A Beautiful Mess
I think of myself as a beautiful mess. With a nod to Jude, who visits this blog often, and is a minimalist with little clutter in his abode, my house is a beautiful mess. On the shelf above my desk, a single shelf about four and a half feet long, I have . . . one stained glass picture from my best friend, Pam; 10 (count 'em) Buddha statues; 1 statue of St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters; my Burpee Seed clock (see a couple of blog entries ago, "It's planting season"); mala beads; a set of mindful reminder cards from Thich Nhat Hanh; an incense burner, three candles; a framed poem by my youngest daughter; a crystal baby carriage that was a gift; and a beta fish named Blossom in a round bowl. One shelf.
But my mess doesn't stop there. I sleep too little and drink too much coffee all day. I can't SEE the top of my desk for all the papers; I play as hard as I work; I fill my life with as much activity as possible--but then crave moments of solitude when I don't answer my phone for DAYS on end. Don't even get me started on the complexities of my personal life.
I am a messy mother. I cannot cook, but I smother my kids with kisses and make them laugh. I play music and we dance until we fall down giggling, but I am late always, turning in their permission slips for field trips. I am the opposite of my mother who was gifted with homemaking skills that rival Martha, and who always cooked me a hot breakfast before school. Pop Tarts in the car are pretty normal around here.
And I realized something. When the Bombshell line closed, I got a flurry of fan mail from people who said they were sorry to see the line close and my heroines to go away. And at least five of those people said something along the lines of, "I really don't like your heroines . . . but they are very real and I'm drawn to them."
Well . . . I am one of those women NO ONE is lukewarm about. People love me . . . or they hate me, and not with a middling sort of hate, but with a grand hatred, even if I barely know them. (Ask my in-laws--execpt for my father-in-law, they despise me through and through.) The people who love me? They REALLY love me passionately. But I'm not a middle-of-the-road gal--and neither are my heroines.
I don't have neat heroines. No Martha wannabes, no orderly lives. No orderly jobs or relationships. They are grand messes, every one of them.
So am I working through some kind of Jungian identity with them? I don't think so. I am pretty comfortable with who I am. But I realize we create characters, often, who embody the traits we adore and the traits we despise. The people in my book who are most hated . . . disloyal people. I was raised to value loyalty. I dislike hypocrites. People with pious judgmental tendencies.
Heroines or heros . . . they are messy but loyal and fierce. We write what we admire. We write our villains with traits we abhor. My messy heroines may not be everyone's favorites . . . but they are very real.
So what traits do you give your characters? And what do you look for in your favorite heroines or heros?
But my mess doesn't stop there. I sleep too little and drink too much coffee all day. I can't SEE the top of my desk for all the papers; I play as hard as I work; I fill my life with as much activity as possible--but then crave moments of solitude when I don't answer my phone for DAYS on end. Don't even get me started on the complexities of my personal life.
I am a messy mother. I cannot cook, but I smother my kids with kisses and make them laugh. I play music and we dance until we fall down giggling, but I am late always, turning in their permission slips for field trips. I am the opposite of my mother who was gifted with homemaking skills that rival Martha, and who always cooked me a hot breakfast before school. Pop Tarts in the car are pretty normal around here.
And I realized something. When the Bombshell line closed, I got a flurry of fan mail from people who said they were sorry to see the line close and my heroines to go away. And at least five of those people said something along the lines of, "I really don't like your heroines . . . but they are very real and I'm drawn to them."
Well . . . I am one of those women NO ONE is lukewarm about. People love me . . . or they hate me, and not with a middling sort of hate, but with a grand hatred, even if I barely know them. (Ask my in-laws--execpt for my father-in-law, they despise me through and through.) The people who love me? They REALLY love me passionately. But I'm not a middle-of-the-road gal--and neither are my heroines.
I don't have neat heroines. No Martha wannabes, no orderly lives. No orderly jobs or relationships. They are grand messes, every one of them.
So am I working through some kind of Jungian identity with them? I don't think so. I am pretty comfortable with who I am. But I realize we create characters, often, who embody the traits we adore and the traits we despise. The people in my book who are most hated . . . disloyal people. I was raised to value loyalty. I dislike hypocrites. People with pious judgmental tendencies.
Heroines or heros . . . they are messy but loyal and fierce. We write what we admire. We write our villains with traits we abhor. My messy heroines may not be everyone's favorites . . . but they are very real.
