Glorious Nuptials
By Deanna | August 30, 2009
The majority of my photography-related work can be found at my studio site, but this is a special case, the marriage of two of my best friends. I had the great honor of photographing their ceremony.
We went to Canada since it is illegal for these two wonderful people to get married here in Texas or, for that matter, the majority of this country.
I don’t see a day very soon that this issue will change here, but we can keep working toward that goal.
Topics: Photography, Poignancy | Comments Off
Trespassing, stealing, and risking life and limb
By Deanna | August 5, 2009
I first became a hardened pomegranate thief when I was ten.
The superintendent lived across the street from our school. On the edge of his back yard, surrounded by a fence, was a lovely heavy-laden pomegranate tree. And, you know, it wasn’t like he was our English teacher or something. He couldn’t flunk us, right?
So during the summer, when the fruit was ripe, my friends and I would make a loose, clumsy tower of pre-adolescent bodies to steal them right from the tree.
We couldn’t wait to go home and properly soak the pomegranate so the seeds would separate from the inedible pulp, but scraped the scarlet beads out with our hands, bursting most of them and staining our fingers. We often could not stop at one and would return a few hours later for more. We got caught once, the squeak of the screen door heralding our doom. But we were fast, and took off in different directions. It was escape or death, because the evidence was undeniable.
Recently, my friend Anton held a reading for his latest screenplay, a suspense film bordering on horror, along the lines of The Orphanage. Pomegranate seeds played a big role in the movie, symbolic, frightening, blood-red, and sensual, all things the story conveys in its theme.
But everyone kept spitting the seeds OUT.
This was strange to me. You EAT the seeds. You don’t spit any part of them out.
Widipedia agreed with me, saying the seeds are ingested whole, but at the discussion after the reading, about half the group said they also spit out the seed pods after popping them for the juice.
It’s been a year since I ate a pomegranate, last season, but one of my neighbors has a tree in her yard. I stopped last summer to warn her I had a history of fruit thievery, and might purloin a pomegranate, and please not to shoot me out of the tree.
She said she’d try to remember me if she saw a figure outside her window.
And so this is how, three decades later, I again trespassed and stole, this time with the added fun of tree climbing at my advanced age, with no cohorts to give me a boost, trying to see if the pomegranates were indeed ripe right after Independence Day, as the script called for fireworks, and to determine if it made sense to spit out the seeds.
The lowest fruit was just out of my reach, so I had to grasp the spindly branches and heave myself up. I chose to do this near dusk, mosquitoes buzzing my head, in hopes no one would catch me. I finally grasped the yellow ball, even knowing from the color that it was all wrong.
And indeed, the fruit wasn’t quite ripe, bitter and hard to break, so I didn’t really get to test the seed theory. But I did covet my neighbor’s fruit, trespass on her property, and scale a tree just to answer a question. Because, you know, going to the grocery store would just be too easy.
Topics: Humor, Writing | Comments Off
Literary Lothario
By Deanna | July 14, 2009
I admit it, I’m an infidel.
Earlier this year, I was passionately in love with my middle grade novel. We were together every day, often long into the night, mutually basking in the glow of each other’s fond admiration.
Then, we hit a rough patch. She got some attention. Things looked promising for the long term. I developed expectations. But she faltered, then failed. So I ditched her. Sorry.
And so I was single again. I had options — the sequel to the middle grade, or maybe, just maybe, this sexy new manuscript I had started during NaNoWriMo.
It called to me in the night, edgy and full of appeal, rife with longing and promising of secrets. So I slipped into a new relationship and even started a screenplay version of the story.
But then, trouble. Characters behaved erratically, refusing to be reasonable. I admit — I got controlling — trying to force them into who I thought they should be. The story rebelled; I offered a fresh start. But we began to grow apart.
And today, I opened a file, something I’d written a few years ago but recently freshened up the opening for a fellowship application. I read the first 18 pages and didn’t change a word. It was perfect! Beautiful! Tantalizing.
