Before You Dig, Drill, or Blast

 

Is this a reference anyone else gets?

I used to see “Before You Dig, Drill or Blast…” on bumper stickers and billboards as a kid, and I was like, “Who is doing this blasting or drilling or digging and why?”

Well, of course it was an advertisement for a 1-800 line that you were supposed to call if you were going to do any kind of construction work that involved excavation. God knows what epidemic of stupidity prompted the creation of this 1-800 line. The 70s must have been a time of serial disasters, with people routinely digging through buried electrical cables and accidentally disinterring septic tanks.

Also, as a kid, I recall something about calling “Miss Utility,” before you dig, drill or blast, which I thought was like Miss America. So I pictured this woman in a crown, answering the phone and guys in hardhats on the other end, their hands poised above detonator plungers, awaiting permission to blow stuff up.

In the same grand tradition of avoiding potential problems at the get-go, I ask you: When you get a shiny new idea, before you jump into it, do you research to see what else is out there that might be similar? Or do you just plow ahead and assume that your idea will be different enough that it won’t matter?

I do this with titles certainly. Some (potentially cool) phrase will pop into my head, and I’ll run it through The Great and Powerful Google to see what results. This was the case for my blog’s name. A search yielded this odd Japanese punk band, Rock in My Pocket, but I used the title anyway because of that "A" in front of Rock in My Pocket, which makes all the difference in the world in distinguishing me from them, don’t you think?

And speaking of that definite article, I’ve often thought I should change the name of this blog to AAA Rock in my Pocket, because that way I’d always be listed first in everyone’s Google Reader. I’m like a plumber or a cab service that wants to be first in the phone directory.

Oh, and seeing as I opened this post with a question about whether anyone knew what I was referring to, I have another genius idea: The Reference-o-Meter. It could help you determine how widely known something is before you reference it in your writing. The Reference-o-Meter could help us all, especially as we get older. For example, if you plugged in something like, “Who doesn’t love a good piece of liverwurst and some calliope music?” you’d get a very low reference score, and this would tell you that no one under the age of 98 would fondly remember liverwurst and calliope music so you might as well strike that reference out.

So. What were we talking about again?

Oh, yes.

Do you call the 1-800 line before you start drilling away writing something new? If you've encountered a project similar to yours, what did you do about it?

(Some of you have mentioned having difficulty leaving comments. Right now you have to click on the post title to get the comment box to come up. I’ve reinstalled Intense Debate three times, which has more than exhausted my patience with it. If I can’t figure out a way to fix this, I may return to the regular old Blogger comment system. [Do you hear that, Intense Debate? Get with it or Ima slap you good.])

Tear It All Down and Start Over? No Problem!

Surely I’ve told you about my house before, haven’t I?

My husband and I bought our current house just about four years ago. Great location. Truly. The house itself? Ummmm, yeah.

What can I tell you about it? It's brick, it was built in 1945, it's pretty big. It was just what we needed to shelter our brood of girl children. We bought it through an estate sale. More to the point, we bought it in “as-is condition." For those of you unfamiliar with real estate parlance, "as-is condition" means “sublimely crappy.”

Did I mention the good location?

One of the many, many things that needed addressing so that our home might look just a little less like a mid-century crack house was the wallpaper. This house was filled with old wallpaper. I'm talking acres of the stuff. The former owners of our house – well, let’s just say the wife must have been BIG into wallpaper and the husband must not have given a damn what the little woman was up to.

Let me tell you, they put the stuff everywhere. Nearly every single room. And what wasn’t wallpapered was paneled with dark brown paneling (alas, the horror of paneling is a diatribe for another day). They put wallpaper not just on the walls but also on the ceiling. They put it INSIDE THE CLOSETS. Yes. Madness. Wallpaper madness. On two occasions – in two different rooms -- we have removed a layer of wallpaper, only to find another layer of the exact same pattern beneath it.

It goes without saying that all this wallpaper was atrocious. But, please, definitely do not take my word for it. Here, let’s just take a look at two wallpapers that we haven’t yet gotten a chance to remove:

Why, yes, those are kitty-cats in a shower!

And, no, you are not mistaken; those are dogs dancing in a speakeasy.

This is but a sampling, my friends. But a sampling. The only reason these two wallpapers haven’t been taken out yet is because of their kitsch factor.

