Brittany Maresh

writer

My current WIP features several brilliant methods of taking over the world. These are a few of the rejected ideas:

1. Train ants to pick people up and dump them in the ocean. Clear entire continents this way. Brilliant: ants are strong and all over the world. Yay, plentiful minions! Not brilliant: they’re not very smart, and you’re human-shaped. Hope you like salt water.
2. Deforestationinator. Delete forests until the masses bow to your whims. Brilliant: We sort of need forests. Not brilliant: We sort of need forests.
3. Flood the oceans. Melt the polar ice caps unless people agree to do your bidding. Brilliant: raising the water levels could totally cause problems and stuff. That’s why we’re all so down on global warming, right? Not brilliant: I hope you know how to swim. Or own a really, really nice boat. Maybe mountain land? That could do.
4. Subliminal messages in a catchy dance tune. Brilliant: you now control the youths of the nations. Not brilliant: They’re still not very motivated and don’t really have very practiced technical skills. Good luck holding their attention for very long, either.
5. Squirrel army. Brilliant: Unlike mice, they have manual dexterity. Like mice, they’re good at infiltration. Also, they’re edible, should you need to make an example of someone. Not brilliant: I mean, really? Is this Willy Wonka? Nobody is going to take you seriously. Not even after you’ve taken all the access codes, cleared their bases, and infected them all with some deadly squirrel-transported virus.

Other rejected ideas included the goldfish network, shrinking the moon, and finding some fish called Nemo. Also, bringing back the dinosaurs, but we want to rule the world, not make ourselves into lunch.

In short, I’m having a good time with this writing thing. I recommend it to anyone who absolutely cannot give it up no matter how hard they try.

I’m between novels. Between edits. Between submission and rejections. And I’m somewhere in that ditch between being a student and being something.

It’s a bit strange, this empty space between things.

2011 was a hard year for me. A lot of bad. But y’know, there was a lot of good, too. These are in no particular order or significance. They’re just eleven happy things from 2011.

1. The whole family was in the living room, listening to Ryan read a picture book about a lion and the blue butterfly he was in love with. It was Christmas eve. After, he proposed to my sister Melissa. She said yes. Actually, she said “yeah.” I don’t think she’ll ever live that down.

2. I finished my last semester of college, walked out of the building, and never have to go back. Not a lot to say about this one. It wasn’t a good semester. I was just so relieved that it was over. College for me was not a good experience, but I graduated. That matters.

3. Karina, Linds, and Beverly getting ready with me for the Esther Earl Rocking Charity Ball. We were hours late, because we were just having fun doing the sort of girly stuff I never do (even if our movie did keep glitching). I think we all had an amazing time, and it’s probably one of my most treasured memories.

4. Hanging out after the Funslam in the hotel room with Megan, Nutty, and Vanessa. Looking at pictures, laughing, and invading personal space. I didn’t know it was possible to just bond so quickly with people you hardly know, but we did.

5. Going up Hatcher’s Pass with Summer, Jean, Trace, and company. Madness ensued, few berries were picked, and a lot of dramatic photos were taken.

6. Karaoke with Heather, Sanaa, Klu, and the writing crew. Heather is just dynamite. I don’t know how she is real, but I’m so glad she is.

7. Meeting Jenn in Cleveland. She made the whole day magic, when it was stressful, and scary, and a little bit nausea-inducing. Nobody died, and that alone was good, but she made it happy, as well. (Thanks, Jenn!)

8. Working the fair in Ninilchik. It was a trip where everything went wrong. The car broke down. We had to leave gear behind. There were a thousand delays.  The rain was pouring and everything was sopping wet. It was cold, and windy, and thousand-pond tents were blowing over. I was working in a wax hands booth (making wax hands) with some cool people. The whole weekend was such a disaster, but we made it through and felt really accomplished for it.

9. American Heritage Girls camp. I love the girls. They’re exceptional individuals. Plus I got to work with Lexi, who I adore irrationally. Even with someone breaking in and stealing arrows (not mine – thank you, paranoid sleeping with my gear under my bed) and leaving early, it was a really happy memory.

