Pet Peeve: Annoying Question

"So what will you do when T. goes off to college? You'll be all alone..."

I really hate when friends and family pose this question. Are they predicting my downfall into abject loneliness, my life consumed with "those were the days memories" and worshiping T.'s baby shoes? One time a few years ago, my landlady stopped my son and me as we set out for a walk--"In a few years he'll be off at college and you'll be all alone," and she smiled. Later I thought of the kind of thing you wish you'd said although of course you'd never say it: "Uh--you're so concerned about my being alone--I guess you have an eligible bachelor ready for me to meet, right? You're a prominent church member--you wouldn't be throwing my singleness in my face, would you? That wouldn't be Christian, would it?"

Of course, I have the specter of my mother's example hanging over my head--a negative role model if there ever was one. She, with her mental illness, didn't want me to go off to college in the first place. Looking back, I should have picked a college on the opposite side of the country--instead, I lived on campus but in a school not far from my mother's apartment; she once paid me a one a.m. visit, screaming at me to come home until someone on the floor summoned the R.A. My roommates and I left the phone off the hook nights so her frequent calls wouldn't wake us. Yup, negative role model.

I want my son to go away to college--I think it's a good first step towards his independence, one he'll be able to share with his fellow college freshman--an informal support group of thousands, you could say. And I've always tried to pursue my own dreams while being a mom, last year earning my MFA in creative writing, and I submit work to agents or editors once a month, amassing an impressive collection of rejection slips. Socially, I try to nurture old friendships and make new ones. L. and I are daily email buddies, H. and I have decided to have breakfast together once a month, I just emailed neighbor D. about setting up time for coffee, D.A. and I have monthly "write-ins," A. has become like my mother and we chat on the phone everyday, I'm overdue for having Ms. M. over for coffee...All alone? Depends on your definition, I guess! Sure, I'll be living alone a year from now, but although I'd love to find a soul mate, I'm not planning to advertise for a roommate! And I want to be proud of an independent adult son making his own way in the world.

That's why the title of this blog is "Dena's Launching Pad," NOT "Preparing for Empty Nest"! The phrase "empty nest" sounds so forlorn--why go there? Do birds sit around and dwell on their collections of twigs after their offspring have flown off? Don't think so--imagine they're flying about here and there. No, I look at my home as a place to launch my son off to a fulfilling life--and where I continue to follow my dreams.

Writing Method

Do I have the best writing method? I start slowly, scribbling in my Penway Composition Book with blue gel pen. (Yeah, I know that shows my age--actually using handwriting sounds like I have a horse and buggy out back--but what can I say? Pen in hand feels comfy.) I mark my notebook with paper clips so I can find unfinished scribblings--observations or descriptions, crabby musings about myself or some other human being, novel instances, notes for my memoir about my best friend, lists of ideas--whatever. I give myself freedom to write whatever I want. Sometimes notebook-writing sparks me to jump to my computer or Neo--but not always.

Next I attack something on my to-do list, but again I let myself be flexible. I'd planned to work on Lesson 11 of "Rachel and the Cousins: 7th Grade"--but on Saturday my son and I will be visiting J.'s mom and returning J.'s letters--so it would be nice if I finished tweaking "Bestfriend." The last section of "Bestfriend" is hardest, for that's where I need to show how J.'s life has affected me. Just try summing up the meaning of your best friend to you--see what I mean?

Sometimes I post to 100words.com--a new notebook entry or an excerpt from the memoir or my novel. Does 100words.com help my writing, forcing me be more concise? Or is it a diversion, giving me less time for "real" writing projects?

How can I get myself to write better? My people seem cardboard, my descriptions from a universe where nothing can be seen, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted. From past experience, writing more and reading more are the keys. I've just started Dreiser's "American Tragedy"--I hope that helps!

Revision Blues

Again I'm rewriting "Bestfriend," a memoir of J., my best friend who died eleven years ago this November. I began working on "Bestfriend" in 2001 or 2002, started sending it out to publishers in September 2005. Nibbles but no bites. When I finished the MFA program in July 2008, I looked at "Bestfriend" once more and did some revising. Now I'm tweaking again--while visiting J's mom and looking through photo albums, I read a letter J. wrote to Cardinal B., pleading for a ramp for her church. J.'s spirit leaped off the page. Why not insert J's own words? And I could update the aftermath section to talk about the ramp that was built, albeit after J's death.

I'd love to sell "Bestfriend" and split the money with J.'s mom. But revision is grueling. I can only work on the manuscript for so long and I need a break. I mean, it's a tragedy--she dies. In my update, I mention that her brother died last year--her parents have lost three of their five kids. How the **** do you add comic relief to a scenario like that? I try to add hope--that J. is looking down on us--that life has a pattern we just don't see yet, noting the ramp she'd pushed for was finally approved, believe it or not, the day she died. And in the early sections, I did put in funny stuff--how we'd go through J.C. Penney, J. honking the bicycle bell a coworker attached to her wheelchair. How people laughed--but they were smiling, much better than the usual stares.

Still...one friend who read "Bestfriend" worried that it would be "too much" for the reader. Of course, J's death--being in a coma two and a half months before she died--was too much in real life, too. Still--I do want to sell this. May the force be with me!

Chapters

I love seeing patterns in life; I just realized that my life neatly divides into 18-year chapters. My first 18 years I spent surviving, mentally and emotionally, life in a dysfunctional home; my next 18 years I fumbled about, trying to find my purpose. Next, I spent 18 years raising my son--and grew up myself.

My son will turn eighteen in less than two months, will go off to college a year from now. My next chapter begins.

I've begun to lay groundwork, earning my MFA in creative writing last year, and networking with writers via NaNoWriMo and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. I've signed up at a couple of online dating sites--although I subscribe to the philosophy of the book, "Men Are Just Dessert." After my son leaves, I may join choir again, take violin lessons, attend writing conferences, enroll in more writing classes. I need to launch myself, too!

The Journey Begins

I remember loving living alone. I enjoyed the years from September 1976 to June 1978, then from September1980 to September 1986,until the fiancé who would become my ex-husband moved in. Altogether, a total of eight years, a fractional part of my 54 years. Of course, when my child was little, it sometimes felt like living alone, for he slept during the long stretch of evening hours...
Next year, in August 2010, I'll lose the "roommate" I've had for the past eighteen years as my son goes off to college, and I'll lose the job of full-time mother, changing my status to always-on-call mother. I read a cartoon once where a new mother, holding her crying baby, asks her own mother, in frustration, "When do you stop worrying about them all the time?" Her mother replies, "I'll let you know when I find out." There is that.
So my blog will detail my own personal journey as my son completes high school.
I'm also a struggling writer--key word is struggle. I do get to write for a living for a school, but it's like ghost writing, as our names are never on the final product. I've written three books--a coming-of-age novel, a short memoir about my best friend who died some years ago, and a middle-grade novel. I'm trying to find homes for them, plus work on new material, particularly a sequel to the middle-grade novel. And of course I religiously participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) every year!
So this is a launching-pad year, as I get ready to send my son forth to the world of college and work and someday his own family, and as I write and submit stuff to agents and publishers. May my son and my books do well!