Sign up for the new blog...

Only a few rode days until 2012 Blog Tour begins! Make sure you've sign up as a follower on the www.PainInTheCass.blogspot.com website so you can be eligible for the Grand Prize! Also, there's an additional prize for the person who refers the most people to sign up as followers of the blog, including having a major character named after you in the upcoming book.

Thank you all for being loyal followers. Make sure you don't miss out on all the new information and ways to be a part of the upcoming book tour!

Happy New Year, every one of you!

Cass Van Gelder

Blog Hopping... and other cardio

In the beginning of 2012, there will be a new and funky event amongst a handful of writers out here called a Blog Hop. Instantly, I thought I'd have to chuck my shoes and dance in socks on the gym floor, but apparently I'm only required to write... hmmm... sometimes I'd rather dance.

The event is for a good cause - to bring awareness to the public of some up-and-coming writers and give you access to them in a way that you've not had in the past. So, feel free to comment, ask questions, and link, forward, or otherwise share what treasures you find.

I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone and even more so to "meeting" new ones. I may be switching over to a newer blog (especially since the title of this one will be obsolete in two days), which is at www.PainInTheCass.blogspot.com. You don't have to capitalize any of the words so you don't have to worry that you'll stumble into an entirely different person's thoughts and ramblings. No telling what that mind's neighborhood will look like. :)

I'll send more information as I have it.

Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year to the bunch of you...!

Me? They Talked about Me...?

A few years back while at a writers' conference, I had a fairytale experience that resulted in my getting a new, fabulous agent. It, also, resulted in my ending up - namelessly, but everyone knew it was me - in an article by Adair Lara in the San Francisco Chronicle. (And before you think I'm seeing things, I didn't actually discover this article. Several friends did and called me up to tell me about it... niceeeee....:)   )

The one line that pertains to me is at the bottom,, "This week he was debating which lucky agent to give a talented writer in his workshop to." And he worked his butt-tukas off finding me one... Now, I have to get off my butt-tukas and finish the damn thing...


Grrr..., but here we go!

http://articles.sfgate.com/2001-08-21/entertainment/17614085_1_white-oleander-writers-venture-bird 

A Writing We Will Go...

I'm reading Adair Lara's book on writing called, "Naked, Drunk, and Writing: Shed Your Inhibitions and Craft a Compelling Memoir or Personal Essay". How's that for a specific title? She talks about how she and a friend compelled each other to write about 500 words a week based on a topic one or the other of them came up with. The catch is that they wouldn't talk about what was bad in the writing. instead, they would highlight in yellow what the reader liked. 

My friend, Poppy (not her real name, but I love that name, so "Poppy" she is...), and I are going to give it a go. At the very least, we'll get a few things back on track and it'll grease my inner brain cogs.

If you're interested in joining in, send a message to me on here.

If I were less busy writing, I'd have more to write here. Okay, that's not true. I've been busy watching all the new sitcoms and what not on TV - which, anyone who knows me knows this is so not like me. I'm the girl who spent 3 years without a TV while living in Berkeley. In fact, I used to leave my curtains open in my little luxury-spared apartment because even though I owned almost nothing except mismatched Tupperware, I still have 3 attempted break-ins. Not only that, my window, which slide open to the left, was left open and the idiots who tried to get in tried to jimmy the lock. Well, at least we know they weren't after the books.

Anyway, maybe if Poppy and I start this, they're be more to share.

Las Sirenas Gorditas... See High School Spanish Class Paid Off...

Las Sirenas Gorditas - See High School Spanish Class Paid Off...

About 4 or 5 years ago, a friend of mine and I headed out on what was supposed to be my one-year anniversary cruise but turned into my celebration-of-my-soon-to-be-annulled-ass cruise. I spent a week cruising up and down the coast of Mexico. One day found me ATVing from a tequila farm and production plant through the back woods of Puerto Vallarta just after the Day of the Dead celebrations, which meant there were these raucously decorated cemeteries with handmade headstones and fine, brushed dirt. Almost none of the windows had glass in them so that the thin curtains would flutter as we passed by.

Another day, I was riding through Acapulco on a hefty horse to match my hefty ass through a plantation filled with colorful parrots and macaws (it looked like) and then out through the streets and onto the beach where a young boy raced up beside us on his own mare with her colt darting beside her. They danced around at the young boy's commands, darting down the beach, through the water, back to our little entourage, and then bowing and finally sitting like a small pup, lifting his shoe to be shaken like a gentleman.

The streets were filled with buses and cars, but mostly bicycles. Even the mansions we passed had no glass in the windows, which is a strange thing to notice, I know. We passed the first church that had been built, which our guide instructed us was the habit as settlers moved about. They would firstly establish a church and then build the city or village up around it.

I saw my first honest-to-God bullfighting ring as we loped along the construction-filled roads in a bus that would take us through the mountains, hopping the median when traffic didn't move quickly enough. The ring was set aside, we were told, for the amateurs, the damaged but white-washed walls held together more by its cracks than by its mortar. Weeds grew up beside it and I tried to imagine how it would sound the next day, filled with anxious crowds waiting to relax and dispel their work week with Dos Equis and handmade cigars.

One of my most favorite days was also my most physically damaging day (my most emotionally damaging day was to come 3 days later). We stopped in the bay just outside of Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, being ferried back and forth in tender that was enclosed and sent my companion into hysterics and me into a sweaty funk. Once on land, we boarded another boat - a sail boat - all decked out with our own Gene Hackman-lookalike captain and his scurvy crew.

