Erika Mitchell's Blog, page 22

I Know a Guy

Nobody can know everything about everything. Any author who claims to write everything without help is either a liar or doesn’t write outside their scope of expertise. The best kind of writing, I think, is a collective effort. It should push the author to explore realms previously unexplored, worlds they’re maybe unfamiliar with, technologies and situations that are alien to their quotidian existence.

I have lots of friends I question on a regular basis when I’m writing. I have a friend who has a law background who helps me sound really smart whenever I’m dealing with anything to do with the law. I have another friend who’s a locksmith, who was kind enough to answer my many questions on lock picking and hot wiring cars. Another friend still who knows and loves all things guns, and a former SWAT officer who has kindly volunteered to read my future police scenes to make sure they check out.

These people aren’t getting paid, they just love talking about their interests. It’s pretty cool listening to them go on in more detail than I’ll ever be able to use, because it expands my field of familiarity and makes me sound super smart in my books (thanks, guys!).

RAWR.

I’m working on a scene in my newest book where my hero takes an armored school bus off roading in pursuit of a villain. I was writing the scene, making things up as I went along, when I realized I knew who could help me make the scene even better. My brother. My little brother loves off roading and has extensive knowledge about cars and trucks, so I sent him a brief email asking for input.

He immediately sent over a detailed response, with a whole host of new possibilities I hadn’t even considered before. I couldn’t have come up with them on my own, not unless I spent a whole bunch of time researching. Now the scene is going to be factually accurate and also a whole lot more intense, and all because I’m fortunate enough to know a guy who knows off roading.

That’s the best thing about knowing interesting people who have interesting hobbies. They add richness and detail to life. I guess I’m just luckier than most to know so many interesting (and helpful!) people.

Coming Home in a Way

Wild horses roamed here. A rare breed called Croquetsdales.

During my trip to California, I had the pleasure of staying at my grandparents’ house. It’s this fantastic little house in Glendale that was built in 1931 and has been kept in terrific shape. They’ve lived there for almost forty years and used to host loads of family gatherings back when my mother and her siblings all still lived in California.

My brother and I spent hours playing with our cousins there. We were in the middle of the pack as far as age goes, so the adults would entrust the kids to the older cousins’ care and socialize indoors, while the cousins all ran around the backyard like a tribe of hooligans. My grandparents had this croquet set they’d leave out for us, which we rarely used for croquet. Rather, we’d invert the mallets and ride them around the yard like horses. They kept fruit sodas in the garage fridge, which was a major treat for us since we never got to have soda at home, and it felt like victory to just be able to go in and help ourselves.

The block heads. They’re not known for their common sense, but they’re very neat guests.

Indoors, there was a Playskool Holiday Inn play set that my grandmother kept stored in a closet. We’d get it out every time and take turns pushing the little blue Jeep across the floor or helping the little block head people through the revolving door in front. There was also a pretty terrific grate heating duct system in the house, and we’d shout through the grates to see if cousins stationed around the house could hear us through the grates in their rooms. I’m pretty sure we thought we were being stealthy, even though there’s nothing stealthy about yelling children.

It was a real treat to get to hang out with my grandparents and brother and mother in the same house where we’d made so many memories. My mother asked me why I was so sentimental and I really had to think about it.

There was something about going back to my grandparents’ house as an adult that felt like coming home in a way. I moved around a lot as a kid, and it felt refreshing in a way to see a place I remember that hadn’t changed much. It felt like an anchor to the girl I once was, but in a good way. Sometimes I feel so removed from that girl that it’s hard to remember I was ever young. Going back reminded me of the giddy fun I had imagining worlds with my cousins, who I unilaterally loved. It reminded me of how I used to imagine what I’d be like as an adult, how wonderful it would be to finally have a glamorous bathroom of my own. It reminded me of being in a house full of family, where everyone was talking at the same time and it was all wonderfully noisy and comfortable.

It’ll be a sad day when my grandparents move. I tried to convince Wes to buy their house but he thinks that a move down to California might not be the most practical plan, and we’re not well off enough to afford a vacation home. Ah well. Nothing lasts forever, I suppose. I’ll just have to finagle lots more trips down there while I can!

