An Exercise in Cheese

For the past four Saturdays I've been teaching a creative writing workshop for kids 14-18, but that's not what I find funny. What I find funny is that it focuses on YA Romance. I do not write romance novels, and I am not good at being romantic or maintaining romantic relationships so what I'm doing teaching this subject to young writers I don't know. But they let me keep teaching it and for the most part I can run it how I want. After much consideration, I decided not to start the class by saying, "Hi, I'm Genevieve Rheams, local author, with a deep fear of intimacy and very little knowledge about love." Instead I gave them this writing prompt:


Exercise: Write about how you would react if your breakfast began talking to you. What kind of food is it and what is it saying? Is it asking you questions? Can other people at the table hear it? Five minutes.

This was at the beginning of the class which was all about the arc of a plot.  So far we've covered character development, dialogue, and plot, so really teaching this hasn't been much different from teaching "how to write a book." Tomorrow, since this is the last class in this particular topic, I decided to tackle romance full on by leading a discussion on "How not to Write Cheesy." And there will be cheese!...No really I'm bringing cheese. I haven't decided if it should be cheesecake brownies, or actual cheese. These are growing girls. Ooooo, maybe nachos....

Anyway, it turns out that cheesy romance is all about your perspective. A lot of readers think that Twilight is cheesy, while others leave their bedroom windows open at night, wishing that a teenaged vampire will fly in and stare at them creepily while they sleep. One person's cheese is another's love monkey. Maybe I'll leave that out of my speech.

It is now three days later. And I FORGOT THE CHEESE. Luckily one of my students brought brownies as a last class celebration.

This is something I'm going to continue to do now that I'm part of the Young Writer's Guild of New Orleans, so next month I get to teach a new group (with hopefully some of the same faces). I wasn't sure if I would like doing this kind of thing you know, getting up and talking for two hours in front of people but it turns out that I absolutely love it. And in teaching the kids (these these smart, funny, wonderfully imaginative kids) how to write for a genre that I'm not too familiar with, I've learned some things that are important to know when writing Young Adult romance and I feel that you should know them too. They are:

1. Have brownies often.

2. Girls like boys with feelings.

3. Vampires sparkle.

4. Don't forget the cheese.

5. Female writers ages 14-18 talk a lot.

6. Females ages 14-18 most likely talk a lot regardless of whether or not they are writers.

7. There is a direct correlation between the amount of brownies a teenaged girl has consumed and the amount that she talks.

You now equipped to write your own YA romance novel. Though those last three might just be things I learned from running the group. 

Speaking of those chatty kids, in their honor I have decided to take the challenge of my own writing prompt. It was in two parts. The first part was this:

Exercise: Part 1 - A girl wakes up in the hospital. She doesn’t remember how she got there, she just knows that she was in her grandmother’s mobile home when a tornado hit. Another family had run into the trailer with them for shelter and one of them was a quiet boy about her age. She remembers the tornado right outside the window, then the boy’s face next to hers, and then nothing. When she wakes up she has bandages over most of her body, and the boy walks into her room with something in his hands. He holds it out to her and asks if she is ok. What is the object and what do they say to each other? Ten minutes.

I will not be writing that part. I will do this:

Part 2 - Now rewrite it and make it as cheesy as possible. 10 minutes.

Storm's eyes snap open. She tries to rub them, but when she lifts her hands she notices that they are in bandages. She gasps, screams, "My manicure!" and falls back onto the pillow, her golden tresses falling angelically and symbolically around her head.

At the sound of her cries, Hugh rushes into the room. His long blond hair flows majestically as he strides beneath the airconditioning vent, his magnificent chest swells beneath his torn t-shirt, his eyes are an ocean of blue tears, raging like the sea. His hands are filled with roses, the thorns of which prick him but he does not feel the pain.

"You're awake, my love!" he cries, rushing to her side.

Storm screams again. Her bandaged hand falls across her eyes. "Hugh! Don't look at me! I'm not beautiful anymore!"

"But you could never be anything but beautiful to me!" he cries. He drops the roses across her. "Look! I scoured the forests where we played as babes for the most beautiful roses! I've gathered them every day and brought them to you hoping to find you awake! And now! You are! My darling!"

"MY darling!"

She faints.

I'd go on but that was ten minutes. A little over actually. That was fun, I kind of liked it. Stay tuned for further Stories of Storm and Hugh - Desire in a Trailer Park Tornado. The love that FEMA could not replace.

