Raima Larter's Blog, page 11

Why I Can't Get Over It

Marching on WashingtonNow what? We’ve marched on Washington and hundreds of cities across the country and around the world, and I’m glad we did. We’ve posted photos and videos and shared our experiences in online discussions and in-person conversations as well. The march brought to the fore multiple urgent issues that need our attention. Some are of special concern to women: the pervasiveness of sexual assault and violence against women, reproductive rights, equal pay, and others. These issues fueled the formation of the march, but other issues and causes propelled it forward: protecting the rights of immigrants, religious minorities, ethnic and racial minorities, even the health and future of the planet.
It can be easy to be overwhelmed when faced with so many areas of concern. Each of us is a single person with limited time and energy. You might choose to tackle all of it, but my experience is that this leads to exhaustion and burnout.
My advice is to pick the one or two areas you feel most passionate about and devote your energies to those issues. Picking a focus doesn’t mean I deny the importance of all the other issues. It will be nice if people join with me, or you, in supporting our causes, but please don’t attack folks who choose a different issue to focus on—we are all in this together. Moral support is crucial.
Although many of us were out there marching, there were also many who could not or would not participate. We are starting to hear from the latter group, to learn why they weren’t with us, why they say our chants and signs don’t speak for them, why they wish we had stayed home.
“Can’t you just get over it?”
I’ve heard this question most of my life. It’s come at me from all corners of my family when I’ve given voice to the anger and frustration I have felt as result of being sexually assaulted and humiliated by an older male member of that family for years. I was quite young when the attacks happened and have had decades to “get over it,” but these women (and, yes, they are all women who have said this to me—white women, of course) think there must be something wrong with me that I’m still angry.
“You don’t see all the good he has done. You think he’s all bad.”
I was told these sorts of things as well. I find it interesting that speaking out against reprehensible behavior is interpreted by the perpetrator’s defenders as being an all-encompassing condemnation of that person. I get it: even good people sometimes do bad things. However, just imagine how hard it is to try to see good in a person who has assaulted you. Forgiveness is possible, but it’s asking a lot, and should never be demanded.
This, of course, is happening in our country right now, on a national level. Many people have condemned things our new president has said or done. Some of these same people have later chosen to support him. I cannot do that. For me, trust has been permanently broken. When Donald Trump was revealed as the sexual predator he is, I became physically ill and I know, for a fact, that many other survivors of sexual assault did, too. Our bodies know the truth before our brains do, it seems. My favorite sign from the march
I was emboldened and inspired when other women came forward with their own stories of sexual violence. I wrote about it here, but what I didn’t say then was that their brave actions and words inspired me to re-post my own story. I had written a blog post several years ago and was immediately attacked (yes, these same older white women) for “going public” with my story.
“What I don’t understand is why you have to talk about it.”
I reposted my story because it’s the truth and I was never allowed my own truth. The interesting thing is, the facts have never been disputed by the perpetrator himself. The only thing that has been disputed are my feelings.
“You’re not angry. It didn't hurt you.”
But I am angry. And it did hurt me, in some ways permanently. I am done with being told by other people how I feel, or how I should feel. And this is why Saturday’s March on Washington will be remembered by this survivor of sexual assault as a highlight of my life.
My life-long sense of rage was finally validated this January 21. I have tried to speak out, for years, because girls and women all over the world are being assaulted and abused every day. I want to be one voice speaking up for them, saying, “I actually do know how you feel, and I hear you,” but it’s hard to keep going when I’m attacked for speaking even my own truth, which has happened too many times when I’ve told my story. This Saturday I finally knew, in a deep visceral way, that my voice has been heard.
As I made my way to the march early that morning, I really didn’t want to go. It all seemed rather pointless. “Nothing will come of this,” I thought. What I didn’t know is that near the end of the march, next to the Washington Monument, I would come upon a little girl, sitting atop her father’s shoulders. She was dressed all in light pink and couldn’t have been more than three or four years old.
She was chanting with the crowd when suddenly everyone but her stopped. “My body, my choice!” she shouted. All the adults around her, including me, turned to her and chanted back, “Your body, your choice!” She beamed, full of joy, and shouted it again: “My body, my choice!” And we affirmed this truth for her: “Your body, your choice.” I wish, when I was her age, the adults in my life had believed this.
And then I heard it, a wave of roaring voices, rolling toward us from somewhere near the Capitol. It swept over my section of the march, and we joined in, all of us—including me and that little girl, filling the mall with sound from the Capitol to the White House. And that's when I finally began to believe it: I am no longer alone.

