Beth Troy's Blog, page 18

Day 1: NaNoWriMo {Beth Troy Style}

Why do I blog?

Because I’m a writer. But there’s a lot of stuff to write.

Because I want to make my stuff “known.” But 1500+ blogs are posted every minute. It’s a saturated market.

Because I have all the time in the world. Someday I’ll blog about my 27-hour day. Promise.

Because I love putting my name on stuff. Second only to putting my picture everywhere.

No, I blog because I love to write. For years I kept the writing to myself. My writing wasn’t “real” because I wasn’t a “real” writer. Those words weren’t particularly helpful. In the past few years, I’ve learned to speak some others, and I’d like to share them to encourage you if you’re disqualifying yourself from a dream. That’s why I blog.

November is NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month! It’s the Internet being used for something good by encouraging writers to draft a 50,000 word manuscript between November 1-30. Last year, 200,000 people wrote 2.8 billion words.

This many people writing this many words is plum amazing. I want to spread eagle into this mosh pit, but I can’t. Even with my 27-hour days, it’s not the time. I’d like to delete that last sentence and replace it with another, but that wouldn’t change the truth of the thing [insert dramatic sigh and duck lips].

Do you know what else is true?

Novels aren’t the only stories.

Every time someone asks about our day, we respond with a story. Our social media feeds = stories. Resumes and cover letters are the stories of our work, and pitches are the stories of our offering. Christmas cards are the stories of our year (and journal entries are the stories of what really went down). Everywhere we go we tell stories – a range of fiction to non- depending on the context, the audience, and the type of day we’re having. I woke up at 5AM with one kid puking in his bed and another peeing his pants. The third was probably streaking in the street, but how was I to know because I was too busy hosing down the dog in the pitch black of the backyard because she’d messed her crate again. What was your question? Oh, you want to know how I’m doing. Well I’m just going to be honest here and tell you  …

That’s the start of a great story, and that’s what I want to celebrate on the blog this month: The Stories We Tell [Even If You Weren’t Aware You Were Telling Them Until the Last Paragraph]. Why not tell them well? Tell them true? Tell them as only you can tell them?

I’m hoping to hit it all in this NaNoWriMo 2017. I want to post a little something everyday. I have grand plans to bring on some guest bloggers and do some interviews. Perhaps I’ll host a give-away or two. Of course there’s the chance that none of this will work out. Check back in once in awhile anyway. There may be some writing geekery to help out your sentences. Maybe the day’s post will hold a trick to get you started or at least a good laugh. But I hope all of it (if there’s any of it) will encourage you to tell your story … whatever that may be.

Because you can. Because I did, and I’m working with the same ingredients as you (I was just joking about that 27-hour day). 2.8 billion words makes for a lot of stories, but what about yours? Only you can tell that.

God’s Plans, My Plans

The plan was take her a copy of the book two months ago.

Scratch that.

The plan was never to know who she was in the first place.

I didn’t go to the coffee shop on Thursday mornings to make friends. I went to escape my messy house. Given the boys’ half-day school schedules, two hours was the most consecutive time I could scrape while writing Lu. If I attempted to do that at home, the dishes called. So I went to the coffee shop. And I wasn’t about to waste any of my writing time in small talk with a stranger.

But if you go to the same small coffee shop in a small town long enough, those strangers become familiar faces.

“What’s your name?” I finally asked the lady behind the counter after a month of Thursday mornings.

She followed her answer with the same question, and names were all we exchanged that day. Other Thursday mornings brought more information, like her dog’s name and how many cups of coffee she drinks in a day. Eventually, she knew when I was coming, she knew my coffee order, and she would have it ready for me at my usual seat at the high-top by the front window, along with a mug of ice water because she was concerned about my hydration.

“What are you working on?” she asked after a few months.

“Oh, well … I’m trying to write a book.” I was still in the way early days of Lu and uncertain of whether I could write a chapter let alone a whole book. My answer felt like a confession, but it didn’t sound faze her. I live in a college town, and most of the people who come to the coffee shop are professors working on publishing something or other. My detail became just another factoid she’d check in on Thursday after Thursday over the next couple of years.

I haven’t seen her much since the start of summer. I didn’t have a regular writing schedule this summer, and my fall teaching schedule has relegated coffee hour to early mornings at home (while I do those pesky dishes) and afternoons during my office hours with students. But I’ve been meaning to take her a copy of Lu since June. Such a small thing to put the book in the car, drive the mile to the coffee shop, and give it to her. It wouldn’t take more than 5 minutes, but these are the types of things I can’t seem to accomplish … among many, many, many others.