10. Making my birthday cake with Michael. He was five, and everything we did seemed like magic to him. He’s my favorite little brother. Also, my only little brother. Also, we have candles that burn the color of the candle, instead of ordinary flame colors.

11. Deciding to go to New York on a whim, and being there less than 24 hours later (with tickets to a “sold out” concert, thank you, Stubhub). It was for a friend (and I’m glad I was there for her – she seriously needed support), and it let me spend time with people that I like, and rarely get to see (like Jenn).

Bonus memory: a thousand small moments with people online. Nyeusicrew, Hounds, fellow Asurans on FFXI, former Clandestites, all of you from all over. I honestly couldn’t pick just one. You all make my life so much more interesting, and encourage me on in my madness when I think the thing to do is, say, write a novel in three days for a contest,  build walking gingerbread men, level up BLM to my main (never again!), make a BLM cos for Halloween, or make cupcakes with gold-dusted chocolate tri-forces on top. Thanks.

Reasons I have not been posting the neat things I’ve been up to:

1. Server got infected. I’m not up on the details, nor do I wish to be, but I’ve been reassured the site is safe, and the problem has been eradicated. Or it might have been irradiated. I wasn’t really paying attention when they told me.

2.  In a fit of anti-social, I pulled my laptop out at a Halloween party and promptly knocked it over and broke it. Yes, I have bad luck with these things.At least everything was backed up.

3. I spent most of November being a fangirl going to different stops on the Team StarKid SPACE Tour.

4. I was desperately ill for about a month. Lose 20 pounds, spend a week unable to talk, start to think you might need to see a doctor, lack of insurance be damned sort of sick. I have since recovered.

5. My attempt to take over the world using bloodthirsty gingerbreadbots required more time than expected. The results are as of yet inconclusive.

Moving on to serious stuff:

The year isn’t over, but I can already say this is the single least productive year I’ve had since I was in 10th grade, as far as novel output goes. A lot of reasons, but it’s still disappointing to think of this as a three book year (LEGACY, UNTITLED HANDWRITTEN GAMER BOOK, THE PRINCESS OF ICE AND SNOW).

I’ve done mad edits, though, on a lot of things (MESSAGES FROM THE DEAD, AT HOME IN EXILE, INTERNET FAMOUS, FOREVER FIFTEEN, to name a few). I’ve sent out query letters. I’ve gotten rejections, partial requests, and some very lovely responses asking me to send future projects. All in all, disheartening  but mostly okay.

Still. Three books. That’s all.

I sort of feel like that’s a bad thing.  For some people, that’s great output. But I’ve always been prolific. Writing has always been something that consumes everything I am. I haven’t ever neglected it so horribly.

On the other hand, I am being paid to write a nonfiction piece for a professor at the university. So maybe a four book year. Which isn’t great, or even good, but could be worse.

If I forgot a book, and you happen to know it, tell me. Because it would cheer me up like nothing else.

It’s my birthday, but my five-year-old little brother wanted to help with my birthday cake. He wanted to make a Lorax cake with me. I sort of went with it, because, well, he’s five and he’s my little brother, and I’m a bit of a sucker.

You can’t tell from this photo, but it’s three layers, each layer half one color, half another. The icing was something of a lie. It’s raspberry, but yellow, and I’m pretty sure I got more of it in my eyebrows than on the cake. Well, no, but for sure the little brother ate more than he put on the cake.

Also, someone may have driven their Hot Wheels on the cake. I’m not going to point any fingers, but let’s just say it’s the only person in the house shorter than I am.

The candles were sort of ridiculously adorable. I wanted the ones that burned different colors, but the five-year-old vetoed that. Again, I’m a sucker.

The older brother lit the candles for us. Given the only other adults in the room are half blind in a sort of literal fashion, this was probably good planning on our part.

There are no good post-first-cut, pre-decimation photos. I was a little busy making wishes and cutting things, and spaced on the camera. I like the way the layers turned out, though. I was sort of afraid they’d mix too much, or they’d look stupid. I’m just now noticing I got my yellow and orange backward. What can I say? I was distracted.

