March Madness

I get sucker-punched every year by the "Ides of March" (Remember Shakespeare's soothsayer telling Julius Caesar to "Beware the ides of March"?) The 'ides' is the fifteenth of March, (my posting day which I may or may not have consciously or subconsciously forgotten)! But I do readily admit to being infected with March Madness. And I'm not talking about basketball.
My theory is that cabin fever got it's rep in the 1800's when fur traders and miners snowed into the back of beyond ran out of their winter stock of booze. In March. So they started "shooting" from the bottom of the barrel, chugging gut-rotting moonshine and grain alcohol meant for medicinal use only. The deadly symptoms of March Madness immediately manifested; obsessive quick draw gunplay, bird delusions which involved flight from high places, cravings for female and/or male flesh (alive and/or dead… i.e. Donner party). But whether we tipple or not, all of us here in the north suffer some form of March Madness, that crazy eagerness to unpack the hot pants and capri's, brightly paint our shriveled, sun-deprived toenails or sprawl in the sun mostly naked.
My Ground Hog's Day test (conducted on March 15th) where I check how much more winter we have left is this: (and you may want to try it yourself). I go outside, spit into the wind and if spit flies back in my face I know we have at least six weeks left before I have to shave my legs. Six more interminable weeks. My writing's already gone south and I can't follow. My plots puddling, my character's faces blur into Picasso-esc montages and their motives gravitate towards Hawaiin beaches and dark skinned native men. With hot tattoos.
Meanwhile I'm loosing track of days, which really messes with my bathing schedule. I have unnatural dreams about Cheetos (don't even ask) and I've watched so much television I've OD'd on male-enhancement commercials and am having gender issues! I mean, every romance writer needs a healthy dose of 'penis envy' (as long as it's kept in perspective!) But I'm here to tell you Freud barely scratched the surface where my Oedipal, Medea and Titus Andronicus complexes are concerned.
So what to do when March Madness roars in like a lion? I go to my happy place. (Not that happy place, though if it works for you, go for it). I pretty much head the opposite direction (no pun intended) and let my inner child loose. The three year old in me that counts diggers and dozers and cement trucks while I drive. The six year old with missing front teeth that lisps everything I say, and slips in inappropriate swear words just to see if someone's paying attention. I caw at crows, chase the dog who's chasing his tail, catch snowflakes on my tongue, build a blanket fort and take a nap in it. I open my child eyes and see. Minute details of everyday life grow in magnitude. I find pine cones the squirrel's have stripped to nubs and remember painting these green to use as trees in a diorama once. I hunt pussy willows, Frisbee frozen cow-pies at fence posts, stomp ice puddles, ride the back of the couch like it's a race horse, cry when I'm sad, whimper over a sore throat, draw and color, cut and paste, mash marshmallows to goo between my fingers. I make no apologies, it's March Madness.
Me as adult and me as writer arm wrestle constantly over the appropriateness of pretending. It's my curse. But if during March Madness my inner child can't come out to play, a blot, a goiter, a cancer begins to stain my writing. The story sucks, I overwrite, rewrite, deconstruct the write until it's too mangled to make right!
You know what my inner child says then? "You're not having enough fun. So let's pretend. And it's okay to color outside the lines."
Writers are children at heart and a child must play. So let March Madness go out like a lamb, tail wriggling happily. Then look for your inner child in the mirror until she shines in your eyes, give her a slobbery kiss and say, "Let's make mud pies out of April showers."

Keep the old head above water 'til next month, Pam Morris

Setting IS Powerful

I was one of the lucky people in our country to be in Washington DC on inauguration day for President Obama. It is not that day I want to discuss, but the day preceding.

I’d like to take you with me as I reminisce about the Lincoln Memorial and what an impact it has made on my memory. I’d like to tell you what it was like to stand on the steps of the most powerful court in the land and how thrilling it was to even just look at the words, The Library of Congress. I’d like to show you how seeing the Capital Building shimmering white in the setting sun filled my heart with pride at being a citizen of this country. I’d like to share with you the deep sense of joy and hope that permeated the air that day as I walked the paths with thousands of others to visit the monuments and memorials.

But, that is not what I want to discuss.

I believe as writers we all have a bit of magic tucked away in our brains. The ancients called it our muse. Through the ages it has been labeled insanity, imagination, lunacy, inspiration. As writers we have all experienced this shot of realization, this startling of an idea. I definitely felt it that day.

All around us music flowed. People laughed. There was joy and hope flitting on the cool breeze. The sky was damp, but no rain fell. It was the optimism of the day that kept it away. The path led us onward as we felt a camaraderie with perfect strangers.

Rising from the ground was the black mirrored image of the Vietnam Memorial. And for the first time that day I felt an ache deep in my heart. I saw my reflection in the black marble, my hair tossed by the wind. My skin felt hot as tears stung cold on my cheeks. I am a daughter of this war. My family, my loved ones, my father, my uncles all gave pieces of their lives for the sake of lines on a map. I know what it is to see a soldier beaten down, defeated. I know what it is to see his bent back, his lowered head. Seeming to all of those around him that there is no more. No more hope. No more life. No more dreams. But he does not fall. Like the heroes of old he rises with some unseen strength, with pride burning out from his eyes.

I stood with my hand against the cold stone, feeling the beating hearts of the men who had given their last breath for their country. Hearing the Bye, bye miss American Pie lyrics blaring on the radio and the muffled, deep thomp, thomp, thomp of the Huey helicopter as it flew overhead. Circling us, protecting us as it had done all those years ago. I felt as if I had been transported back to 1969.

And even as I grieved for men I never met and felt sorrow for those who stood with roses in their hands, the writer in me learned a lesson. There is no other place where this could have happened to me as a human. No other time, no other moment. Each aspect of it is filled with symbolism and metaphor. I couldn’t have written it to be as real as it was. In transferring that to my fiction writers mind, I see how important it is to have the place in which the characters interact be as large as the characters themselves. Setting is powerful.