The Penske Swallow Massacre

I just got back from a trip to southern California. Two glorious days of family, sunshine, warmth, and horrible, horrible traffic. It was my first brush with LA area traffic and, I’m not gonna lie, it was EXHAUSTING.

When you only drive in your home state, you assume that all freeways and highways are structured like the ones you’re used to. That becomes the normal, expected way freeways and highways are laid out.

Then you travel to Los Angeles and realize that California has a trillion freeways and highways and you have to take every single one in order to get anywhere and then your head explodes.

My favorite driving anecdote from the trip involved a Penske truck. Before I can delve into the tale, though, a little back story:

How I imagine the birds may have looked the morning of The Incident.

Years and years ago, I was a tween on a road trip with her mother. We were in a small convertible (a Mazda Miata if you must know) with the top down, zooming west toward the beach. Slightly ahead of us in the lane to our left, there was a large yellow Penske truck. We were coming up on a freeway overpass (because, again, California has so many freeways and highways that they all need to crisscross each other) when a flocks of swallows banked over the freeway.

To my dismay, the air displacement of the Penske truck met with the air current of the cars rushing under the overpass, creating a temporary, lethal vacuum that sucked the entire flock of swallows down into the Penske truck’s path. Birds pocked the cab and windshield of the Penske truck, feathery little corpses ricocheting off in every direction. A few of them even managed to strike our car as well, to my abject horror. Ever since that deadly day, I equate Penske trucks with bird massacres.

MURDERER.

Anyway, to bring us to present day, I’m driving on an LA-area freeway next to a Penske truck (shudder) when, without warning, my lane ends and I’m forced to merge or else hit a K-rail at 65 miles per hour. The Penske truck to my left gives no quarter, so I’m forced to slam on my brakes and swerve into the lane behind it lest I, too, end up flattened by one of Penske’s merciless murder machines.

And that, dear friends, is the story of how I grew to fear LA-area freeways. Well, that and the reckless speeds. I would never make it on the Autobahn. I grew up respecting Washington’s mostly 60 mph freeway speed limits, so I imagine me on the Autobahn would look a lot like me bungee jumping (which is to say, would probably never happen {or would only happen if I were drugged and coerced against my will [which wouldn't be safe AT ALL]}).

So now I’m back. For the record? JetBlue is an excellent airline with very accommodating flight attendants, Goldstein’s Bagel Bakery in Glendale makes a killer pumpkin bagel (in a complimentary sense. Not in a Penske sense), and In N Our burgers are still the best. I would recommend you hang out with my family since they, too, are the best, but you might not have as much fun with them as I did. Though maybe you would. I don’t know. I can’t speak for you.

Can Tweens Be Said to Have a Zeitgeist?

I was navigating the crowded aisles of Safeway last Saturday when the need for canned pumpkin and yeast necessitated a visit to the baking aisle. For the uninitiated (i.e. the people who have never been fat) a formerly fat person who’s recently worked her butt off views the baking aisle with a wary mixture of yearning and distrust.

You smell the glorious carbs and think, “It’s just a box of cake mix. What’s the worst that could happen?” The next thing you know, it’s midnight and you’re sneaking downstairs to eat cake out of the trash because it’s SO FREAKING GOOD and you told yourself you were done with it but now you can’t stop thinking about it and just one more bite and oh, I might as well finish the whole thing and now DANG IT MY PANTS DON’T FIT ANY MORE.

I bet you didn’t know that the baking aisle is basically just a big, loaded crack pipe for people who are trying to lose weight, did you?

Anyway, I’m keeping my head down, just trying to make it out of the treacherous aisle with my dignity, when two tweens flounce toward me. One of them excitedly grabs a bag of marshmallows and squeals, “This is why I Instagram so much!” She then positions it against a colander, whips out her phone, and takes a picture of her lovingly posed puffs of sugar. I bet that bag of marshmallows has never felt so sexy.

All I could think of as I walked away was, “Isn’t this the reason she should probably quit Instagram?” I wrote about this on Facebook and my mother commented that she didn’t understand what any of this meant. To be honest, I’m not really part enough of the zeitgeist to get it either.