And so I began to plan our time together, makeovers, meaningful conversations, pillow talk.
But the old story nipped at me. Not fair, it called. You can’t leave me like this, unfinished, in disarray.
I’m torn. Old love or new. Manage my problems or fly a new direction. Without a deadline, an expectation by anyone, I flit from work to work, writing only what feels good at the time, like a book gigolo.
Maybe if one of them manages to snag me for real, binds me with a contract, I’ll settle down. But until then, sweet works-in-progress, take it from Rod, it’s a heartache, nothing but a heartache, hits you when it’s too late, hits when you’re down…
Topics: Humor, Writing | Comments Off
Some days a writer feels like a lamppost
By Deanna | June 22, 2009
“Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.”
John Osborne
That warm feeling I got when my romantic comedy Heteroflexible advanced to quarterfinals in its first screenwriting competition at Blue Cat, became a warm, wet feeling when I read the script analysis.
Now, I do love my criticism. And it being emphatic is, to me, all the better. I’m known for rather acerbic critiques in my novel and screenplay groups. So I’m not really whining, just relating that odd sensation of having read both this: “When you’re insulting, you’re just insulting.”
And then advancing with the top 20 percent.
While the analysis samples on the Blue Cat site were all fairly even handed with good points/bad points in the 600 words they promise you, my reader gave up precisely 23 words with a tepid line about ”a story that hasn’t been seen before,” then waylaid me for 1017 more. (I got bonus words!)
Other great moments in my feedback were, “so incredibly stereotypical,” “I don’t buy it,” and “clearly a first draft.” At the end I was encouraged to “go back to the outline and really work on it” with a reminder that “with most scripts, your goal is to make it into a film.”
It’s hard to imagine this is also the judge who advanced it. I did some digging around to see if BlueCat had separate critics from judges, but wasn’t able to find out for certain. It seems expensive for them to have two people read it, but who knows, maybe I was early in the pile and this critic liked the others even less.
I know humor is hard to write. And the subject matter for this story is easily the most controversial I’ve ever endeavored. I run the risk of alienating everybody, even the demographic the tale holds in the highest esteem.
But I do believe in this story. And I’m finishing up the novel version, which I recently cut down to 43,000 words to get rid of distracting story elements and slow scenes, gradually building it back up to the 70K minimum for a novel. I’ve incorporated some of the more specific feedback from this analysis into the novel, but I’m not really sure how to address the generalities of being insulting and stereotypical and not believable.
The story has a long way to go yet. The screenplay has only been through two drafts, and I’m on the second draft of the book.
But before I put either version before any more critics, I’ll make sure I’m dressed in something that won’t show the wet spots.
Topics: Humor, Writing | Comments Off
Oh my G, you’re an F!
By Deanna | April 13, 2009
Unlike the Facts of Life conversations, which tend to be initiated by my six-year-old, the Bad Words talk is one that I will bring up myself. Part of this comes from morbid maternal curiosity. The rest is to make sure more Newspeak isn’t occurring (the school has banned “stupid” and “freak,” and I don’t agree with cutting out ordinary words over poor usage.)
Last time we had this conversation, we learned Elizabeth’s S-bomb. Today, as we sat on the sofa, she informed me she had two new ones.
“Lay them on me,” I told her.
She shook her head, as expected.
“Okay, so what do they start with?”
“With one you say “oh my” first.” She nodded knowingly. “It’s like ‘Oh my word’ or ‘Oh my gosh,’ but this one is bad.”
Well, that wasn’t too hard to guess. I decided to challenge her. “What if you’re praying? Can you say, ‘Oh my God’ then?”
She considered this for a moment. “I guess that would be okay.”
“So we’ve established that in some cases, it is all right to say, ‘Oh my God.’”
She fingered her hot pink dress nervously. “Yeah, okay.”
“So is it really a bad word, if we sometimes can use it?”
“You mean like stupid?”
“Right. You can say ‘This stupid pen won’t write,’ and that’s okay.”
