Category Archives: The Beast

The Beast is Back

August 10, 2021

Under the heading “Truly Strange” I offer this:

I have a battery-powered ambiance lamp which I keep on my nightstand. I started the habit after spilling my wine for the 400th time.

Josh and I binge-watch shows on his laptop before going to sleep, so I put the ambient light in red-mode (which allegedly supports melatonin production), and so I don’t try to set my wine on a part of the nightstand that isn’t there. (I know, I know, I probably shouldn’t drink wine in bed, but it’s the only way I can think of to make sure it’s handy when I wake up in the morning 😉 ) Anyway, when it’s time to go to sleep, I pick the lamp up and fumble for the tiny switch on its base to turn it off.

However, this morning at the stroke of 4:00, while I was in the midst of explaining to my dream-mom that gardening IS work and not just a hobby, because it could potentially IMPROVE the value of my home, and that was why I had no free time to see her, because I worked two jobs–both the day job, and my dream-imaginary part-time job, and plus all the mom-things I do, and the job of keeping the house clean and the laundry washed and the pantry stocked…

And that’s when the light came on, which sounds like a metaphor, and a clichĂ© at that–but no. The light came on. The
Taipow LED Night Light, Bedside Table Lamp for Baby Kids Room Bedroom Outdoor, Dimmable Eye Caring Desk Lamp with Color Changing Touch Senor Remote Control which I got at Amazon.

The light that can only come on by picking the damn thing up and feeling around the base for its switch (yes, there’s a remote, but I threw it away in fit of konmarie).

I have no explanation for this. It was in bright-white mode (the default), but my point is that it’s not like I left the damn thing on in a pinot-induced stupor. This was no accident. It was a wake up call, and no I’m not talking metaphorically.

When I was writing HitList I’d find myself waking up at four, completely and unable to get back to sleep. And on more than one occasion it felt (or seemed) like someone, some thing had tugged at my foot, or yanked at the covers. I’d roll out of bed and write for two hours, until it was time to get ready for the moneyjob and see the urchins off to school.

At the time I joked about it–called it The Beast–but I was only half joking. I was filled with fire. I wrote the first draft of HitList in three months, a feat I haven’t been able to duplicate in the three novels since.

I have a new baby now and it’s something different than the four Contemporary YAs I’ve written. It’s a memoir manifesto on life-and-gardening in the age of climate catastrophe. It’s about what it’s like to live in a town gut-punched by two massive natural disasters in less than 15 years, what is like to grow up in the state with the least amount of natural land than any other, and about what happens when an inexperienced gardener goes native.

Today is our Derecho-versary. One year ago today, a category four land hurricane flattened our town. It blew off the top floor of apartment buildings, peeled the roof off of a number of area schools and businesses, and left a 200-year old oak tree in pieces on my yard. We’re still trying to stitch our city together. The woman two doors down from me has been a climate refugee ever since.

Our house, immediately after the derecho. One year ago today.

There’s just so much to say about this–the growing gravity of unprecedented climate events: fires and windstorms and floods (oh my). About everything: from the precious monarch eggs on the milkweed outside, to the deadzone in the Gulf of Mexico larger than Connecticut. And I’ve got plenty to say about it; enough to fill a book, I think.

Not a book filled with grim warnings and dire predictions. Rather, I think it’s a book about hope. It’s about how wonderous the world is, how resilient, and how much we can accomplish if we put our minds to it, if we work together and quit letting change-fearing hate-mongers sway us with cheap manipulations. And about how much we stand to lose if we don’t.

Which is why I’m up at 4:00am and why I’m pretty sure The Beast is back.

If you want to keep up with me, follow The Official Karen© on Medium where I post angry letters to the Governor and will be submitting a series of essays for their Writer’s Challenge. Or, check out Iowa Native Gardener, where I blog about my attempts at native prairie restoration and try to justify the copious amounts of pokeweed in my yard.

