This week: Crawl OUTSIDE Your Box! Edited by: Fyn  
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Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.~~ Anne Lamott
Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order. ~~Virginia Woolf
I always find beauty in things that are odd and imperfect - they are much more interesting. ~~Marc Jacobs
The odd thing about being a writer is you do tend to lose yourself in your books. Sometimes it seems like real life is flickering by and you're hardly a part of it. You remember the events in your books better than you remember the events that actually took place when you were writing them.~~ George R. R. Martin
I know, being the odd one out can feel brutal. But, rest assured, it's also wonderful - because your desire to do things differently isn't 'uncool.' In fact, it's the exact opposite. ~~Kathryn Minshew
I treat people the way I want to be treated, which makes me odd. ~~Dave Mustaine
The unreliable narrator is an odd concept. The way I see it, we're all unreliable narrators of our lives who usually have absolute trust in our self-told stories. Any truth is, after all, just a matter of perspective.~~ Sarah Pinborough
There are two sorts of curiosity - the momentary and the permanent. The momentary is concerned with the odd appearance on the surface of things. The permanent is attracted by the amazing and consecutive life that flows on beneath the surface of things. ~~Robert Wilson Lynd
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Boxes-- Ins and outsides thereof. I've been thinking about such things of late, along with comfort zones, walls, boundaries, expectations, and realizations. Somehow, I thought 'writing the memoir' was going to be a telling of tales of stuff. It hadn't dawned on me yet that doing such a thing ends up requiring quite a bit of reflection and introspection as well. What was I (overall) trying to say? What message did I want to leave folks with ... and why? This, then, became all tangled up with the title, which had been in places for years but has now expanded from 'Place Settings' to 'Place Settings: Memoir of an Anomaly.'
A little backstory. --- So, why this title? It's been Place Settings in my mind for twenty-plus years. BUT. That wasn't quite right. It didn't really imply the duality of me. This does. I've always been the 'good' girl. Well, except for ... well, except for when I wasn't.
I've never been one to color within the lines, for starters. For a specific example, in first grade, I got in trouble because my teacher, Mrs. Bozard (whom I adored!) disapproved of the way I colored a picture of a snowman. The sheet of paper was already white, so why waste my white crayon? I added the sky, trees, kids, and a dog, but I did not color in all the snow in either the background or the snowman. I did not color in the picture which was only a snowman outlined in black. I colored in his hat, scarf, his stick arms, and his round eyes. I remember being so angry when I showed the picture (that I was rather proud of) ruined with a big, red, circled 'F' on it to my parents. I clearly remember the discussion that followed.
"What were you supposed to do?"
"My teacher said to color in the picture."
"Did you color in the picture?"
"No, because the paper was already white. So, I added more stuff to the picture and colored that in. It is silly to color white on white paper."
"So, you really did not do what the teacher asked you to do, did you?"
"No, because it was dumb."
"I know you think it didn't make any sense to you. But, just maybe, it made sense to her. Maybe, she wanted to make sure the children knew which color was white."
"But, Dad, I left it white!"
"I know you did, and it is a great picture. But there will be many times in life people or teachers, maybe even a boss, someday, will ask you to do things you think are dumb, but there will be a reason for it. Just because you don't know the reason, doesn't mean you shouldn't do it."
"I still think it is silly, but, okay, Daddy. I'll try."
My dad cleverly framed the picture so that the 'F" didn't show and hung it up on the wall of his office. Over the years we'd talk, my dad and I, and one or the other of us would comment that "It's a snowman thing." I always wanted to know the 'why' of doing things that simply made no sense to me. I did try, but mostly, I'd say something and get myself in trouble. My folks never had to use that old saying with me--the one about the other kids trying to jump off the roof and would I do that. I knew better. It didn't make any sense.
As time when by, I realized that a great many people would ask me to do things that, to me, made no sense. Things that didn't seem logical at all. Most of the time, I'd find a way around it. Sometimes, I did them (often to my regret!) but along the way, I learned about compromise, and what manipulation was, and how to tell the difference. ----
So boxes. Not fitting into whatever in may have been or even int my own boxes - hence the coloring outside the lines.
Walls are falling all over the place. They are not vanishing though. They are, indeed, falling When walls collapse, it is super - as long as one isn't underneath them when they do so!! Much of people's 'private' worlds were far more circumspect when I was growing up in the mid-fifties, sixties, and early seventies. There were hard and fast 'rules' that governed what one did and how.