It's Ok, We're Both Weird

She wanted to know if it was ok that she liked feeling sad.

"What do you mean? Do you make yourself sad?"

The kid hunched her shoulders and looked up at me with eyes that are blue, green and yellow. I'm impressed that three colors can exist in such small spaces.

"Sometimes. I like to feel it."

"Do you like to feel happy too?" I asked because I had to.

"Yeah," she nodded a little too enthusiastically.

"That's good."

"But it doesn't feel as big as sad."

"As big? You mean, like as powerful?"

All three colors in her eyes lit up. "Yeah. It's not as powerful."

"Well...it sounds like you just like to feel things. That's ok."

"It's not weird?"

"...No. I don't think so."

Her shoulders drooped again, and she hung her head until her chin touched her chest.

"Are you being sad right now?" I asked.

"Yes," she sighed, hopelessly.

I wondered if it made her happy to be so sad, or if it was kind of a let down to have permission. And as my mind raced I let myself feel the worry, the fear, and the blithesome wonder of having a kid who welcomes her emotions. We were quiet with each other, like people who fall silent at restaurants when the food finally comes, tasting the what we felt, so many big feelings in such small spaces.

Sober Tuesday

I'm not sure what the past two posts have been about. Can we start over?

"That depends, are you going to write more stream-of-consciousness drivel about half-naked jogging?"

"No, no. I'm way past that."

"Good."

"I'm toying around with naked canoeing."

"You're fired."

"You can't fire me! It's my blog!"

"I'm your reader. I get to do that."

"No, you're not. You're my internal editor. YOU are fired."

"...Well, that back-fired."

"Indeed it did. Now...when one canoes nude, proper sunscreen is a must, and one must consider that question of whether or not a hat is clothes. I'm thinking no."

And so on and so forth.

So now that my lost weekend (which was sober and on a Tuesday) is over what am I going to write about? Gay marriage legalization? I'm happy about it, but no, we've got people covering that one. Miley Cyrus appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live in her underpants? No, no, that's got even more coverage. How about my daughter's question yesterday? Has the media covered that? Lemme Google it...no. We have a topic.

So we were driving to the grocery store yesterday, just my 11 year old and I, and we were listening to music with the windows down, the warm breeze is blowing gently on our faces. And then she turns to me like she's going to say something but is thinking it through. And then, after much reflection she says, "Did you ever think that I might be a super hero?"

"Well....no. I've just been taking it for granted that you're not."

"But how would you know?"

She had me. How WOULD I know? I thought back on the last time I did the laundry. Any brightly colored tights?...yes. Capes?...well, now that I thought about it yes. Has she collected any insects that have possibly been exposed to radiation?...She has a rabbit whose pen is near the microwave....OH MY GOD.

But I had to play it cool.

"Well...are you?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe I am too."

She narrowed her eyes and nodded. "I see."

"I could be Cat Woman."

"You could."

"I'm not saying I am. I'm just saying that we're never in the same room at the same time."

"I could be Captain America."

"I'd vote for you."

"Mom, that's a super hero."

"I know that. That's one of my super abilities! Knowing things."

One of Emma's super abilities is arguing with me, and she did for a very long time. By the end of the conversation we firgured out that we were both the Silver Surfer. We'd appreciate it if you didn't spread that around, we're trying to keep it out of the press.

What are These Hands?

So, I went a little nuts today. I was at work and something possessed me and forced me to write. I know it sounds like I'm making that up.

"Genevieve, what were you doing between 9:30 and 10:30 this morning?" my supervisor might ask.

"Um...working?"

"Wrong! You were frothing and typing furiously on something that was not work-related! Why did you do this?"

"It's not my fault! I was possessed!

"By who?"

"Um...Jack Kerouac?"

So this is what I wrote. I don't exactly think that this is poetry. I don't know what this is or why I'm sharing it, but I do know that I wrote this and more, and after it all came pouring out I sat in a daze until I realized that I'd been staring at an empty Coke can for ten minutes. I was also listening to this song repeatedly and Elliott Smith tends to set my mind on fire, my sweet, sad, sad boy.


"Doctor, I'm leaking."

"What part of you?"

"My fingers, my mind. It's bleeding through my mind, dripping down my fingers and I'm writing and I'm writing and I have other things to do."  

"What's your problem again?"

"I'm writing poetry."

"NURSE! Get a tourniquet!"

