It should be a pick-up line at a bar, yet it somehow is not a pick-up line at any bar that I know of except maybe in a New Yorker cartoon or a bar in a town where there’s one of those MFA programs in writing literature for literary people doing literary things.
Anyway, it’s a term writers throw around all the time and it is basically just how we imagine our characters’ lives went before they are in the actual story that we’re writing.
I know! How can you imagine that your character had a life before your story? It’s like imagining your spouse had a life before you that wasn’t totally centered around you. Us narcissists have a hard time with that.
Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space, I’ve never met anybody who wasn’t important…
According to a post on Now Novel there are three uses of back story.
Developing the understanding of the characters. Like if your dad died of a heart attack in front of you and you couldn’t save him, then your character might have a savior complex. It helps the reader understand your characters’ motivations.
It can heighten the stakes and the suspense. You were once addicted to dating cops. Cops were always bad for you. Will you date this one? NO! YOU MUST NOT.
It makes it real damn it. By the time, you make it into a book, you’re not going to be a blank slate, born out of Zeus’ head or a clamshell fully formed on page 1. We all have prologues.
Standout asks how much back story does a story need and answers its own question pretty simply:
If judged solely on complexity, the answer to ‘how much back story should I include?’ would be ‘enough to pay for the reader’s efforts,’ however you also need to consider immersion.
Standout
Ah. Okay?
Here is our advice:
Don’t be fake. Don’t be pretend. We all know people who show up at a party, engage in small talk about absolutely nothing other than the weather, the traffic, where they work. There is no underlayment. It’s like they are a rug thrown on the floor, but if you touch that rug it will just slip away because there’s nothing holding it there.
Do not let your characters be rugs.
Ground those suckers with nails and staples if you have to. ModPodge them to the floor, give them a life before you.
Don’t tell us everything about them. We do not know that they prefer Aquafina to Poland Spring water or that they had an ingrown toenail when they were twenty-four any more than you want to know about the guy at the party’s hemorrhoid treatment unless it’s really good. Be sparing.
The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.
Stephen King
Writing Tip of the Pod
Find the balance in your backstory and your life.
Dog Tip for Life
Run through adversity. Don’t give up.
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Every writer hears that rejection is part of the process. You learn that you are supposed to roll with it, put them on the wall like Stephen King, collect them as badges of honor, signs that you’re getting your work out there.
But sometimes they just suck.
Who knows why, but one of those rejections will feel like an absolute indictment on you, your abilities, your soul.
That happened to me this summer.
The rejection was for something stupid, an app that runs stories like SnapChat. The rejection wasn’t even for a book, but when I read through the editor’s quick and kind-ish words, it broke me.
“Carrie has potential, but …”
There’s always a but, isn’t there? My 1,000-word horror story written in text form didn’t lay it out enough for the reader. This kind of writing wasn’t meant to have space to think. It was supposed to be all right there, one brief line after another. I can’t do that. I want people to have space and moments, to make their own inferences between the lines. Even when I write horror, I want it to be poem.
“Carrie has potential, but …”
But I didn’t achieve it? But my story didn’t have potential? But the world doesn’t need quick simple stories with gaps and holes and white space to explore?
I sat and cried. The dogs watched.
I sent out a text that said, “I’m depressed.”
“Gotta be happy,” came the text that came back.
That didn’t help. Maybe my text had potential but didn’t explain the horrible hole that was stuck right in the middle of my chest where my heart was supposed to be.
“Carrie has potential, but …”
But I didn’t reach it?
But I don’t write right?
But I don’t fit with this app place?
But I don’t fit anywhere?
“Carrie has potential, but …”
But I don’t.
“I need a different job,” I text.
And, yes, I texted that the same week that my last book debuted. And, yes, I texted that even though I’ve actually been successful at writing by ‘industry standards,’ whatever that means.
I spend a lot of time wondering how I will continue to survive financially. I’m not a writer who has a wealthy significant other who supports her. I came from a long line of poor and I’m probably heading back there unless I can figure out how to reach my damn potential. And I spend a lot of time helping and hoping that other people reach theirs.