End of Year Writing Report

This has been a momentous year in my writing life, all of it fueled by plenty of coffee and quiet and supervised by these two. That's Cricket up on top and Tina down below, hanging out in the cat tree that sits next to the window near my editing chair. My computer is a few steps away, so the cats have taken up residence in this small part of the house, in order to keep an eye on me while I write. It's their job, you see. It's what cats do.

They've done a pretty good job keeping me on task. Our biggest accomplishment this year was completion of my MA in Writing degree from Johns Hopkins University. I've been working on this for almost exactly three years now, taking classes in fiction, poetry and "reading like a writer," which is quite different from reading for pleasure.

As part of the requirements for the degree, I wrote a thesis, which is a collection of pieces that I produced during the program--three short stories, an excerpt from a novel and several poems.The degree will technically be awarded in May, 2017, but I've finished all the requirements and happily participated in a festive celebration with other graduates where we read short selections from our work.

Here I am reading an excerpt from my science fiction novel-in-progress, "The Kiss Catastrophe." Hopefully you will be hearing more about that in the coming months, since I hope to complete it in 2017. I participated in NaNoWriMo last month and used that project to write a draft of the second half of the book. It's a mess at the moment, but there's a story in there somewhere! Lots of editing to do on this.

The other major thing I did this year was make a concerted effort to finish some short stories and start sending them out. I had a number of stories at various stages of completion when the year started and managed to bring 11 of them to a stage where I felt they were ready to send out. I submitted these 11 a total of 52 times in 2016, which was my goal at the beginning of the year--to submit once per week. I also created a packet of three poems (from my thesis) and wrote one book review, both of which I submitted a few times.

As a result of all this submission activity, 4 of my stories were accepted for publication. 3 have already appeared (here, here and here) and 1 is in press, due to appear in Gargoyle in 2017. My little flash fiction piece (a 101-word short story) was listed as a Featured Story in July, 2016, which pleased me, since this was a piece I started almost ten years ago.

I felt like I was sending out a lot of pieces this year, and I was, but this is apparently what's necessary to get things published these days. My acceptance rate was 7.3%, so not as low as it felt like when the rejections started rolling in. And there were a lot of those--35 pieces have been rejected so far, and I withdrew 2, but 14 are still pending, so who knows what the final statistics will show. My goal is to double my submission rate next year: 100 submissions in 2017! A friend of mine thinks of this process as "collecting rejection letters," so maybe that's the right attitude to take.

It's easy to get discouraged by what feels like failure, and there's a lot of it in this business. It seems to me that the secret to not letting the whole process get you down is to send your work right back out as soon as it's returned to you with a note along the lines of, "this isn't right for us, etc." Never let it sit on your desk when it can sit on someone else's desk!

I'll wait until next year (which is two days away) to write a more complete post with my writing goals for 2017. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I have a lot of plans--so stay tuned. And happy new year!

NaNo Success!

I made a big push the last few days to finish my 50,000 word novel installment and am proud to say I made it over the finish line last night! You can see from the following plot how I had a few slow spots this month--the one right after the election is probably self-explanatory since I, like many people, was in shock and non-verbal for a few days. Writing has been a great healing aid during this period, though, and I highly recommend it for getting centered on one's own life again. Give it a try!