Danny wrote a poem about a Coke can once, and there are two empty Coke cans on my desk, flimsy aluminum, God I miss him, Miss Misery. I feel too much I feel so much I can't even think of words, I'm trying too hard when I just need to let it go and drip from my mind to my fingers, not as thick as honey but thicker than water, with a will of its own, with an I want to be heard I want you to know. What do you want me to know? That the pain was never yours. Her pain was never yours it dripped from her mind into her hands, that hands that hurt you, and you carry the trickle of pain that became a flood and your flood is all of these words that you can't think of, words like tourniquet, and words like job security. Isn't it funny that you couldn't think of that term when you wrote that email just now "It's good job...job what? Oh job security." And you couldn't think of the word tourniquet when you were writing just now. What is that thing, the thing that cuts off, the thing that blocks, no more blocks my love, no more, just write all of the words that don't make sense, let all of the animals loose, let all of it drip all over the keyboard, brain fluid, electric pulses, winds sweeping fire, destroying houses, eating them alive, more alive, rising and suffocating everything but the sky where it dissipates, where it heals, where it goes away and leaves the ground to build again, white out pouring from my mind onto the paper, hiding everything I've written, I can still be built again, I can smother it, I can put it off, I can mow my lawn and not sing but the song will come back as powerful as an animal breaking out of a cage, naked feet, burning the ground, I don't care if this is not written well, I don't care how it sounds, I'm missing notes and I don't care, You're at work, what and where is that, there's a madwoman in Cubicle 84 and she can't stop writing like Dr. Seuss writing making up words "galifican stew happy fish bait bite." What does that mean? It's the stopper, you've pulled out the stopper. No you haven't something else has, and it can't stop I won't stop someone give me a scroll like Jack Kerouac and I'll write "On the Road" but I'll write it sober and it will be oh so so bad, Will it? Kerouac isn't meant to be read stonecold sober, I don't feel sober, and I'm not even on medication, this is something that's happening to me without substances, what's happening to me, what are these hands that won't stop typing, what are these hands that have pulled the stopper, I might drown, I might die, but it feels so good to be in this, it feels like so much built up and my muscles are relaxing, I want to show you my hands and show you how this feels. Imagine an orgasm that goes on for too long, but it doesn't hurt it climaxes and rushes out and doesn't stop and its' exhilaration that doesn't kill you, don't let me go hands that pulled the stopper, don't ever let me go.

Cubicle #84 Part Other

Work is the only place I'm tempted to take my clothes off in public. My dress pants begin to itch if I sit at my cubicle for too long. I tug at the leg parts to give my knees breathing room, and scratch at whatever chemical blend has woven into the cotton of my blouse.

I walk down the aisle to the printer, the carpet as gray as my pants, the lighting as false as the makeup on my face. The aisle is long and curves around like the track at the gym. I step out of my flats, tear the sleeves off my blouse, pull my hair back with a binder clip and run. My stockings tear with each footfall and my toes, freed from the suffocation of nylon, squeeze the carpet feeling for grass. My feet don't rest until I'm out the door, momentarily satistfied to kiss the parkinglot pavement that has kissed the sun, but no, not the right one, and they pedal faster to the park where tired mothers push babies in strollers. In their half-sleep, I breeze past them, a peach-colored She Hulk, clothes in tatters, grimacing at the mowed lawn, the clear-cut path. The ground feels like nylon, like an itchy gray cotton-polyester blend tight at the knees, and I tear through it, my naked feet feeling for the tangle of forrest floor, the estranged lover coming home.

Urban Poetry Nuggets

Everyone has a shameful confession. Mine is that, techinology-wise, I have not I have not evolved past owning a CD player. Even with my love of music, which exceeds my love of coffee, which in itself is so great that framed pictures of lattes lean boldly in front of pictures of my kids, I still haven't shelled out the money to buy...whatever it is that plays music now. An ipod? An mp3 player? Have we moved past those things yet? Or is it only a phone that plays music now? No, not a phone? A food processor? A pogo stick with a USB port? Is a USB port really what I think it is or is it part of a space shuttle? Are space shuttles connected to the internet and if so can they download music?


I don't know these things so I just play songs on Youtube. Maybe I'm lazy, but honestly, I was burnt once by technology and I never want to go through that kind of loss ever again.