Love you, my most dear readers, and if you’ve read this far, well then, thanks.

xo

Karen

Me, the Beast and that B!+*# in Louboutins

December 26, 2014

Two things:

1. Turns out you can eat too many sugar cookies.

2. Writing sucks. Here’s why: Somewhere between inspiration and completion lies a battle zone, where muse and inner critic wage war. And here’s a glimpse of what it looks like at my place:

She made a disgusted noise—you know the one that starts with a ‘t’ sound and ends with an exasperated sigh. “You aren’t really going to do that, are you? End a scene like that?”

“Um. Sort of?” I say. I realize how lame it sounds. End every scene on an emotional shift. End every scene on an emotional shift. If she’s told me once, she’s told me a thousand times.

“I heard that,” she says.

“What?”

“‘Told me once, told me a thousand times.’ What did I tell you about clichĂ©s?”

“That they’re
bad?”

“Hmph.” She bends forward, rests a manicured hand on my desktop and adjusts her glasses with the other. She peers closely at the screen and then turns to me, incredulous. “Did you just use an adverb?”

“Ahh.”

I did. I totally used an adverb. I was in a hurry. I thought it sounded okay. I didn’t think anyone would get hurt. Oh god. There’s just no excuse. Not when SHE’S around.

SHE is inner critic, editor in chief and nothing satisfies her. She’s tall, effortlessly thin. You know the type: power suit, lip-liner and those shoes with the red soles—the-I-can’t-remember-the-name-of-thems.

“Louboutins,” she says with a perfect French accent.

“Huh?”

“The shoes. They’re Louboutins.”

“Oh, right.”

“Wouldn’t kill you to do some research now and then, you know.”

I try to catch the Beast’s eye, but he’s reclining on the other side of my desk, feet up, examining what appears to be a booger at the tip of one filthy finger.

She clears her throat and taps one crimson nail on my monitor. “Are you with me, Karen?”

“Yes.”

“Then fix this,” she hisses, her finger underscoring the adverb.

She pulls back. “Oh my God. Did you just attribute my dialogue?”

“Ahhh.”

She throws her arms up and storms for the door, pausing long enough to mutter to the Beast before she leaves: “I can’t work with her. She’s hopeless. Don’t waste your time.”

The Beast does nothing. The door slams and I spend a few moments staring at my hands lying limp on the keyboard.

Finally, I look up and try to snag his eye. “That’s good, right? We can finally get some work done.”

He leans forward and wipes the booger on the underside of my desk. “Maybe,” he says. “If you’d get your ass off that blog.”

Sigh.

Here’s hoping you win your creative battles today.

 

 

The Forehead-Smacking Moment I Figured Out NaNoWriMo

November 18, 2014

There are two kinds of writers in the world: those that do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and rise to the challenge of producing 50,000 words in November, and writers that spend the month coming up with excuses why this is not sensible, practical, rational or useful.

I’ve always been in the latter camp.

I mean sure, I could write 50,000 words in a month. But who wants to read a book composed of “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” repeated 5,555 times?

Then, the Beast showed up. “Best Friends for Never,” he said in a phlegmy whisper.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll write it. Someday. Like when it’s warmer. When the bills are caught up. I’ll take some vacation time—next year maybe. When I’m caught up on my sleep. And laundry. Better yet, when my youngest is out of elementary school and I don’t have to haul my oldest to band practice at 6:30 am. Or when I’m retired.

“Write it now,” he said. He let out a stale stream of cigarette smoke and flicked some ashes on the rug.

“I don’t even know what happens. I mean it’s just an idea.”

“Write.”

Fine.

I was late out of the gate, starting on November 5th. For a few days, I juggled 400 words at a pop and questioned the point. And then: BOOM.

