Artist and Author

Wow, this has been an interesting week for me.  I am subbing in a 1st grade classroom while their teacher is home on maternity leave.  It has been really nice being in the same place for 3 weeks now.  And besides, who doesn't love 1st graders?

I get to read them stories. Every day I slip a few of my books from home into my bag to bring to school.  I have been very excited about sharing some of my favorite authors with the children.  So far I have been keeping the list to my favorite picture book authors.  But we might expand that a bit this week.  I have been bringing in books that go along with what we are doing or talking about during the week.

Last week I brought in several books about grandparents.  I had been hoping to give them ideas of what to write about during writer's workshop.  Several of the kids will just sit down and write.  But there are usually one or two who sit and "think" for a large portion of the time.  There is one student who fills his page with words every single day.  That is 14 lines, and that is huge for a 1st grader.

I am also really big on giving them examples.  So I carry around my clipboard and try to write a little bit on my own stories while monitoring what they are doing.  This week, I even went so far as to draw a picture to go along with my story.  On Monday, St. Patrick's Day, I gave them the beginning of four different sentences as an aid and told them the story could be real or make believe.

As I was in a forest I saw...

A green leprechaun asked me to go...

In my backyard I saw a rainbow...

The bag of gold was in my hand when...

Well, I filled my lines, all 14 of them, and started on the next page.  Then I decided that I should make a picture to go with it, just like they do.  So I stopped writing and drew the picture.  I did something unexpected by 1st graders, I mixed yellow and orange to make a gold color.  During our writing time, several of the children saw my picture and all of the words on my page.

This prompted several of the best compliments I have ever received.

"That's the best picture I have ever seen."

"You are an awesome artist and author!"

I had also taken in one of my short story manuscripts so that I could show them that even grownups spell things wrong and cross things out when they are writing.  I want them to try and spell the words they want to use on their own, making them more independent in their writing.

After seeing all of my words on the typed pages, one of the children asked me, "How can you write that many words."  And another said, "You are like a real author."

Thanks 1st graders, you really know how to make someone feel good.  :D

Now I have never thought of myself as an artist.  And if I brought the pictures that my children have drawn, the first graders would not thing my picture was very good.  Maybe it is easy for me to fill 14 lines with words, but I'm still not at that 'author' point.  But hopefully soon I can use that word to describe myself.

It has been fun sharing my love of words with the children at school.  It makes me happy when they ask me to bring back a book that I have already read to them.  Or when they ask me what some of my other favorite authors are.  When I leave, I know they will remember that Ms. Montoya loves to read books, and she has written a lot of words.

These are the things that make me happy, kids, books and writing... throw in a little math and science just to add even more fun to the day.  It can't get much better than that.

Tears of a Stranger

Today my thoughts have little to do with writing, and the strange thing is that I am so not normally the type of person to share these thoughts with the whole of the world.  But I will, it seems, do it anyway.

Yesterday, I took my middle child to a pediatric cardiologist.  Yes, I am starting the story right in the middle.  This is somewhere we had been heading for months now.  The funny thing is the girl doesn't seem ill.  But yet we keep ending up at the doctor.  Six months ago I took her in for unexplained fainting.  They did a round of testing.  All of these things came back telling me that she was fine.  But didn't give us answers.

Well, last week she did it again.  So back to the doctor's office we went.  More tests.  And scheduling an appointment at a specialist in a hospital which is a three hour drive from our home.

Since this had started, I have not been that concerned.  I mean of course I am.  But she isn't sick.  You should see this girl play sports.  She is active.  There couldn't be something wrong with her heart...  We are just being cautious.  And mostly I believe this.

Though yesterday as we stepped into this strange hospital I looked around to find where I was supposed to be going.  Off to the right of this huge lobby I saw a woman with her head on another woman's shoulder weeping.  Then this was real.  I was at the hospital because there was something wrong with my baby.  In an hour or two would it be me sitting in the lobby crying?

But I couldn't think about that.  My daughter needed me to be okay.  She needed not to see me afraid.  She needed not to be afraid.  So I quickly turned us away from there and found someone to help us find where we needed to be.

They pointed us in the direction and we followed the red arrow as we sang "follow the yellow brick road."  I know, a red arrow is not a yellow brick road.  But this is what we do.

My movement from the lobby had not taken that image out of my mind as we went from check-in to test after test, and finally to speaking with the doctor.  I was holding my heart tightly.. not letting myself feel..  waiting for some kind of news.

In the end, the symptoms that had brought us there turned out to be nothing.  The doctor is not concerned about that at all.  BUT...  Yes, not ever a thing you want to hear while talking to a doctor.  But, he found something in her tests that he is concerned about.  He ordered more tests, one that was done that day, and more that we will have to make that three hour drive again to do at a later date.

So as we rode the elevator down, I realized that someone up above had been telling me, "Lisa, get that girl to the doctor... there is something they need to look at."  Even though the reason we went there was not a problem, there is something else we need to do.

I'd like to say I'm not terrified.  At least half of the time, I'm not.  But there are moments that I see that mother crying in my mind and I am very very afraid.

My daughter is fine.  She is sitting right next to me, doing her math.  She was running and playing at recess today.  She isn't sick.  But...

Now we wait.  We wait and see what the doctors can tell us.  And as I wait, I pray for that woman in the hospital lobby yesterday.  I have no idea what was happening to make her cry, but I am praying for her and her child.

As I knock upon the door

Today I read a new blog about some of the controversy that is going on in the SF writing world, and it set my mind to thinking.  So many of the things that I have read or heard about in the last year or year and a half just make me sad.  They make me wonder about people and how their minds work.  As with most things that I think about I wonder just where I should start.

