Constructive Criticism

No matter how constructive you try to be, criticism is hard to take. And at first, constructive criticism always seems destructive.

Bianca is my music lover. She plays beautifully on the piano. Not only is she good at playing, but she just gets it. There’s something in her brain that allows her to feel something—to create—with her music that’s just not there for everyone. I played the piano for ten years in my childhood and never once thought that I could actually “create” out of what I knew—the notes on the page that signified a key, the timing, the key signatures. All that. But instinctively, Bianca creates. She has to have her muse (some days it’s far, far away but others it’s there and she spends a morning composing a new piece). She has this little folder full of her compositions and it shows the progression of her musical understanding. Now that she’s getting better, her pieces are getting more interesting—key signature changes, more complex rhythms—and more difficult for her to play. I thought it was funny that the song she wrote (and won) in Reflections this year (called “Birds' Chorus”) she had the hardest time playing.

After Bianca had been playing piano for two years, she decided she wanted to try out the orchestra at school. She learned to play the viola in a class setting. The problem with this is that the instructor doesn’t really have the time to individually help each student. While she’s learning the notes okay, her form isn’t great. She doesn’t use a lot of her bow and many times her bow slides off to the side, which makes her play more quietly and the sound is less pure. I noticed this at the Christmas concert last week when watching her in comparison with some of the other students. But now, as I try to encourage her to “use more bow” or to “slide straight up and down,” Bianca has just had it. She told me that moms aren’t supposed to criticize but to support their children. I understand what she’s saying. I really do. But how can I sit back and watch her doing something wrong and not correct it? If I don’t, who will?

I told her about my writing group. How I turn in my work and then I go and each person “constructively” tells me what I’m doing wrong, what I need to fix, and I leave most nights a little heartbroken. Yes, I’ve even cried on my drive home a couple times. It hurts to be criticized. BUT after a day or two contemplating what I’ve been told about my story, I start working. I rewrite and fix. And always, always after I’ve spent the time with my story, it’s better. It just is. And then I know that yes, I need to be a little heartbroken to get better.

Bianca listened to my story. I don’t know how much she related to playing the viola. I’m trying to back off. I guess I just need to let her learn on her own. But I still can’t get over that she’s going to learn some bad habits on her viola that are going to take her forever to correct if we don’t fix it soon. I know I’m a controlling mom. I know I push, sometimes too hard. But I feel like Bianca has been given a gift, a musical gift that not just everyone gets. I didn’t. I want her to live up to her potential. I want to build her up, but sometimes doesn’t she have to be broken down first? What’s acceptable for a mom to do? I want her to be the best she can. Is that so wrong?

Family Traditions

Ever since we moved Portia out of the crib, we've had hard nights. She now had her freedom. With that freedom, I guess she felt she could get up at any hour and play. I'd been awakened many nights with Portia playing in her room with her toys. That wouldn't really bother me too much, but she can't play quietly. Portia's playing involves a lot of singing, "talking" her friends, and opening & closing doors. Wandering through the house. We've had to take her bluebird nightlight away countless times.

Yesterday morning, after Eric left around 5 in the morning to work out, I couldn't sleep. So I got out of bed and saw that Portia's door was open. I looked all over and couldn't find her. I panicked. I worried that maybe Portia had slipped outside when Eric was leaving and he hadn't seen her. I imagined her roaming the cold, dark morning with barefeet in the snow, freezing. I imagined much worse things too, but I don't want to relive those now. Finally, I went downstairs and checked every room before I opened Bianca's door. As I did, I saw Portia in Bianca's bed snuggling with her. Bianca was still asleep.

I pulled Portia up and hugged her and hugged her. Thank goodness she was okay! And in retrospect, it's really quite sweet. Portia wandered downstairs and climbed into Bianca's bed. Bianca told me later that she had been in her bed about an hour. They both fell asleep.