Oh, did somebody say kitsch? Let's see. I'm sure I’ve got some flamingos around here somewhere. Ah, yes, here you go:

Of course, all this wallpaper is old and crumbly and requires a combination of harsh chemicals and maximum-strength elbow grease to remove. The living room alone took my husband and me SIX WEEKS to de-wallpaper. That was working side-by-side each evening, scraping it all off -- centimeter by centimeter of gold foil and grass cloth. Sounds fun, eh? They don’t make chain gangs do this kind of work. That’s how bad it is.

OK, so obviously anyone who knows us, knows about our house “situation,” as we call it, like it’s an acute mental condition, which, you know, kinda it is.

I made a comment to someone the other day about how I want to re-do this or that room, maybe someday tear the horrible addition off the back of the house and start fresh. This person then said to me, “Oh, my God. How can you even think about that after all the work you’ve put into this place?”

I just shrugged and said, “Eh. I could do it in a heartbeat.”

“Really?”

Absolutely.

She was shocked to hear this, and I, in turn, was shocked at her dismay. I mean, just because you’ve worked your butt off on something doesn’t mean you can’t improve it still. Then I realized, haven’t I had the best training in the world for this sort of thing?

Let’s see, years on end of thankless, horrible grunt work only to rip something all apart and start all over again? That sounds a lot like something else I do.

We writers – we’re made of tougher stuff.

Now, as your attorney, I’d be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to advise against ever buying a fixer-upper. If you are determined to ignore the advice of counsel, however, I do urge you to read this questionnaire to determine your fitness for such pursuits. Consider this just one of many cautionary tales. I’ve got so, so many others, one of which involves a runaway belt sander.

In the Cubbies of My Mind

This thing below?

It’s an organizer, of course. Lots of little cubbies. Adjustable. So much promise. So cute. And what have I done with it?

Nothing.

My mom gave it to me this past Christmas, and I’ve been holding off on using it until I found the perfect place for it. Now it’s April.

Today I realized what the problem is with it. The problem is that I need to find a doctor who can SURGICALLY IMPLANT IT INSIDE MY MIND.

Yeah, that’s where I’d really like to put this organizer. Then I’d label those cubbies: Children (Small, Medium, and Large); WIP; Revisions; Project Notes (Promising/OMG, So Stupid); Agent Related (Queries/ Responses From/Submission Guidelines/Favorite Cocktails); Friends & Misc Family; Blog Posts; Critiques-in-Progress; Books (TBR); Husband and Dog (they might as well share, since I’m running tight on space); Ridiculous Notions; Few Remaining Untried Hair Care Products That Might Possibly Combat Oncoming DC Summer Humidity; Stuff I Should Have Said; Enemies (Real/Imagined); Personal Cycling Fitness Goals; Excuses (Specific/General/Lame), and Plans For House Renovation (Likely/Highly Un).

If you have a recommendation for a surgeon who might be able to perform this service, please contact me ASAP. I don’t mind shaving my head in whole or in part. I thank you in advance.

Bring Out Your Dead … and Your Queries

I just watched the city’s Christmas tree truck roll by, trawling for dead Christmas trees left by the side of the road. It’s put me in a Hamletian sort of mood, which is why I am gravely reflecting on the nature of time.

Specifically I am thinking about the way time moves when one is in the process of querying a novel. Of all the aspects of the writing life that I find most difficult, this is it -- the excruciating process of waiting for a response from the publishing establishment.

You see, there is a vast disconnect between Agent Time and Writer Time. Agents are on geological time whereas we writers, we see time the way fruit flies do. If we query and don’t get a response by the end of the week, we’re gonna DIE. For us it’s metaphorical, of course, whereas for fruit flies, alas, they don't make jokes like that because other fruit flies do not find them one bit funny.

Agents, on the other hand, at any given moment, are still making their way through a pile of queries from the Mesozoic Period and maybe sometime in late April, they might get to the queries from the Paleocene Age. Which means I’ve still got about fifty million years, give or take a million, before they get to mine.

It is the nature of the business. I understand that. Reading takes time, as well it should. There is no bad guy here except time. Unfortunately, my handicap of impatience doesn’t help matters one little bit. Frankly, I could think of ways to pass the hours, but apparently some people out there have a problem with daytime drinking. They think it’s “wrong” or that it’s indicative of a “problem,” especially when you’re “alone” or when you’re supposed to be watching “your kids.”