“You are accomplishing things. It’s just not what you planned.” Matt’s been telling me this for months, but I’ve found it hard to rest in that. Fridays are my hardest days. I wake up, bone tired. And from what? Certainly not because I accomplished anything I intended when I set my goals on Monday. No. Since school started, I haven’t met any of the writing, editing, marketing, publishing, promoting, or researching goals I’ve set, though I’ve reduced their scope each week. Maybe I can draft a paragraph of that scene in the back of my mind. Just a paragraph. Nope. No paragraph. Not even the first sentence of one.

“I need release,” I whispered last Friday. My prayer didn’t go past that because there wasn’t time. I had a full day that started with a stop to the coffee shop – not to cradle a mug of dark roast while I wrote stuff down for two hours, but to grab a bag of beans before I was on to Thing 2 of 57 for the day.

“I’m reading a great a book,” she told me as soon as I got the counter.

“How …?”

“Amazon.”

Right. How anyone can get any book.

“I’ve been meaning to give you a copy, and I’m so sorry I haven’t found the five minutes that would take, it’s just that …”

“Beth, it’s fine. I know you’re busy, but I wanted to read it. I’m halfway through, and I like it, but there’s something else. In this book, you talk about the Bible the same way you talk about coffee. You’re not preaching at me. I haven’t read my Bible in years, but I’ve started reading it again. And so now my mom likes you, too.”

Somehow – somehow – I finished that conversation like a normal person. I paid for my coffee beans and waved goodbye like I was concluding any of our other dozens of conversations. I got in my car, drove 50 feet to get to a parking space beyond the view of the coffee shop windows, parked, and wept, thereby definitively answering why I hoard random napkins in my glovebox. Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Panera, Chik-Fil-A – I cried on all your napkins last Friday.

Truth?

When we pray, God hears us. And the release he delivered looked nothing like what I was requesting. No, my request was for a schedule shift. Just some time on one day so I could work – that’s what I was asking. His answer? His answer reminded me of how He works. My coffee shop visits resulted in a book. They also started a conversation – a conversation I never intended to start and when I did, I did because I’m from Ohio. We’re a friendly people. We chat it up. That’s what we do.

And then there’s what God does with it.

“What are you up to?” I asked as I pulled out of my second parking space with my second prayer of the day. It didn’t go past that because there wasn’t time, but the lack of time didn’t bother me as much. It binds only me. Not him.

Renaissancing

Children are great. They legitimize all the things.

Officially: Renaissance Festival = For Them.

Unofficially: Renaissance Festival = My Vegas

 

“And we shall listen to Tales of Narnia to set the mood!” I informed the Troy Boys as we started our drive to back in time.

“Can we bring back a souvenir?” the eldest, Sir Jesse – Son of Matthew, Son of Douglas, Son of William – inquired.

Officially: “Whatever thy heart desires that is less than 15 schillings and 5 pence.”

Unofficially: Because the Lady of the Castle has plans for the rest of the silver she snuck from the Lord’s pouch.

Ticket lines are usually boring, but in front of us was a lady with no shirt and pasties o’ duct tape on her hmm-hmms. The boys didn’t notice, but I stared (just as they would have in Renaissance times). So many questions! Out of all things that go stick, why duct tape? What was her method of removal? Does she do this frequently or just when she’s in her Renaissance regalia? I never got to ask. They didn’t let her in, but the guard at the gate was apologetic. “We had to tell a man in a loin cloth the same thing …”

 

A ribbon show greeted us upon our arrival.

“Is this going to be your next hobby?” my friend, Lady Maggie the Fair, asked.

“As soon as I grow arm muscles.”

 

Rennaissancing begets new parenting rules.

“Don’t touch people’s weapons without asking!” I warned my middle son, Ezra the Curious.

“We don’t know that person. You shouldn’t touch his bottom!” I reprimanded Ezra the Cuddly when he pet a man’s kilt.

“Don’t hit men with your wooden sword in that region of their person!” I shouted when Ezra the Brave took a wack with his wooden sword at a knight’s leather loincloth.

“That’s okay, ma’am. That’s why it’s there.”

 

We feasted on turkey legs while awaiting the joust of knights from afar.

Great costumes surrounded, but none like the duct pasties.

“Such a shame they didn’t let her in, especially when we darn well know the No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service policy didn’t come around until the Victorian Age.”

“Oh, she got in,” a man to my right announced.

“How?” I marveled.

“She put on a shirt to get through the gate and then took it off.”

Renaissance ingenuity.