Needless to say, my little brother was very pleased with the cake. Well, mostly. He’s a bit disappointed at the lack of sprinkles.

Next time, I’m breaking out our mini cotton candy maker for the Truffula trees. The ones we made were somewhat stupidly adorable, but there was no way they would have stood up in the cake.

I haven’t posted any of my baking projects in a while. They’ve been mostly boring, like autumn leaves and birthday things, so you haven’t been missing out on much.

Yesterday, I was trying to figure out how to make Audrey II cookies (still working on it) when my little brother asked for a “Rapunzel Pie.”

I’m not sure what he meant, but I’m never one to turn down a chance to paint on a pie crust:

If I were to do it again, I’d paint it after rolling it flat but before placing it on top of the pie.

It’s a home-made preserves blackberry/raspberry (no, I can’t tell the difference) filling and grandma’s recipe for the crust, natural fruit juice coloring/dye.

I free-handed the design (well, you can tell that, I think) and the dye bled, but my little brother loved it and that’s really all that matters.

Still working on the Audrey II cookies.

I don’t usually print my manuscripts after I’ve edited them because the editing is never really done. The book can always be made better, and I write so many books, and they take up so much space. At some point it just became impractical to have them all stand like corpses waiting for cremation on a shelf.

Messages From the Dead is different.  I mentioned to my mother today that I’d submitted queries for it. She wanted to know what I’d made, even though she always hates my work, so I showed her.

It’s the first thing I’ve written in as long as I can remember that my mother doesn’t hate.  She didn’t accuse me of wasting my potential when she read it. Or of being morbid. Or ask why I couldn’t just write nice things like when I was little.

It’s not a nice book.  It’s not a happy story.  But it speaks to her in a way that makes that okay.

So I don’t usually print my manuscripts. But this time, I did. For her.

I know a lot of people are going to write about how amazing the Team StarKid Funtastic Slamaganza For Charity was.  And I’m not going to even go there — it was my favorite, of all the shows I’ve been to, which admittedly is only a few, and I loved it.

But sick kids and hospitals are both things that really get to me, so that’s what I’m going to write about.  The “For Charity” part of the show.  Lame, I know, but that’s how I roll or something.

See, I work all summer with some of the most amazing kids you’ll ever meet, out at the archery range at a camp.  I had the misfortune of rooming with the medic my first six years at camp, right next to the medic station, so I got to meet every sick, dying, and medicated child in camp, everyone with an oxygen tank, a daily injection…

And especially the ones I met my first year out there, they just made a huge impact on me.

Of all of them, though, Steve* was the one who I thought of, at the Slamaganza. The kid who even all these years later, talking about makes me feel like crying.  I’m not going to lie – when they showed a video about the charity at the event, when they had these tiny children all hooked up to oxygen and IVs, all I could think about was Steve, and that just choked me up like none other.  I didn’t cry – I don’t cry – but I could feel that familiar sensation, like someone driving a nail into my heart. I couldn’t look at the paintings they were auctioning, or at the screen with images they had next to it, or even any of the charity information, because of Steve, and my sister’s cancer-ridden fiancé, and my ex-boss, who is just starting his cancer treatment.

Steve’s not the only sick kid we’ve ever had come to our camp. Or the only one to die.  But he was special to me, and I was special to him, and some people you just don’t forget.

He had CF, and in the mornings he’d come down to the med station, sit with this vibrating vest on to clear up his lungs, hooked up to all these things.  He’d laugh and make jokes even though it had to have hurt, and he was really just this radiant kid. I don’t even know if I can explain how very warm he was, just, to everyone, even when he was hooked up to oxygen while other kids were coming in just to bandage a scrape

One year he came to camp and he was just so sad. I’d never seen this kid really down before, but I swear, the look was like someone had skinned his puppy and made him eat it for breakfast. Just, heartbreaking.

