karen rutherford, freelance writer

My brother and I were adopted at birth from different mothers. I’m sure we both had opportunities being raised by our adoptive parents that we never would have had with our biological ones, although neither of us would ever know anything other than what we were told about our birth parents to be sure.

Our parents were decent, moral, upstanding people. But they were obsessed with appearances, which made my brother a bigger problem for them than he might have been for other parents. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t be what they expected. This would result in life-altering disappointment for both sides.

I distinctly remember my mother telling me I was adopted around age 6, but I don’t remember when Pat was told. I really didn’t see him enough to have conversations like that. Initially, he was always so busy. He was a hyperactive child, put on Ritalin before he ever made it to first grade. I’m sure it was intended to calm him down for public appearances, but it never worked. Eventually, we just grew up in different places.

My first and faintest memory of my brother is of him pedaling a little yellow and blue plastic scooter down the long hall of our first house in Memphis, Tennessee. Almost daily, he would wait for me to toddle innocently out of my room at one end, and as soon as he saw me, start pedaling from the other end, picking up considerable momentum (it was a long hall and I wasn’t that fast) before hitting me and knocking me down - HARD. As soon as I started to cry, he started to laugh. I also remember my mother reacting when she came to assess the damage:

“Why, Pat, why? Why can’t you be a good boy?”

I can’t count how many times I would hear this over the coming years. I don’t know if I ever learned to look first, but, more than likely, he quickly got bored and moved on to something else before I had time to figure out a workable solution. My mother, already tired at this point, decided to just wait and pick up the inevitable pieces rather than try to predict her son’s behavior.

Pat’s first grade teacher at Sea Isle Elementary School showed real concern for his ability to control himself. At first, she felt sorry for him because he was such a sweet, thoughtful boy. She thought he just needed special attention, but when that ended up with him craving even more and more attention from her, anything good about him soon faded in comparison to his unforgivable behavior. He refused to stay in his seat, wreaking havoc on the classroom and the other kids. He would throw crayons, pencils, books, erasers, anything he could get his hands on. He would use markers to draw on the windows. Lunch and recess were constant struggles. He’d be banished to the outskirts or the teacher’s table or the bench or the sidelines for this reason or that, and even under watchful eyes, he would still seem to slip just out of reach and misbehave.

She also often asked him, “Can’t you just be a good boy and behave like the other children?” But he never had an answer. Nobody knew yet that he didn’t understand the question.

A repost from 2006:

Leave it to Cynthia Morris of Original Impulse fame to come up with something so clever and uplifting for February.

The premise is leap year. She’s making a huge “creative leap” this year (but is saving the announcement for – get this – February 29th, the actual leap in a leap year), so she’s decided to make February a month full of leaps for her fans.

Each day, for the entire month, she’ll post a new creative leap on her blog. Today’s leap, for example, is to grab a “Creative Leap Notebook” in support of the Write it Down, Make it Happen philosophy.

I came across Cynthia’s book, Create Your Writer’s Life, way back in 2005. I entered a summer daily impulse contest and won two free coaching sessions with her. My life hasn’t been the same. If I had the money, I’d pay her to talk to me every day.

Now, I won’t post her entire month of leaps here – that’s wrong anyway - but I have added a link to the left for the month.

I haven’t leapt in years!! Hopefully, I won’t break a hip looking for my notebook.

What? New Year’s Day was 30 days ago? Wasn’t I supposed to accomplish something in January? I created a spreadsheet in December outlining my 2008 goals, but I haven’t even opened it yet. I’m behind. Already. Or am I?

• Attended two local writing events (which really just reinforced the amount of competition out there)
• Accepted into Butler University’s Fiction Writing Workshop for February
• Scheduled JELCC class for March
• Worked on three new projects (and not an Indian in sight!)
• Created new ICE newsletter and new CFLC Website menu
• Read
• Worked on new PSM template
• Was sick for a week and lost six pounds. Was well for two days and gained it back.

I’ll be teaching my Adult Ed class, Life as a Technical Writer, again at the J. Everett Light Career Center (JELCC) in Washington Township. It runs March 3rd – April 14th, 6:30-8:30 p.m. It will be chock full of hands-on exercises to develop professional technical documents, build professional portfolios, and update resumes. We’ll actually find and query potential customers – whether they like it or not! Peruse the catalog and sign up here: www.jelcc.com/adulted.html.

No matter how much I don’t want to like Oprah, I do.

I’m not a regular viewer – haven’t been for years now. I think I stopped watching when the audience was taken over by giddy suburban housewives who dress up for the occasion and shake when Oprah enters the room.

But that’s exactly the reason I watch the annual Favorite Things show. My favorite thing about Oprah’s Favorite Things is the feeling I get about ME. I live for that holiday feeling of condescension I get from watching a group of silly women gush and jump and scream and cry and raise their hands to the Heavens over Oprah’s favorite panini maker.

But, each year, I’m also sucked in to all the shininess and find myself making a note about at least one of the “things”. I research and sometimes….I even buy. I hate myself for it, but I do. At least I don’t gush, though. I refuse to gush.

And then today, I stumbled upon a column written by a gal named Lisa Kogan. In my perfect world, I would write like Lisa Kogan. She says in one sentence what I need paragraphs to say. She’s witty, smart, natural, and fun. She says what I’m thinking most of the time. She writes about living her own life by her own rules and I just love that.

