Three down...

So today marks the beginning of my fourth decade of life. I couldn't sleep last night after I fed Abby, and as I laid there staring at the ceiling I started thinking about how much has changed since my 20th birthday. Ten years ago today I was a sophomore at the U of I, dating the guy I thought I'd marry, looking forward to a year abroad in Scotland, addicted to an online roleplaying game, and expecting to be a teacher after I graduated. When I went home to visit my parents, I went to Arlington Heights, a suburb outside Chicago. I didn't have a car, I didn't own a house, I didn't have a job, I most definitely didn't have a baby. I slept on the bottom bunk of a 10 by 10 foot dorm room and did my homework on the floor while watching "Friends" and "ER." I think I had my birthday dinner at the Bombay Bicycle Club. Or maybe that was my 19th birthday. I can't remember.

I had my life very well planned out. (Silly, silly me.) I was going to graduate, get married, get a job as a teacher, and most likely have my first baby by 23 and my second a few years later. We'd live somewhere in the Chicago suburbs, have a house with a big yard, and...that was it. That was the dream I had for my life.

And God, I'm sure, was laughing at me.

Fast-forward ten years, and has any of that happened as I expected? Not at all. Instead, God rained down blessings far greater than any I could have anticipated or even hoped for. When the dreams I had 10 years go started to fall apart and fade away, I was so sad, so frustrated--I had put so much effort and time into building those dreams! How could they just crumble like that? I knew there were obviously lots of other wonderful things that could happen to me, but I wanted the wonderful things I'd come up with--because I of course knew what was best for me, right?

A gorgeous baby at 30, a home in California, a husband more perfect than I could ever have hoped for, and a career as a writer--not the life I planned but definitely a better one. The last ten years have brought with them a lot of unexpected change, a lot of unexpected opportunities, and some of the best and worst experiences of my life. Looking forward to the next 10 years makes me wonder what else God has in store...

"Not in my town."

Have you ever found out something was happening close to your home that absolutely disgusted you? I had that experience today. Lisa Samson had a link to Protest4.com , the website for an organization devoted to ended human sex trafficking, and I decided to check out the link. One of the articles listed was about the 12 US cities that are hubs for child trafficking--and one of them was Anaheim, CA. Yes, the home of Disneyland, the Happiest Place on Earth, and a city less than half an hour away from me that I'm in all the time. I couldn't believe that such a small city (compared to the other cities on the list, like LA and San Francisco and Las Vegas) with so much wealth could harbor such a dirty secret. It makes me ill.

So I'm doing something about it. Their "Get Involved!" page said they needed volunteers, and listed "writers" among the types of people they're looking for. I wrote them and am just waiting to hear what I can do, besides driving up there and grabbing off the street every lone girl I see.

One of the other things that really got to me was a quote from the mother of one of these girls:

"You sit down and talk to your kids about drugs, but you never talk to your kids about the possibility of prostitution," she said. "It's just not part of your world."

Does it scare anyone else to think that we need to be talking to our children (note it says CHILDREN, not GIRLS) about not becoming a prostitute? How on earth do you even start that conversation???

I'm not going to think about that right now. Instead, I'm going to start brainstorming a novel that touches on this topic. The more attention we draw to this travesty, the better.

Ah-ha!

I feel exonerated! These books all had less than 50% chance of being a bestseller:
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn--10.2%
The Cae for Christ--35.9%
White Oleander--41.4%
The Bridges of Madison county--35.9%
Tuesdays With Morrie--45.6%
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone--45.6%
The Da Vinci Code--39.5%
Pet cemetery--35.9%

So I think I'm probably okay, don't you think?

Well no wonder.

The Lulu Titlescorer tells you how likely your book's title is to make it a bestseller. Turns out Worlds Collide only had a 10.2% chance--no wonder it hasn't sold into royalty yet! Unfortunately I am not that good at picking titles, apparently, since Violette Between only has a 14.6% chance. Hm. At least I know where to go now to test drive my titles before making my final decision. (And yeah, yeah, I know it's all in fun...but I'm still going to run some bestseller titles through it to see how well they score. Just in case.)

The whole truth...sort of

Have you seen all the buzz about James Frey's book, "A Million Little Pieces?" Apparently he wrote his memoirs and took some creative license with a few of the rather important facts. Now there's a debate raging about the necessity of truth in memoirs--and frankly, the very fact that there's a debate at all shows us just how badly society is crumbling--with one side saying that memoirs fall under the genre umbrella of non-fiction and should therefore be all truth, and the other side saying that a little embellishment is really no big deal when the majority of the story is true to real life.

I'm getting ready to start my first non-fiction work, and not far behind it is my own memoir attempt. The first work will be about other people, and I don't foresee having a problem sticking to the facts with that one. But I have to admit that, while I don't condone what he did, I can certainly understand where Frey was coming from. When I think about some of the things I'll have to admit in order to stay true to my life, I get a little worried. Do I really want to admit to it all? Do I really want to give complete strangers an unflinching full-frontal view of my shortcomings, my stupidity, my immaturity? And what about other people whose lives figure into my story--is it fair to expose them as well? I guess I could give them the option of being shielded with the whole "Names have been changed to protect the innocent" concept.

And then what about the not-so-exciting facts, the mundane parts of the story that would be a lot more interesting with a few twists and exaggerations? Part of me thinks my story is way too lame for anyone to consider riveting reading--will I be able to withstand the temptation to give into hyperbole? Not much, just a few instances here or there that wouldn't have any bearing on the bulk of the story. Because, really, can you expect a fiction writer to refrain from fiction ALL the time?

Obviously the answer is yes, you can, and you should. And obviously I'm not going to let myself give into that temptation--I can't even blame a few embellishments here and there on a fuzzy memory because I actually wrote every night in a diary during the year abroad that I'll be chronicling. But I can guarantee I'll be wincing as I write and really wishing that truth was a gray as some people would like it to be.

Michael Frey's deception was wrong, minor thought it might be--but I can definitely understand why he did it.

A little preoccupied at the moment...

It may be awhile before I post regularly again on this blog--we had our baby last week and I'm a bit wrapped up in staring in wonder at my daughter. :) Check out my baby blog for all the details and the cutest pictures ever. :)

-Alison