The Story Behind the Story: The Portrait

I've never been much of a fan of Pablo Picasso's work. His cubist paintings, especially, sail right over my head. (The only exception to that is his mural Guernica, which I don't completely understand but I totally get the message.) So, when a friend invited me to go with her to the Picasso Exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago last year, I surprised myself when I accepted the invitation.

The idea was to meet up with a group of her writer friends, tour the exhibit, have lunch, and then write something inspired by the exhibit. Knowing how I felt about Picasso, I did not have high hopes for being inspired.

I was wrong.

The train ride from Chicago to my suburb takes a little less than an hour and 20 minutes. My friend's stop came first, about 45 minutes into the ride. I had another 30 minutes or so until my stop. That's when my Muse hit me with a bolt of lightning. By the time the train pulled into the station, I had my story.

That night, I played with it and polished it, but in essence, it was done. I had "The Portrait."

Which just goes to show: sometimes inspiration can come from the places you least expect.

Click here to read "The Portrait."

A Tale of Two Knees

I've been working on listening to my body lately: eating only when my body tells me it's hungry, sleeping when my body tells me it's tired, etc. But then, at the gym the other day, I ran into a problem. My body could not agree on what it wanted. The conversation went something like this:

Scene: Second treadmill in middle row of an ocean of machines at oversized, overpriced gym. Lots of bright busy TV screens on front wall, lots of shiny mirrors on left wall, lots of windows facing an snowy, icy parking lot on the right wall, lots of sweaty people on various treadmills, ellipticals, and stair machines, loud trendy music blaring.

(Hands put headphones over ears. Finger pushes play on iPod. Decidedly-not-trendy music begins playing. Body climbs on treadmill. Finger pushes Start button.)

MUSCLES: Go faster!

(Finger pushes Faster button.)

Minutes later...

Running Man by Simon Eugster via Wikimedia Commons

MUSCLES: Faster! Let's run!

(Fingers pushes Faster button until treadmill reaches jogging speed.)

MUSCLES: YES!

KNEES: Whoa! I didn't approve this. Slow down.

MUSCLES: More!

KNEES: That's enough.

MUSCLES: MORE!

KNEES: I said, enough! FEEL MY PAIN.

BRAIN: OUCH!

(Finger pushes Slower button.)

MUSCLES: Okay, we'll take a break.

Minutes later....

MUSCLES: Let's run again.

(Fingers pushes Faster button until treadmill reaches jogging speed.)

MUSCLES: Look at us go!

KNEES: Not again. I can't take this.

MUSCLES: Aw, come on. Just a little while longer.

KNEES: Nope. FEEL MY PAIN.

BRAIN: OUCH!

(Finger pushes Slower button. Body finishes workout at medium walking speed. Knees grumble for the next 12 hours.)

Can't we all just get along?

Weeds

I love metaphors and analogies and fortunately, so does my therapist. In the year and a half we've been working together, we've used comparisons to wheels, bicycles, tangled vines, seedlings, and prison visitor rooms. My favorite, though, is the one we came up with at my last session: weeding. (Which is odd, because yard work is my least favorite type of chore ever.)

Let me explain.

Photo by FoeNyx, via Wikimedia Commons.

There are two basic ways to remove a weed from a garden: rip it off or dig it out. When you rip off the weed, you're removing only the top part of the weed. The roots remain, and the weed regrows. To truly remove the weed permanently, you need to dig it out--and dig deep under the root to make sure you remove the entire thing.

In essence, that's why I'm trying to do with my health.

In the past, I've focused only on losing weight. In essence, I was ripping off the top of the weed. The roots--the causes of my weight gain/overeating--remained. So of course, the weed regrew, and I gained the weight back.

This time around, I'm digging out the weed by its roots and damn, those roots are deep. This weed has been growing for decades. It's going to take a lot of work, a lot of dirt, and a lot of time to dig it out. The result, though, will be longer lasting: true health--physically, mentally, and emotionally.

The Story Behind the Story: Newton's Law

As a writer and a reader, I'm curious about where writers' ideas come from, in part because I'm always looking for new sources of inspiration for myself. My guess is that others share this curiosity. To that end, I've decided to supplement my monthly "Fiction First" stories with blog entries that explain the story behind the story, starting with this month's story.