We sailed for an hour around the bay, eventually landing on another side of the island. Once we anchored, the crew helped the passengers into the water with their underwater cameras. Me, I was stuck onboard, trying to convince my well-padded partner in crime that she would not drown, though she had convinced herself the opposite in spite of her wearing a ski belt, a full life vest, and blow-up kiddy swimmer’s wrist floaties. It wasn't until a well-meaning passenger already in the water tried out her recently-learned mantras on my companion that she tried to get in the water. And not because the woman had convinced her but rather because she figured the woman was an idiot and therefore a weak swimmer and even furtherfore that the sharks would get the woman before they got my companion.

Sigh....

While snorkeling along on my own, snapping pictures of glorious spiny boxed puffer fish that I has adored since I had been with my first husband and working in a pet shop where I befriended the sole (ha, ha) spiny boxed puffer fish there (he was sent to fishy heaven when it was discovered one morning that the gorgeous angelfish that lived in his tank had turned herself on her side and speared herself on his spines, them both having been obviously frightened by something. The owner had his own love affair with the angelfish and was heartbroken at her death and dumped the puffer unceremoniously into another tank, causing his demise since the puffer had not been allowed time to acclimate.).

I scooted around the enclave, shooing the little native boy on his boogie board away from our group when he came up offering up close peeks at a few skulking nurse sharks. My companion would have jumped out of the water, hijacked the boat, and been halfway to Ensenada had she heard this, not knowing that nurse sharks rarely if ever attacked and were small enough you could pull them off you like an overgrown leech.

As I relaxed and ducked my head particularly underwater, I heard my companion scream. I kicked off hard so that I could get to her quickly. In doing so, I ripped huge hunks out of my left thigh, having hit a large shelf of coral. Trying to wrest myself from the pain and still get to her, I managed to gouge my other thigh on another looming hunk of coral. I dragged us both back to the boat, still unclear what had spooked her, but rising out of the water to see that I had become bait, what with all the pink water around me. 

Our captain tried not to look worried while covering my legs in iodine. I brushed off their concern, thinking they were worried about getting sued. I later learned that the poison from the coral could make you sick (it did) and my legs could carry permanent scars (they did). My companion doused her shake-inducing fears with shots of tequila and proceeded to flirt shamelessly – an unsuccessfully – with all the crew, one by one.

The rest of the ride, I took my damaged thighs and my own bottle of tequila to the netted middle of the sailboat as we raced around the bay, chasing seagulls, and allowing the crew to fish, catching a gorgeous marlin in the process. The water sprinkled water on my tanned back as I sunned, unterrified, with only a few threads between me and an ocean teeming with blood-hungry predators. I didn’t care; I was in love with this gorgeous place.  

After we docked, my companion and I strolled around the small village center, sneaking down deserted alleys, and perusing the makeshift fish market. We stumbled on what appeared to be a vintage store, full of used items. I found a beautiful rendition of a Botero painting on papyrus for the true love of my life, and gawked at the fantastic swirl of color around us.

As my companion and I jumbled through the crowds, we spotted a little restaurant called La Sirena Gorda - The Fat Mermaid. It seemed perfect for the two of us – half land-bound and half-ocean-loving. We decided right them to rename ourselves, albeit temporarily. For the rest of the trip, as we ferreted our ways through bars, alleys, shops, and restaurants, we jokingly referred to ourselves as Las Sirenas Gorditas – The Little Fat Mermaids - causing even the pedicab driver to giggle as he pedaled us around Cabo San Lucas.

I had not written about this trip because it had ended poorly on one hand and wonderfully on another hand, but today I stumbled on a picture Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, and away my mind went.

For anyone interested, here is a picture of the area where we walked. Under a white a blue sign, you will see a little red sign. To the left of this sign, you will see a brownish circle. In that circle is the original La Sirena Gorda, the one we named ourselves after. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boardwalk1Zihua.JPG

You're a real writer if...

You're a real writer if...
I hate sentences that start that way.

Or worse, "Real writers always..." or "Real writers never..."
There are books or speakers who present themselves as being the all-seeing eye into the path to becoming a "real writer". They mumble to themselves, dance around a fire, and then poof, smoke comes out and they proclaim this, this is what you need to do.

Aghhh... the sound of me vomiting a little in my mouth. I know, I know. It’s so lady-like.

Ga-ross.
I've never come across one of these books that has it all down.

Now, there are books out there that help you get started or help you when you have a hard time, or even better, they help you when you think your work is just oh-so-perfect, but none of your friends will even tell you the truth. Those books I like. They tend to be honest.

But if you come across a phrase that says something like, "All writers do. blank, blank, blank..." - then walk. Drop the book and run out.

Because, as many other writers will tell you, all writers don't blankety, blank, blank or hoop-de-doo or even vo-de-oh-doe-doe. These people are up to something. They are your obstacle. They will get in the way of your writing because they will whisper in your ear and tell you that you don’t know what you’re doing because you’re not one of them, you’re not one of the published few, you don’t know what you’re doing and they do. They are going to show you how. They are going to show you which writing fork to use and when to use your comma napkin.

But what is it worth to you? What has it done for you? So what if you walk around with patches on your elbows. So what if you use an Underwood Standard Portable, Remington Model 12 like Faulkner? That’s not what’s going to make you sound like him and likely it’s not what’s going to make you sound like you.

Here’s a fact, there’s only one thing we writers all do – we write. And ever that’s not true. Go talk to Stephen Hawking and see how many times he sharpened his pencil. And yet, he's written books galore.

The thing I'm getting across here is don't let these people get to you and prevent you from writing.

You're a writer, so write. Read these other people with a grain of salt and a whole grinder of pepper. Maybe read them for ideas of how to get over your slump. But don’t read them as absolutes.