“So you can say ‘Oh my God’ sometimes too?”
“Yes.” Hopefully she was catching on. “So it’s not really a bad word.”
“Okay.” She pushed her blond hair out of her face. “I don’t think you can EVER say the other one.”
“What’s it start with?”
“First you say, ‘You’re a–’” She stopped.
“And what does the next word start with?”
“F.”
“Freak?’
“No.”
“Fool?”
“No.”
I was quite sure we weren’t going for the big kahuna, but I thought I’d check. “You don’t say ‘mother’ with it?”
“No!”
“I give up. Just tell me the word.”
Her eyes got very big. “No way.”
“I promise you won’t be in trouble.”
She shook her head.
“What if you’re in trouble if you DON’T tell me?”
She smiled. She knew I was bluffing. “You said you know all the bad words. Figure it out.” And she hopped off the sofa. Our conversation was done.
I’m still in that golden mother stage where my kids think I know everything, and they will mostly do what I tell them, believe what I believe. I’ve got a couple good years yet.
But if you have any idea what “You’re an F–” stands for, please clue me in. I promise you won’t be in trouble.
(I don’t allow comments on this blog due to Internet trolls, but if you are on Facebook, friend me there and read what everyone is guessing the word could be.)
UPDATE: We had some great guesses on Facebook, and Irma was the closest with “fatty.” At dinner the other night, it took 20 minutes of questioning (involving her sister) before we got the answer: fat girl.
Topics: Humor | Comments Off
The Facts of Life, Part Deux: Torture the Mother
By Deanna | March 27, 2009
So, a month or so ago, you read my lovely initial birds and bees conversation with my six-year-old. (Yes, SIX.)
Apparently Elizabeth has babies on the brain, as yesterday when we were stuck on Mopac, she suddenly asked, “How do you make a baby?”
Thankfully, traffic was at a dead stop, or I might have swerved off the road. This would be multi-tasking at its finest.
In a brilliant extension of my previous tactic, I answered with another question. “What do you mean?”
She would not be thwarted. “I mean, what makes a baby?”
Deep breath. “Well, inside a daddy is a part that makes the baby. And in the mother is the other part. When they come together, they make a baby start to grow in the mother’s tummy.”
“But how does he get it in there?”
Arrrghhh! My nine-year-old was mercifully silent, hunched in the back seat as though she could disappear into the cushion.
I decided to evade, not wanting to get into technical aspects. “He puts it inside the mom. And then it grows for over nine months, and then it comes out.” Genius use of ambiguous pronouns, thank you very much.
She still wanted details. “But how does he get it IN there?”
Traffic inched forward another three feet, then stopped. My mind raced. No McDonald’s nearby. No ice cream shops. What I wouldn’t give for a Chuck E. Cheese at the moment! Here, kids, tokens! Anything but The Talk!
But I was trapped.
“How does it, Mama, how does it?”
“Well, the mom and dad just decide it is time, and so they…” Oh, someone get me out of this. “They decide to make the baby.”
The cars nudged past the on ramp that was slowing us down, and we cruised a little faster.
“Almost there!” I said, lying like a toddler with a fistful of stolen cookie. We had another twenty minutes easy. “Who wants gelato when we get to Mandola’s?”
They girls chorused “Me, me!”
“Which flavor is best?” I asked.
“Chocolate!” Elizabeth shouted.
“No lemon!” Emily said.
“Nuh uh!”
“Is too!”
My work here was done.
Topics: Humor, Life with Kids | Comments Off
The Facts of Life Are All About…Marriage, Apparently
By Deanna | February 24, 2009
My six-year-old flopped on the bed with no indication whatsoever she was about to drop a bombshell.
“So, Mama, can I have a baby before I’m married?”
I had to think for a minute. These questions are never what they seem, like the time the big horrid bad word she heard at school, that started with “s,” turned out to be “stupid.” My big anti-censorship lecture, wasted.
I decided the best tactic was to answer the question with another question.
“Do you think it’s happened already?”