Yesterday, I told Bianca about how my sister and I used to sleep in the same bed on Christmas Eve. I don't remember exactly how many times this happened, but I do remember specifically the night Susannah came home from being away at college that first year and how we were so happy to see each other again that we spent that night in the same bed. Bianca thought this might be the year that she and Portia can sleep together on Christmas Eve. I guess I don't see the harm in it. I love to carry on traditions. Like eating ice cream after recitals and performances (which we did on Wednesday after Bianca's viola duet). Family traditions are important. I hope someday that my kids will carry some of those same traditions on with their own families.

Twirling

Just a lazy, cold afternoon--nothing to do but twirl in dresses. I should have insisted on brushing the girls' hair first, but what do you do? They had fun nonetheless.

There's screeching in the house. . .

and it's not from the witches in the Halloween decorations we put up yesterday. It's from Bianca's viola. She started orchestra two weeks ago.

We decided on the viola because a friend of mine told me that there are shortages in orchestras of people who play this instrument (the lower-voiced big sister to the violin), so I thought it might be another college scholarship opportunity (I'm always looking for another "option" in bringing down the cost of college and I might as well start now). So here it is. It's really quite cute. Bianca totes around her little viola with her everywhere she goes. She loves the thing. She has been playing Mary Had a Little Lamb, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (as shown in the video below), and the Tarantella (sp?) which she came up with on her own. It's not so bad, if you can hear beyond the screeching. At least the viola's notes aren't as high as the violin's.

When I was a kid, my mom decided she wanted to learn to play the violin. Something she'd always wanted to do, she said. I don't remember how long it lasted, but it wasn't long. Our little dog Cuddles would sit near her when she practiced and howl--as if she were speaking back to some poor innocent, tortured fellow animal crying from within my mom's violin.

I guess I shouldn't complain about the screeching. With practice, it'll get better. And at least Tigger doesn't howl along.

I'm sorry

I'm quick to apologize. I always have been (to most everybody but my husband, he'll most certainly say). At my last job, this guy once referred to my willingness to apologize--even for things I have no control over or wasn't ultimately responsible for--as a weakness. I've thought about that for a while. I apologize to my kids when I need to (I'm a firm believer that kids need to hear their parents apologize or how else are they going to learn to do it too?) Despite what Eric believes, I apologize to him. I try to apologize when I've done something to hurt someone else. And I always apologize when I cut someone off at Wal-Mart with my cart (and we all know how brutal Wal-Mart shopping can be).

Today I took my girls to the new McDonald's at The District, since I had coupons. The place was a madhouse. My kids were golden (seriously, I don't know how I got so lucky to have such great kids). After Bianca finished eating, she went into the "basketball court" in the play area that was laden with children. Bianca had a basketball and was throwing it up into the air. When it richocheted off the backboard and began bouncing into the other kids there, she promptly apologized to each one she came near, "Sorry, sorry, sorry." I realized my weakness had rubbed off on her.

I'm still not convinced that being willing to apologize is a weakness. Isn't it a politeness? A couple minutes later, a boy about Bianca's age came in and started throwing the ball around, knocking over toddlers like he was bowling and then bumped into Bianca. No apology, not even the turn of a head to acknowledge that he ran her over. He kept fumbling around with his ball and rolling over children like a bulldozer. This is the part where I am glad that I've instilled on my kid a weakness: I would much rather have a polite child who is overabundant in her use of the phrase "I'm sorry" than a rude kid who has never used the phrase in his life.

Kids make strange bedfellows

It was time for our second annual Shakespeare Festival weekend with our friends Rachel and Conner. Last year was special because we saw Taming of the Shrew (Bianca's namesake play) and this year was special because it was As You Like It, the play off which I'm basing the YA novel I'm currently working on. I know this play inside and out, like the back of my hand. I'm close to these characters and I know their stories.

We headed down Saturday morning, checked into the hotel, went swimming, to dinner (which Winger's seems to have become a tradition), and then headed over to the Green Show and the play. Last year Bianca chose a tiny porcelain doll at the gift shop and this year she chose a dagger. It's a real knife. This one was especially cute because it had a smaller little knife in a smaller little pocket in the carrying case (she said for her bear Leah).