I've heard tell that Amy Fisher and Sarah Palin both wrote books. I'm fairly certain that whatever process that got them from A to Z (maybe actually learning their ABC's? - yikers, switch the ring!) is not identical to what I'm going through. Likely it won't be like you either. But don't let that stop you. Keep writing. Keep telling stories. Try ways that worked for other people and, if in the words of Janet Fitch, "It was boring", go on to something else. Just keep moving forward. At least, you're going somewhere.

A World without Complaints...

I stumbled across a sample of a book on my Kindle. Likely, I downloaded it at 4:37 in the morning when I can't sleep and I'm not making much sense. I've been know to record Britney Spears' Biography and the History of Skirts on my DVR during these times, so this book sample wasn't so unusual.

However, it turns out, there was a new idea I'm keen on...

It seems that the idea is to go an entire 21 days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping. Why 21 days? Because that's usually how long it takes for a habit to take hold.

The people in the book have you purchase a rubbery bracelet like Lance Armstrong's LIVESTRONG bracelet, but in purple and with the word Spirit written across it. Every time you catch yourself complaining, criticizing, or gossiping, you take the bracelet off your arm and put it on the other arm. It's a physical reminder of what you've done. The goal is to keep the bracelet on one arm for more than 21 days.

Why do this? Because it's like going down the road late at night. If someone comes over the hill with their bright lights on and you stare at those lights, you'll veer towards the lights and likely have an accident. But, if you instead look on the right hand side of the road where there is sometimes painted a white safety line, you'll be perfectly safe and continue on your pleasant journey.

Huh?

If you keep focusing on all the bad things in your life, you veer towards them. You invite them in and you eventually crash right into the middle of them. If instead, you focus on positive things, then you invite them in and you move towards them. If you look at your positive goals and move forward, you are more likely to walk directly towards them.

I like this idea but I'm not a fan of paying someone for things like this. So, I opted to use a ring that fits my third finger on both hands. Every time I open my mouth and let a complaint, criticism, or piece of gossip across my lips, I switch the ring.

I have to be honest, when I first start thinking about doing this, I thought, "Well, hell, what else am I going to talk about?"

That's how pervasive it is in my life.

Yikers.

I started last night and I've already switched the ring 24 times in 12 hours - 8 of which I was asleep. I'm going to be doing this until I can get 21 days. If you're interested in doing it to, you're welcome to order the bracelet or get one like it, or just use a watch of something else you can see but won't be distracting.

Oh, and before you ask, thinking a bad thought doesn't count. The reason is that once you change what comes out of your mouth, your thoughts begin to follow. It's likely that as you go on with this experiment, you'll find your thoughts are just as positive as the words coming out of your mouth.

Also, if you do this with someone else and you hear them complaining, you can remind them to switch their bracelet, ring, or watch. But switch yours, too, because (as the  book says), you're complaining about their complaining.

Let me know if you decide to do this because I'd love some compatriots!

Sibling Rivalry

I still love this picture, even though it was our second or third go at it. The first couple were these horrible shots out near a train station in (get this) an ostrich farm, as I remember it. The train thing sounded good but I forgot about the pictures until just a few minutes before we needed to be there, so my hair was in an ever lovely ponytail. Still, I was not the worst part of that session.

As I remember, we were missing our keyboardist - the same keyboardist who answered cell phone calls on stage AND even when we were being televised - and I had to PhotoShop her in later.

Also, their horse decided he wanted to be in the picture, but not in a polite way. And then he showed us exactly what he thought of our pictures.

There are days I wished I drank...

Still, the band was great - for all the fighting and whatnot, I still loved it. It was weird and hard, but it was good. Back then, I only wrote too songs that we ever covered, but I wrote more studio type of stuff. I wrote stuff that needed productions behind them. Because the keyboardist couldn't quite get it down, performing it live was difficult. The other one was about one of the band member's now-ex-girlfriends. I think I gave it away when I titled it "Crazy Girl".

But it was harder back then. A lot harder. Whatever I was, I hadn't figured it out yet, but I thought I had. I struggled and put people through hell, I'm sure. And they returned the favor.

Still, these are the best people on the planet, but we're better with miles between us and visits once in awhile. Maybe we'll Fleetwood it sometime and finish what was started... maybe.

We'll see....

Letter about my daughter - originally written April 2011

I wrote this way after midnight on April 2011...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------ORIGINAL TEXT---------------------------------------------------

I think I embarrass my daughter. Not in the way we all are embarrassed by our parents, but in a real and deep way. I think she thinks I'm stupid, that I've lost all my creativity, that I've given up to work where I will get nowhere but up a corporate ladder that has no way down except to fall. She might be right, except about the stupid thing.

But it hurts.

My advice is worthless, while her father's is gold.

My efforts to help her are pathetic, while her father's is desired.

My love for her is pitiable and cheap, and her father's is everything she seeks.

And every hour, every minute I feel this, it is real and deep and it feels like all the things she thinks of me. It all becomes what she already believes.


She doesn't know what I gave up, even just for her to be alive.

Her father, whose breath she would save in little perfume bottles for later if she could, he announced one day while we were walking back to our tiny, one window apartment that I was not going back to school while he was. He decided it made more sense. We had limited money. He was closer to finishing school. He didn't realize I was closer to going crazy without school.

But I did what he told me. I went to work in as many places I could. And he went to school.

And I got pregnant and celebrated my 21st birthday with grape juice.

He still thinks I'm stupid. He used to think I was brilliant. Some part of me still tries to impress him though we've both gone off with other people and had more children apart from each other. But I'm sure that even after my books are published, he will read them only to chuckle to himself when he finds a grammatical mistake. If he reads this, he's doing it now.

