Dialogue

This week in my Intro to Novel Writing class, I'm learning about Dialogue.  I'm sitting in a Starbucks now (okay, I don't go to Starbucks as much as it sounds like I do... we just have this tradition of going on Mondays when we both have a lot of homework, except this time we went on Tuesday because... oh, who cares!) and trying to pay attention to the kind of Dialogue going on around me.  There is a very unique group of people talking at the table next to us- an older white business man, a beautiful Asian woman, and a skinny young guy with hair that sticks up slightly around the edges.  The older man talks so low I can hardly hear him, telling stories in a matter-of-fact way while he sips on his drink with a refined air.  The woman laughs through every word and her voice rises and falls a lot, almost as though she's mimicking a whole cast of characters as she goes.  The boy's voice is louder and gruff, and he grins when he speaks and when he listens.  I wonder most what it is he thinks of the other two.  When he does speak, it is eagerly, as though he's excited to get a word in edge-wise. The woman reaches over suddenly and rubs the boys arm, revealing an interesting twist in the plot... is this her adopted brother?  Boyfriend, even?  Hum...

Then there are the Starbucks workers.  This week the gotte guy is missing his curly-haired companion, but he is just as talkative and eager as usual- maybe even more so now that he has the stage to himself.  He tells a different story to every customer, half of these stories about his adventures serving coffee with the curly-haired guy.  When he does manage to engage his work-focused co-worker in discussion, it is about things like milk, coffee, cleaning the counters properly, and the failings of the other employees.  Particularly about the curly-haired guy... I'm sensing this is a friendship that goes deeper than mere coffee and night shifts. 

But I digress from the point.  Dialogue.  The Starbucks guy tells a lot of pointless stories, says little things here and there that are mere silence fillers.  They would be very boring if put in dialogue form for a story, but as background to a more important scene... perhaps.  It's a good reminder that when people talk in real life they don't always speak with purpose, and sometimes that makes them lovable, even if a tiny bit annoying. 

for apple trees and honey bees

It is a perfect, sunny February day.  The kitchen window is open, the breeze moving the strings of a bright floral apron hanging from the window frame.  Max sleeps lazily in the patches of sun around the house, getting up to move every half-hour as the sun changes positions. The voices of kids walking home from school float through the kitchen, their voices merrier than usual.  The only thing that could make this day more perfect would be something lemony to eat...

Well, now it's perfect!

It is the kind of day that demands fresh starts and fresh thoughts, and I have spent it in preparing for the upcoming addition to our little family, reading, walking around the neighborhood, and checking things off the to-do list.  This all makes me think that if only I could live in a sunny climate, I would be happy, productive and interesting every day, though I know this is far from the truth.  In fact, it seems that the more we hang our happiness on something, the less likely that thing is to ever truly satisfy us.  Besides, I would never appreciate days like today as much if they happened all the time!

If anyone is looking for an interesting read, particularly for teenage girls, I would recommend Sarah Dessen's book "Along for the Ride."  I'm about half-way through it, and though the main character does make a bad choice close to the beginning, her behavior is not condoned and the incident is not described at all.  I appreciate that cleanness about Sarah Dessen's books (this is the third I've read so far), but even more so I appreciate how her female characters find themselves without either falling hopelessly in love or having any kind of feministic empowering experience.  God is sadly missing, but the message is oddly more along the lines of what I would want my girls to be reading than many Christian books of the same genre.  Not that I have read all that many Christian YA books... if anyone has suggestions for some good ones, I'd love to check them out!

Well, that's about all I have for my "writer's journal" this week... off to finish up some homework and then set to work on a egg-sandwich dinner to be shared with some friends.  Enjoy the rest of this beautiful day!

Things to say

Well, here I am, writing a blog post.

I recognize that I don't have many readers over here anymore, which is awesome, because my ramblings become more boring as I go on.  And now I have a school assignment to keep a writer's journal, which is simply too much for me given all the other kinds of journals I already keep.  So I'm going to try to blog once a week instead... we'll see how that goes.

I must confess, the concept of a writer's journal is largely lost on me.  My sister has one, and she writes things in it like, "Red is the best color for a car," and "What if there was a story about a giant who didn't like eating goats like all the other giants?"  This means that when various inspirational thoughts occur to her she actually has the energy to go find her notebook, open it, find a working pen, and write her thought down.  This is where it breaks down for me.

Also, it seems the older I get the less I enjoy writing as an outlet.  It's still an awesome hobby, but I wouldn't think of myself as necessarily an artsy-fartsy person who likes to do things like sit in a Starbucks and write about the smell of coffee and the Arabic couple arguing at the next table over.  I guess it's part of settling into wife-hood and facing impending mother-hood...  everything must have it's box, and if the boxes start running over and falling into each other, chaos ensues!  So I'm a writer when I sit down to do an assignment or to work on my manuscript, but not when I get up to unload the dishwasher.  I'm going to go ahead and accept that this does not make me a terrible person, just a boring one.

But, since I have the excuse of this being an assignment, I might as well mention that I actually am at a Starbucks right now, and there actually is an Arabic couple arguing at the next table.  At least, I think they're arguing- it's hard to tell since they aren't speaking English all the time.  Looking at them is in a sense familiar to me now, since I live in SeaTac where it's unusual to see a white person walking down the street.  And yet, I was just learning in my novel writing class that it's essential to be able to write about people who are different from you, and I know I would be totally incapable of writing about the lives of someone like that without doing a LOT of research.  Isn't it so interesting that we live side-by-side with people we know absolutely nothing about, people who's lives we couldn't even imagine by looking at them?

Also, at this Starbucks there are two workers, the same two workers who are almost always here when we come in the evening.  They are quite a pair.  One of them is a big tall guy with a major head of curly hair, whose church I've actually gone to a couple of times- though he doesn't remember me.  It's weird because he's friends with a lot of my friends and he's the popular type, so I used to hear about him a lot.  Every time I come in he's leaning over the counter talking to someone, usually a female someone.  He's the kind of person who wears his heart on his sleeve and is pretty much always happy, and always in love.  It's weird to order coffee from someone whom you know a lot about.  Last week I was dying to ask him if he was still with the girl he was apparently so head-over-heels in love with in High School.  Can you imagine the look on his face?

The other guy is shorter and thinner, with a very distinguishing (not to be confused with distinguished) goatee.  Yikes, he's sweeping behind me right now... I hope he doesn't look up at my screen! He's the music-lover, the indie one- but the two are both very vocal and have very creative vocabulary choices.  They don't talk like most mid-20 year old co-workers, they are interesting and engaging.  It's kind of refreshing, actually.