The cynic in me wants to posit that today’s youth is just substituting pictures for text. The girl in the aisle is relying on filtered images of marshmallows to tell a stronger story than if she actually had to explain what about the marshmallows made her so excited.

This is possible. Or maybe there’s a better explanation out there. Maybe this is artsy and a signal of profundity to come.

All I know is that she took a picture of a bag of marshmallows and it seems to me a terrific waste of time and bandwidth. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before the Internet implodes, disgorging terabytes’ worth of cat pictures, memes, and pictures of peoples’ food.

Omnipresent CRUMBS

Nope. Not me. Not anymore.

I saw an ad on Hulu for the new Honda Odyssey the other day and it made me gasp. 

Oh, that? Up above, there? It’s just my answer to the question, What Was The Final Nail In The Coffin Of Your Coolness?

In my defense, the new Honda Odyssey comes equipped with a BUILT-IN VACUUM. Also, I first saw the ad while recuperating from surgery and it’s possible the painkillers I was on had something to do with how mind-blowing I thought that was. Still, it’s an amazing idea, no?

For the uninitiated, children are crumb machines. Absolute and thorough in their ability to reduce foodstuffs to their molecular levels, young children will cover everything you know and love in a fine patina of sticky, omnipresent crumbs.

Life with small children means crumbs are everywhere, even places you never knew they could be. I’m fastidious (as anyone who’s ever come over to my house can attest to) and so are my children for the most part, and yet I have crumbs in all the predictable places (kitchen floor, couch cushions, car seats) and now all the unpredictable places (the lint trap for the dryer? the bottom of the bathtub! the depths of my purse?!). These are places no child should be eating, and yet CRUMBS. Under and behind and inside everything I take for granted, CRUMBS. (Hat tip to Chuck Palahniuk).

Ergo, the idea of a minivan with built-in vacuum?! GENIUS. Especially for a certified neat freak like me, who sees crumbs on the floor and equates them with personal failure.

So yeah, maybe I’ve irrevocably lost my cool card. It’s alright. Maybe someday I’ll soothe the pain of how lame I am with the soothing sound of my very own Built. In. Vacuum.

#GoodbyeBreakingBad

Breaking Bad spoilers ahead! Warning! Turn back, all ye who have yet to watch the finale and would like to remain in the dark!

Wes and I finished watching Breaking Bad last night. I was both excited for and nervous about the finale all day yesterday. How can something so well done also be so traumatic and difficult to watch? My goodness, the scene between Skyler and Marie where they’re fighting over the baby made me cry so much we had to turn the show off for a minute so I could get my act together.

Maybe I read too much. Maybe that’s the problem.

I read an article the other day summarizing a study on empathy. The psychologists who conducted the research posited that people who read literary fiction are more likely to be better at empathizing with others because literary fiction tends to make readers fill in the gaps (which is, I suppose, what you do when you empathize).

Granted, most of what I read is what’s known as “genre fiction,” where you find things like thrillers and mysteries. I’d say thrillers and mysteries comprise 80% of my literary diet, with some nonfiction thrown in for variety every once in awhile.

Regardless of my literary predilections, I have been a lifelong reader and I think that’s fostered a pretty fierce sense of empathy in me. When I watch TV, things aren’t happening to the characters. They’re happening to me. That’s not Jesse’s former girlfriend getting shot, it’s me, and I’m crying because now I’m Brock imagining what it’ll be like to wake up and find my mother murdered on the porch.

As you can imagine, then, a show like Breaking Bad was one big assault to my perhaps overly developed sense of empathy. By the end of the show, I was visibly distraught after watching every episode and I’m not ashamed one bit to admit I’m kind of glad it’s over.

Again I ask, how can something so brutal be so well done? Maybe that’s a naive question. I don’t suppose any show about a meth king pin could ever have been anything other than brutal if it was going to be done well. Likewise, I don’t think Walter’s story could have ended any other way though I would dearly have loved to see some sort of peace for Skyler at the end of it. Hey, what can I say, I’m a mother, she’s a mother, and it feels like she got the awful end of just about every bargain on that show.