 

It was lovers’ day at the festival, and the fair ladies of the crowd could win a rose from the knights. I’d like to say the others stood a chance, but they forgot how loud and obnoxious ladies were in Renaissance times. My friend, Pam the Sly, caught the whole thing on her Renaissance smartphone.

https://bethtroy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/22722539_339094426553690_3183411446054649856_n.mp4

 

“What about Dad?” Sir Jesse inquired after I accepted the knight’s rose.

Lady Maggie had that covered.

“Look at what your wife is up to,” she live-texted to m’lord who was back at the family castle manning Tommy the Unherdable.

“Keep an eye on her,” he responded.

 

Midday, we broke for a traditional feast of funnel cakes while the kids played with their swords in the field – a Renaissance play date.

“Do you think the kids think they’re the best swordsmen ever?” I inquired of Lady Maggie.

“They’re ready to join the Olympic team.”

I was about to correct her on timelines until I remembered the Olympics used to be an ancient Greece thing.

“We should have been talking in British accents the whole time!” Lady Maggie exclaimed upon exit.

“Why’s that, Mom?” her eldest, Sir Owen – son of Micah – asked.

“It’s the Renaissance. Americans weren’t invented yet.”

 

‘Till next year.

 

Baby’s First Book Signing

Book signings are one of those things that seem pretty groovy on the outside. “Oooh, you have a book signing?” I get the sentiment. I’ve only ever been to one signing, and it was groovy. Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman! She’d just come out with a cookbook and was stopping in Cincinnati for her book tour. I signed up a month in advance to secure my slot and still had to wait for over two hours until I reached the front of the line for my 15-second brush with fame.

Swap Ree for Chip Gaines, John Grisham, and every other author everyone’s heard about, and I’m pretty sure the book signings all look the same: pre-registration, lines, small talk, autographs. Lots of writer’s cramp, but it’s okay because Granny Hand = Books Sold!

But what does a book signing look like for the rest of us, specifically those of us who live in pocket-sized towns, know 50 people total, and have just published our first book by ourselves?

They look like Tiny Tim’s portion of Christmas dinner before Scrooge de-scrooges.

It helps to know this beforehand. Tiny Tim wasn’t expecting more than his fraction of a drumstick of a scrawny bird (to keep this metaphor going for another paragraph), and neither was I. The general author consensus is that book signings are the worst until you’ve “made” it. Before that happens, a book signing is you behind a table awkwardly smiling at passersby as they awkwardly return your smile while they pass you on by.

This was my expectation heading into my first book signing this past weekend at The Book Loft in Columbus, Ohio (read: where I know 4 of my 50 people). And I actually sought this one out. I took the writing of Lu seriously. I wanted to write the best book I could at the time. Writing Lu was a bucket-list item. Publishing Lu? Not so much. That’s more of a game I’m learning to play. I’ve read the directions, I’ve read the strategy, and each move I make is just trying stuff out – to see if it works, to see if it works for me, to see if I like it. As best I can, I try to hold the promotion of Lu with an open hand and laugh at myself as.much.as.possible.

For this signing, I controlled what I could. I used the book signing as an excuse for a night away for Matt and me. We stayed in the lovely German Village that houses The Book Loft and spent the majority of our time walking around the uneven, brick-paved streets, pretending we could afford to move into one of these houses someday. We ate good food and caught up with 2 of our 4 Columbus people while we drank tasty coffee. The Sunday of my signing, here’s what greeted me.   How cool is this bookstore? Even if you aren’t a reader, doesn’t it make you want to be? And they made a little sign for me for the front door with a garish “Today!” blob. I got nervous. I thought how I’d much rather be entering this shop to buy books versus carrying a box of my own to sell, but I pushed on and set up my tables.

Thanks to the talented Emily Perry, Lu doesn’t need a lot to look good. Mostly I bring this stuff because it’s what I decorate my home with, and I like re-purposing. Grandmother would get a kick out of me using her silver candlesticks for my book tables. She’d prefer I shined them first, but then I’d tell her I was busy painting my nails and a girl’s only got so much time. My favorite part of this table is what’s holding my business cards. That’s one of the matchbox holders from my grandparents’ camp in Maine. The camp was off-the-grid and lit by gas lamps, so Grandpa nailed these holders everywhere. That part of Lu where she pockets a Zane Grey and reads it in the woods of Jackson’s grandparents’ cabin? I put that in there for my grandpa, who lined the walls of the one of the bedrooms in the cabin with shelves to hold all his Western paperbacks. He’d put Lu on that shelf even though there’s not a horse or a shooting iron to be found in it.