I was desperate once. I even stooped to ask for his help. It was during a time our daughter was struggling in school and didn't want to go anymore. We were trying to convince her to keep at it. In front of my daughter, he explained to her that she needed to go so that she wouldn't end up like me.



I know what I am. I know I'm resilient (what my most fabulous cousin calls me). I know I'm strong. I know I have crazy talents that shouldn't be given all in a bundle to just one person. But I love my daughter. And it feels like my skin is being peeled off me every time she rejects me, even my smallest gesture.


I think she misses who I was when she was little, the crazy spontaneous mom, but I think she sometimes missed out on how really stupendously crazy I was just trying to balance everything so she had what she needed and I felt constantly like I failed her.

I think what's worse about this is that I think I made my mother feel exactly this way, only there's no way for me to correct it. She's dead and she always will be.

So, now I have to figure out if I'll post this or if I'll put this away somewhere quiet, somewhere where only I will know.

Send, it is.

Something is coming....

A few hours from now, it all starts again...

Hang on... I sure as hell am.

I Carry the Story with Marbles in My Mouth

A letter was sent to me today - to many people in the "Annie" cast. About clarity and simplicity, variety and art. But what struck me was in the last paragraph, where the director/writer talked about the thought that "good art is what you cannot understand." (he didn't like this thought either, so no throwing tomatoes there.) but it got me to thinking... of course.... (cue Sarah Jessica Parker voiceover....)

My mother and I (she being the famous painter and me just her kid) used to argue about art all the time. She was a visual artist who had tried many mediums, but her favorite was watercolor. I didn't care for it. Yes, it was simple to work with, but hard to control. The result was that I would too many times watch artists paint in her classes for 30 minutes, then turn around with an elaborate doodle and name it after their old childhood stuffed animal, and all the world was great and wonderful, and fantastically obtuse.

Yes.... well.

Watercolors - it's easy to let the paint get away from you and then when you are done, look at it and say, "yes, that of course is what I meant" or use the old (but in my world, hated) phrase "the viewer finds what they want in the art" or variations. But I have always believed that all art - visual, musical, theatrical, etc., it all is communication. It's your chance to say to me, "This is what I'm thinking", or "Yes, here is this new idea." or "I know you think you know this, but here is something different about what you know."


So I'm appalled by the prevailing and rather recent idea that it's okay for you to communicate to me in a completely ununderstandable way and when I don't get it, somehow it's my fault. There's a contempt for the audience of the work. Particularly in visual art. Sometimes in music. Most definitely in theater. (Don't believe me? I have a script from the play "Ice Cream" that my sister and I saw in London about 19 years ago. [You're welcome to borrow it] How did I get the script? Because they handed it out to each person as they came in along with the playbill. Look, if you have to give me the script to your play when I come to see it, then, yeah, you might want to consider a rewrite.)

In my stubbornness to stick to what I believe, I have always thought that the failing is in the artist if s/he can't get his/her point across. You are the one who picked up the brush with an idea, or sat behind the piano with a vision, or in front of a keyboard with a plan. I wasn't there. I don't know. You have to tell me what you mean. Don't make me go on a scavenger hunt. Yes, taking me through in a new and different way might make you see something new and different, but if your message is garbled, what have you really done but put marbles in your mouth.

As a writer - and particularly a technical writer by day (yes, I have a cape. What of it?) - I spend hours reorganizing information so that people can digest it more quickly and succinctly. Clarity. I'm not there to show off the massive number of features I know in PowerPoint. I'm there to move like a well-trained dancer does - without you noticing the effort. My best days are when someone looks at my work and doesn't notice it at all. And they shouldn't.

As a playwright and a fiction writer, I carry that story. I am the one who decided to sit in front of you and claim I have something interesting to pass along. I can't get in the way of my story.

The best advice I ever heard was from Amy Tan, the author of "The Joy Luck Club" and "The Kitchen God's Wife". She said she looks at her work in progress and she finds the sentence she has written that she most loves - the most writerly phrase she can find. And then she deletes it. She says she gets in the way of the story because she wants to impress you with what a good writer she can be.

I agree.

We get in the way of the story. Whether on the page, on the canvas, or on the stage, we stand there and say, "Pay attention to me. I am more important than anything else on or off the stage." Not the character, but me. Not the painting, me. Not the story. Me.

Artists, we can be selfish. I am one of the worst. Even in a small part, I want to be seen. I think we all do. In every day life, we want to be seen.

We want to be noticed. We want to be credited with something wonderful or at the very least good.

But Irving Thalberg said, "Credit you give yourself is not worth having." He said that. And not just once. He said that and variations of that throughout his years. And he believed it. He never took an onscreen credit for the films he produced.

After he died, MGM gave him a screen credit for The Good Earth. And that's what he wanted. (For those of you who don't know who Irving Thalberg is, he produced Grand Hotel (1932), The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934 ), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935) with the Marx Brothers, San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936). And he died when he was only 37. The Academy Awards has an award named after him. Listen for it this year.)

Anyway...

The story goes like this...

Stop worrying about who is going to see you. Start thinking about what you want to say, in whatever format you'll be saying it. Take the marbles out of your mouth. I really do want to hear you. But let's play for the same team. Let's pretend, just for awhile, that you want me to understand you. I am listening.




P.S. For those of you who are out there listening, there is another blog I write for - albeit temporarily. www.supersummertheatre.org/blog . We love your comments!

New Blog with a New Location

Olivia and I are in "Annie" out at Spring Mountain Ranch with Stage Door Entertainment and Super Summer Theatre from June 8-25, 2011 (Wed-Sat). I am working on a blog for them during this time in case any of you might be interested. Please feel free to pass the location along. There are definitely some interesting things going on out there. :)

www.supersummertheatre.org/blog


Cass

Script in a month - yeah, you try it...