Rules I grew up with included:
1. Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. A leftover mentality from the Depression combined with the recent (then) rationing of everything due to WWII.
2. Dress like a lady if you want to be treated as a lady. This was the era when we were just beginning to be allowed (as girls) to wear pants to school - and that wasn't even until the '70s. Clothes made the person. Well, they actually made the person into what that person wanted others to think of them. Or what they 'would' think. Gloves and a hat to church on Sunday. Proscribed distance between a boy and a girl at a dance. (18 inches if you are curious)
3. Follow-up rules was Act like a lady if you wish to be treated like a lady. Funny, when young, one simply didn't question what that meant because of course, one wanted to be treated that way! My brother got the 'act like a gentleman' version of the same. My brain didn't veer too far into the 'what was NOT a lady' direction because wherever it led could NOT have been good.
4. Manners, etiquette, demeanor, and your word must always be above reproach. Dad always said to have a firm handshake. No wet, limp fish shakes. A handshake after a discussion meant you were agreeing to the deal. It was the same thing as giving your word. It was inviolet. You shake on it, you keep your word, end of story. My mother was the 2nd woman in the state of New Jersey to get her Real Estate Brokers License. This was a big deal in the 60s. And, I saw her deal exceptionally effectively with demeaning male clients who thought they knew everything, builders, contractors, and the like with similar attitudes with total panasche. She could, without ever raising her voice, with calm clear logic and extraordinary intelligence grind them into dust. She, with her gloves, her dresses, and her unshakeable calm, got them to see things her way. Even when they really, really didn't want to. It also didn't hurt (I am sure) that her golf game blew theirs out of the water, that she could drink darned near anyone under the table and collected tid-bits of information like gold. All while being a perfect lady.
These rules or boxes were made of steel. And yet, I didn't always fit into these neat cubicles. One of my first 'real' jobs was in a cubical farm as a secretary. I hated it from day one. Two weeks later I broke out of there and started my own company. Used the 'rules' but applied them in my own way and started an advertizing agency. This was something else ruled by the male coellition and not to be messed with. I sweetly told the 'gentlemen' who came to call to 'put me out of business' that in two years, they would be offering me half a million dollars to make me go away. They laughed, initially. Then they did just that two and a half years later.
The boxes have expanded, morphed and changed. Something I have leaned over the years is that we let ourselves get rutted in our comfort boxes. We stay with what works for us. I've also learned that sometimes, it is a very good thing to venture outside of those walls. To at least open the windows in them and let some fresh air blow inside.
With our writing, this may mean trying new forms, new types of stories, different genres, or a totally new style. We aren't who we were thirty or five years ago. New experiences, outlooks, and rules let us venture forth and try new things. I can only imagine my mother's rection/response/thoughts to some of the writing I have done, to some of the books I have written. In her day, one simply, did not do that or approach some of the subjects I tackle. She'd wonder how I even knew anything about whatever it was I was writing about. The joys of living, the joys of research - but mostly, the sheer joys of trying something new!
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A.R.McAffee says: This was a good newsletter, Thanks!
You are quite welcome!
oldgreywolf on wheels  writes: IF that lump of phosphorus-rich lard between your (and our) ears were the object of Marvin MINSKY's wildest desires (i.e., a meat computer), then the logical answer would be "of course not" (A+ does not equal A-), and creativity would be set = 0,0.
Fortunately, our brain is a neural network that rewires itself, constantly adapting to new learning, new observation, new correlations.
Our brain, being in the simian lineage, possesses a large number of mirror cells, enabling copying the behavior of others.
Cats, dogs, wolves, humans, observe, learn, practice.
If you can learn it, answer the questions you're going to ask yourself, perform Einstein's gedanken on the information, and draft/draft/draft . . . final text, why shouldn't you be able to speak from a different character viewpoint?
Elfin Dragon-finally published  comments: On the authenticity of Actors/Writers:
I'm with you. If an actor (or writer) has the ability to play the part, then they should be able to do so no matter their age, gender, or orientation. I mean Sandy Duncan has played Peter Pan for years and no one has criticized her for being a female playing a male role. And what of Japanese Kabuki Theater? Even the female roles are generally played by men. And currently, in some movies, directors and producers have taken it upon themselves to change traditional roles so that men are played by women, white women are played by women of color, and characters changed into LGBT roles just so they fit into today's view of people.
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For Authors: October 12, 2022 Issue [#11608]
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