Do you know what I’ve noticed in this big book thing I’ve been up to these past couple years? The little things, like my parents’ yes to watching three crazy boys for two days and Matt’s parents’ yes to coming with us to Columbus to drum up some Lu support from their former church. My sister’s text that morning: Hey big-shot author – have an awesome book signing today. Every person who helped spread the word about the signing. My husband lugging a box of books to and from the car and bringing me iced coffee halfway through the signing. The friends who came to the signing after they finished running the Columbus half-marathon that morning. My male engineering friend (read: not your typical Lu demographic) who came to buy the book for his sisters. My best friend from high school who drove down from Cleveland. My writing buddy who texted me after it was all done. My other friend who came over with wine to celebrate and debrief. My oldest son telling his friend that his mom was away for the weekend because she wrote a book to help women know God is real.

I haven’t had two nickels to rub together for most of my adult life. I will never have enough time in the day. But my world is rich in people. They remind me that though writing is a lone effort, it’s not a solo one.

I expected to sell 6 books, and I sold …

7!

6 to people I knew and 1 to a girl I did not. And I talked with many others, which reminded me of another little thing – this time about myself. I like to talk with people. My mama always said I could talk to a brick wall, but it’s more than that. I can make brick walls talk, and I heard a lot of stories at my book signing, my favorite by far with a brother and sister, aged 10 and 8. The girl told me how she’d just written a small moment story about building a sand castle with her aunt.

“Did you describe the difference between how dry sand feels different in your fingers than wet sand?” I asked her.

Her eyes got so big. Se wanted to know how I knew she’d done that, but I wanted to know how she did it because writing descriptions like that are so stinking hard for me. She shared her secret, and maybe I can put it into practice with the next book.

After the signing was done, I went to the room of The Book Loft that holds Lu.

I became a Christian 18 years ago and those portraits you see to the left and right of Lu were all I saw. There’s nothing wrong with them, except if they’re the only story we’re offering to women. There’s room for so much more – so many more stories to reach so many different types of women.

My mom was away for the weekend because she wrote a book to help women know God is real.

I sent The Book Loft four signed copies of Lu two months ago, so of course I thumbed through my small stack to see if any had sold, and …

1!

I wondered who she is and whether she bought it on a Sunday afternoon like this one. Has she read it yet? Did it reach her? So many questions around the sale of one. So little, but so big.

Eat, Drink & Be Merry

The best part of planning a wedding is registering for stuff. Not sure how they do it nowadays, but circa 2001, BB&B set us loose with a scanner gun. So fun, this scanning of all the things, and such a farce when it came to the kitchen section.

“You know I don’t cook, right?” I reminded Matt after he scanned the mother of all counter-top appliances – the KitchenAid stand mixer. Put me in charge of cooking, and I’d better be able to pour it out of a jar or phone it in. He acknowledged, but the KitchenAid mixer remained and someone (thank you, Candy!) bought it. No regrets because there’s nothing like a shiny and untouched stand mixer to make a counter look special.

Fast-forward several years into our marriage and life was a bit of a mess. Working through our carefully laid plans was like navigating a minefield, with each step setting off another explosion of reality vs. expectation. Reality won out every time, leaving Matt and I more emotionally and spiritually exhausted than we’d ever been (and have ever been since). We were physically exhausted, too, but we still needed to eat. We still liked to eat. Could we cook food that we liked to eat? This question, unlike all the others, was at least one we could figure out a meal at a time. I started by cooking pantry basics – bread, yogurt, granola …

“Why do you make your own chicken broth?” a friend asked me at the time.

“Because I can.”

My response wasn’t a boast, but a humble admission from a time of my life when cooking a good meal for my family was about the only thing I felt I could achieve. Maybe we didn’t have enough money to eat out, but I felt like I was conjuring bonus food when I boiled down the remnants of a whole chicken after our family dinner. Maybe we wouldn’t ever make enough money to buy a house, but we could fill our rental with homemade smells of chicken simmering with carrots, onion, celery, and garlic. Maybe a quart of chicken broth only costs $2, but I could make it for a quarter of that.

Because I can.

It was in these lean years that I came to a working understanding of Ecclesiastes 3:12-13 (NIV):

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil – this is the gift of God.

I was first introduced to these verses in the 90s, courtesy of the song “Tripping Billies” by Dave Matthews Band: Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. Great song (great fiddle!). I jammed to it while writing this post, but Dave’s take is off. Couch the sentiment of these verses in the rest of Ecclesiastes, and it’s not a blank check for doing whatever we want. It’s about how we can find satisfaction in weariness. It’s about choice – a choice to chase for more or to stand still and appreciate what God has granted.