So what traits do you give your characters? And what do you look for in your favorite heroines or heros?
posted by Erica Orloff at 5:53 PM
12 Comments:
I love the courage and no tolerance for any crap my mc has. I'm a neat freak and strived to be a Martha Stewart. But those days are long gone. I'm still neat but PB and j is a common around here.
Courage . . . great trait. My best friend writes YA fantasy and her little heroine has it in spades.
E
Count me among the ones who love you, mess and all. :)
The hero I'm working on now is pretty much a wreck. He's 45, divorced, lost his job as a police detective, lives in an Airstream travel trailer, drives a ten year-old SUV. He has some good qualities like courage, loyalty, sacrifice. He pushes the legal envelope sometimes, but he always means well.
My villain, on the other hand, is wealthy and powerful, a pillar of society, motivated by greed and revenge.
Jude:
I think what is doubly awesome is that you boiled them down to defining, simple "pitch" traits. We're all complex, but you know motives and traits, know who they are. I have more than once been asked who IS my heroine? What can you tell me about her . . .? Knowing a few traits like that is very helpful--you're succinct.
E
P.S. And glad you like me all messy and everything. ;-)
I have mild OCD...okay, so my spice cabinet is organized alphabetically. Lets not talk about that. The boy, when he learned to dress himself, always had to have socks and undies the same color as his shirt...the girl? Her father's daughter through and through. Human tornados. I do the paperwork for his business, this involves trolling through the house with a cardboard box gathering coffee/grease stained receipts in the truck, toothpaste gooey ones from the bathroom, the ones stuck to the cola ring on the coffee table...you get the picture..
Having said that, I tend to be an utter spaz when it comes to my writing. If I spend a few days away from the computer, at the end of that time, I have barely legible notes and snippets of dialogue scribbled on envelopes, post-it notes, the back of aforementioned receipts...Go figure.
My characters tend to be grand messes emotionally, seeking something mentally, but doing their best to push it away physically. that is what drives the stories. Physically, they are also usually messy because I envy people with the ability to be so. Not a single one of my characters has ever gotten out of bed to wash the pots because she knew she wouldn't sleep thinking about them soaking in the sink all night.
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Loyalty is absolutely something that all of my heroes have, every one.
Pop-Tarts for dinner. Yeah, once. I'm a horrible mother. :-/
Lainey:
I laughed out loud. Very funny! Your husband sounds like me. I am my accountant's worst nightmare.
:-)
E
Heather:
I once tried to make my kids mac and cheese from the box. They said, "Is this supposed to be CRUNCHY?!" Cooking is not my forte.
I've been thinking about traits--loyalty is always there in mine. But you know, my characters don't possess courage in spades. I will often write how terrified they are. BUT, they do it ANYWAY, which is I suppose most courageous of all. But they are always scared--I think because I would be. But you sort of lose your fear if your child is in danger or a loved one in hamr's way--or don't lose it but overcome it. Then I always have the "after death-defying scene"--in a hospital or what have you, where they now have the time to reflect that holy sh*t, they did it!
E
Life is messy, therefore the great books are messy too.
I'm both a neat freak and not. It depends on what you're talking about.
I've books scattered around the room, but the ones on the shelves are in alphabetical order, and my TBR pile is stacked in the order I plan to read them in. My recipe files are alphabetized, and so are my ebook files.
On the other hand, I've papers everywhere in the room. Folded clothes on the floor.
My characters' neatness or messiness levels is dependent on their personality and what point I want to get across.
milady:
Good point--about what you're trying to say about the character. I think the hardest thing for some writers to comprehend is show don't tell. To me, it's those subtle clues woven throughout the book. Like my Billie Quinn character--all the things she receives from her brother and father have no receipts. They're stolen. No gift receipt, no taking it back. :-) She ACCEPTS the gifts because she knows they mean well, but the gifts speak volumes about how dysfunctional her fmaily is.
E
This is a fun one... :D
I do just about all the cooking at home. I make pancakes from scratch almost every morning, before I take the girls to daycare, before I go to work. I also cook dinned every night as soon as I get home from work. I sometimes even have it done by the time my wife gets home with the girls.
I can't clean a house, a room, or a car to save myself. My wife is constantly "urging" me to pick up after myself. I don't even want to talk about my desk, or the stacks of books laying everywhere.
The whole loyalty thing is kinda funny... in my WIP, both the MC and the villain are terribly loyal. It is the trait that saves one and destroys the other.
I love the mess, and pray for tidyness.
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