Mike Jung's Blog, page 27

Cliques

I had a recent conversation with some friends about being perceived as a clique, which is a real paradigm-rattling kind of conversation for me. I’ve spent the vast majority of my life perceiving myself as an outsider, and of course the worst time (which is also the time when I think cliquish behavior was more of a genuine reality in my life than any other) was during high school. So I’m sensitive – possibly oversensitive – to such concerns, and am rather shocked to think that someone else could feel that kind of apprehension about me. It’s never been part of my self-perception.

As a person who’s never truly escaped those feelings of exclusion I understand it all the way down to the core of my bones, and feel empathy for anyone who might be struggling with it. I also tend to suspect it’s a struggle rooted far more in old wounds and damaged self-opinion than in truly active exclusion, although I should probably speak for myself. It often, maybe even usually has been that way for me, which is not to say that cliquish, exclusionary behavior doesn’t exist in post-adolescence. It sure as hell does, so that perception is sometimes accurate. I know that the circles I move in these days aren’t like that, however. I suppose it’s entirely possible that they are and I’m just too blind to see it, but I don’t think so. I’m lucky to count an increasing number of astonishingly good people among my friends.

I hate the idea of being perceived as cliquish, even as I’m convinced that it’s a misperception, but I love my friends enormously, and I’m astounded by the knowledge that the world contains these groups of people who I trust so much and feel so safe with. It still feels shocking and new; I’m not used to it, and I hope I never take it for granted. So I think I’ll continue to take the risk of being perceived as someone who engages in cliquish behavior and hope that perception will somehow be tempered by the reality of my emotional experience, which includes a great deal of love, a towering amount of gratitude, and more than a dollop of surprise.

Money

It’s always entertaining and interesting to see the occasional blip of online conversation about writers talking (or, to be more precise, not talking) about the desire to make money. Maybe they’re more than blips and I’m just not tuned in, I don’t know. I certainly do want to make money from my writing – if I didn’t want that I don’t know that I’d bother to pursue publication. There are multiple reasons why I pursue publication, of course, and the prospect of earning some money is definitely one of them.

If it was my only reason to pursue publication I sure as hell wouldn’t keep it up, because I could do it easier in other ways, but all the stuff about creativity, community, exploration of self, readership, etc. can’t be separated from the money part – they kind of all go together for me, at least in terms of pursuing publication.

OTOH, if it was purely a matter of wanting to engage in the creative process of writing and nothing else I don’t know that I’d write novels, since writing novels is a colossal pain in the ass. I’d probably just blog or babble on and on here on Facebook. The carrot of publication is what keeps me working on the novels.

Are we tacitly prohibited from saying we’d like to pull down some cash for our writing? I mean, I definitely want to. I think sometimes it’s hard not to think OH $&@%, I’M NOT ACTUALLY MAKING SQUAT and focus on the other stuff in order to avoid falling into an abyss of discouragement, but I’m feeling okay about wanting the money. We live in the real world, after all.

Eyes on the prize

Thoughts on publication: I didn’t sell a new book in 2013 (or in 2012 for that matter), and I can’t lie, it’s been frustrating. This business moves soooooooo slowly. I’m clearly not one of the authors who perpetuate the “book a year” mythology, mostly because, well, I’m just not a very fast writer. What I AM is impatient and generally twitchy. But I think it’s important to note that at no point during that time have I experienced any hopelessness about my PROSPECTS to publish more books.

A new book deal hasn’t happened over the past two years, but a new book deal has always felt eminently possible. Probable, even. It still does. I know not everyone feels that optimistic; a lot of friends and colleagues are struggling with that particularly terrible brand of doubt. I’m not. So, impatience aside, I still have plenty of reason to feel good about things, because I still have plenty of reason to believe I’ll sell that next book, and the one after, and the one after that. Eyes on the prize, o tiny people who live inside my computer. Eyes on the prize.

Paul

During my last year of college I finally decided to seek help for the mental and emotional issues that had been crushing the life out of me for years. My struggle with suicidal impulses had started years earlier, but it took the intervention of some friends in the UC Irvine fine art department to tip me over the point of asking for help from outside parties. It was not a heartening process – I was involuntarily hospitalized for 48 hours, prescribed antidepressants that made me feel as dull and lifeless as a block of granite, and encouraged to reach out to my family members.

That was difficult to contemplate. I did, and continue to have, a very complicated and dysfunctional relationship with my family. I didn’t trust them, which was no shock, since I really didn’t trust anyone. I was at the breaking point, however, so I made the effort, and one of the people I called was my older brother Paul.

I had no idea how the conversation would go – I’d never felt like Paul and I understood each other even remotely, and I’d always suspected that both of my brothers harbored deep and indelible feelings of contempt for me. I was utterly dominated by self-loathing, and wouldn’t have been at all surprised to hear my brother say out loud that he despised me as much as I despised myself. But Paul did no such thing. He listened closely to every word I said, no matter how halting or slurred it was. He completely bottled up his tendency to wield aggressive humor in a way that I’d always found threatening. He told me he loved me, that he wanted me to stay with him, and that he couldn’t stand the thought of me taking my own life. He said the pain and grief of losing me like that would destroy him.

I don’t remember how long we talked, and I didn’t cry until well after the conversation ended. But that conversation has always stayed in my mind. That was probably my worst period of internal darkness, and more people stepped forward to help me through it than I ever would have expected.  Paul was one of the most important of those people.  I think it’s no exaggeration to say that in those hours of wretched, drowning need, I begged my brother for his help, and he responded in a way that saved my life.