So, I have a bit of a habit of overloading myself. Right now, I'm doing a play (That's right - Annie - out at Spring Mountain Ranch, June 8 - 25, and you're invited! www.SuperSummerTheatre.org for info and tickets.)

I also just got signed up as the judging manager for the STC Competition (that I won an award for this year and a few years back).

And I got signed up to handle some new team building events at the office - three so far.

And I just finished my script 2 weeks ago or more and am editing that.

None of this of course has anything to do with my current novel project... Grr....!

Ideas, anyone?

The World Sees My Blog!

Woo-hoo!

I just checked out my stats for this blog and apparently the world is waiting patiently to see what my wee little fingertips will click out...

Ok...

Maybe not the world...

But close...

See example one:

I have readers in the following countries:

 

United States

Russia

Hong Kong

Norway

Canada

Australia

Israel

India

Malaysia

Netherlands

I love the fact that people in Malaysia are reading this. There is some great trash in here; filled with yummy cherry goodness, but the whipped cream and added vitamin D is what gives it its richness.

I digress.... as I do.

Fact is, I am still trying to figure this whole blogging thing out, but I sure as heck am grateful you're all sticking it out. There's gold in them there hills! We just gotta find it.

Script Frenzy ends in a couple of days, so after editing it throughout May, I'm hoping to have a script up and ready to go by June.

Anyone interested in being part of the reading, let me know now! (P.S. If you leave comments here, you have to be a follower. But, as usual, I loooooooooooooooove comments!)

Sign up and sign up early!

P.S. - again, friendly reminder - Only 24 more shopping days until my birthday! (May 20th). I know everyone is busy, so I send out reminders because I know you want to remember, but are far too busy. Besides, I celebrate the Birthday Month - it gives you a bigger target than just one day. :)

CD Wright, anyone?

I'd never heard of C.D. Wright until last night when I stumbled into a reading of hers - which was good - but weird. The list of weirdness goes on for a foot, but it at least generated an equally long list of my own writing. (Yea, a lone cry comes from the stands).

So, new parts to add to Ruby, and a new story line for The Sun. (And even bigger Yea!)

A kid's dream...

I had this dream, even since I was little. When I grew up, I wanted to work for Disney. I figured the least it would net me was a yearly pass. And maybe a tour into the secret underground lair (she giggles).

So, about 3 weeks ago, I found about a program that could land me at least on their very tiny radar. I've been wracking my brain for ideas and FINALLY, while watching two free movies (another story altogether), I came up with my ride story. Finally, finally, finally! When everything is submitted, I'll post it to my website (currently under construction). For now, the best I can do is my reaction to my own progress.

And that reaction tonight is super duper bubblicious excited. It's like getting to draw and paint all day and getting paid to do it.

Yeah, uh huh, yeah, uh-huh (that's me doing my happy dance and singing).

More to come.....

Trouble with leaving comments

If you are having trouble leaving comments, try signing up as a follower to see if that helps. I beleive only followers can leave comments at this time.

Cass

A new name... help anyone?

I've been going back and forth on my pen name. I would love other people's input. My husband would love for me to use my married name, Van Gelder, but I worry about kooky people in the world tracking me down and causing crazy problems in my homestead. (And yes, I have actually had problems with this, hence the desire to avoid it - not that I don't like calling the police at 4 am to explain why there is a half-naked dude in my kitchen, professing his neverending love, and offering up a small gerbil to prove this love.)

I have a overabundance of names to use that are actually mine:

1) Holderman (this was actually on my first incorrect birth certificate)
2) Robinson (this was actually on my second incorrect birth certificate and comes from the crazy man who was the second of five to marry my mother)
3) Seeger (this is actually my father's last name, but has yet to appear on a proper birth certificate - don't get me started)
4) Van Gelder (my current last name which I share with my true love)

Any ideas out there?

So... Writing

It's been difficult to write. Ideas are all in my head, but even just opening the computer has become an obstacle. I made it far enough to start reading through my old "The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars" script. I haven't edited anything because I'm trying to ferret out a better, stronger storyline before I start messing around with anything.

Part of what's holding me back is the change in my medications, too. Grrr... My body gets settled into one schedule and then Booomp, we have a problem. For now, I'm getting back up from the latest change and am seeing what I can do.

I'm trying to rest when I absolutely can, but I've also signed up to do "Annie" with Olivia, so 'rest' is now an operative word.

Cross your fingers that I am able to get back up on ye ole writing horse again... but that laundry is looking mighty fine...

A Letter to One of My Favorite Writers

I don't know if you guys have ever heard of him, but you should. Ashleigh Brilliant (And, yes, that is his real name). He writes sometimes in small quips called pot-shots and others called Brilliant Thoughts. In fact, here's a website if you are interested:

www.ashleighbrilliant.com

I don't often write to those whose work I love. This is a big mistake. You should always write and let them know. Always, always. I've only done it on three occasions - once to Dorothy Allison ( author of Bastard Out of Carolina), Davy Jones (from The Monkees - I had a crush and thought our shortness made us perfect for each other. Never mind that I was 8 and he was in his 40's), and today to Mr. Brilliant.

One of the reasons I wrote today is because 5 weeks ago, a car hit Mr. Brilliant. He's now in the hospital and going through a hard time, as many of us who have had hospital stays have been through. I wrote a letter of my story and some encouragement. And then I thought I might share it with all of you. Some of you might need encouragement. Maybe not today, but maybe someday, and maybe someday soon. Save it and see if it becomes useful for you.