Right now I guess I will start at the beginning.  There have been so many tiny baby steps to even bring me to this door.  I have always loved books.  My parents have told me stories of when I was a toddler.  I would bring them piles of books to read to me.  I would beg for more words, more stories.  This is a part of me that has never changed.  I LOVE books and I always will.  At any given point in my life I am likely to be in the middle of up to 5 different books.  Shopping to me means going to a bookstore.  Of course over time I learned that science fiction and fantasy are my favorite things to read.

At some point my reading also turned towards writing.  I can't tell you for sure when I sat down to write my first story.  But by the time I was in the 5th or 6th grade I carried a notebook around with me.  I wrote during freetime at school; I wrote when I was at home.  I have several binders full of these ancient stories.  No, I won't share them.  Yes, they are terrible.

By high school I had the start of two different novels.  I worked on these as I went off to college.  The 3 hour long drive back and forth from college was the perfect place to 'write' my stories.  I just needed to find the time to get those words from my mind and onto the paper.

During all of this I never once thought that I would be an author.  I only wrote for myself.  I wrote because I had to.  All of those words had to go somewhere.

Then of course life happened.  Job, marriage, home, kids...  I only wrote a little.  Writing wasn't my life.  It was a thing I did for myself and I just didn't have time for it.  I would write once in a while.  And as my kids got older, I did spend more and more time writing.  I went back to that old novel I had been working on in college.  I jotted down little bits of ideas that I thought I would write about some day.

Then of course there was NaNoWriMo in 2010.  So many changes in my life had brought me to a point where I needed to write again.  The words were a part of me, and they had to come out.  I have written about NaNoWroMo 2010 before.  But that was the first time I had truly gotten to "The End" in one of my novels.  I had finished it.  HA!  Little did I know then in that excitement that it was so far from finished that I shouldn't have been able to see the end of the tunnel.

But something changed that November.  For the first time in my life I wondered if just maybe I was writing for someone more than just myself.  That was one very important baby step for me.  After that writing was like a drug.  I needed to write.  I once again started carrying a little notebook around.  I would write when I was waiting.  I would write when I thought of something I needed to add to my story, even if it was just a couple of words to help me remember.

I finished two more novels.  Now I had three FINISHED novels.  (at least rough drafts)

Then there was WorldCon at Chicago.  My first ever Con.  And I went there with a friend who was a published author.  I sat at tables with authors.  I went to the SFWA suite.  I rode in elevators with authors.  I believe that had I gone to the Con as just a person, I would have had a very different experience.  I would have loved even this.  But being at the Con and chatting with authors in the bar about writing..  Well, that was not really a baby step...that was a giant leap.

I came home from Chicago and sent off one of my novels to a publisher.  Terrifying step.  One that I can't count as a babystep, though I know it was.  I also sat down and wrote my first short story that I had written since my fiction writing class in college.  I had hated writing short stories in that class.  I had felt all of my stories were terrible.  Which, I'm sure they were.  But this time, it was different.  Writing short stories was much different than what I was used to.  But over the next couple of months I wrote several short stories and I started sending them out to magazines.  Those authors at WorldCon had all said one thing, "Start collecting those rejection letters."  Which I did.

This was a hard step.  I think it was harder for me to send the story than to receive the rejection letter.  I have thought a lot about why that was.  But no matter the reason it was all part of this journey.

Then just about a year ago, one of my short stories won a writing contest.  Finally something that wasn't a rejection.  This was exciting.  This was also scary.  But of course in a good way.  So I kept writing.  I kept one sending things out.

Now it was time for WorldCon again.  This year I went to TX.  My facebook friend list now has many authors, most of which I have actually met in person.  Many of them I do consider as real friends.  This too is an interesting step.  I look at my bookshelves in a different light.  I see names of people I KNOW on some of those books.  This is so far removed from that girl making up stories on the drive to college.  That girl would never have dreamed of this reality.

I am hopeful that there will soon be another step or two that I can add to this list.  I cannot write about them yet.  I cannot let myself get too hopeful.  But somehow I feel like I am right now standing at this door knocking.  It is an amazing place to be.    

Now if I stopped here, this would sound like a happy thought.  I do like happy thoughts.  But that was not the source.  Why I started to write this today was because of all of the negative things that have been happening in the SF world the last year.

It is funny to think that if any of this had happened 2 or 3 years ago, I wouldn't know anything at all about it.  I would have just gone to the books store and picked out my books.  I would have read them in silence.  I would have written my little stories, and been in my own world.

But I see posts on facebook or twitter.  I hear about things from my friends.  I read blogs about all of it.  The really sad part is I just want everyone to be nice.  I know this is the preschool teacher in me.  Please share your toys, take turns and keep your hands to yourself.  It is strange that things I might say to a 4 year old could apply so easily to a group of adults.

I feel like I am standing at the doorway to this wonderful playground.  This is a place I want to go.  I want to be a part of this world.  I am starting to be a part of this world.  But today, as I look in through the door, I wonder "Do I really want to be a part of that?"  If I go in there is someone going to pull my hair or kick me in the shin?  It all just makes me really sad.

I don't understand it.  I have been to Worldcon twice.  Both times I only have good things to say.  The people I met were nice.  They were fun.  They were kind and open.  They invited me in.  They gave advice and helpful suggestions.  I don't think I am blind.  But the reality I lived does not match the things that I have been reading or hearing about.  It makes me wonder if people are really just this mean and hurtful to each other, and why are they?

As I knock upon the door, I wonder just what am I doing...  And I whisper in the quietest voice I can, "Please just be nice."