“NO!” She laughed at me.
“Then clarify, please.”
“What if you have a baby in your tummy, but you aren’t married?”
I’m about to wax poetic on how one does not need to marry someone just because he fathered a child, when she went on. “I mean, does it get stuck in there until you’re married? Can it not come out?”
I feigned a coughing fit so I could compose myself. AND figure out how to answer.
“Well,” I began, with no idea where I was going to take it. “No. The baby will come out whether you get married or not.”
She looked puzzled at this. “But how?”
“Well there are two ways a baby can come out–”
“No!” Exasperation. “Does it have to stay in there longer? How does it stay in there?”
“Are you asking me how a baby gets INTO the mother?” Please, please say no. I can’t manage this in first grade terminology. I suddenly remembered the infamous line from Kindergarten Cop, “Boys have a penis, and a girls have a vagina!”
“NO!” She gripped the blankets on my bed, frustrated.
“I know this is a real mystery,” I said. “It’s hard to understand.”
“So I can have a baby before I’m married?” Back to square one.
“Yes,” I said. “It might be harder, being a single mom, but people do it all the time.” I gave examples of friends whose moms were raising them, dads gone or moved away.
“But the dad was there when the baby came out.” This is still a sticking point.
“The dad really only has to be there when it goes in,” I said. Although actually, with sperm banks, even that might be optional.
“The dad puts the baby in?” She seems shocked, and I can see her mental image of the dad somehow inserting an infant.
Enough. Bring on the mom cop out. “Time for bed,” I said. “We can talk about this some more tomorrow.”
I herded her to the bedroom. Hopefully tomorrow she’d have easier questions. Like the cost effectiveness of the bank bailout and the economic flow of the stimulus package. Or tips on a successful exit strategy in Iraq.
Quite possibly, it won’t come up again until her wedding day. Or when she tells me I’m going to be a grandma. Whichever comes first.
Topics: Humor, Life with Kids | Comments Off
Ding dong, the sub is dead
By Deanna | February 3, 2009
The second grader held his picture high enough for the whole class to see. “Look, Ms. Roy, here’s your heart falling out of your body!”
He seemed shocked that my response was simply, “It should be a little more red. And dripping.”
The lesson the teacher had left for me involved the question, “What if dinosaurs had never become extinct?” Part of the assignment involved drawing a picture of dinos taking over the school.
In both the pictures and essays, I was mutilated, maimed, crushed, and bitten in half. The students seemed to delight in any new variation on the theme of Death by Dino.
I’ll admit, I felt strange serving as antagonist. I’d substitute taught a time or two, serving at my daughters’ school when there’s a shortage. But generally I avoided becoming a stereotype — or a victim.
The boy elbowed his friend, who was also depicting my untimely demise by T-rex. “She doesn’t get mad no matter what we do to her!”
I’m happy to support creative energy, whatever form it takes. And if mangling their substitute is what gets them fired up about writing, then I’ll take it. I fed them fresh ideas. “What about my brains? Did they gush out?” One boy rapidly added a crunched skull to his art. “My hair’s longer than that,” I corrected.
As the students filed out for lunch, some felt chagrin. One girl grasped my waist as she passed by. “I’m sorry I killed you,” she said.
Even the boys begrudgingly admitted, “Ms. Roy, it’s probably a waste for you to get eaten.” As I sent them down to the cafeteria, I felt good about how the lesson had gone. I didn’t censor them, and they recognized the responsibility that came with freedom to write about what they chose.
Besides, as the line snaked down the hallway, they merrily began planning the death of the principal.
Topics: Humor | Comments Off
A writer’s gotta do what a writer’s gotta do
By Deanna | January 25, 2009
I just listened to Bryan Adams’ Everything I Do, I Do It for You sixteen times in a row.
No, I’m not having A Relationship Moment. Nor am I hoping for Death by Cornball.
I needed a totally schmaltzy song to match the horridly touching moment at the opening of the novel I am writing.
Wait, to properly set the mood, you must torture yourself too.