Last year, Rachel and I decided on separate hotel rooms. The idea of sleeping in a bed with Bianca is terrifying. We start out with heads on pillows in the right direction, but halfway through the night, I feel Bianca's feet pressing into my stomach and she's perpendicular to me and pushing me off the bed. Not intentionally, of course, but boy is she a kicker. This year, in an attempt to save a couple bucks, we decided to share a hotel room. But that would require sharing a bed with Bianca. Turns out, Bianca didn't push me off the bed this year, but I did wake in the night with her paddling her arms into me. As if she were swimming. Maybe she was dreaming about swimming. Who knows! But my goodness, next year I think I'm going to have to insist on separate beds.

Writing Conference

Literary “summer camp” is how explained my week away from my 7- and 2-year-old daughters. And that's exactly what it was—summer camp for adults. Several of my writing friends and I have been planning this for several months. We signed up for the same workshop at the conference, studying writing under Julianna Baggott. We rented a condo nearby. I flew my mom in to take care of my kids. We planned everything. Christie even wrote a ridiculously detailed itinerary (which I loved, by the way) about what our literary week would be like.

And it hasn't disappointed. Ninety-five percent of the conversations have been about writing and reading and reading about writing. We have free writes each morning, where one of us chooses a topic and we all write with our pens (not on our computers) about that for several minutes. We've attended readings, book signings by the resident authors, afternoon panels about getting published and creating and perfecting our “craft” as they like to put it here.

I even got up today and read in the open mic session. “Who here are you ever going to see again?” was one of the comments that gave me the courage to pencil my name in on the list. Well, that and Julianna Baggott told me to do it (If someone tells you to jump off a bridge. . .) Oh yeah, and there was one other thing that gave me the courage—the fact that the agent I met with on Tuesday (beautiful Eve Bridburg) wants to read my entire 82,000-word manuscript. So I did it. I got up there and I read my opening line about hating flowers and the next two pages. It was scary and my voice shook and I stumbled over some words, but I did it. And it feels good to have done somethng that is so uncharacteristic, kind of like jumping off a bridge and the adrenaline that goes along with that.

My head is so crammed with good literary advice, motivational stuff, metaphors, images, descriptions. I just want to get home and continue writing, writing, writing. But my head's spinning and I'm having a hard time concentrating. I want to read—oh, but I want to write. And I kind of want to make this week I've looked so forward to last just a little bit longer—even though I miss my kids with a fierce passion I've kept kindled inside. I can already picture the joyous reunion tomorrow afternoon—there's hugging and kissing and hugging and laughing and maybe a little crying. Whatever, I'll take it.

And I'll take home all that stuff I'm learning—about the “what happens” not being important but “how it happens,” where a novel should begin, and all those marked-up copies of my first chapter of “Isle of Arden,” my take on As You Like It for young adults. I'm currently on page 154. It's a light airy thing, something that's really fun to write after spending the previous three years working on something so dark that my eyes watered as I explained the plot to the agent. “I know this is unprofessional,” I'd said to her as I wiped my eyes, “but it's just so close to me.”

“Send it to me,” she'd said.

“You mean like the first three chapters?” I'd asked.

“No, the whole thing. I want to start reading and not stop.”

I don't think she could have known how she just made my world. As I explained to my writing friends shortly after as I was nursing my headache of happiness later that afternoon, the beginning of my list of priorities goes something like this: “my family” and right underneath it is “publishing the book I spent the last four years petting and primping and loving and holding so close to me I had a hard time breathing.” Way after that comes my house, car, the closets full of European designer clothes for my girls, and all the rest of that materialistic stuff.

Well, for now I guess I'm going to have to halt on page 154 of Isle of Arden and start thinking about polishing and shining the manuscript because Eve wants it in at least a month. I've got to get going on that. I'm anxious and excited and can't believe I almost backed out of coming this year. I thank my talented writing friends Christie and Rachel and Annalisa for coming too. And for being my friends and as E.B. White says at the end of Charlotte's Web, “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.” My writing friends are both.