But it’s not enough.
There’s always a ‘but,’ isn’t there?
Carrie has potential, but she doesn’t reach it.
Actually, I do. I do reach it. I reach it on a million things, but maybe not for that project that time, maybe not for that genre.
Grab your potential, everyone. Move past the moments of rejection, feel them, but try not to let them crush your soul.
I know a lot of writers act like they are all joy-joy and bliss-bliss all the time. I know other writers act like writing is not as fun as snacking, or like it’s wresting demons from their souls. Some act like all they do is get rejected. Some act like all they do is be loved.
It’s both. It’s always a bunch of emotions and reactions swirling around.
On our podcast (Dogs are Smarter than People) this week (tomorrow’s), we talk about a lot of things, but we also talk about running and how it sucks so much sometimes and things hurt and how we try to run through them and not give up.
That’s what writing and life is about, too. It’s about not giving up, going after your goals, going after your story. It is so freaking hard sometimes, but it’s worth it.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
As you heard in our random thought, this week we went to see some early 1990s bands in concert. They were – well, they were old. The concert hall wasn’t even half full.
That sounds depressing, right?
It wasn’t. One of the lead singers has had cancer three times. His wife has had it once. They were both on the stage giving it everything they had.
And the lead singer?
He was smiling the entire damn time.
The Alarm at Portland’s Aura
Here’s the thing. In life and in story, we have to face crap, deal with it, and sometimes we are lucky enough to survive. And sometimes we are lucky enough to choose to survive joyously.
A story is no good if there’s no conflict, no obstacles to overcome. It’s hard to root for the characters or care for the characters if nothing happens. You don’t want to turn the page.
Obstacles make us stronger.
Overcoming obstacles gives us courage.
Courage and strength gives us freedom.
It’s not enough in our lives or in our stories to be incensed, to shake our fists at the sky, to rage about circumstance, we have to do the next step – action.
Without the action, we are just shouting for no reason, inciting without purpose.
Don’t be afraid to go to that next step in your life or in your story and if you can? Do it with joy and with kindness.
In the random thought, we talk about trust (Should you? How we establish it) and connections and how people kept introducing themselves to Carrie whenever Shaun left during the concert.
Obstacles make the story worth it. Actions keep the story moving. We want to root for someone. Make someone for us to root for.
Dog Tip for Life
Joy. Embrace it. Wag your tail for everyone to see. Don’t be ashamed of it.
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.
The awesome Megan Crew once posted about this imaginary world she created with her friend in fifth grade. It involved unicorns and stuff. It made me wonder how many of us do this?
Confession Time
When my best friend Jackie and I were in seventh and eighth and (a-hem) ninth grades, we created two entirely imaginary worlds and the very complicated love stories that went with them. We would expand on these on the telephone every night and I’d be all, “And then Bruce looked at you in that way.”
And she’d go, “What way?”
And I’d say, “You know that way.”
The Bruce she was talking about was him:
I, however, liked this guy:
How embarrassing is that? I mean, seriously, I liked a guy with striped pants and a cucumber on his lapel. Actually, Jackie and I were so embarrassed by our secret addiction to IL and PZ (we added to the story EVERY single day) that we swore we would never EVER tell anyone we did this.
Yep. I told. She did too though, really!
Did you do this? Do you do it now? Did you create entire imaginary worlds with your friends?
Is this a writer thing or a people thing, do you think?
Did yours involve going through metal detectors at Logan Airport at the EXACT same time as Bruce Springsteen and Peter Davidson (the man up there) and therefore being zapped into a parallel universe where they totally loved you and thought you were hot?
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Don’t wait to start. Don’t expect lightening to strike or a muse to come down from the heavens.
Just write. Call it practice if ‘writing a novel’ seems too big a task. Trick your mind into being chill about it. If you want to do something, you have to do it. Don’t wait for permission. Just do it.
As long as it’s legal and doesn’t hurt other people. Obviously that sentence up there about not waiting for permission doesn’t apply to all things.
But it does freaking apply to art and writing and joy and fun.
Again, as long as your fun doesn’t hurt other creatures.