I got it. I got what NaNoWriMo is really about. And no, it’s not a contest. And no, it’s not about discipline and it’s most certainly not about perfection. It’s about opening the door wide. And in the process of opening that door, you need to slam your inner critic hard against the other wall. (Mine left a long lipstick streak down the door jamb before she fell unconscious.)

And when that door is open, well that is when the story happens.

As of today, I’ve got 20,000 words. And while it it’s pretty unlikely I’ll win NaNoWriMo this year, I have to say I’ve already won. I’ve got a story that’s making me breathless and I can’t wait to finish it. And the fact I won’t get done by November 30th isn’t because it’s not there—it’s because there’s not just enough time. So when November goes and December comes, I expect to be still happily click-clacking away on Best Friends for Never.

Congratulations to all of those who have completed NaNoWriMo and to any and all that have taken the challenge. Best of luck in taking your novel to the next step. And to those writers who always put entering NaNoWriMo right up there with pushing a shopping cart to the top of Mount Everest, consider this: what have you got to lose?

Attack of the Nefarious Google Beast

June 20, 2013

googlemapI like maps, planned destinations, hotel reservations, heated pools and chocolate croissants. I like research and travel books and poring over online reviews and intimate knowledge of space and place before I get there. And yet somehow the best part of the journey is always the unplanned detour or the unexpected stop. It’s there I find the ultimate souvenir, the perfect picture or the barbecue ribs worth dying for.

When I got the idea for HitList, it wasn’t so much that I found it, as it found me. I was just merrying along, writing my Well-Planned Book (about something else entirely), when The Beast (aka HitList) came, knocked me across the teeth and took over my brain.

I was helpless to stop. I knew it derailed me, but there was something so compelling about it—I couldn’t look away. Each word made me eager for the next. I couldn’t stop writing—I had to find out what happened. And this experience showed me that while there are intentions, plans and plots, there is the thrill of riding the story and letting it take you. Amazingly, by the time The Beast left, I had a book–a better book than the one I’d planned.

So, I was not completely surprised when some innocent and well-intended research on my googlemap streetviewcurrent WIP turned into something else. The Nefarious Google Beast blindsided me and dragged me into an alley, where it threw me in the trunk of a waiting car. I was just sitting there, staring at something on Google maps and one thought led to another, which led to a sentence, and turned into a page and I’m starting to wonder if there might be a book attached.

It may only be a short story, it could be a meandering diversion down the rabbit hole and back, but right now I simply can’t wait to get to the next sentence. Oh, what next? What next? Where are you taking me, Nefarious Google Beast?

I may end up miles away next week with nothing to show for it but a short story and a tattoo I don’t remember getting, but heck
I think I’m gonna go along for the ride.

Ding Dong, The Beast is Gone

April 6, 2013

After more than a year of pushing words around, I’m happy to announce the second draft of HitList is done.

What does this mean? For starters, I can clear the litter of scribbled notes off my desk, take the kids kite flying and when we’re back, get busy trying to find the bottom of the laundry basket.

What’s next? Final feedback, and then the dreaded query and synopsis. IF and when I’m ready to face the trauma of shopping it around. Maybe I’ll blog more . . . mwah ha ha . . . you’ve been warned.

Another book? Ack–bite your tongue. If I could manage to keep things in proper perspective, I might be okay. But The Beast has no respect for me, my full-time job, OR my family. He yanks the covers off  at 4:00 am and drags me out of bed by one ankle. He snaps at my daughter when she wakes up at 6:30, blissfully ignores my son and would leave me hunched at the computer until I was nothing but a pile of flab and bones. He intrudes at every family outing and even barges in on me in the shower. I hope to avoid this, for awhile at least.

I need a tidy hobby, a rewarding one that minds my privacy and respects my need for sleep. Maybe running. Or photography. Like perhaps I could produce calendars . . . something like Sexy Firemen or Hot Hunks of Law Enforcement.

Now that’s something to aspire to.

Me, The Cowboy and The Beast

July 2, 2012

The cowboy was perched at the foot of my bed.