He came over to me and hugged me right around the waist, and said that it was his last year at camp, and this kid, he was maybe nine, and just short as anything, and I swear I could hear his heart ripping itself into pieces,

They were moving for his health, they were moving to somewhere warm and dry. It was supposed to be better for his lungs, for his life. He was supposed to get to grow up, and send us post cards about how he was doing, and so we spent all our spare time telling him about how amazing it was going to be, where he was going. How much fun he’d have, how the new people and place would be this amazing adventure. We were all looking forward to hearing from him, and sending him postcards of our own, and I don’t think there was a person on staff that didn’t just adore him.

There’s this one open program time when I’m not back at my archery range. I hung out at the craft station making beaded necklaces with the kids, and he spent the entire time there, working on this ridiculous necklace, with every pretty thing he could find, all strung together in knots and lines. It was hideous, but he put so much love into it, so much time, he just thought it was the best thing anyone had ever made, and I think that was infectious, because now I think it’s one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen.

I thought he was making it for his mother, or a sister, but at the end of the week he gave it to me, and told me every bead was for a happy time we’d spent together at camp, and he went through and he told me about all the memories he had, even things that to me were nothing – the time I let him cut in the lunch line, the time I gave him a hi-five walking up the stairs.

He made me promise I’d remember him, and all the happy times, and not be sad because he was going to grow up, and come back and visit us some day.

We gave him the camp address, so he could send us post cards, and we all said goodbye, and he gave me this stupid letter, about how he was going to love archery at his next camp, but that it wouldn’t be the same without me, and so he would like it a little less, and just thinking about it is making my hands shake a little, because as stupid as it all is, as dumb as it is, and as long as it has been…

We got a phone call not long after camp that summer, and even writing this much, even just thinking about it as far as this, it kills me.  Steve passed away while on a camping trip, before ever leaving Alaska. His parents were always so, so careful. He always had everything he needed – so much more – but they left out one thing, one vital, life-saving thing, and he didn’t make it to the hospital. His lungs couldn’t handle it, and he passed away, out on an adventure.

His parents called to thank us, because the one thing he spent his last few years talking about the most was how happy we made him out at camp, and how much he cared for all of us. He worried about us, about us not having fun without him, about us being sad he was gone.

We were a bright moment in his life, and even if it does make me cry like an idiot when I think about it, I still have his necklace, and the goodbye letter her wrote me.

So the Slamaganza, For Charity.  As fun as it was, as amazing as it was, I’m not going to talk about it. Possibly ever. Because if I think too hard about why we were there, and what Team StarKid was raising money for, I’ll cry again.

And honestly, crying makes me feel like such an idiot.

*names changed to ensure I get to keep my job – because let’s face it, I love it.

Full disclosure, I had major eye surgeries from infancy up through sixth grade. I hate hospitals and I’m glad people are making an effort to make them less sucktastic for children. Here’s a link to Snow City Arts, the charity in question: http://www.snowcityarts.com/home.html Take a look at it, maybe donate something.

I’m feeling a little less than optimal today, so I’m going to write about something happy:

The bus bumped down the road heading to Detroit, away from Chicago, StarShip, Sue the T-Rex, Ashley, Angela, the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum, the Adler Planetarium. Next to me Bonnie was reading Messages From the Dead, a 60,000 word mess I’d printed for her on a whim. Across from us a balding black man slouched low, listening as Bonnie and I bickered back and forth between chapters.
The night was warm and dark, and even though I’d handed Bonnie something that felt so very, very important, I was welcome, and wanted, and just loved. I was happy.
<3

Father-figures don’t feature prominently in my work. There is no wise male mentor, no reassuring dad.  And that’s because I don’t have one, never have, haven’t even ever wanted one.

Except today.

Today, when I was selling my car, I wished I had a dad.

Dads are supposed to know about cars, and give advice, and look out for your best interest.

I had to tell everyone who came to see my car, “I don’t know,” a thousand times.

“Is it automatic?” “I don’t know.”

“How did it die?” “I don’t know.”

“What’s wrong with it?” “I have no idea.”

And I think, if I had a dad, I might not have had to say it so much. Because HE might have known.

Maybe that’s the solution to the novel problem I’ve been struggling with for ages.

That terrifies me, a little. Because what do I know about father figures?

Absolutely nothing.