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convos with strangers

conversations with strangers #26

abby mumford

i’m talking to strangers… here’s the run down of why.

an early morning meeting shuffled me out the door earlier than normal but with enough time to heed the siren song of starbucks. (yes, even though i only drink decaf…)

me: can i have an iced decaf americano?

employee #1: size?

me: oh, tall, please.

i paid at the next available register and ambled over to wait by the drink counter.

employee #2: *plops drink onto the counter* iced tall americano.

me: *notes lack of decaf, hesitates in grabbing drink thinking it might not be mine*

employee #2: *studies my pause* *looks at cup* decaf. that’s a decaf iced tall americano.

me: *processes her skepticism regarding the decaf comment* *reaches for cup* thanks.

employee #2: *pulls cup back* actually, i’m not so sure about that decaf. i wish this *points to machine* had a memory recall button so it could tell me what i just made. *dumps out first americano* *prepares replacement* okay, this one is definitely decaf.

me: thank you so much. i really appreciate it.

employee #2: have a good day.

me: you as well.

for once, it appeared i wasn’t the one in dire need of caffeine.

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feelings

i’m multicultural

abby mumford

my blonde hair and blue/green eyes may fool you, but don’t let them. i’m really very multicultural. i speak pig latin. i eat pasta. i dance the jig. i drink sangria. i put my left shoe on first.

okay, so truthfully, my multicultural roots take the form of a bulgarian tradition mingled into the soil of friendship. (you know what i mean! the nice soil. the enriching kind.) ahem, so, this is the third year i’ve had a martenitza tied on my wrist to celebrate the beginning of spring. (year one is documented here and year two, here.) this one started off yesterday when adriana dashed into my office in between meetings with a handful of red and white yarn bracelets and a “hi how are you i only have two minutes take your pick and i’ll tie it on and cut it to size and yes sorry my hands are cold and doesn’t this rainy day look so much like spring so cheers and happy spring and okay bye.”

you could say this spring is off to a whirlwind start!

and it’s only going to get more whirlwindy as i prepare for one stint as professional snowboarder and another as a nanny. it’s that second job that very well may give me a view of my first stork because bubba mac (the soon to be born brother of baby mac) is due right around the time of my arrival in NJ. *dances jig of excitement*

but back to point, the details are here for those not thricely immersed in this holiday. there’s a specific day to put on the bracelet (march 1) and a specific time to cut it off (whenever you see a stork, a swallow, or a budding tree), so like the good little bulgarian i am, i’m going to keep my eyes peeled for those things.

my fingers are crossed for that stork. (you hear me, bubba mac?!?)

happy spring everyone! may you celebrate it in any fashion you desire.

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feelings

progress report

abby mumford

there are zillions of pieces of advice out there on how to write, but the most logical ones boil down to two points.

(1) put your butt in the chair and write.
(2) in order to get better at writing, you have to WRITE.

sure, reading and living a full life are also keys to becoming a better writer (and a better human), but the practicality of practicing writing is too true to ignore, as @fakeeditor (#2) so helpfully explains.

i thought i’d been doing that. i have one completed manuscript under my belt not to mention an MFA degree, and yet, i kept coming up with doubt about the state of my current (finished but unedited) WIP. i wondered why my writing wasn’t getting better. i thought taking some time away from it would help. i thought diving in and doing more research would help. i thought reading it over and over would help. i thought doing some character interviews would help.

it didn’t.

in a fit of distraction, i started to peruse my old blog postings because i couldn’t remember when i had changed from diaryland.com to wordpress.com. that switch, from casual musings to carefully thought out postings, marked the beginning of my attempts to become a writer and i was curious what that actual date was. (7.21.09 for inquiring minds.)  it took longer than i anticipated to find the beginning  and i couldn’t help but read a bunch of the posts as i scrolled my way through. after reading through some highly embarrassing and super revealing and poorly crafted posts, i realized something.

i HAVE made progress. it’s just not the progress i was expecting.

the progress i’ve made has been in the form of emails and blogs because that’s what i’ve been doing daily for years now. sure, it may have been a thing necessitated through work or a premature attempt at building a brand, but it’s been the most consistent form of writing that i’ve been practicing and THAT’S why those types of words come more easily to me.

now hold up, i’m not saying when i open an email or fresh post, the right words march out and lay down in the proper formation, but it’s much easier to twist those words into the desired shape whereas the words in my novel look a bit more like this:

so the point of this was not to direct you to my most remedial writings, but as a note to myself to lighten up in the areas of my manuscripts because i’m still new to the game and my talent still needs time to be cultivated.

now, how to work on being more patient?

how do YOU work at getting better at what you do — whether it’s a hobby, a job, or a career?

 

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book club

BOOK HUNGRY: divergent

abby mumford

who says you have to be crowded into the living room, kitchen, and/or dining room to hold a book club? we are ladies of the 21st century. we don’t need no stinkin’ couches. so pull up a blog and join in the conversation.

the members of the BOOK HUNGRY are (alphabetically): patty blount, kelly breakey, karla nellenbach, vanessa noble, alyson peterson, cynthia reese, elizabeth ryann, and myself. here’s the deal. we pick a book to read. we discuss via email. we post a review on our individual blogs on the same day (3rd thursday of the month). we link to each other. done. i know, genius. click on each one of their names (above) and it’ll take you to their review. browse. enjoy.

this month’s BOOK HUNGRY selection is: 

DIVERGENT by veronica roth

what it’s about from amazon: In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s kept hidden from everyone because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

my opinion: in a world (today, now, the present, america) where dystopian novels are abundant, this one rises to the top. well, not above THE HUNGER GAMES or THE GRACELING, but near them. the concept of this story is fascinating, but then again, that’s one of the things i like most about dyptopian novels — seeing how the author has broken down the US and built it back up again — but what i like most is roth’s execution of the concept.

the US she presents is stark and rigid and unforgiving, but the reasons for it to have evolved that way aren’t unbelievable. sure, this society is a bit creepy and a lot unrelenting, but the five different factions make sense. those are all positive qualities to find in a person, but the disturbing part comes in that each faction has to solely commit to the pursuit of one quality (bravery, intelligence, kindness, truthfulness, selflessness) and that’s at the root of the unrest. when a large quantity of people are pigeonholed into acting a certain way at the expense of creativity and individualism, tensions will rise and battles will be fought.

another strong feature is the romance. it’s one of the most natural, realistic, and well paced relationships in YA. the way tris and four interact is charming and awesome and very much on point. their interactions are gritty and honest and lovely and confusing, as they often are when you’re a teen, heck, when you’re an adult too.

a novel of this sort is usually very plot centric, and don’t get me wrong, this is too, but it’s also surprisingly character driven. tris and four are so dynamic and richly detailed and i think it’s a big reason why this book is so successful. it doesn’t rely on the action to move it forward, but rather the characters. that’s an impressive feat for a dystopian novel.

the only weakness (for me) in this book is the ending. it feels too rushed. the pacing of the training (aka, the rest of the book) is perfect, but then the end happens andbigmomentafterbigmomentafterbigmomentplusmoreaction and whew, too much happens in way too short of a time. i’m not usually a fan of major cliffhanger endings, but somehow, i think this book would have benefited from one. (and after a discussion with sister E, we decided DIVERGENT would have been stronger if it ended earlier, though the rest of the book hungry gals loved the book as is.)

but overall, this is a dynamo of a book and YOU should read it.

and next month, we’re picking up kelly’s choice of PARADISE by judith mcnaught.

 

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