How to Move From Fear to Action

I woke up this morning and for a few blessed moments, almost an entire minute, did not remember how the world had changed. It was nice today--the sun was up, it looked to be a beautiful day, crisp and fresh--and as I looked out our second-story window and caught a glimpse of the Washington Monument a couple miles away...reality came rushing back.

I marvel at how different things feel today. Yesterday, Wednesday morning, I woke up after getting to bed at midnight, still not knowing how the election had turned out, but fearing the worst. It took no more than two minutes to switch on the television and find out that, indeed, Trump had won, but by then I was consumed by fear.

The fear held, for awhile. I couldn't imagine going outside into the streets of my town, Arlington, Virginia. I envisioned armed men (those visions were always of men, angry white men, actually) roaming the streets, emboldened by the success of their candidate, waving guns and feeling justified in carrying out any number of the threats they and their candidate have heaped upon us in the past two years. I was truly afraid, and could feel the physical symptoms of it in my body. It felt like the natural outcome of the unable-to-breath sense of anxiety I'd had for weeks.

Hillary Clinton finally gave her concession speech at almost noon and when she teared up, apologizing to the women, like me, who had supported her, saying she was sorry she could not be our champion, I finally cried. It was over, and I was really disappointed, but the fear started to loosen its hold.

So, there was sadness, and it came soon after the fear had started to lift. It didn't take long, though, for sadness to give way to anger. I saw reports that Clinton had actually won the popular vote. I was outraged, although not surprised. Then, I saw reports that more than 50% of white women had voted for Trump. More anger, but not surprised--I have known too many women who really don't want to see a strong woman in power. I'm not sure why they feel this way, but I have no patience for women who think you have to "like" someone to support them and their work.

I listened, with increasing disgust, to pundit after pundit saying they just didn't see this coming, that all the polls were wrong, and how did this happen anyway? They just weren't listening to the right people, it seemed to me. Anger turned to resolve, and this was hours before thousands of young people poured into the streets around the country to protest. They're young and have not lived through as many setbacks as I have. This may be the first time they've believed in something and had it taken away by the system--but it's not the first time for me. And I know we can overcome this. We've overcome worse.

A lot of what I was writing in my head about this has already been said. Read Michael Moore's "Morning After To-Do List," in which he calls for taking over the Democratic Party and "returning it to the people," abolishing the electoral college (long overdue, in my opinion...read this article about the roots of the electoral college in slavery), but mostly calling for people to stop saying they're "stunned" or "shocked," when what they really mean is they weren't paying attention or listening to the right voices.

Take some time to grieve or be stunned, if that's what you need, but there's work to be done. Let's move beyond the understandable fear of the unknown, and beyond the sadness at having our dreams dashed, and get busy. This is still a democracy, not a dictatorship, and we must be vigilant for any signs that we are moving in that direction. Keep speaking up and speaking out. I've got your back.

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NaNoWriMo 2016 is nearly here

This year's National Novel Writing Month starts in (yikes!) two days. Are you ready? Sign up here.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Today, I am re-posting an image from 2009, in honor of my friend, Melanie Otto, a talented photographer and writer, who is currently in the ICU, fighting for her life. The photo above is an example of Melanie's beautiful photography, more of which can be found here on her website. We love you, Melanie! Our prayers are with you and your family.

Workshop your Book group (Melanie is at far left)

About that video....

I've been writing this post in my head for several days, never quite getting to the point where I could put actual words on paper or into my computer, stopping myself from speaking out by rationalizing: "What could I possibly say that hasn't already been said about this issue?" And: "No one really wants to hear what I have to say."

Well. That last one brought me up short when I found myself writing it in my journal this morning. That, in a nutshell, is the story of my life. No one wanted to hear what I had to say when I spoke out about being sexually assaulted. That has been the story of too many women's lives, to be honest, and what I want to say now is this: it's not going to be that way anymore, because many of us have found a way to speak out that works.