Come on, hit play, you know you don’t want to.
Waiting.
Waiting.
It’s playing? All right then.
So there’s this wedding photographer (now you know it’s not me, as I don’t photograph weddings.)
And she’s locked in a room with a Bridezilla. (Now I’m really glad I don’t do weddings, or all my clients would worry I’m about to expose them in my novel. Word to the wise: Never befriend a novelist.)
Bridezilla is planning to bail on the nuptials because her light o’ love did a switcheroo on the groom’s cake, which now has the Aggie logo.
I find this grounds for divorce, personally, but of course, my main character needs the two grand and has to figure out how to save the wedding, despite any anti-Aggie-isms.
So she plays the Bryan Adams song, hoping to soften up the bride.
You know, Everything I Do, etc. etc. It should be playing.
What? It’s not playing? You are a bad bad blog reader. (I’ll be cross checking the IP addresses of my web hits against the play count of the video—yeah, turn it on now, now that you’re busted. You KNOW nobody’s playing this video but us.)
Soak it in, Bryan Adams, this marvel of sap. And imagine a photographer convincing a bride that her groom changed the cake because everything he does, he does it for her…
The book is a romantic comedy, and I can only hope that if I’m laughing as I write it, so will someone else.
If not, well, I’m listening to Bryan Adams in vain. And that is so very very wrong.
Ping me for an excerpt, if you’re curious. Unless you are waiting for a photo order from me, and then of course I’m not writing a novel, but madly…filling your order. Really. Because Everything I do…I do it for…you.
Topics: Humor, Writing | Comments Off
What’s in a name? Ask Deanna. Or Deanna. Or Deanna.
By Deanna | January 17, 2009
A few days ago I found out Deanna Roy was pregnant.
No, no, no, not me. The Deanna Roy in Nova Scotia.
Now, I’ll admit, when the status update “Deanna Roy is expecting again!” came across my Facebook feed, I did glance down at my own belly. I thought maybe the advancement of web beacons and cookies had invaded my privacy to the point that the Internet had cross-referenced and info-cached things about me that even I didn’t know.
But then I remembered, a few months ago I had managed to friend all the Deanna Roys on Facebook, just to see what we were up to. One of us is a doctor. A second runs an art gallery. Another is a financial adviser.
Growing up, my mom told me she’d come up with my name as a combination of Dee, which my dad goes by, and Anna, from a great-grandmother. I thought she was so clever to have invented an entirely new name.
Imagine my consternation in 5th grade when I met my middle school librarian, Deanna Smallwood, petite, sharp-nosed, and in her fifties. How could this be? I felt like Sidda in Divine Secrets of a Ya-Ya Sisterhood when she discovers the word vivacious wasn’t strictly about her mother Vivi. Suddenly I wasn’t original, unique, a one and only. I was part of a crowd.
Google has forged a tenuous bond among us Deanna Roys. I worried the others might be annoyed that I stole the domain that could have gone to any of us. When I first began friending my namesakes, I expected at least one to say, “So YOU’RE the version clogging up the search engines. Ranking hog.” But no one has complained, at least not to my virtual face.
I’m a big fan of Google Alerts, which sends you notifications when a new instance of a search term enters the web. In this way, I get to watch the progress of the other Deannas. Sometimes I feel like a voyeur, interested in these other lives solely by virtue of what their parents chose to call them. I also want to be the first to know if one of us gets arrested. The commingling of our names gets a little awkward when the publicity turns negative. Among the Deannas, I’m probably the greatest risk, tossing out first-person essays and questionable fiction into the world. At least when a mother phones her Deanna and shouts, “What IS this smut I just read?” I’ll know that I deserve it.
Now I get to follow along as another Deanna brings a baby into the world. Maybe I’ll send her a quick note, suggesting a doctor and even a financial guru to help manage the addition to the family. In fact, the gallery owner could probably help with art for the nursery. And why not? We definitely have a name we can trust.
Topics: Humor | Comments Off