On truth in fiction

Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst, Mass.

Over at Beth Kephart Books, the Dangerous Neighbors author posed the question "Truth or Fiction: Does It Matter When The Lines Get Blurred?"

For me, this is a particularly interesting question to consider, as my "fiction" is generally infused with a lot of "truth." Particularly seeing as I'm working on a new novel -- finally! -- which is the product of my experiences, those of friends, and fiction. A compost project, really. It took me a year and half since writing my last novel to come up with an idea I felt confident in.

And while Chris has said to me that he's a better fiction writer because he's much more imaginative -- which is true; he can come with anything -- I don't think that being as strongly inspired by real life makes me a bad writer. The fact of the matter is, like Kephart wrote, "The only interesting life, on the page, is the shaped life, the contemplated one, the one sifted for meaning and insight."

To be able to combine real life experiences with fictional elements in a way that gives them shape makes me, I think, at least a good fiction writer. I hope that I'm great, but I'll leave that up to the public to decide.

The hunter and the hunted

Reading Susan Cheever's Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography, I came upon this quote:

"If marriage is a woman's goal, her primary job is to make herself attractive to men. A look at clothes and advice we give young girls makes it clear that attracting a man who will be a provider is still one of the major jobs a young woman has in our culture. We give them Barbie dolls and makeup. We tell them to be calm and quiet and to remember that men are predatory hunters so that successful women must pretend to be tantalizing, elusive prey."

This is all quite true, unfortunately. My question, however, is how much of this, the seemingly unidirectional aim of young women toward marriage (or just a relationship) is a natural inclination? Is it a lingering survival instinct? And is there anything wrong with a young woman wanting simply to get married and have babies?

I'm not talking about myself, but I've heard a few girls say that her goal was to set up her life for a husband and children. My gut reaction is Oh my goodness, what's wrong with her? Although I do look forward to that part of my life, I also really want to achieve things like getting a book published and getting articles accepted at national women's magazines. Some of the girls I've known who have said such things about their life goals seem to have very few other passions.

True love is easy

I arrived home today after spending two days snowed in with Chris, and remembered that although my Harper's Bazaar had arrived a week or two ago, I hadn't found time to read it. Sitting down to catch up on "Cougar Town" and "Castle," I flipped through the national glossy magazine, which in the recent past has seemingly only published articles about topics other than fashion if they're book excerpts.

In the February 2011 issue of HB, there is a one-page article by Alex Kuczynkski, who normally covers beauty topics and wrote a book called Beauty Junkies, about the secret to a happy marriage. That secret? Ease.

She argues that one should not have to "work" at marriage; that the love should be easy and continue to grow, not diminish. "But the notion that we ought to choose to remain in love doesn't wash with me anymore," Kuczynkski writes. "Love is a commitment, but the idea of choosing to work at your marriage sounds like a drag."

I may not be married, but I definitely agree. Love should not be hard. And drama does not a happier or more meaningful coupling make.

On mating and our expectations of the opposite sex

After I met my (new) Prince Charming on OKCupid.com, my father, who has been single since he and my mother separated, decided to create an OKC profile. Since the time he signed up, he's logged many an hour winking at attractive women within an appropriate age range, and many of these leads have led to nothing.

Maybe a week ago, Dad winked at a woman and complimented her full, wavy hair. She responded and said she thought they weren't compatible physically, which she amended by saying they were interested in different body types, and then said that my father's plans for the future didn't match hers.

Similar communiques from other women have had Dad asking me why women are responding in this way to him. I've shared with him my theory, and I think I'm truly on to something. My theory is that a good portion of middle-aged women don't take online dating, and perhaps even dating in general, seriously. By middle age, it's possible that these women have built lives that make them happy and they've only got room for a man if he's "perfect."

I wrote "On women, superficiality and the new Prince Charming," on December 17th after reading a conversation on Facebook between two guys about how superficial women are. My original thesis was that women aren't too superficial and that even if we are, it's not necessarily the fault of women that we have unrealistic expectations.

With a little elbow grease

Becoming the person you want to be with the things you want to have. Could it really be as easy as making clear what you want in life? I'll tell you what. I really believe it is as easy as admitting what you want and then doing some work to achieve it.

I wanted, since I was a senior, to intern at two.one.five magazine. I repeatedly applied and finally got it. After writing multiple times about what I wanted in a lover, I found one who is at least most of those things. When I was a junior or senior in high school, I pasted pictures on my agenda book of items that I wanted to own and the above Prada purse was one of them. Now, I finally worked to have enough money to buy myself one. I also decided I wanted my very own e-reader and mentioned it to Dad. He bought me a Kindle for Christmas.

With a little bit of elbow grease -- or the occasional green ink -- I tend to get what I want.

While I may not be able to fix my broken family, which is the one thing I can say without a doubt I never pictured for myself at 19, I can build the life I want, and get the things I want. While I realize that there shouldn't be much emphasis placed on material goods, it's fun to amass such pretty, fun objects.

I'm feeling pretty blessed, and it's not often that I've said that.

On women, superficiality and the new Prince Charming

A friend posted this question on Facebook: "Is it OK for a guy to be sensitive and caring for other people, or does that make him look like a sissy and a punk?" I was not the only one who responded to the question asked, but the dialogue quickly turned from the idea of the sensitive man to a derision of women as wholly superficial.