Fast-forward again to now. Matt and I look better on paper than we did then, but that can change in an instant. An instant. And so I still believe cooking good food and eating good food is one of the best ways to spend our days, and somewhere in the past few years we met friends, Stephen and Joy Becker, who believe the same.

There’s never a good time to cook for a whole day, but our annual SmokeFest makes the time. This past Saturday, I was prepping pierogies, greens, and rhubarb crisp at 5 in the morning and Stephen set the ribs to smoke on the grill by mid-morning. By the time our family arrived to their house with chili for lunch, Joy was pulling a homemade apple pie out of the oven. We spent the afternoon pinching pierogies and making more sides, catnapping by the grill, laughing at the children, yelling at the children, putting the children in timeout, and vowing not to invite the children to next year’s SmokeFest.

Because there will be another one. Because in a world that boasts satisfaction at every turn and turns up empty every time, there is this: That everyone may eat and drink, find satisfaction in all there toil – this is the gift of God.

 

Pierogies Without Borders

Grandma Barovian told my mom early on that she wasn’t free babysitting, but there’s always a loophole. Even she – the toughest of birds – wasn’t going to say no when sweet Lizzy asked to sleep over. And why wouldn’t I? Friday nights at my grandparents’ meant an ice cream cone while we watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. It meant a queen-sized bed all to myself. But the sleepovers were really about Saturday mornings when I’d plop myself in the hybrid that is the kitchen step-stool/seat and watch Grandma cook.

She was always cooking, and she never wanted help (girl didn’t need help). I never knew what she’d be cooking from one Saturday to the next, and she rarely consulted a recipe, so I sort of got the sense that Grandma could cook anything. Anything she wanted, anything at all, and everyone would love it. Like if there was a reality show that shuttled feisty Polish women to other people’s kitchens and commanded, “Cook something special! With just 4 ingredients! In 4 minutes!” She’d win.

But this was the 80s. No reality show cameras in her kitchen – just me on the step-stool/seat, listening to Grandma narrate tips for the day’s menu in her gravel voice, courtesy of her pack/day cigarette habit. Non-filtered, obviously. There was always a haze of smoke in the kitchen, and maybe that sounds gross to you. It does to me if we’re talking about someone else’s kitchen, but it suited hers. She’d alternate inhales with sips of her morning coffee that sometimes she’d reheat in her dial microwave and sometimes not. Now that’s gross, regardless of how you swing it.

I wish I could remember more of what Grandma said, but I was more interested in watching her cook than learning how to cook. I don’t remember her tips. I remember her movements – how she’d sprinkle flour on the table before rolling out the pierogie dough, pick up that circle, sprinkle more flour, turn the dough over, and roll again. She didn’t stop until the dough was translucent enough to see the table top underneath.

“How do you know when it’s thin enough?” I’d ask.

“By feel.”

Then she’d cut the dough with a circular cutter she used only for pierogies.

“Why that cutter and not others?” I’d ask.

“It’s what I’ve always used.”

Then she’d place a heaping spoonful of filling in the center. She was always risky with the dough-to-filling ratio, wanting the dough thick enough to envelope the filling but never more because the cheesy potatoes, not the dough, were the star of her pierogies.

“How much do you put in?” I’d ask.

“As much as the dough can handle.”

“Your dough can’t wrap around that much filling without breaking,” I’d point out.

She didn’t pay me any mind. She didn’t need to. The dough always obeyed her fingers, which is why she never understood how my pierogies split apart when we boiled them.

“You didn’t pinch hard enough,” she’d diagnose.

“Yes, I did.”

She’d hold up a broken pierogi as evidence and laugh right at me. You know what else would make her laugh? That I wrote about making pierogies in Lu.

“Lizzy doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” she’d tell anyone within hearing distance.

I’d remind her I don’t need to know how to make a good pierogi to write about it. I just need to write about them well enough to make people hungry. She’d like that. Grandma Barovian was hard with her words and reserved in her affection. But she was extravagant in loving her family through her food.

I miss my grandma. I’d trade quite a bit to spend another Saturday morning in her kitchen.

“Do you know there’s a National Pierogi Day? It’s coming up this weekend, October 8,” I’d tell her from the step-stool seat.

She’d snort. Every day was pierogi day in her world.

“Do you mind if I share your pierogi recipe?”

She’d stare at me over the top of her glasses, but nod after a moment. “Sure. Just so they know they can’t make pierogies like I make them.”

So here you have it: the recipe for Grandma Barovian’s Pierogies (which you will never make as well as Grandma Barovian).