Back to the point. We wait all our lives for inspiration, for a prince or warrior-queen to come sweep us off our feet, for the muse to bless us with the perfect novel or poem or family or painting or child. But we have to put in the work. We have to be brave and actively go after what it is we want.
We might write a ton of sucky sentences. We might forget how to use a comma. We might fail and get rejected a million times.
That’s what makes the quest good though. That’s what makes the goal worth it.
So if you want to write a novel? Write it. Just get started.
If you don’t want to write a novel? Don’t.
Study craft. Push yourself. Think about who your story is about and how they relate to the world. Just write down the words you hear in your brain, the visions you see. Start it.
You’ve got this.
Writing Tip of the Pod:
Everything up there, man.
Dog Tip for Life
Dude. Hang out in the truck.
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Sometimes us writer people feel broken. We maybe got rejected one too many times. We maybe got a horrifying review. We maybe are stuck on Chapter 7560 in our epic fantasy WHEN THE BUNNY OF DOOM FELL IN LOVE WITH THE HAMSTER OF GLORIOUS GLORY.
This is normal. Creative people have a lot of big feelings. People who aren’t super creative also have a lot of big feelings. People feel. All of us. And sometimes? Well, sometimes those feelings aren’t always positive. So what do you do?
DO NOT MAKE YOURSELF HURRY. Remember that feeling better can take a little while. So, can writing or revising a book.
FORGIVE YOURSELF THE WAY YOU’D FORGIVE YOUR DOG. Give your soul a hug. Seriously. But it’s okay to be kind to yourself the way you’d be kind to a friend. Don’t make yourself suffer forever for a mistake you’ve made.
REMEMBER EVERYTHING CHANGES. It might be pouring outside. You might not know how to finish your chapter. You might have forgotten to buy dog treats. But all of that can change. It will change.
LOVE IS THERE WHETHER YOU WRITE THAT DAMN BOOK OR NOT. Seriously. Your worth isn’t about your productivity. You are wonderful and beautiful and amazing and smart. And you have to believe that you deserve good things. You do. Being a writer isn’t the only thing you are.
DO OTHER THINGS. Seriously. Do not only write. Go out and live your own life, too. It makes for better stories.
GIVE UP. Yep. You heard me. Look, you can’t control reviews, outside marketing, subjective tastes about people who don’t want to read books about a hamster falling in love with Mike Pence’s rabbit. You have to let go of that, give up trying to control everything. You can only control you and your reactions and thoughts.
Dog Tip for Life
Dude. Just be.
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Here’s the awful truth: Your white briefs are no longer making you sexalicious.
TOP REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD TOSS THOSE WHITEY-TIGHTIES
1. They are no longer white. Do I have to explain the dingy factor? Once-white underwear is always gross.
2. They are drooping more than my gravity heavied earlobes, which is really saying something, because I wore a lot of heavy earrings in the early 1990s.
3. There are gaps where there shouldn’t be gaps!!!!!
4. The elastic is barely holding on and we all really, really, really need the elastic to hold on. Remember there are children at the beach or driving by. They can be scarred. Do you want to be responsible for that? No. No you do not.
5. Wearing a t-shirt with just your white briefs DOES NOT HELP!!! I repeat. This does not help your sexalicious ranking AT ALL. It makes you look like a toddler running around in a diaper and his mommy has put on a t-shirt to make sure he doesn’t get sunburned. If you are going for a sexy look, making women and men think of diapers, mommies, or spit-up DOES NOT HELP!!!
I mean, there are some people who are into that, but in general? Just no.
6. Wearing a cape doesn’t help either:
Thank you, Mr. Pilkey for the cartoon evidence.
Now, Men. I’m begging you.
Please, go reassess your underwear situation right now. You need some new ones. Remember your waist measurement when you were 12 is PROBABLY not your waist measurement today. That’s okay. You’re all grown up. That’s why we love you. Just not your underwear.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Seriously. Some writers get tattoos, a piece of jewelry, a new charm for a charm bracelet. Some hold book release parties. Some go out to dinner.