I would just like to point out to these finger-waggers that even A.A. recognizes certain situations when solitary daytime drinking is permissible, and querying comes it at a respectable number 11 on the their Top 20 list of Reasons It’s OK to Shut the Door and Drink Yourself into Oblivion. The problem is I gave up booze for a while – specifically my beloved Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout -- with the dawn of the New Year because it makes me fat. (That is your ONLY debit, O Beloved Stout. OK, that and the fact that you are only made seasonally, and I am high and dry from March through September, which makes me very sad several months of the year).

Well. There it is. There’s nothing for it. Time waits for no man, and it doesn’t hurry up for us women either. And it certainly is no friend to writers.

If you’ve got 'em, I would love to hear some suggestions for ways to pass the time, but please keep in mind that I hate scrapbooking, cleaning my house, and yoga. Anything else, though – I’m game to hear it.

Cheers!

A Girl and Her Rock

I have begun to blog. This after promising to never, ever blog so help me God. But here it is. Somebody check the weather forecast for airborne pork.

I've had good reasons not to blog until now. Those reasons are currently 9, 6 and 4 and before they were on the scene, well, gosh, we didn't have blogs back then. Plus there's the trend thing. As a card-carrying curmudgeon-in-training, I naturally seek ways to not join into trends, even accidentally, which is a lot harder than it sounds because let me tell you, those bastards are everywhere. For a while I figured not blogging was the literary equivalent of reducing my carbon footprint: if everyone's blathering, I'm going to shut up. For the sake of our children's children. That's what I told myself but really, the truth is I didn't blog for the same reason that a lot of people don't blog: I had a profound and pervasive case of 'who cares what I have to say?'

Nevertheless here I am, writing my inaugural blog -- hold on while I release the doves ... OK, there we go, had to shake the last one out, he was gripping the bars with his beak. I will begin by explaining why this blog is entitled "A Rock in My Pocket" and if this story holds your interest, I hope you will come back for more because if you value a good rant, then heck, I'm your girl. And I've been bottling it up for long time so I'm bound to get myself into a nice, soapy lather on a variety of topics including: coffee drinking, why I hate pandas, and Tiresome People and Their Works, all of which will be featured in coming days and weeks.

OK, let's get back to it: Many years ago when I was in writing school, I had a teacher who, on our first day of workshop, handed everyone a small rock and said, "Write about the rock." Oh-kaaaay. Write about the rock. Write about the rock. Well, gosh I'm sure there's something interesting about this rock or she wouldn't be asking us to write about it. Heck, every life has a story. Maybe this holds true for rocks as well. Maybe we are all the same, you know -- rocks, people. Aren't we all one? Maybe that's what we're supposed to write about. The oneness of things. We ARE the rock. Yes! That's it! No, OK that's way too whatever. Zenny. Is that the correct adjective for zen? Maybe it's Zennish? No, of course it's not. Zennish? What are you, a dumbass? Wait, everyone else is already writing. What do they know about THEIR rocks. Maybe they got better rocks than I did. Should I ask for a different rock? This one is so, I don't know, uninteresting. I mean that girl over there has, like, some Ivy League rock fer pete's sake. I've clearly got THE WORST ROCK IN THE CLASS.

I did end up writing something about how the rock was smooth and flat and would have made a good skipping stone because, you know, it would have. I don't remember the exact details but I can assure you, whatever I wrote, it was nothing special.

I gave up writing a couple years after graduation out of the same sense of duty that causes a young man of 28 to sell his amplifiers and get a real job because Dad wants access to the garage again. I had written my heart out, finished two literary novels that caused several well-respected agents to lose all their enthusiasm (if you get that joke then you have experienced the joys of querying), and I figured, well, there it is. It's not meant to be. Time to get on with life.

Except.

See, I had this manky old rain coat back then in graduate school (I had a manky old everything back then in graduate school). That day, that very day that I did the rock writing exercise, it must have been raining and at the end of class I must have put the rock in my pocket. And for whatever reason -- no real good reason -- that's where it stayed. In that rain coat pocket. For years and years and years. And then one rainy day I realized I'd been carrying that rock in my pocket for ten years. Then it was twelve. Now it's been fourteen. At some point during these past fourteen years, I looked at that rock and I thought, when I finally get published, I'm going to chuck this rock like a skipping stone, where I don't know, but that's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna send that rock flying.

I still have that rock in my pocket and it's still nothing special, but I love that stupid thing. If anything ever happened to it, it would break my heart. I LOVE MY ROCK. This skipping stone taught me that what gives something meaning -- what really makes something spectacularly important -- is that you keep on caring about it when no one else does.

So that's my story, and I'll bet right now your thinking, "Who would hate pandas?"
Until next time....