I also thought we all need a reminder to write to those of whom we admire, before they are gone and we miss the chance. Sure, there's a chance that on the Big Screen of Life they might see that you loved them, but why wait? Why indeed?

Enough, enough.... here's what I sent. Good luck to all of you, too.

Cass

Dear Mr. Brilliant,

I don't know if this will ever reach you. I've been a fan of your work for years by accident. I dated a boy who gave me one of your books, and because I was careless of him, I was equally careless of his gifts. Years later while packing to move to New York, I found your book and read it, and even still have it, though probably in yet another moving box.

I'm sorry for your accident. I really am. The event itself, of course, is horrible, but the after effects are sometimes even worse.

Just a few months after getting married and moving into our newly built home, I awoke one morning to what we around here now refer to as The Case of the Meat Paws. (We’ve even thought of creating our own comic book based on it. I just can’t figure out the right super powers one would get with enormously large hands. Opening jam jars?) I tried to think of what would have caused my hands to swell excessively and inexplicably. I went from doctor to doctor to find out what was going on, only to be told one thing or another, even scolded for not just believing them without questioning their findings. The swelling went away with some good steroids (we later found out this small act saved my life), but then pain started in my belly. I ended up sampling hospital food from Las Vegas to a little town near Bryce Canyon in Utah. Still nothing. Just pills.

One day when it was particularly bad, my own male form of Dorothy (this is a reference to Mr. Brilliant's wife, Dorothy), otherwise known as my husband, met me at the hospital and told the people there we weren't leaving until they figured this all out. I guess they believed him because four weeks later, as I laid out as The Case of the Curious Illness, they cut me open hoping to find a solution. Instead, they found two holes in my intestines (which they were kind enough to clean up while they were mucking about) and they removed my gall bladder because I guess they thought it was getting in the way of their Spring cleaning.

Of course, this made things worse.

My belly did not like the way they had feng shuied my insides and rejected everything. It protested in the form of a lovely and large infection - so large, in fact, it burst through my stapled little belly. The hospital staff responded by hooking me up to what they call a wound vac, which cleaned out my insides constantly and made me wish for one for my house - for the carpet, that is.

The problem, of course, was that I was limited in what I could do at this point. Not only this, no one there knew what to do next. They had prettied my insides, but they had not stopped the war inside. Though the majority of nurses were nice, there were a few who were frustrated by my situation. They wanted me to fit into a neat little package they understood. One nurse, so frustrated that I could not do what she asked, resorted to throwing a walker at/near me. My husband, in his oh-so-delicate way, explained where her services could be better used. Guam, I think he mentioned.

There were lovely, lovely nurses though. One particularly frustrating day, I was in complete tears, literally covered in blood from head to toe from all the IVs gone wrong, the injuries and cuts. This woman came in, wrapped me in a blanket, took me into the shower, got in with me - in her full uniform - and helped me to get cleaned off. She rescued my mind that day.

Anyway, after 6 weeks in one hospital, they decided they didn't have the right people to decide what was really wrong with me (I'm sure my mother would have agreed were she still alive, though I’m sure she would have had her own laundry list.) They transferred me 400 miles away to Santa Monica, CA, where I was poked and prodded every single day. MRIs, CT Scans (so many they were afraid they would cause cancer in me), a bronchoscopy (which, if it's not being done to you is actually terribly interesting), a liver biopsy (where they punch a hole in my liver to test it), a lung biopsy (where they punch a hole in my lung to get more material to test - and scare me half to death when I realized I was breathing blood into my lungs), and on and on.

One miracle day, they finally came in with an answer. They said it was Wegener's Vasculitus - a name I still struggle with spelling all this time later. It's an autoimmune disease that usually attacks your nose, mouth, and lungs. While it had a field day in my little pink lungs, it tried to confuse everyone by taking on a different playground.

It still took another 2 1/2 weeks before I could leave - mainly because I had to relearn how to walk (no one ever tells you that something as short as 7 days in bed will cause your legs to give up the memory of walking altogether.)

The return home was frightening, afraid of doing something wrong without having so many people around to watch after me. I spent months at home, weak and not being used to it; loopy from the drugs and being even less used to it.

I hated the struggle back - still do - but the other option, laying back and simply slipping away, well, I'm not really dressed for that occasion.

I'm back and work, these days. And I still struggle. Some days, even this last Monday, are worse than other days, but it's like they say - every day above ground is still pretty friggin' good.

Good luck with all this. It gets better. It might get worse for awhile, but it does get better. And I know I would hate the world without a you in it.

Your admirer,

Cass Van Gelder

Vomit Day - A New National Holiday

You know, I'm a good sport, generally, but man...

My life is not normal anymore, I get that. Off and on, I get pains that run up and down my spine like I'm being shocked with electricity (or maybe that's from being forced to listen to Justin Bieber's latest single over and over. Yeah, okay, so I'm not going to make the mistake of picking up my 10-year-old's iPod again). And because of my many, many medicines, pizza now tastes like wet paper towels and the Kmart women's bathroom floor (which, considering what some of the casinos' pizza places offer up, it could actually be wet paper towels). No, no, it couldn't end there. No, I got a cherry on the cake of my day when for seemingly no reason I started villainously spewing sickness everywhere, and I do mean everywhere.

Here's the kicker, it had absolutely nothing to do with my illness, my many medicines, or anything related to it.

No, no... the reprobate in this case? A smug vending machine at my office.