As you’ll hear, Carrie did none of those things. Instead, she ran, made a whiny video from the campground shower stall, had a Taco Bell incident, bought Shaun a new outfit, tried to raise money for ShelterBox and finally got a copy of her own book.
Plus, rainbow-unicorn golf carts.
The point here is that you have to create your own life and your own celebrations. Do what feels right to you when you achieve a freaking amazing goal like releasing a book, graduating, sobriety, whatever it is that makes you realize you achieved something.
Writer Tip of the Pod
Try to make it memorable for you. You did something pretty darn cool. You created something.
Dog Tip for Life
Don’t forget to be happy. It isn’t all about stress and anxiety all the time. Let go. Wag your tail.
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
I was thinking lately about books that turned people into readers.
My father-in-law brought back the first Harry Potter from Scotland before it became the big smashing American success.
My daughter, Em, had just turned four.
She insisted that we had to read it to her straight, all day, for two days.
She didn’t care about the adverbs that drove her Honors English teacher grandpa crazy. She didn’t care about giant purple dinosaurs on television. She didn’t care about eating. She only cared about Harry.
The next month she decided to read it again herself. It was pretty amazing watching this tiny little girl reading her first big girl book. It was so heavy in her hands.
Em has always been a reader, a great reader, but I think her joy over that Harry Potter book that came all the way from Scotland is what has probably made her a reader for life. I’ll always be grateful to JK Rowling and Harry and my English-teacher father-in-law for that.
For me that book was either the Wrinkle in Time or The Hobbit or Where the Red Fern Grows.
How about you? Was there one book that made you a reader? As a writer, the best moments in my whole damn career are the moments where people write me and say, “I never read a whole book until I read NEED” or “I never wanted to read a whole book until I read NEED.”
I want all my writer friends to have those moments, too. There is nothing better.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
My book comes out tomorrow. It’s the last book I have under contract and I’m never sure if I’ll sell another one.
That’s a hard truth for me. But I’ve had a pretty amazing run and hopefully it will continue.
Last night I had all these anxiety dreams about picking the wrong test option at school and not being able to find the page that I’m supposed to be on.
It reminded me of this post that I had a couple of years ago about growing up poor, expectations, and helping others.
I grew up poor.
There’s no getting around that.
My mom tried really hard to pretend we weren’t poor. She tried to hide it from everyone, including my much older brother and sister who grew up 15 years earlier than me in a much nicer working class reality. But when I came around we were poor.
My nana stood in food lines to get us commodity cheese because my mom wouldn’t do it herself because she was too ashamed. Credit card companies and collection agencies would call constantly. I was taught early on to lie on the phone when I answered it and say my mom wasn’t home if it wasn’t my sister or one of my aunts calling.
We didn’t have things our neighbors had
We had a type writer, not a word processor, not a computer. Every time I had to get clothes, I’d feel full of guilt. It didn’t help when one of my older siblings taunted me for my quirky style. Goodwill sometimes makes you have a quirky style.
In a New York Times article, David Brooks wrote of class structure and how the upper middle class is consciously and subconsciously prevents others from upward economic mobility, writing,
“Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named “Padrino” and “Pomodoro” and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican.
American upper-middle-class culture (where the opportunities are) is now laced with cultural signifiers that are completely illegible unless you happen to have grown up in this class. They play on the normal human fear of humiliation and exclusion. Their chief message is, “You are not welcome here.”
David Brooks
There are class barriers that aren’t just about goods you own and how you show them off, but also certain ways of doing things.
Have you ever had the chance to learn to play golf? Do you listen to NPR? The right podcasts? Which food truck do you frequent? Do you have the middle-class prescribed ‘right attitude’ about things?
Who I am
As a child, we would go to my wealthy uncle and aunt’s house for gatherings with their friends. Their friends were senators and doctors, people who worked for the World Health Organization, people who helped create the measles vaccine, documentary filmmakers who headed AIDS awareness efforts. I remember looking at their fancy clothes and listening to them and being both inspired and terrified. They placed napkins in their laps. They kissed people on both cheeks. They made eye contact when they talked, and they used different forks for different parts of their dinner.