Grandma Barovian’s Pierogies
Ingredients

Potato & Cheese Filling

1 quart diced potatoes
1/2 pound extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated
2T butter
1t salt
2-3 finely chopped green onions

Dough

1 1/4c flour
1 heaping T sour cream
1T oil
1 egg
1T water (or more if dough seems dry)

Preparation

Filling (Can make a day ahead)

Boil potatoes with salt and drain. Mash well with butter and cheese. Cool in fridge.

Dough

Mix all ingredients and form dough into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and let sit for 30-45 minutes.

Assembly

Flour work surface and pin. Roll out half of the dough (keep other half in plastic wrap to prevent drying) from center until 1/8″ thick, adding flour to counter and pin to prevent sticking. Cut rounds with a 2.5-3″ cutter or glass/cup.
Place heaping teaspoon of potato filling on center of round. Fold dough over to form a “half moon,” wet fingers, and pinch well to close. Place finished pierogies on a floured towel.
Repeat with other half of dough.
Combine dough scraps and roll them together. This dough will be drier than the original dough, but still usable.

Boiling

Boil water in a large diameter pot with salt. Prepare a bowl of cold water and place near the stove.
Gently add some pierogies to boiling water, but don’t overcrowd. Boil 2-3 minutes until pierogies float.
With a slotted spoon, transfer pierogies to cold water. Let sit 1 minute. Transfer with slotted spoon to a towel.
Continue cooking pierogies in batches until finished.

And now …

Saute with butter, onions, and garlic and serve with sour cream. Because every girl has a pierogie-sized hole in her tummy that needs constant tending.

10.1.17 Brainstorm

I need to come up with new wording for, “I’m tired.” The boys aren’t explicitly telling me to shut up, but my mama didn’t raise no dummy. I know what an eye roll means.

Jess told me this girl he likes hugged him. I wish he’d stop telling me things.

I’ve been telling the iron pile “One day!” since Easter. Yesterday, the iron pile laughed back, and in such a way it reminded me we’re upon Halloween. Since the iron pile isn’t doing anything, maybe it could order the boys’ Halloween costumes.

I remember I once had this notion I’d sew all the boys Halloween costumes, like Grandma Barovian did for me. I think this happened at the same time I vowed never to shout at my children.

I scoped Athleta to avoid Lu2 and found midi skirts for $12. Procrastination Lesson = Unlearned

I then paid $26 to avoid paying $7 in shipping.

A friend invited us to a family movie night at his place. “You can come and go as you want,” he said. “So, you mean – and I’m just problem-solving here – Matt and I can come, drop off our kids, go, and then come back later to get them?”

Jess is in a band that practices at his friend’s house on Saturdays. He’s the guitar player.

“You don’t play guitar, Jesse.”

“But I want to.”

I nod. This is how I approach playing musical instruments, too. And speaking foreign languages.

Now that I’m thinking about it, all the boys are guitar players as they now tromp about the house with the three guitars they unearthed from the basement. And Matt and I own these guitars so …. yeah. We’re like the Von Trapp family over here.

We joined a fall CSA. It’s like a little healthy eating challenge. “What are we going to do with all of this lettuce?” I ask Matt after I hold up Lettuce Bag #3 from the box. “BLTs,” he said. “And lettuce for burgers.” I suggested he make fries to go with these lettuce-inspired meals.

These full days remind me that writing doesn’t always look like a book. It starts with observation – “Wow, that laundry pile is big. I wonder what it has to say?” – and can end with a sentence or two. For what, for why? No clue, other than it pleases me to do it.

NaNoWriMo {Beth Troy Style}

Why do I blog?

Because I’m a writer. But there’s a lot of stuff to write.

Because I want to make my stuff “known.” But 1500+ blogs are posted every minute. It’s a saturated market.

Because I have all the time in the world. Someday I’ll blog about my 27-hour day. Promise.

Because I love putting my name on stuff. Second only to putting my picture everywhere.

No, I blog because I love to write. For years I kept the writing to myself. My writing wasn’t “real” because I wasn’t a “real” writer. Those words weren’t particularly helpful. In the past few years, I’ve learned to speak some others, and I’d like to share them to encourage you if you’re disqualifying yourself from a dream. That’s why I blog.

November is NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month! It’s the Internet being used for something good by encouraging writers to draft a 50,000 word manuscript between November 1-30. Last year, 200,000 people wrote 2.8 billion words.

This many people writing this many words is plum amazing. I want to spread eagle into this mosh pit, but I can’t. Even with my 27-hour days, it’s not the time. I’d like to delete that last sentence and replace it with another, but that wouldn’t change the truth of the thing [insert dramatic sigh and duck lips].