It's amazing to watch so many women telling their stories and BEING HEARD FINALLY. Sorry for the all-caps, and yes I know it's like shouting online, but that's what has happened. Read the New York Times article linked to above: 27 million women spoke out about the sexual assaults they endured and the world finally heard them. Before that, a young woman in California wrote an open letter to the man who raped her and Vice President Biden wrote back. When he said, "I believe you. It is not your fault," he was speaking to one young woman in particular, but millions of us read in his letter the words we've been waiting a lifetime to hear.

To me, that's amazing, since this is not the way it happened for me, as a girl of 14 who came forward to report a sexual assault. I've written about that before (here) and I am so glad to see what is happening now. Perhaps this is the silver lining in this whole sorry episode: that Donald Trump has actually brought about a change for the good, despite himself, merely by acting as a trigger that set off a powder keg he didn't know he was sitting on.

And, yes, I know I titled this post "About that video..." but I'm not going to talk further about Trump and what he and that slimy guy Billy Bush said to each other eleven years ago. Everyone knows that part and the fallout, political and otherwise, that came out of it. A lot of people also know the outpouring of objections that showed up on Twitter and Facebook last Friday night to the use by media organizations of adjectives like "lewd" and "vulgar" to describe a tape in which a man admitted that he sexually assaulted women.

As if the use of nasty language is the crime here. As if we need to protect people so they won't hear curse words, by bleeping them out, but can turn a blind eye to the fact that this man said he'd assaulted women - because, when you're a star, you can get away with it.

No more. Thank God for social media, which has helped ordinary people to shine a light on the abuses of power that have plagued our world for the entire history of humanity. So many folks denigrate the use of Twitter and Facebook and the other social media platforms as "not real life" and "avoiding real relationships," but I can tell you that I felt supported by many, many people through these media this weekend in ways that I've never felt in "real life."

Social media brings people with common concerns together and empowers them, as a group, in ways that could not be easily accomplished before we had these communication tools. Today we are celebrating the International Day of the Girl, an event led 100% by youth to shed a light on the right of every girl for education, a safe living environment and freedom from abuse. When I sat down to write this post and saw that today was the day that had been designated to speak out for girls all around the world, it encouraged me to add my own voice to the chorus. In 2016, I can finally say that I do not feel alone in this fight any longer. So, thank you to all the young women who told their stories this weekend: you showed by your example what it means to have courage to speak the truth.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Home Sweet Home

















For more Wordless Wednesday, visit the main site.
For more of my photos, see Flickr.

Writing Report

Books about Writing by WritersIt's been more than a little while since I wrote a writing report and I actually have a number of things to say - so here goes!

First, and very much at the forefront of my thoughts, is the Story A Day May challenge that I just completed. I started the month with big plans to write a story every day, but by May 3rd, I'd already missed a day and by the first week I'd missed three days and so on and so on. I've tried this challenge before and never made it past the first week, but this year I decided I would accept a result that was less than perfect - so I wrote stories when I could, and am happy to say that I ended with 11 "stories" on my list for the  month.

These 11 are not all full stories - in fact, only two of them are, and both of those are stories I had started before. But I finished BOTH and have actually submitted both already. And one of them just got accepted - today! This is obviously very encouraging, so I have a plan to extend the success of this Story A Day experiment: Story A Week Summer!

A few years ago when I first heard about the Story A Day challenge, I tried it, gave up, but started my own version, which was a challenge to myself to finish a story every week that summer. I reported on that here and found it to be enormously successful - and powerful. By the end of the process of focusing on a story a week I knew I wanted to write full time, so applied and was accepted to the MA in Writing program at Johns Hopkins University.

That was the summer of 2013 and I look back, amazed that three years have gone by. I've just completed my coursework for the MA program and hope to finish my thesis by the end of the year. More importantly, I've completed the novel I was working on and started a second one. Things are going along really well and I trust that will continue - as long as I keep writing.

Story A Day May starts now!