While I've always had a Twisted Sisterhood-type relationship with women, I don't think we're all that superficial and even if we are, it's not entirely our fault. When it comes to each other, yes, we're superficial, and, sure, we're a teensy bit superficial when it comes to guys, but I don't think it's because we're mean. We certainly don't realize that our "superficial" expectations or needs of men won't and can't be met; these preferences are bred in us from the time we are infants. Cinderella marries the handsome and perfect prince, so we're convinced from a young age that we must and will find our own Prince Charming.

It's a plight we're not exactly the creator of. The images we have of the perfect man to be with come from the media, and as much as it disgusts me, the media is largely controlled by men like Rupert Murdoch who have their own biases and, on some level, will do just about anything to sell their product. It began, I believe, when someone recognized that giving women a book or movie where the female protagonist ends up living the perfect life with the perfect man on her arm would sell a lot of those books or movies. Women are still, despite being 90 years removed from the struggle for suffrage, fighting tooth-and-nail for everything they want and it's in our nature to want everything, and as this is the case, the movies that show a successful career woman ending up with a good, kind, sensitive but strong man automatically appeal to women. The problem lies in the fact that we're now so overloaded with these images and presentations that it's hard to separate fact (that all men are imperfectly perfect and even if a guy knows what to say and when, he's probably a player) from fiction (Prince Charming).

Alas, after things like the TV show Sex and the City, which so many men defame, at least some of us have come (or are coming) to the realization that men are not perfect but that one who loves you and supports you, even if he is so strong-willed that he won't tell you when something's bothering him, is the new Prince Charming. Sure, he may sit butt-naked on your white couch or leave his used teabags all over the house, but if he makes you feel happy, even for ten seconds, every day, then you've got a winner. This, my dear readers, I am happy to say I have found.

A small victory

In a fit of ambition this weekend, I submitted various short stories of mine 36 times (I submitted multiple stories to certain outlets). Since then, I've received four rejections and one acceptance. The email from Fresh! Literary Magazine announcing they'd published my short story "Urgent Care" on their website was my first acceptance from a literary magazine. I felt like a balloon set to burst when I got that email on my beautiful little BlackBerry. Not only was it published online, but it will be considered for publication in their February anthology.

This reward for all of my years of laboring over my fiction (and my intensified efforts over the past few weeks) has not indicated to me that I've made. Surely, I'm not that naive, but how refreshing it is to have an objective third party confirming my greatest hopes and granting my dearest wishes.

It's like winning a huge battle in a war you thought you had already lost.

To stop beaming is hard. I love writing; it's the one thing I've always been good at and the one thing I've always wanted to do. If I want to continue getting my fiction published, I'd better get back to writing it.

If you read the story and want to share your thoughts, feel free to email me!

xoxo,
R.E.L.
rosellaeleanor@gmail.com

(pic from weheartit)

The problematic point of view

Lately, and especially when it comes to this blog, my baby, I've been worried that my writing is hitting too close to home. I do not wish to make people look bad, as a lot of my writing is simply meant to be therapeutic, a tool to help me work through my world and to put things in perspective. My views on things are not necessarily the truth -- it's just a point of view and I know that. Still, I have occasionally gotten myself in trouble with friends and loved ones for the things I write. Now that I'm reading Susan Shapiro's Only as Good as Your Word, I feel a bit better.

Shapiro writes, "When students express fear that their family will disown them if they divulge too much, I tell them to just make sure they become successful, since most people are starfuckers and vanity often overrides privacy."

Since I will stop at nothing until I am a published author with plenty of assignments rolling in (and this is already kind of happening, thanks to The Juniata News, The Temple News, and StudentCoupons.com, for which I'm doing a little editing), I'm pretty confident that any anger or resentment will be short lived.

(Image courtesy of weheartit)

Shout out

Quick note. I interviewed author Beth Kephart for two.one.five a few weeks ago and today, I got a shout out on her blog. Check it out here. Pretty cool.

God rides the 3?

Every day I go to Temple, I ride SEPTA's bus route 3. And nearly every single time I'm on that bus that goes from the Frankford Transportation Center toward Strawberry Mansion, someone is preaching about God. Typically, it's an old black woman talking to another old black woman or maybe a young person who she thinks is especially deserving of her sermons.

The thing is, I really struggle to believe in God. At least in the way that these women view him, as someone you devote your life to. I live according to different beliefs. The overarching belief I live by is that I can do anything I want to. The power, I like to think, is in my hands.

And even if there is a God, I imagine that the optimal relationship with him is more like the relationship between an employee and their employer. The more you put into your 401K, the more the company will have to match.

I think this is exactly how one should think of God's gifts to him or her; God will only match the effort you put into your life. If you do nothing to lead a good life, to achieve the goals you have, then God will not help.

More than this, I believe that the Christian notion of God as this all-mighty being that you must serve all of your life is a farce. What a selfish God he or she would have to be to expect every single human to live their life in service of him. I do believe in being a good person, in being righteous and accepting and forgiving. I just don't believe in serving a master. Honestly, when you think about it, Christianity is a system of slavery to a master that hardly anyone has ever interacted with. And after all the lectures and classes I've taken on the enslavement of Africans in America, I just can't subscribe to such a belief system.

So, old ladies on the 3, the next time you want to lecture about God, I will whip out this sermon of mine.

(The above picture was taken by Lauren Townsend, in the Woodland Cemetery in West Philadelphia.)