The Prompt

"Newton's Law" is my first-ever attempt at a romance story, and I wrote because I had to. Last year, I was introduced to an outfit called NYC Midnight, which runs writing contests of various sorts throughout the year. Every contest--whether short story, flash fiction, or screenwriting--is based on prompts provided by NYC Midnight. It's one of the things I like about the contest: the prompts give me a starting point and help level the playing field. For the first round of the 2013 Flash Fiction Challenge, my prompt was to write a romance story that is set in an apple orchard and includes a fake mustache.

As is the case with every NYC Midnight contest, I spent the first few hours in a panic. (Did I mention the contests are timed? For the Flash Fiction Challenge, I had 2 days--one weekend--to write a 1,000 word story.) I had never written romance before. I had not read many romances, either. (A total of three--all written by my friend, Judy Genandt--if you don't count the romance novels we read aloud in the hallway during Finals Week my freshman year of college.)

Then there was the setting. I don't think I have ever been in an apple orchard in my life. If I have, it did not leave any kind of lasting impression. That was an easy fix, though, thanks to Saint Google. A few image searches later, I had an idea of what an apple orchard looks like and I started writing.

Writing the Story

The narrator's voice came quickly. I could hear her telling me her story, her voice dripping with sarcasm, and I simply took dictation. The title came quickly, too. I wanted to play on the apocryphal story of Isaac Newton and the apple falling on his head. (Hence, the apple farm sign and family name in the story.) The title, though, and the plot were inspired by Newton's other works--specifically, his laws of motion. Newton's First Law of Motion says that an object in motion stays in motion and an object at rest stays at rest, unless an outside force is applied to it. If ever a natural law applied to Jane's story, this was it.

Her story, initially, was more romantic comedy than romance. That was a problem. NYC Midnight considers romantic comedy and romance two different genres. If I submitted my story as written, it would have been dismissed by the contest judges.

So, another visit with Saint Google helped me differentiate between romance and romantic comedy. One revision later (narrator's sarcasm intact), my story was closer to meeting the mark--and my deadline was up. Story submitted.

The version over at Fiction First is a revised version of that original story, which placed 7th out of 27 in the contest.

Click here to read the story "Newton's Law."

Enough Already!

I hate this time of year. Not because it's winter. I LOVE winter (though, I admit, Mother Nature is testing my limits with this one). No, it's the locust-like swarm of diet ads that I detest. All that "New Year, New You" crap. I mean, what was wrong with the old me? Why is the "old" me suddenly unacceptable because it's a new year? Really, other than the date and perhaps having to buy a new calendar, what's so different?

Some diet ads really get my goat. This is what I imagine my goat looks like. Photo by George Chernilevsky, via Wikimedia Commons

The ads that really get my goat are the Special K ones. You know the ones: women get on scales that have sayings instead of numbers, and the tagline is "What will you gain when you lose?" And it has that earworm oo la la song. It's not the song or the tagline that irritates me the most, or the fact that they don't call their plan a diet when it clearly is, or how nutritionally unbalanced their plan must be (eating Special K products for at least 2/3 of your daily food intake can't be nutritionally balanced. Just read the ingredients and nutrition label on any one of their products!)

No, what irritates me is the not-so-subliminal message it sends. The scale used in the ads registers positive personality traits like joy and confidence instead of numbers. (Such a scale does exist, and if anyone wants to buy me one, I would graciously accept the gift.) The intimation is that a person can only acquire these traits by losing weight, that only thin people have these characteristics. And that pisses me off. Why is it unacceptable for an overweight person to be joyful, confident, inspired, inspiring? That's ludicrous!

The worst part is, I used to buy into that idea and not so long ago. I believed that good things I wanted had to be postponed until I lost a certain amount of weight. I remember being explicitly told, "No one wants to be friends with the fat girl" and "No one wants to date the fat girl." It's a sign of how far I've come in my journey (and a testament to the effectiveness of my therapist) that I don't believe that anymore. (Most days, anyway. Those ol' demons don't go away quietly. They still pop up their heads now and again.)

If anything, I'm learning the opposite is true: effective (as in healthy, long-lasting) weight loss requires joy and confidence and inspiration first. That's why I failed every time before and why this time around is taking so much longer (much to the frustration and impatience of certain medical professionals and family members). Before, it was all about weight and deprivation--but I still hated myself and felt unworthy, so whatever weight loss I achieved didn't stick and the effort didn't last. This time, I'm turning it around--focusing my efforts on feeling worthy and accepting myself and making healthier choices, not deprivation.

It's a slower, rockier road that certainly won't lead to a New Year's weight loss commercial, but it will eventually lead to a happier, healthier, more confident me and I won't need a scale to tell me when I get there.