They were all kind to me. That wasn’t it. But I knew that I didn’t know how to play by their rules.
Learning the rules
I went to a window seat that looked out on Lake Winnipesaukee. There was a bookshelf at the end of the seat and in that bookshelf was an etiquette book full of how to eat at the table, what manners were, how to write ‘thank you cards,’ exchange greetings, and so on.
It was a beautiful summer day. All the other kids were swimming and playing tag. I was reading and memorizing and trying to learn how to be like the others.
Eventually my Aunt Maxine noticed that I was sitting there, reading.
“Carrie. What are you doing? Go out and play, Carrie,” she said. She liked to use people’s names a lot. She also was sort of bossy in a nice way.
I was afraid of bossy, but I also loved my aunt so I said as bravely as possible, “I’m reading.”
“Don’t you want to go swim with the other children? They’re all outside getting sun, having fun.”
They were. They were splashing around in the water, doing cannonballs off the dock, or perfect dives. They had perfect bathing suits from L.L. Bean and every single one of them seemed to know how to play tennis and were learning golf.
She took the book from me and read the title. After a second, she sat down on the bench next to me. “What are you reading this for, Carrie?”
And I said, “Because I want to be better.”
“Be better! That’s ridiculous. You’re wonderful as who you are.”
“I want… I want to fit in.” I looked her right in the eyes and she got it. I knew she got it. She understood all the things that I couldn’t figure out how to say.
She handed me back the book. “I will make a deal with you. You read this for another half hour and I’ll set the kitchen timer. When it goes off, you go play with the other children and get some exercise.”
Nodding, I thought this was okay. “But I might not finish the book.”
“You can finish it after dinner and games.” She pet me on the top of the head. “I’ll bring you the timer.”
I was five.
That book changed my life and so did my aunt and uncle.
They realized that there was a social code and a way of being that wasn’t easily accessible for me no matter how hard my mom tried. I was a poor kid in a wealthy town. I was a latchkey kid who was awkward and driven and terrified of failure. Paying for acting lessons, to play on the soccer team, to play piano were huge stretches for us. Sometimes they happened. Sometimes they didn’t.
My aunt and uncle understood my situation and my want because my uncle was the same way. He was the oldest son of a single mom. He pushed himself hard to succeed, to learn the social code of success and wealth. He went to UNH because it was the only place he could afford and he was valedictorian there, desegregating the fraternity system while he was class president. He eventually went to Harvard Law, married Maxine who had so much intellectual stock and prowess, it was just ridiculous. He ended up being the head of an international law association, head of a law firm, chairman of the board of trustees at UNH and so many other things.
Cracking the code With books
My little five-year-old self was trying to do the same things as he did. Somehow. I took the first and only step I could think of taking – reading that book, trying to crack the social codes of behavior that made his friends and him so different from my mom and me.
I was in college when Uncle Dick was dying.
We had all gathered for one last Thanksgiving. There were tons of people there, the same kind of brilliant, world-changing people that were there when I was five and when I was ten and when I was 15. My mother and my nana were barely able to sit still because they were so overwhelmed with Dick’s impending death. They’d have to leave the room every time someone mentioned his name.
During dinner, Maxine called them into his bedroom with her. They stayed for about two minutes and left sobbing.
“He’s too tired,” Maxine said at the threshold of the hallway that led to those bedrooms. “He needed them to go.”
But then, a minute later, she called for me. “Dick wants to see you, Carrie.”
I remember pointing at my chest. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“He’s not too tired?”
“No,” she said. “Not for you.”
Not for you
There was a bit of a murmur at the table because Uncle Dick wasn’t really calling for anyone to come see him. He was barely holding on.
She ushered me into a back bedroom that wasn’t their normal place to sleep. The wooden walls were dark because the shades were drawn. There was only one bedside light on. My uncle was thin and his breathing was so heavy. It seemed like there were a million blankets layered on top of him.
He met my eyes as I came to his bed and sat on the edge of it, ignoring the chair.
“Everyone sits in the chair,” he rasped out.
“I wanted to be close to you.” I grabbed his hand.