“Wake up, girl.”

He calls me girl. It’s irritating. If you want me to tell your story, you should at least call me by my proper name.

I kick at his hind end so he’ll get up and leave. “You’re a prompt, you know. A writing exercise. You’re not a book. You’re not even a short story–you’re a paragraph and I’m done with you.”

We both know better. I first met Henry Thomas Colter twenty years ago while I was on my historical fiction kick. I know him, know his story. I know about the woman he left behind in Ohio and the dying man he’s about to find and how he ain’t never gonna make it to Oregon.

But really…what is he thinking? I go from first person teenage hacker to third person Western? Who even writes Westerns?

“You’ll destroy all my credibility,” I say. I’m just kidding. I never had any credibility. C’mon people, I opened with poop.

I blame Gordon for this–and you too, Sharon.

11,000 or so words to go on The Beast.

No, I’m Not Dead.

April 12, 2012

The Beast has been keeping me busy. I had to wait until he fell asleep in order to sneak in an update to my blog.

Some days he barks out 3,000 words in a single day. But lately he’s only gobbling up my word count. I just do what he says, it’s easier that way.

I did find the time to send out some queries, I’ll post an update if anything exciting happens… that is, if the Beast will let me.

The Next Morning, The Beast Was Still There

March 11, 2012

“I was thinking we could just call it good, I wrote your story,” I said. 1,100 words — a short story. It wasn’t bad… still it was a relief to have it done.

He made a gurgling, phlegmy sound which might have been a laugh. “We haven’t even gotten started, sweetheart,” he said.

I did not have to take this — this was my house, my mind, and I would write what I wanted to — I had to draw the line somewhere. “Look, I don’t write that kind of crap. I’m doing Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows. Get out of my house.”

“No,” he said and narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m not leaving until you write me.”

“But… no one is going to like me.”

“Not my problem. Your job is to write me. We’re wasting time.”

His feet were propped on the coffee table and as I tried to shove them off I saw the pile of glitter. Pink glitter. “What did you do to Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows?” I hadn’t seen my old book since the day he showed up.

“Haven’t seen her,” he said and patted his stomach.

$#!+

This was ten days ago and The Beast has since grown to a timeline, a plot outline, pages and pages of character worksheets and 8,000 words of manuscript. I’m hoping if I do as he says, we can get this over with.

The Beast

March 8, 2012

I have a new WIP – aka Work In Progress. It is not the book I carefully plotted and planned to write.

img_9579.jpgThis book is a beast that shoved my planned book aside … or possibly ate it. I’m not sure.

When I woke up, it was sitting in my family room, smoking a cigarette and tapping ashes on the carpet.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m your new book,” the Beast said.

“We don’t smoke in the house.”

He exhaled a thick cloud at me. I looked him up and down — the bad skin, the folds of flesh, the greasy hair. He burped or maybe farted, I wasn’t sure which.

“You’re hideous,” I said.

He grinned, revealing a mouthful of jagged yellow teeth. “You’re stalling. Get busy. I’ve got alot to say.”

I shook my head. Maybe he would settle for a short story. I sat down and began to take dictation.

To be continued…

The Beast is Born

March 8, 2012

Who is The Beast?

The Beast is my WIP – Work in Progress. There are no actual beasts in my book – only metaphorical ones –  but I call him (yes, he’s a him) The Beast because… well, because he is one.

Gary Busey 2007The Beast looks like a cross between Jabba The Hutt and Gary Busey. I mean no offense to Gary Busey — that is The Beast’s most charming aspect. He showed up one morning, quite uninvited — The Beast did, not Gary Busey.

I suspect he murdered the book I planned to write. He leaves ambiguous stains on the carpet, picks his nose, makes me late for work and makes rude appearances when I’m in the shower or on family outings.

It’s my plan, and my fervent wish, to finish this book as soon as possible in order to evict The Beast.