Regarding Luna Lovegood

In a Twitter chat the other night I mentioned Luna Lovegood, which made me think of one of my favorite moments in HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, when Harry is looking around Luna’s bedroom just before everything goes horribly wrong, and sees the pictures of himself, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and Neville that Luna’s painted on the ceiling:“What appeared to be fine golden chains wove around the pictures, linking them together, but after examining them for a minute or so, Harry realized that the chains were actually one word, repeated a thousand times in golden ink: friends…friends…friends…friends… Harry felt a great rush of affection for Luna. “

I both admire and relate very much to Luna as a character, and that paragraph illustrates one of the big reasons why. Luna’s very much an outcast at Hogwarts, an odd girl who deals with more than her share of cruelty, and the attention she lavishes on that portrait of her friends in Dumbledore’s Army makes it crystal clear how rare it’s been for her to experience that kind of friendship, how much she cherishes it, and how lucky she is to have fallen in with people like Harry who can respond in kind.

In my teens I was not as innately sweet and good-hearted as Luna, and I was often unable to practice her brand of appreciation for the friends I did have. As a result I went through some long and intense periods of alienation and loneliness, which have left their mark. But I feel more capable of that kind of recognition and acknowledgment now, and I feel like I have more and more friends who are as meaningful to me as Harry and company were to Luna.

It occasionally still feels shocking and unreal, but more and more often it feels real and wonderful and as intense as the loneliness once was, except this intensity lies at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. I got to spend the day with two of those friends yesterday, and maybe that’s why I’ve fallen over and landed on this giant, fluffy, saccharine-scented pillow of introspection. You’ll forgive me, I think. Right? I feel very happy today. Friends…friends…

The Twelve Days of Christmas (Bookstore Style)

This project has been gestating in the brains of assorted people for a while and it’s finally come to fruition. The Bookish Elves is an international gaggle of children’s publishing types, including Sarah Brannen, Kristy Dempsey, Arthur Levine, Emily Mitchell, Kim Norman, Anne Marie Pace, Yolanda Scott, Deborah Underwood, and yours truly. We like to sing, we enjoy the holiday season, and we don’t hesitate to do things that make ourselves look very, very silly. Accordingly, we wrote a spoofy book-related version of “The 12 Days of Christmas” and recorded a music video for it, and here it is.

Smiling

This morning I felt crabby and disengaged for a number of reasons. When that happens EVERYONE at Chez Jung lets me know about it, and rightfully so. The 3.02 year old had the most effective response. We were cuddling together in a chair and I must have been frowning, because he peered into my face, put his hands on my cheeks, and started gently squishing my cheeks in an up and down motion. Up and down, up and down. The following conversation ensued:

Me: “Hey, what are you doing?”
3.02 year old: “Daddy, I’m grouping your cheeks with my hands so you can change your face!”
Me: “Oh. Are you trying to make me smile?”
3.02 year old: *nodding* “Yeah!”

It worked.

2008

I’ve blogged and spoken frequently about the lasting psychological boost I got from my manuscript consultation at the 2008 SCBWI Summer Conference, but that wasn’t the only moment of affirmation I experienced there.

I also attended Lisa Yee’s revision workshop (I still have the handout somewhere), where Lisa had us write a paragraph about a child entering her bedroom, revise it to change the emotional tone, then revise it to the perspective of an adult whose child had passed away. People (including me) started getting choked up all around the room, because a bunch of us had obviously started out writing about our own kids. I tried to capture that emotion in my final revision.

I was a big, wing-flapping, head-bobbing chicken that day, because I neither volunteered to read my paragraphs to the room nor introduced myself to Lisa after the workshop was over. I hardly spoke to anyone the entire conference, in fact. But I remember how confident and engaged I felt as I scribbled down all three iterations of that paragraph, and the feeling of quiet satisfaction I experienced as I read them to myself. I remember feeling good about my skill as a writer, even though the scope of the project at hand was so very finite.

I felt optimistic. I still feel that way.

3.00

Miranda and I weren’t sure that we wanted to have a second child, mostly because our daughter is such a high-spirited, high-energy burst of human lightning that we had doubts about our ability to cope with the increase in family size. When we did take the leap, we hoped fervently for another daughter – human lightning bolt or not, our daughter is an amazing kid, and Miranda and I both felt a great attachment to the idea of having a pair of sisters around the place – so when we discovered we were having a boy, our initial disappointment was shockingly high.

In retrospect it’s almost laughable to think about that, because from the moment he emerged into the world our son has been sweet, gentle, and affectionate beyond measure. Raising two children has turned out to be harder than raising one, sure enough, and the moments of grinding fatigue and baffled witlessness I contend with are undoubtedly more lengthy and abundant than they were during the halcyon days of single child parenting. But it’s grossly understating things to say we’re glad that he’s here. Our beautiful boy. He’s 3.00 years old today, you know.

Seaplanes

The 2.99 year old is very interested in planes these days. Seaplanes, to be precise (we’ve been watching a lot of PORCO ROSSO). Accordingly, his new favorite activity is flying, by which I mean pretending a couple of plastic clothes hangers are planes and flying them in circles through the living room and kitchen, making jet-engine noises and calling everyone in the house “Pilot This” and “Pilot That.”

One of these recent flights took us on over 50 circuits through the living room and kitchen, and I can’t lie, it was getting pretty damned monotonous. The prospect of continuing on and on with it was really testing me. But then we landed our coat hangers/seaplanes on the ocean/living room floor, whereupon Pilot 2.99 Year Old gave me a big hug and said “I love you so much, Pilot Da-Da.”

And of course that made me think “Oh right, this is my son, and he’s beautiful and amazing, and he loves doing this, and I’m perfectly willing to walk in circles pretending these hangers are airplanes until civilization crumbles into moldering fragments around us.”

One of his birthday gifts is a shiny new Green Toys seaplane. We anticipate a positive reaction.