enough to even bother to gossip about why or how it happened.

Apathy was strong in the days when Disco reigned and school administrations where on planet Looney-Tunes, and my high school’s dropout rate was probably higher than its graduation-rate. At least it felt that way. But in a first-generation-Italian-immigrant community education wasn’t always a high priority. Not as high as keeping your kids virgins (the girls anyway), off drugs, and working above-minimum-wage jobs. And if you could get a job, why bother to graduate from high school, never mind college?

So when you walked into the-sky-is-falling college guidance counselor’s office, you didn’t question why she spent more time talking you out of going to college than giving you any real advice on how to get into college. Yes, my high school was a tough place to teach and to learn, but things got better when a new principal made a lot of positive changes and students got the support they needed to get their diplomas, and many went on to college and graduate school.

As for me, I graduated from high school and after spending more time in the streets protesting than I had in the college classrooms, I got my BA and eventually my MFA. Along the way I met amazing teachers: teachers who not only taught, but did.

Still, the words “those who can’t do teach” banged up against the walls of my brain for years, and until I was thirty-four I swore I would never teach, never ever.

Well, be careful what you don’t wish for. Over the past eleven years I’ve been teaching creative writing to motivated students who want to learn, want to write, and, like me, need to write, and over the past several years I’ve co-taught with a woman who continues to inspire me as a writer, teacher, and friend. Finally, I’ve come to realize that I CAN write, and I can teach too.

Teaching forces me to sit down to write even on those days when just looking at my computer makes me cry. If I tell my students they can do it, then don’t I have to tell myself I can do it? And then, don’t I have to do it too? I don’t teach because I can’t write. I teach because teaching makes me makes me a better writer.

“Those who can’t do teach” may have been my tenth grade journalism teacher’s truth, but it’s not mine. Mrs. Roberts! That’s her name… wait a minute that was the name of the Phys. Ed teacher who hated my guts. Or was it? Well, that’s a topic for another day. Keep writing. Keep teaching. Never stop learning.

Writing about Love

Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day...It's a hard one for a writer. I mean, how do you write about love without sounding sentimental or cliché'? Still, we are all writing about love in some ways. So I'm told. Don't "they" say we are all writing the same story? Stories about love. Stories about death. Stories about love and death.

So, I'm celebrating V-day for the first time in years with my BF. At 45 I just can't bring myself to use the label "boy friend." But what are the alternatives? Lover? Partner? Fuck-buddy? So, I use BF. Okay, it makes me sound like a teenager. But, then again, who knows more about love than a teenager? Don't you remember those days when that's what it was all about? Falling in love. That's what mattered. All that mattered, all you wanted. Oh, and when you did, WOW! What a feeling! How many records, tapes, CDs, did you wear out? Can you wear out an Ipod?

Love was all consuming and you weren't called obsessive or accused of being a stalker if you tracked every breathing movement the object of your desire made. You were just called a teenager, a normal teenager.

Yes, teenage love. First loves, even second loves, the reasons gothic romances and romcoms even exist. Without love we wouldn't, couldn't, be a nation obsessed with vampires. The creature that wants nothing more than to take his or her love drain him or her of their life force and make them live eternal. I mean, you really have to love someone to want to live out eternity with them. Right?

When you were a teenager you knew that loving someone and having that someone love you back was all that mattered. Mattered more than a perfect SAT score or an A in physics. You were willing to risk the F on your trig exam to talk to your sweetie for hours on the phone, now it would be chat or Skype, instead of studying.

How old were we when that day came and we decided that college or career or whatever else was more important than being in love? Was it after the first, second, third heart break?

By the way, I never had my heart broken. When I've been crushed by the person of my desire it was never my heart that broke. It was always my stomach. I love to eat. And can usually eat under any and all circumstance. After all, I am the daughter of a former exterminator who talked shop at the dinner table. Nothing stopped me from getting my daily bread down, not rat nor roach talk. Nothing but the love of my life telling me, "It's quits." That's when the sight, the thought, of any food, even chocolate ice cream, made me nauseous.

So, there I went ahead and did it. I got all-sentimental on my ass....I guess, I just couldn't figure out any other way on the day that florists and chocolate manufacturers make their fortunes-- Happy Valentine's Day.