Do you know what else is true?

Novels aren’t the only stories.

Every time someone asks about our day, we respond with a story. Our social media feeds = stories. Resumes and cover letters are the stories of our work, and pitches are the stories of our offering. Christmas cards are the stories of our year (and journal entries are the stories of what really went down). Everywhere we go we tell stories – a range of fiction to non- depending on the context, the audience, and the type of day we’re having. I woke up at 5AM with one kid puking in his bed and another peeing his pants. The third was probably streaking in the street, but how was I to know because I was too busy hosing down the dog in the pitch black of the backyard because she’d messed her crate again. What was your question? Oh, you want to know how I’m doing. Well I’m just going to be honest here and tell you  …

That’s the start of a great story, and that’s what I want to celebrate on the blog this month: The Stories We Tell [Even If You Weren’t Aware You Were Telling Them Until the Last Paragraph]. Why not tell them well? Tell them true? Tell them as only you can tell them?

I’m hoping to hit it all in this NaNoWriMo 2017. I want to post a little something everyday. I have grand plans to bring on some guest bloggers and do some interviews. Perhaps I’ll host a give-away or two. Of course there’s the chance that none of this will work out. Check back in once in awhile anyway. There may be some writing geekery to help out your sentences. Maybe the day’s post will hold a trick to get you started or at least a good laugh. But I hope all of it (if there’s any of it) will encourage you to tell your story … whatever that may be.

Because you can. Because I did, and I’m working with the same ingredients as you (I was just joking about that 27-hour day). 2.8 billion words makes for a lot of stories, but what about yours? Only you can tell that.

Risking to Fail

I don’t plan how to teach college classes so much as I plan how to tell them. For me, each class is a story, the students are the protagonists, and the topic is the plot arc. Stepping into class is like opening to Page 1, and there’s always an activity or a question that’s off enough to get them wondering, but interesting enough to get them going (and turn to Page 2).

“Design a stray cat catcher using what you’ve got in your backpacks.” This is the opener to the prototype class.

Today’s class on clarifying problems began with a fixer-upper: Your team is a real estate investment firm that has just purchased this property in a small Midwestern town seeing the beginnings of revitalization. How would you renovate it?

And last week’s class on failure opened with a simple question: What would you do if you could not fail? So many interesting answers. At least one student in each class said, “Fly,” (by way of arm flapping, I presume). A few went big – cure cancer, solve world hunger – and one student’s mind was still stuck on his last conversation – “yell back at my mom.” Some used the question to vent their college angst – never study for another test, stop coming to class, graduate – but most stayed normal. Play piano. Do a back flip. Invest in penny stocks.

Failure is the most important story I tell all semester, and we begin with this question because it’s much more about their “fear of” failure than actual failure. Students rarely fail because they rarely risk to fail. They say no before they try, and the first time their path dips below their expected trajectory of success, they’re out.

You’re not the only one to experience dips, I tell them. Protagonists like a friend on their journey, and so I share some success stories to keep company. Colonel Sanders pitched KFC 1,000 times before he landed an investor, which means? He failed 999 times. JK Rowling landed a publisher on her 13th attempt, which means? She failed a dozen times.

“But Professor Troy – these are all stories of people who ultimately succeeded. What about the ones who didn’t? What do they have to show for their failure?”

A good question can twist a plot – in this case, for the students and teacher. I’d taught this class a dozen times, and none of my protagonists had ever questioned the help I offered. I didn’t know what to say, and I paused long enough to wonder whether I was going to say anything before we closed story time for the day.

Enter the flashback. Gotta love flashbacks. They’re not always 20-20, but they bring way more perspective than the present situations that make our pits sweat. This flashback was of me and my writing buddy sitting on the couch in my family room. It’d been a particularly low week, and we were commiserating about work stuff – it was slow-going, the outcome wasn’t justifying the input, the pay was bad, the hours were long  … take your pick. Writing is a job like any other.

And it all ended in a pile of laughter.

“But what else are we going to do?”

The admission was mutual and exhilarating – an emancipation from factors that seem to bind but at the end of the day don’t get a vote in whether I set the alarm to write the next day. Writing is the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do. It’s the only thing I can do with unique proficiency, and it’s certainly the only thing that keeps my attention for longer than a couple years (my average staying power at most other jobs). So, yeah. What else was I going to do?

It was a good question. I had my answer. And I had two minutes left to offer it to my student.