Goodbye Breaking Bad. You were solid all the way through, and your writers had enough wisdom to shut you down before the story lines stopped making sense (ahem, The Shield, ahem). I can’t say I’ll miss you (I might spend the next couple nights watching fluffy bunnies napping just to cleanse my mental palate) but I’m pleased to have enjoyed you. Adios, compadre.

Bamboo is to Blame

We’ve recently reached an interesting age with our three year old son. This child, who for the majority of his life up until now didn’t care a hill of beans about what was happening on the TV unless it was trucks or trains, has decided he’s interested in and must learn about everything onscreen. He’s like a tiny anthropologist, whipping out his notes and asking me what’s happening in commercials.

Previously safe programs, such as Parks and Recreation, The Office, Scrubs, and Arrested Development are now out because the content is…Well…How do I say this? There are enough references to sex or PG13 words to convince me that these programs are no longer appropriate for my budding scientist. They’re far from filthy, but I’d be quite angry with myself if Aidan picked up on sexual themes before he’d ever even entered preschool, you know?

In an effort to still watch something together while we eat, I’ve been trying out various documentaries. We tried Rick Steve’s Euope, which was fun and child approved, but was kind of exhausting to watch with a child intent on knowing what every single thing is and how it works and why it works and who is that and where are they going and AHHHHH!

We tried a National Geographic documentary series called Amazing Planet, but the narration was so dire and terrifying I couldn’t in good conscience let my kids watch it. Case in point, the volcano episode. Actual line pulled from that episode: “You might see this and ask, ‘What the hell is going on here?’ The answer is: Hell, actually.” Seriously. What is the matter with this show?

We’ve settled on Planet Earth for now. The kids love the animals, and the narration is that apparently miraculous combination of a) Child appropriate and b) Not completely macabre.

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“I’m not very impressive. And neither is this bamboo.”

We were watching the Mountains episode today and it was while David Attenborough was explaining Pandas that I realized I may not be all that impressed with them. To wit:

* Giant Pandas can’t migrate, because the bamboo they depend on only grows in one region of the mountains way up high. They’re basically stuck in horrible weather and freezing conditions because they only eat the one thing.

* The bamboo they live on is so poor in nutrients, they can’t even hibernate because they can’t build up enough fat to do so.

* Their cubs have a dismal survival rate because they can’t produce adequate milk to feed their babies. Again, because of the bamboo.

I mean, doesn’t it kind of seem like bamboo is to blame for many of their problems? And yet they haven’t managed to evolve the ability to eat something else. They’re just puttering around the mountain slopes of China, eating their crappy plants and freezing to death and starving their babies.

I don’t know, I just feel like while it’s sad and all that Giant Pandas are dying off, they could kind of do their part too, you know? They’re just being lazy or something. There’s no fight to them, no will to live. I’m not sure I can summon the will to throw a whole bunch of effort around saving an animal that, quite frankly, doesn’t really seem to care either way.

Maybe I’m just mean, though. Or I’ve watched too many wolves separating baby caribou from the herd. All I know is, if bamboo is to blame for all your problems, put down the shoots and MOVE, man.

Is it Cosplay if it’s for Halloween?

For the past three Halloweens, Wes and I have gotten out of needing Halloween costumes because our son was too young to go trick or treating or we had a young baby and hence an excuse for getting out of just about everything. Now, though, our boy is almost four and our daughter is one and we’re all finally ready to go trick or treating together and that means COSTUMES.

The problem is, there’s a lot of pressure to find the right costume. They can be a tad pricey and I don’t relish the idea of having to shell out another $60-$80/costume next year because we hate the ones we buy this year, so we have to get it right this year. And before you ask why it’s necessary that we take our kids trick or treating in costume, it just is. It’s necessary for the same reason I put up oodles of Christmas decorations every year on December 1 and take them down December 26. It’s necessary for the same reason we dye Easter eggs and cut hearts out of paper to give each other. It’s just HOW you DO a HOLIDAY.

I’m having a lot of trouble coming up with inspiration for costume ideas. Here are some I’ve found:

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This is taking the whole “couples costume” a bit too far, but I know how much Wes loves bacon so I dunno…

Wes already has the facial hair for Tony Stark, and I might actually be able to get him to wear this. It’s a bit boring, though.