I've never been a big fan of vending machines, mind you, but dude, when I'm working late, I'm not bundling myself up in scarves, coats, gloves, and a jaunty little hat just to go grab some heat-'em-up burrito from the nearest AM/PM - which "nearest" in my case is still an unpleasant hike - and especially not in this uncharacteristic Las Vegas weather. (We get all the bad indicators of impending snow, but none of the delightful actual product. I get to spend 15 minutes in the morning shaving ice off my car windows with an over-the-limit credit card [do you think they'll give me a percentage off my monthly bill because their flaky card wouldn't hold up?] only to get a fever from exposure and a clear blue sky.)

Back to the vending machine.

I'm no fan of this particular vending machine because the dudes filling it are trying to get it taken away - I really believe this. Not only do they stock it with crap food, but it's crap food that's near its expiration date. Proof in point, I go down one morning to buy milk for my coffee, which I shouldn't be doing anyway because with all these new meds, I've gone from simply getting "the vapors" from drinking a glass of milk to being able to rehearse full orchestral pieces from my arse just from a nip of a Cheez-it. Be that as it may, I went down to grab me a carton and I find all but one container of the white stuff marked with expiration dates that are just two days down the road - both days of which are on the weekend.

Now let's all do that math in our heads quickly, shall we?

Two days....carry the one...take an undisturbed Friday... that's right, every single carton was due to expire while we were away for the weekend.

Nice...

Anyway, the whole office has been getting emails recently, telling us of the great demise of this vending machine. The chick sending the emails is channelling Sally Struthers with a small African boy on her lap staring greedily at the mayonnaise left over on her upper lip.

Well, today, I come in and realize my hoarded stock that I keep in my overhead cabinet is sorely depleted, so what little is in my empty tummy starts scratching messages on my stomach lining for me to send down neighbors. Hungry and with guilt ringing in my ears (I'm nothing if not a properly raised Southern girl with a dash of Southern Baptist), I be-bop it down to said vending machine.

Okay, so this is the part in the movie where the girl talking on the telephone starts saying, "What do you mean 'the call is coming from inside the house'?' as she starts walking up the stairs, into the killer's lair, and the entire audience starts screaming for her to turn back.

Yep....

I didn't turn back.

Instead, I heated then ingested some depressing Dale Earnhardt, Jr. chicken sandwich which was like a sad little backwoods knockoff of a Chick-fil-a sandwich, complete with equally sad little pickle.

(Just repeating this description makes me want to repeat what occurred just an hour later)

That's right, before an hour had even passed, I was trotting back to the women's bathroom because "I wasn't feeling right". And while I was trying to release some chocolate hostages, as my ever-eloquent husband is wont to say, I inexplicably began projectile vomiting.

Seriously.

In the middle of everything and with no warning. It was like they had put up a bull's eye on the back of my stall door and I was practicing for our new Olympic team.

So, of course, after the activities finally came to a halt, I packed everything up and started for home. This was due less to the fact of the vomiting than it was to the fact that my pants' legs were now delicately decorated in the loveliness that was now a wafting, yet haunting smell of my later afternoon activities.

Yeah, I reeked.

So, I left to come home and change and try to finish some work here.

Driving home, though, I got more and more pissed the more I careened down the streets. Why, pray tell? Why? Why get mad?

Because, as aforementioned...ain't I got enough? This disease... these medicines... these side effects.. what, that's not enough?

....apparently not.


But that's the way it is with us normal people, right? Every time you think this is all you can handle, another truck pulls up and dumps cement on your brand new car.

Not that I'm signing up for that....



So, for tonight, maybe I am just a little normal. A little. Or at least I get to pretend.

So, see, there is an upside. At least, that's my story... for now.

F**ked Up Days Happen All The Time

Writing today seems nearly impossible. I don't know that I have it in me to even look at the pages. I've spent my day, buried in someone else's work, fixing it so it's readable. They appreciate my work, so it makes it easier to take in the fact that I'm tearing down and rebuilding someone else's words rather than creating my own.

I wrote an entirely different post that I gave a few moments pause to posting, but I decided against it.

It was neither funny nor inspirational. It was just sad. Deeply, deeply sad. And there's enough sadness. Just take a look at the news. Or inside Lindsay Lohan's house.

Chalk it up to a sucky, fuc*y day, and let it slide on down.

I leave it with this - I wish there were more people in my life who could look at me and believe in me, believe in what I had to say, rather than to disregard the truth and believe something that has no proof and no weight.

It broke my heart today to have no benefit, that loveliest of benefits, the one of doubt.

Benefit of doubt.

It is, isn't it? A great benefit.

Anyway, I have to get this finished or I will be stuck doing this work for the rest of my life.

THAT should be motivation enough. But it isn't. Oooh, look, the laundry's backing up again.

Twilight did what...?

(This was supposed to be posted 2 days ago... yeah, this blogging this is already a flaming success...grr...)

For the last few days, Olivia (my ten-year-old daughter) and I have been sick with the latest round of the loveliness that is The Flu. I stayed home originally to take care of her and then to take her to the doctor, but by the time we made it in, she and I were vomiting in complete synchronization. There was such clarity to it, I thought we might suggest an event to the Olympic committee, however that would have meant tearing myself out of bed, which by 4pm was impossible.

Instead, we laid in bed, sleeping while the tv played random HBO and Showtime movies throughout the day. I woke up around 4 am on one of these mornings to New Moon from the Twilight - The Emo Years series.

For those who haven't seen it, it's this very moody misty gray to-doing about very moody misty gray teenagers and a few people posing as teenagers. I watched with my eyes half-caked with sick crust and a haziness to the world around me. Funnily enough, between where my little sicky head was and what was being projected, everything felt like it melded together in this druggy melted collage. In this dreamy state, I let myself listen and experience all things that are Twilight without pooh-poohing it, as I might have done if fully awake. And as much I want to hang myself for now being forced to say so, I found the answer to one of my problems in my novel.