(Cue painful recollection) When I was 11 I began collecting what would become a glorious cassette tape collection. For the price of doing the dishes every day, I was able to spend ALL of my allowance every week on new music. So after a few years I had two double decker cases of cassettes that I coveted and that were absolutely awesome. It was extensive. Elton John, Paul Simon, and The Beach Boys were right there with Megadeath, Agent Orange, Led Zeppelin, Ice T and The Beastie Boys. I might not have known how to talk to other people, but I could look at my music collection and imagine how someone would react if I'd acutally had friends who came into my room.

"Wow!" They'd exclaim, reaching for my bootleg copy of Marylin Manson singing in the shower. "How'd you get that?"

"Well, I get $5.00 a week, I have no friends, great taste in music, and a lot of time."

And replies like that is why Genevieve had no friends for a very, very long time.

It was soon after that I amassed this collection of cassettes, that they began to only release new music on CD's. This was no problem, I thought, I still had a tape deck I could still play all of my favorite music without having to buy a CD player. But soon my insatiable appetite for new, interesting bands outweighed my sentimental attachment to my old boom box so I started buying CD's.

And then, not too soon after, the internet came. Actually, the internet came along when I was about 15 I think, but it didn't introduce itself to me until I was 106 years old. And when we met it said, "Hi, I'm the internet."

"Hi, I'm Genevieve."

"Good to meet you. Hey, are these your CD's and cassettes over here?"

I smiled adoringly at them. "Yeah."

The internet smiled back. "Great." And then it raised a sledge hammer and whacked at them until they were nothing but dust, broken plastic, and ribbons.

So the internet and I have a rocky relationship at best. I use it for pretty much everything, but when it comes to buying music, that's when things get prickly. The internet says to me, "You know that Florence and The Machine album you've been wanting? You could download it from itunes or something." This sounds appealing at first, but then I think of what it did to my tapes and CD's and I say, "Why so you can take a sledgehammer and kill itunes like you killed my friends? Fuck you, take me to Youtube." It doesn't say anything back. Really, what can it say?

The Youtube community has a lot to say though. Though I personally don't comment on the songs I like, sometimes I scroll through what other people are saying. You probably do the same thing, but since we might not listen to the same stuff, I thought I'd share some of the ones I've found. These are the actual comments that haven't been doctored or edited by me. I'm not going to tell you what songs they went with. These will be completely out of context for two reasons: 1) they are urban poetry nuggets and 2) they're more stupid when they stand alone. You would think these two points would contradict each other, but no! So what you get is profoundly stupid accidental poetry. All because of my refusal to grow with technology. There is a bright side to irrational hardheadedness! Who knew.

So here we go.

Some of my favorite youtube comments from songs:


You are a retarded mad princess

britney is awesome doe. she wasn't a sell out and change who she is like a lot of this generations music.

Shut the fuck up, douch nozzle

Please guys, *THRASH, for God.

mellow, grungy, dope

Probably a big-legged woman

A seed is a seed you fucking mongoloid

Happy ending!! yesssss.....

Are you drunk?

wooow it is amazing to man can standing all of the video

Skaters are mostly punk rock fans if you knew your history they dont skate to rap they skate to the misfits hence skateboard music duh

well I just have the album, I uploaded the song and I prayed to the old gods that no one would delete it

if you want the truth of life go to Truthcontestxcom and read THE PRESENT

Well it's obvious that this song has absolutely nothing to do with shoe's. But you could have said it nicer, and punctuated it better... And spelled better... You dumb fuck

Playing this song got Will Ferrell laid.

La musica y el arte no tienen Nacionalidad ni raza, es universal !!!

-----

And because it's important to know this is the song that got Will Ferrell laid. And this is the scene where it happened. To quote a commenter, "One of the best romantic/comedy scenes of all time."

Cubicle #84

First, I realize it's been over a month since I last wrote. It's terrifying how quickly a month passes by, because although it felt like it had been a while since I'd written I had no idea it had been THAT long. It's like one of those movies where a guy wakes up and says, "Man, that was a good long sleep. I wonder what time it is." And it's five years later.

There are a variety of ways he can find out this information. He can look at his calender instead of the clock, and realize that he's missed five seasons worth of "Dancing With The Stars." He can find a newspaper on his doorstep with the current date and the feature article on the cover that says "Local Man Lets Newspapers Build Up for Five Years," and then he'll notice that he's standing in a five-year pile of newspaper. He can roll over, look at his cell phone and see that it has updated from a 5G to a 10G. The signs that this man has slept for an ungodly amount of time are endless.