“Nobody wants to be close to death.”
“You aren’t death. You’re my uncle.”
We were quiet.
The weight of his hand in mine seemed like nothing and everything all at once. I think he might have fallen asleep, but I sat there thinking about how beautiful he was, how elegant, how he changed systems of injustice one at a time, as best he could, how he taught himself Japanese, how to play the organ, how to be wealthy, how to fit in with an entire class of successful people that he wasn’t born into, and how he and Maxine both tried to lift other people up into that class with them.
He opened his eyes. “Carrie, I’m throwing down the gauntlet. Will you pick it up?”
There was only one answer.
“Yes,” I told him. “Yes.”
It was the last thing he said to me. He fell asleep again. We left for home. I left for college. And since then, I have spent years trying to figure out how to make my words to my uncle not be a lie. How to meet the challenge of his life so well lived.
And I know I’m not doing enough. This David Brooks article reminds me of that. It’s hard to motivate other people. Sometimes it’s hard to even motivate myself.
I have a friend who recently said to me, “You do so much volunteering. I don’t. I can’t. I’m a selfish person. I want to make money.”
And I didn’t know what to say.
I still don’t.
What is the gauntlet? It’s inclusion
I have only succeeded as much as I have because people were willing to let me read a book, to be examples of goodness, to give me the opportunity to interact with senators, opera singers, doctors who have saved thousands of lives.
Humiliation and exclusion are not what we should aspire to. Inclusion and praise are not things to be afraid of giving to other people. Enjoying other people’s successes and happiness doesn’t make you any less likely to succeed.
The gauntlet is about being unafraid and allowing other people into your life, your heart, your communities.
Aunt Maxine and Uncle Dick told me throughout my childhood that intelligence was a privilege I was born with. It could be cultivated and expanded on, but what was the most important thing was finding a way (or many ways) of using that privilege (intelligence, class, race, gender, being physically fit, and so on) and using it to better other people’s lives, your own life, the world, not in a way that makes you a hero but in a way that makes you a friend.
No more bubbles
Yes, we need to take care of ourselves (thus being selfish), but we also need to not live in bubbles – to see where our language and our rules, our so-called ‘cultural norms’ can be a code that even five-year-olds realize doesn’t include them.
I don’t know how to fix this, but I know we all have to try. I was so lucky to have an Uncle Dick and Aunt Maxine. Not everyone is. And when you feel excluded because of economic, racial, gender, religious codes? How can you not hurt?
Rotary International and the Gauntlet
I’ve tried to pick up the gauntlet by being friends, writing books, and I’ve even tried to be a politician. I’ve tried by how I raised my daughter. It doesn’t feel like enough.
Part of why I’m in Rotary International, and even why I decided to be the volunteer Public Image Chair for a huge part of Canada and the United States is because this organization of 1.2 million people is picking up the gauntlet, over and over again. From helping to eradicate polio (one vaccine and one fundraiser at a time) to building a local playground or a creating a book festival, Rotary grabs that gauntlet. The only difference is, they do it together.
How are you picking up the gauntlet? How do you feel excluded? Included? I’d love to know.
Being Afraid
Part of why I am so freaked out about this book that comes out tomorrow is because I’m afraid nobody will like it, that nobody will understand the lower middle-class place I write from, that nobody cares about gauntlets. And also because I’m afraid that nobody will buy it and I’ll have to find a new way to earn a living.
Because just like when I was little, I still need to deal with money and economics and how to survive as a writer/artist person in a world where that isn’t the easiest thing.
But also I’m afraid that I won’t ever do enough, that I’m not trying hard enough. Or that it’s like the nightmare I had last night and I picked the wrong test. And I’m running out of time and it’s too late to start over.
There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can preorder this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
A girl from New York. A farm boy. They’ll come together in this supernatural mystery, connected by whatever’s hiding in the woods. As townsfolk start disappearing and the attacks get ever closer, they must discover the truth before they become targets themselves. Preorder your copy of IN THE WOODS by Maine author Carrie Jones and Steven E. Wedel today. Preordered copies will be signed by Carrie Jones!
You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.
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