8 Things Meme

I like being tagged for a meme because it means I'm part of a group. However, because I pretend this is a professional blog, if I take part in a meme, I have to connect it to writing or books. You've been warned.

Camille tagged me with the 8 Things Meme. So did MotherReader! I have never been so popular.

Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

(By the way, I'm sure I took part in a meme similar to this a couple of years ago, but I can't find it now. I hope I'm not repeating myself.)

1. We live in a town with poor water quality. Our well is a shaft directly to hell. Periodically, our water treatment system fails us. Thus, over the years I have spent a lot of time in Laundromats. I'm on a first name basis with the Laundromat ladies at my local fluff 'n' fold. I meet people I know there. A Laundromat is going to figure prominently in The Durand Cousins. I'm about to write a Laundromat chapter.

2. We have a friend who owns two self-storage complexes. This is a great source of fun for this guy because he knows I'm a use-it-or-lose-it type, meaning you don't rent space to store what you can't use, you get rid of it. I hear more about self-storage than I need to. So, of course, I've been planning to put a self-storage complex in The Durand Cousins because, as I just implied, I believe in using whatever you've got.

3. I've recently decided to drop the self-storage complex from The Durand Cousins because when writing you have to have a compelling reason for everything you put into a book. I didn't have a compelling reason for that self-storage complex, so I got rid of it. (Note: I got rid of it. I didn't rent space to store it.)

4. As I have mentioned here before, I have taken only one graduate course and the only thing I truly learned there was not to begin sentences, paragraphs, and complete works with the words "It was." I have become obsessed with this. I can barely control myself when I see those words at the beginning of a paragraph or a book or story. I've thought, He won X Award and he started this thing with 'It was?' What were the judges thinking? If "it was" in other peoples' writing was something I could fix, the way you can fix the pillows on other peoples' couches, I would be frantially erasing and reworking sentences all the time.

5. When I was younger, I was always writing stories about women's experiences, probably because of the influence of feminism. Feminism is not a bad thing. Evidently my stories about women's experiences were.

6. When I was in high school I wrote a story for the school paper that a reporter for the local city paper published over his by-line, word for word. My mother's response was that I should cut him a break (to paraphrase her) because he was an old man. Which was true. He was well enough known that we knew he was an old man, and he still stole a kid's article.

7. When I was in either college or soon thereafter, I saw an article in The New York Times Magazine on a bunch of writers named John--John Irving, John Updike, maybe John Cheever, definitely John Gardner. (He was very distinctive looking. Couldn't miss him, couldn't forget him.) This article was way, way over my head. I couldn't understand any of what these guys had to say. I was extremely discouraged. I didn't see how I could ever be a writer when I couldn't understand other writers.

8. I read Roald Dahl's short stories for adults before I read his books for children. I never cared for his books for children, but I liked his short stories a lot. I would call them an influence.

I tag:

Liz

Sheila

Leila

Gina

Linda

Chris

I'm coming up short of people to tag, but I'm guessing this thing will get all over the place, anyway.