I have had difficulty getting the actual story line of my book written out. Partly, I've had this problem because I've forgotten what it's like to be 17. So much happened in my life since then - not to mention there's a lot that I don't want to actually remember - that I haven't been able to grasp what it was like not to have to work, to wake up and only worry about how I was going to wear my hair (and making sure I wasn't repeating myself over the last 2 weeks), to be excited about seeing that guy near my lockers, that guy that laughed the way that made me want to dance and vomit all at the same time. I just forgot the simplicity and the complexity of it all.

One of the things I also started with was an old trick of mine - writing backwards. This isn't where you go all Beautiful Mind on the world and start writing gibberish that only makes sense to farm animals and Hawking's nurse.

Basically, I start with the event where I wanted to end up, then I go backwards to the chapter before it and write that. Then the one before that and on and on. It's a trick my uncle taught me about mazes. He said, "Start at the Finish Line. Know where you want to go and then figure out how to get there by going backwards." It works every time - in mazes and in writing. I'm not kidding. Seriously, never challenge me to a maze race on a restaurant placemap - I'm that good.


Anyway, so it's a start. A good starts...

Oh, wait, I have to go. Pretty in Pink is on I have to wash my brain...and I love me some Duckie.

The Technical Writer (originally posted on 01-30-11)

Blogs...

bluh....

I've never been a big fan.

Seriously.

But, I got frustrated one night. For years, I've been calling myself a writer - and technically, I am. I am a technical writer. And I'm good at it. I've won awards. I've been hired at phenomenal rates. I've been courted by some of the most amazing places while I'm still working at an amazing place. There's art and creativity to what I do and generally, I'm given a lot of leeway.

But, the kind of writing that calls to me, is not this kind of writing. Instead, it's the same kind of writing that, even though I adore it, I generally run from it.

It's true. Stupid, but true. I have no idea why. I can sit down to 4 hours of nothing but lovely silence, a house, dripping in solitude. Construction stopped for miles around, children in school or in some playground where the Quiet Game is all the rage, and the animals even in our house are sleeping like they've pulling all-nighters at the Quad with their fraternity brothers and are sleeping one off.

Bliss.

This is what it looks like.

But no.

Suddenly, a yellow light seeps from under a door to my right. It twinkles and beacons. It wiggles its hips and gyrates like I've got a hundred bucks worth of ones in my pocket and it's gotta make rent by morning. That's right. It's my laundry.

Within second, my laundry becomes the most magical and delightful thing in the world and I must go to it instantly.

And don't kind yourselves into thinking, well, ya wench, why don't you just do the friggin' laundry and get on with your work. It doesn't work that way. No, everything - ANYTHING - is a distraction. I get this idea in my head that absolutely everything in the house must be perfect before I can sit down and allow myself to write. Clothes must be cleaned (as previously mentioned), rooms must be neat, beds must be made, walls must be painted, photos must be hung, drawers must be neatly arranged, the pantry must be labelled (and yes, I did stop typing mid-title to go tackle that very project, which ended up not only usurping my 4 hour window, but the following 3 days).

I've asked around to my other writer friends and apparently, I'm no different. We all do this on one level or another.

So, since this is not a mental disease or device that I can just wash away with two tablets of the latest drug and some water - at least that I'm aware of - I decided to start searching for ways to solve this problem. If nothing else, the search in and of itself would be yet another distraction.

One of the first things I did was to hop on the National Novel Writing Month project. I think it goes by a different name, but I'm way too lazy to look it up. (Okay, I looked it up anyway. That took at least 3 minutes, at least, the way I went about it. http://www.nanowrimo.org/. Suffice it to say, I was so competitive, I did my required 50,000 words way before the deadline, and rather than use the rest of the time to write more or to edit what I did, I just sat back and made plans about shellacking the kitchen cabinets. I didn't actually do the shellacking, I just made the plans.

Anyway, since I did actually get product from the process, I thought, you know there's something twisted about this but it might just work if I started framing my writing around self-imposed deadlines. Now, I don't know if competing against myself is going to work, but we'll find out.

Still, I'm not convinced. I mean, it did take me another 2 months to finally do this (though I had been planning with my friend, Val, to create a professional website for my writing career for the past year - yes, year - and still hadn't gotten further than 1 meeting into the project. [completely not his fault]).

So... now I start this.

Here are the parameters:

I've given myself until the end of 2011 to take my original 50,000+ words and all the scribblings I've done and put them all together and create a viable, solid first draft to send to my agent - the lovely and patient, Amy Rennert; who may actually not even remember my name by this point, considering the roller coaster I've taken her on.

If you want to know why I've given myself so long, I'll start all this by being completely honest.

I have two rare diseases (likely I will talk about them at various points, and by talk, I mean I will whine about them. I'll try not to, but it's hard sometimes. I'll try to edit my whining to a bare minimum, unless it adds to the story.).

I have Wegener's Vasculitus and some rheumatoid arthritis variation that interferes with, you guessed it, my writing.

I have to be realistic. There are going to be days when I won't be physically able to write. But I want to succeed and not make me want to crack my own head open with a iron pan, so I have to be reasonable.

So... journey along with me if you like.

I'm happy to read comments, especially those that are encouraging and even more so, those with questions. If you think I'm lame, please, don't write that. I'm already well aware of that and listen to that internal radio station every day of my life. I think Anne Lammott calls it KFKD, I don't need it in stereo, If it's constructive, I take that back. Ah, crap, I take that back, too. Write what you like. Maybe it'll get you started.

So... here we go. Wanna?