 

I suppose I could wear this one easily enough and trick or treat as one of George Michael’s employees.

The problem I’ve found is that the women’s costumes insist on being super slutty or super scary. I’d like to find a costume that 1) Doesn’t give my kids nightmares or 2) Show off my cleavage to all my neighbors.

What do you think? Do you have any suggestions?

 

I am Greatly, Deeply Happy that Greatly, Deeply is Here!

Today is a very special day. I feel the same joy today as I do every time one of my books hits the digital bookshelves, but this is a little different. If my previous books were my babies, then today is the end of my surrogate pregnancy with my friend Ben’s book, Greatly, Deeply.

My friend Ben Morrell was only 31 when he died from an extremely rare and aggressive cancer. It was a six year battle for him, a battle that took him from Seattle to Colorado to Houston and back home to Seattle. He and his wife married just five months before Wes and I did, my husband grew up with them in the church we go to. Ben was a really neat guy, and his wife is at least five different kinds of wonderful.

A month before his death, Ben sent out a call for help on Facebook. He needed help turning his six years’ worth of blog posts into a book. It was important to him that his legacy be secure, that the way God used his life and his cancer reach people far beyond the scope of his blog.

Given my writing expertise (ha!) and willingness to commit to the project, I volunteered to see the project through. It took me and a small team four months to comb through over 250,000 words. I prayerfully read through every single blog post he wrote during his battle with cancer, hand selecting the posts that told the story he wanted to tell. Ben’s wife Lisa and I exchanged countless emails to make sure we got this thing right.

He passed away in May of this year, months before the project was even close to being done. I really felt like I failed him. I know there was no human way I could have finished the project before his passing, but I really wanted him to be able to hold the book in his hands. To rest assured that it was done, delivered into the world and the hands and minds of the people who needed it.

It’s done now, though. This project dominated my mind and work for five months, but now it’s done and it’s BEAUTIFUL. This book changed my life. It changed my faith. It’ll keep reverberating echoes throughout my soul until it’s my turn to peek behind the curtain of this life. I can’t wait to tell Ben how proud I am of him.

If you’re looking for a book that will challenge your notion of what it is to believe in God when you’re suffering, you need to read this book. If you, or someone you know, is having a rough time and needs hope that threatens to set your heart on fire, you need to read this book. If you, or someone you know, is battling cancer, you need to read this book.

It was a pleasure working on this project, I feel blessed to have been able to bring it into the world. I can’t wait to see how it changes lives.

Sadism Sells?

At the urging of oh, say, most of the people we know, Wes and I started watching Game of Thrones a few weeks ago. Aside from the copious nudity, we love it. The acting is great, the story is interesting, it’s a fun show.

I’m starting to have a bit of a problem with it, though. We’re in the wilds of season three and all the violence is starting to seem a wee bit torture porn-esque to me. Granted, I’m a softie. I have a hard time with violence in general. When I was researching North Korea for my newest book, I suffered frequent, intense nightmares. Really, I have no stomach at all for the depths of human evil.

Maybe Game of Thrones isn’t the show for me, then. Other people seem able to handle the violence just fine (except for the infamous Red Wedding scene. I’ve been told I should probably skip that one) so maybe I should stop watching. It’s hard to imagine doing that, though, because I really like the chessboard they’ve set up here. I want to know what happens. I even sort of like some of the characters (unlike with Breaking Bad, where I actively dislike almost everyone on that show).

Let’s not kid ourselves. I know I’ll keep watching, and I’ll keep being upset and disturbed by it. The story is just too interesting to abandon just yet.

I suppose it’s just naive on my part to wish the show makers (or maybe it’s George R. R. Martin?) weren’t so dedicated to violence and gore. I’m not sure I buy that’s it’s an integral part of the narrative. Is it even safe to say that this kind of thing sells these days? Would the show be any less popular because it was less…well, for lack of a better word, sadistic?

Fans of the show, what do you think?

(By the way, I can’t wait to see what kind of spam comments I get from this post. With words like “sadism” and “Game of Thrones” and “violence” and “Breaking Bad.” Oh man, it’s like skeeve bait.)