“Catch in your mind the phrase ‘small potatoes’ and knock that down 1,000 degrees. That’s the status of your professor in the publishing world. Chances are this won’t change, and I knew these chances when I wrote my book. But I didn’t write for these outcomes. I wrote my book because I had a story that pleased me to tell and might please others to read. To my knowledge, around 500 people have taken me up on my offer since I published a couple months ago. This is a failure statistic in the publishing world. But what if I’d held back? What if I’d said those 500 weren’t worth it unless they morphed into 50,000? I wouldn’t have done it, and I would have failed.

“Failure is waste – a waste of time, talent, energy. When we hold back from what we know we should be doing because we fear our efforts will fall below subjective and fleeting metrics, we fail ourselves. We waste our time.

“Don’t fear failure. Fear never getting in the game.”

I looked at the clock. My time was up, and the story was done.

Mouse in the House: A Tale of Fear

7:17AM and all is quiet. I spy a flash of brown across the living room.

“Mouse!” I scream. I text Matt.

7:25AM. More brown.

“Mouse!” I scream. I call Matt.

“Mouse!” I scream into the phone.

“Mouse,” he deadpans back. I hear laughter in the background.

“Who’s laughing?”

“I’m at breakfast with Sam.”

Sam is the man I butcher chickens with. The laughter makes sense. Still.

“Well you tell Sam to get over here and chop this mouse’s head off.”

Matt says he’ll be home in 20 minutes, but the mouse reappears one minute later.

“Mouse!” I scream.

Jesse comes downstairs. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a mouse behind that cabinet.”

“Let’s catch it and keep it.”

“Absolutely not, and don’t you go trying to touch it, either.”

“Why not?”

“Vermin carry bubonic plague.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“Trust me, it did not go well for the Europeans in the 14th century. Mice are diseased creatures. Go get the dog.”

He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “I don’t want Cody to die from the plague!”

“She’s immune.”

Jess gets the dog and places her bone by where we last saw the mouse escape. Cody lies down and chews her bone. I sigh in complete disgust.

“Well what did you expect?” Jesse shrugs his shoulders. “We’ve only trained her to be cute.”

“Then how come she’s constantly chewing up your stuffed animals? This is her chance for the real deal.”

I hear a loud sound from upstairs and shriek and jump on the coffee table. Turns out it’s just Ezra opening his door. I stay on the coffee table.

“You’re not acting like an adult, Mom,” Jesse says.

“I need you to look behind every cabinet and under every couch and table in this room to see if you can find the mouse.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because that’s what men do when there’s a mouse in the house.”

Ez enters the room and sees me standing on the coffee table. “Are we allowed to stand on the coffee table now, Mom?”

“Only in emergency situations. There’s a mouse in the house!”

Ezra leaves the room. I hear him open the fridge door.

“What are you doing?” I shout.

“Getting cheese to catch it so I can keep it in my room. Mice are so cute.”

“No!”

“Then I want a hamster,” he counters.

“And I want a snake,” Jesse adds.

“Boys, this is not the time.”

Tommy comes down, and I courageously leave the coffee table to go pick him up. I’ll save this one child at least. Then he farts super loudly, and I drop him in a moment of panic.

Jesse laughs. “Did you think that was a mouse farting?”

“Maybe I did. You boys need to head upstairs and get ready for school. Take the dog with you in case the mouse is up there.”

A few minutes later, there’s a stampede of dog and boy.

“Cody is catching the mouse!” Jesse shouts from the upstairs hallway.

“Really?”

“No. We’re just playing tag.”

At this point, Matt returns with mouse traps from Ace. I rather wish he’d gone to the catapult store.

“Where’s the mouse?” he asks.

“What do you mean, ‘Where’s the mouse?'”

“Did you trap it behind the cabinet where you first saw it?”

“Now how would I do that?”

“You’d put something down to block either side.”

“See, you say that like it’s obvious, but this was a heightened situation that negated anything other than screaming and jumping on tall surfaces.”

Matt sets the traps and explains how they work. “The mouse will come out and stick to this glue and then you will put the trap into a bucket of water and drown it.”

I look at him, baffled. “I don’t know who you think you’ve been married to for the last 15 years if you think that’s going to happen.”

We settle that he will be the one to do all of those things. I take Jess and Ez to the bus and Tommy to preschool.

“We had a mouse in the house!” I declare by way of greeting the preschool teacher.

“Oh, we had a mouse in preschool once, too! And so that whole week, we talked about mice and read about mice and made little houses for the mice …”

She goes on and on. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised she’d go all Montessori to cope. That’s why I’m writing it all down right now. To cope. And this is The End but for one question. Can I sleep at your house tonight?