But, come to find out, Kogan writes for O Magazine. Damm you, Oprah Winfrey! If loving you is wrong, I guess I just can’t be right. But I’m not gushing. Or shaking. Or shopping for show outfits.

Less than two years ago, the Writers’ Center of Indiana sent a survey to all its members asking for feedback, suggestions, complaints, etc. From what I heard, we responded in droves with more than they probably had anticipated.

Typically, nobody expects much to happen from mail-in surveys. You just do it for the exercise and to get things off your chest. Then, you stick a stamp on it and don’t give it another thought.

Well, just when you least expected it!

The WC website has a new calendar of events and lists new clubs, new resources, new contests, and new opportunities to publish work.

The organization and appearance haven’t changed, but it’s easy to use, CURRENT, and a great site for Indy writers and fans of Indy writers. Their new notification system of readings, speakers, workshops and events is timely and full of great information.

I filled out the feedback form on the site to commend the webmaster. Now, if whoever’s in charge of The Fiction Group – I just want to know what they do – would respond to email….

I’ll save that for another survey. For now, I'm too happy about adding the website back to my Favorites list. :)

With all the griping and whining I’ve done about the living situation lately, I think years from now what I’ll remember most is what Miss Hazel said to me on the phone after I had filled her in, in probably way too much detail.

“You know what’s funny about things like this? It’s that none of it ever matters ten years later.”

Point. Set. Match. Miss Hazel. As usual.

My horoscope says August will be full of fluctuations. It couldn’t be more accurate so far, because this is just the 5th and I’ve already had ridiculous ups and downs. Just Thursday, I had a great conversation with an interesting, inspiring woman at work and a nice lunch with another tech writer (even though this one asks me sometimes if I need some work to do and means it), then got home to a humunGus IRS bill from 2005 that I’ll have to spend even more time and money investigating and fixing.

The highlight of the week happened on a lunchtime trip to the Borders in downtown Indy when I asked a girl named Anna to point me in the direction of the recent release of The Portable Writer's Conference.

She walked to the section where it should have been with me and asked, “What do you write?”

I hung my head and stammered: “Oh, nothing. Nothing, really. I don’t have anything published or anything. I just play around with things.”

“I think that’s so cool.”
“Writing is the hardest part.”
“Writers are my rock stars.”
“Like what types of things are you working on?”
“What’s your genre?”

She kept pressing me. And thank God!! I left the store feeling like a real writer, and, since I don't believe in chance encounters and coincidences, I'm going to go back to the store when the book I ordered arrives and thank her some more.

After months of carrying the brochure around and re-reading the schedules, I have decided not to pursue this year’s Midwest Writers’ Conference at Ball State. I’ve thought about going since 2003, but I have yet to sign on the dotted line.

And I think I’ve finally figured out why: it’s just not for me.

The three-day session with hotel would cost about $600. There are scads of workshops to choose from, but none really jumped out at me. There is only one author I’ve heard of and he’s not exactly my niche. The only manuscript evaluator with whom I felt an online connection was Heather Sellers and she’s only reviewing five manuscripts. But the real reason behind my decision is that I have to admit my own weaknesses. I’m not a networker, I’m not an initiator, I’m not a seller - especially if I’m flying solo – and I know that I’m not ready to fight 200 people for a five-minute session with an agent or publisher. I don’t know that I ever would be.

Though, I imagine someday, under different circumstances, this conference might be a treat to attend, I think I would be better served right now by more of a retreat environment, a community college class, a couple of critique/editing/validation partners who might constantly remind me to ignore the gremlins, as Cynthia Morris would say. I thrive in supportive, non-competitive environments.

I’ll never, ever, ever forget my first writers’ conference in 2001. It was the Welty Symposium at the Mississippi University for Women in Columbus, MS, where attendees listened to readings from authors and participated in a panel discussion about these writers’ lives and experiences. So it wasn’t a conference at all, really.

Regardless, it was a spiritual awakening for me. This sounds strange even to write, but I felt like I became my God for a moment – I left my body and was looking down at myself as though I were my own child. I smiled at me and welcomed myself home. Floods of tears (hidden as well as could be expected in an auditorium) and waves of contentment.

I was surrounded by history and academia and like women and Southern writers, past and present. Mississippi is the best place in the world to connect with spirits and ghosts and I was moved and changed by the experience.

Maybe the MWW has intercepted a call home. It might be time to go sit with Ms. Welty again. Take a week or so to listen to her and reconnect with the Spirit she stirs in me. Then, maybe she'll give me some pointers on our next steps.

Leave it to Hope Clark to put it all in a nutshell. Her latest formula:
For every hour you email, read, network and conference, you owe your writing a like hour.

One of my favorite characters ever written is Dwight in Elinor Lipman’s Then She Found Me. I just read that Colin Firth is going to play Dwight’s part in the movie written by Helen Hunt due out later this year. I could not be happier! Understated, peaceful, content confidence. I can’t wait for this one! I missed Dwight the minute I closed the book and I still miss him. His name in the movie is Frank. I’ll have to get used to that.

Tomorrow, most folks go back to work. I'll go to Lulu’s Electric Café. I’m going with my laptop and my notebook and I’m going to finish a User’s Guide that’s due June 1st. I'm behind, but with a little focus, I think I can get it done tomorrow and make a dent in a Tutorial due the same day. It's my own fault. I'm a practicing procrastinator.