But time travel is not what I want to discuss today. What I want to talk to you about is my day job because talking to you about what I do from 8-5:00, Monday through Friday will lull you into a good long sleep and then you can tell me about the interesting ways that you woke up only to discover that you've been napping for 100 years and that your cell phone is now also a hover craft.

I was just talking to my friend Tom about my job yesterday. Tom is a talented sculptor who also has a day job and I believe that our conversation went something like this:

Tom: What are you up to this morning, man?

Me: Getting ready for work.

Tom: Me too.

Both of us: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We both have similar sit-in-front-of-computer jobs that have nothing to do with the ways we are gifted. Tom should be welding kinetic art sculptures and I should updating silly things on my blog more often than once a month. And marketing my novel, working on the next novel, and writing more personal essays and short stories. Goddamnit, I should be Dorothy Parker, only not drunk and not dead.

To be honest, some days I feel trapped. I leave at 7:00, get the kids to school, get myself to work, leave at 5:00, pick up the kids, go home, we eat dinner, prepare for the next day, and by the time they're in bed I'm exhausted. Assuming I ignore my friends who call and text me in the evening, I can write. But I don't ignore them most of the time, and then I make deals with myself that I'll wake up at 5:00 to get writing done. Which incidentally is what I did this morning, and why I'm writing now. And it's 5:44 so I have to stop writing in 16 minutes and get ready for my mind-numbing job.

But on my good days, I find hope in things....hey! Wake up! I didn't say to fall into a five year coma yet, I haven't even described what I do during the day. Anyway, I remember that I do write whenever I can and though the novel and essay writings are slow, they are definitely steady. And then I remember that I am NOT trapped. I can look for writing jobs again. I'm just afraid to. I'm afraid of trying and failing, or trying and getting a writing job and not being good enough for it. Or starting my own free-lance writing business and living in constant stress because the work isn't steady enough. So some days it's easier to sit in my cubicle and reset passwords for frustrated doctors and update patient records because it's something I know I can do and I know how much money I'll make every two weeks.

The problem with that is that after three hours of that work, my face which is ordinarily sunny and attractive begins to look like this:


And though you might be thinking that's not so bad because that's the Crimson Ghost and The Misfits adopted that as their trademark and they are super cool, it's not cool having that on your face. It's particularly upsetting to coworkers who come to ask me questions some time around 11:00.

Innocent Approaching Coworker: Hey Gen, Dr. Jarron called and - AAIGH! What happened to your face??

Me: Cubicle.

This is my Cubicle Face. This is what happens to it when I realize that I've settled for the job that I promised myself as a Misfits-listening-novel-writing-black-nail-polish-wearing teenager that I'd never have. There are no colors in my office, which is an expansive gray space with precisely 105 cubicles. I'm number 84.

So this is what I've decided to do. I have a picture of Carson McCullers that I'm bringing in with me this morning, and I'm gathering some pictures of my kids. Yeah, I have no pictures of my kids on my desk. There are some days that thinking about them is the only thing that makes the job bearable - because I know they need me to work a steady job. They give me purpose when I've got Cubicle Face. So I think I need to do a combination of writer and child pictures for #84. It will remind me why I'm there, and that I still haven't lost my talents or stopped using them.

Plus, as I pointed out to Tom, most of the best artists I know had to have a day job. T.S. Eliot was a banker. Amy Tan was a technical writer before she hit it big. People painted into works of art also work.  How many paintings and photographs have I seen of workers? People who don't know why they have the lives they have, and you can see it on their faces. How good of a writer would I really be if I didn't know what it's like to struggle?

And when it comes to that, how much do I REALLY struggle? I don't have a job like this:

And a lot of people in the world do. They don't even have a choice about it. I'm at my desk, not straining my back, not getting rained on, risking heat stroke, or afraid that if my body gives out I won't be able to work anymore and my family will starve.

Also, right now I'm doing my absolute favorite thing in the world. I'm writing to you (take five to swoon). Without an audience, what's the point of writing? Then I'm just telling stories to myself in the mirror. But that is what I do when I let the fear take over, and all that self doubt.

It's 6:00 am. I need to wake up the children and gather pictures of them and my favorite writers. To work!



PS- You can find Tom Harold's rolling ball sculptures here: http://tomharold.com/ Though he is also an 8-5:00 cubicle drone, he made this beautiful, brilliant thing: