If you have been to my house, you have met my dog Sherman. Most likely he didn’t give a good goddamn about you, unless you had food. But Sherman loved me completely. I was his soul outside his body. This was a big responsibility, and an honor. Today I held Sherman and told him he was a good boy, and that Mama loves him, and I said goodbye.
Denise Dare… What would YOU Burn?
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Today, I am sharing a poem written by a dear friend and an inspiration, Denise Dare.
Burning
Yearning
Wanting
Needing
Feeling
Living
Thriving
Breathing
Igniting
Creating
Destroying old ways
Embracing the light
as we move through our days…
Light the torch of Passion
Learning
Growing
Always Burning
Eager
Knowing
A guide upon our way to Being
Ever more fulfilled and inspired
Full of Hope
Fear behind us.
Burning
The dark.
Igniting
The light.
A spark to the flame…
Let our hearts be our guides.
Let us burn through the hatred, isolation, despair.
Let us emerge, like the Phoenix, and drink in fresh air.
Let us gift one another with a smile and a glance.
I have never met Scott Blagden, but he and I share the incalculable boon of having Rubin Pfeffer as an agent. Scott’s debut YA novel, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, DEAR LIFE, YOU SUCK is out now, to rave reviews. I haven’t read it yet, but now that I’ve read Scott’s BURNING blog contribution, I am off to buy myself a copy post haste. Here is what Scott Blagden would burn:
I’d burn that basement bedroom. That basement bedroom in the little red house in the woods with the cheesy paneling. That basement bedroom where I watched my dad straddle my brother on the yard-sale twin bed and beat the shit out of him. I’d burn that kitchen. That kitchen in the little red house in the woods with the enormous oak table and bench seating. That kitchen where I watched my dad slam my mom against the sunflower wallpaper and choke the shit out of her. I’d burn his booze bottles. I’d burn his belt. I’d burn the holidays when Dad said all he wanted as a gift was love. I’d burn the front-row pew he made us sit in at St. Mary’s. I’d burn the cancer cells that straddled his lungs and beat the shit out of him. The cancer cells that left him paralyzed in a pile of his own shit on that yard-sale twin bed in his filthy apartment. The cancer cells that forced me to forgive and forget. I’d burn all that shit.
I met lots of cool writers last year when SACRED debuted, Sara Wilson Etienne among them. I knew right when I saw her–purple curls, big smile–that I wanted to be her friend. Today I get to share her guest post, one that resonates with me and, I’m guessing, with lots of people.
What would I burn?
My ego.
There is a part of me that dreams of creating great stories that people LOVE. It dreams about teaching other people how to write for children and teens. And about author visits and book tours. This is the same part that drives me forward. That makes me work hard and get things just right. It is my ambition–my unshakable belief that I am good enough to share my stories with the world. And it is an essential and joyful part of who I am.
But let me introduce you to ambition’s sister…ego. My ego is dark and small-minded and ruthless. It craves praise and awards and gold stars. And it wants not just to create great books, but to do it BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE. And this isn’t helpful…not in any sense of the word.
The problem is these sisters look so much alike… it’s easy to confuse the two. Because both can be a driving force. Both look like they take you to the same place…a place with a career and published books. But one is a big-hearted, vulnerable dreamer. And the other is a mean-spirited miser.
I would burn the miser if I could. The part that whispers fears about what I’ll never have. That tries to judge my success by how many Amazon reviews I have, instead of the joy I get from writing my books. It makes me always want moremoremore, never satisfied with the work I’m doing. And it makes me feel small.
BUT I AM NOT. My ego is.
Sara Wilson Etienne is the author of HARBINGER. You can visit her here.
Nova Ren Suma, What Would YOU Burn?
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Today, I am proud to share the words of writer Nova Ren Suma, author of Imaginary Girls and 17 & Gone.
What would I burn? What would I vanquish from my life?
I think I’d burn my old writing to bits.
To let you understand why I’d do such a thing, I should first reveal the years of struggle that came after leaving writing school and before publishing my first book. But I won’t go into that. Because the point of burning those old printouts of novels that never got published, and that currently live in dusty stacks under my bed, is that I think I need to stop looking backward. To not dwell.
I want to write new things, not rehash the old. I want to grow as a writer, not fall back into bad habits and wonder why things didn’t go the way I’d originally planned.
I have a feeling that letting go of those drafts, their margins littered with comments from readers and comments from myself over a period of eight or nine years, would allow me to reinvent what came before in ways I can’t even imagine yet. To think of the eight or nine years ahead of me, not behind me.
Because what I remember of what I wrote back then may just be more important than the actual words I put down on the page. Because I don’t need the paper copies anymore, do I? The experience of having written them is enough.
If I could safely set a bonfire in my apartment without burning down the building, these pages are what I’d throw in.
Nova Ren Suma is the author of the YA novels Imaginary Girls and 17 & Gone. Visit her online or follow her on Twitter at @novaren.
Ann Stampler, What Would YOU Burn?
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I was blown away by Ann Stampler’s YA debut WHERE IT BEGAN, and was thrilled to get to know Ann in person at a series of book events in LA. So I’m excited to share her response today…
What Would I Burn?
I’ve never thought of myself as a big Everything Happens For A Reason kind of a person, but when I started contemplating the “What would I burn?” question, I realized that I might have to stand in line with all the other cliché-ridden Southern Californians, spouting all those gag-worthy, life-embracing platitudes.
Because I wouldn’t burn anything.
All right, presented with the great sweep of human history, I would burn Pol Pot, Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and that evil woman who egged on neighbor to kill neighbor via the radio in Rwanda.
In the more personally political realm, I would burn corsets, girdles, and weird, conical-cupped bras that left marks under your arms; voter registration lists that contained only male names; and “whites only” everything.
And finally, mostly in the Dear Former Self realm, I would burn all the fears that kept me from saying “yes” to a great number of experiences that might have turned out bad and scary, but also could have turned out freeing and exciting and great. And also the fears that kept me from saying “no.”
But in terms of burning actual things out of the course of my life: no. Certainly, there are things I could have done without. My application to law school, for example. But even that, even any tiny thing that would have resulted in me having different children and a different husband: no way. Anything that would have left me writing different books or not writing books or writing books on a different sofa or in a different chair with a different dog. Anything that would have left me a different me than who I am: no.
I like where my life has brought me. While I do have some regrets, for God’s sake, life is short, and carting those regrets around with you makes it, if not shorter, not as sweet. Never burn sweetness.
Ann’s second novel AFTERPARTY is forthcoming. You can vist Ann here.
Laura Jane, What Would YOU Burn?
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Today I’m excited to share the insights of my dear friend Laura Jane. Laura Jane is a yoga therapist, homeschooling mama, and powerful force of love in the universe. If you’ve met her, you know. If you haven’t, you should.
What would I burn, at this time, place and space in my life?
I happily and readily BURN the tired, worn out, unhelpful ways of
self-doubt, worry, and negative self-talk.
I consciously burn any ways I’ve been being with MYSELF that I’ve let hold me back or slow me from being UNIQUE, ALIVE ME.
I joyfully burn the shreds of comparison and competition that have fed into these toxic, weakening habits I’ve been carrying, and I wake up to a new, refreshed, empowered way of being.
I wake up, here and now to the power and potential that I always have: to instead LOVE myself, support myself, and BE more who I am.
I awaken NOW to the power of letting that inner bullshit GO.
I choose instead more wise, loving and enlightened ways of being, perceiving and managing myself.
I am ME, I am BIG, I am large, I am ready.
HERE, now I choose to TRUST MYSELF, listen within, and brave UP to walking my own adventurous, expanding path that I KNOW I am choosing.
And thus begins a new, free me.
Here I find my power, my ways to contribute, and the EASE of actually loving THIS life.
One of the best things about being in my thirties is that I get to see the young people I taught when I was a new teacher grow up. Today I get to share a blog post from a young lady I first met when she was about twelve, a seventh grader in my English class. Now she’s a university graduate and a novelist.
Facebook has connected me with many of my former students, and it’s such a pleasure to watch them go through college or have babies or build careers or all three. So I’m bursting with pride to share this WHAT WOULD YOU BURN blog post.
From One Mean Girl to Another
Last month, CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, Mike Jeffries was quoted as saying, “In every school there are the cool and popular kids and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot friends. A lot of people don’t belong (in our clothes), and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become too vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody either.”
Please. Because seven different colored polo shirts and twenty different types of acid washed jeans aren’t ‘vanilla’.
Now, since the CEO of Abercrombie loves to play the ‘exclusivity’ card, I decided that he might like to hear from someone who fits his category, someone who is pretty and popular and has lots of friends and big blue eyes and bleached blonde hair, why wouldn’t he? That’s his demographic, is it not?
Ten years ago, when I was in high school, I worked for Abercrombie folding jeans and spritzing people with way too much cologne. Ten years ago, I bought my first pair of faded, low-rise, acid-washed ripped jeans. Ten years ago, I had a handsome boyfriend who drove a Mercedes and I took a fellow Abercrombie employee to my senior prom. Ten years ago, I was one of the girls who was part of a group dubbed by our high school friends as ‘the sexy six’. And it was ten years ago, when wearing Abercrombie and Fitch was cool and could get away with labeling themselves as ‘exclusive’.
Unfortunately, as much as I’m sure the insecure little teenager that lives inside Mr. Jeffries wishes that his business model of ‘exclusivity sells’ would work, this generation’s teenagers are not going to bite. Toms Shoes is a company which began in 2006 and focuses on a “one-for-one” business model where every shoe that is bought sends another to China, Ethiopia or Argentina (you know, everywhere for everyone). Toms has become a hundred million dollar company since its inception 2006
. However, Abercrombie’s “sales at stores open at least a year combined with online sales fell 15 percent”
this quarter. Whoops.
What Jeffries forgot, being the savvy business man that he is, is that every generation evolves. The teenagers of this decade are socially conscious and concerned about overspending. They were raised in a recession and have seen the affects of pollution, poor health and lavish waste and guess what? They don’t like it. They want to change the world and they know they aren’t going to do it in a plaid pair of boxer-briefs and a lime green string bikini.
If Mr. Jeffries is still trying to fit in with the “popular kids” he has vastly missed the mark. The most popular kids in high school now aren’t the bouncy blondes or the all-American football players of yesteryear — they are the hipsters who value “independent thinking” and “counter-culture”
. Quite frankly, everyone wearing the same pair of jeans and powder-pink-polo shirt, isn’t exactly independent or counter-cultural.
So for many years, I have held onto my pair of Abercrombie jeans because it reminded me of a happy time. It reminded me of sitting on the beach in my Rainbows with a tanned blonde boy next to me. It reminded me of eating Chronic Tacos and laughing until our moms called and made us take our convertibles back to our mansions. However, those days are gone– long, long, long gone with the crash of the stock market and the fact that now we are all adults with jobs and student loans to pay off. Just like my jeans, the Abercrombie culture has faded and reached the end of its era. I understand that Mr. Jeffries still wishes to hold onto his memories and the hopes that he is still the most popular kid in school but at some point we all have to leave high school and grow up.
With that said, today I will burn that ugly, outdated old pair of jeans. They will probably explode with all the bleach and the acid in them and the fact that they were so poorly made they can withstand hardly more than the walk to and from the tanning salon and honestly, Mike, perhaps its time you burned your jeans, too.
Kisses!
Eryn Harper Grey
David King, What Would YOU Burn?
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Today I am so pleased to welcome a friend and cohort, David King. I met David at my kids’ Kung Fu studio (he is one of their instructors), and soon learned that he is a writer, as well as a black belt. We have been meeting every month or so since, sharing works-in-progress, encouragements, and advice. David recently finished his BA in Creative Writing at CSULB, graduating Magna Cum Laude(Huzzah!), and is hard at work on what I know to be a really wonderful nautical novel.
Here is what David has to share:
When asked a question like this, there’s a lot to consider on my part. Had I been asked this a few years ago, I probably would have produced a laundry list of things, small insecurities and petty ideas scrawled all over it. It’s only recently that I think I’ve narrowed it down to two things, and ultimately those things connect in a ankle-high roadblock that seems to be constantly set in front of me.
I’d burn my hesitation and procrastination.
Hesitation is not always a bad thing, I know. There’s a point where its better to reconsider, reevaluate and otherwise not throw caution to the wind. On the other hand, I’m of the habit of hesitating too much. I look at my looming adulthood and the numerous responsibilities, challenges, and things expected of me – jobs, taxes, insurance, the daily grind – and I just want to curl back up in my childhood where I’m safe. I won’t deny that the future genuinely frightens me, and that I’m only making it worse by stopping myself; my brain somehow goes to that worst-case-scenario thought and I hit the brakes. I don’t want this Peter Pan complex, yet I still struggle to look at the future with major optimism.
First one into the fire, then. Boom. Look at it sizzle!
I’m also a serial procrastinator – I’m sure it happens to the best of us, but I’ve gotten quite good at it, much to my dismay. It frustrates me, this apathetic stance on things. If this blog is any evidence, I’ve started so many things with the best of intentions, only to lose sight of my goals midway through. I keep putting things off, shoving them to the side as I let distractions take over. It should not take the exertion it does for me to keep focused on one task until its done, and coupled with the hesitation and fear, serves only to keep me from getting what I want.
In that goes too. I imagine it erupts and bursts as it heats up, like popcorn: pop, pop, pop!
If only it were that easy, for me and for everyone else, to take their troubles and ills and incinerate them, watch them go up in smoke. But even the act of looking for things to burnburns in its own way. I recognize the things that hinder me, and I can take steps to fight them. I can let them go, put them to the metaphorical torch and let their ashes get carried away.
Eloquence aside, my thanks to Elana for presenting a prompt that not only got me dwelling on these things, but got me off my lazy butt to look at this blog again. Expect more from me more often by this point, as I start getting the circus back in gear.
Goodbye for now, and remember: don’t play with fire, use it to your advantage!
David has had a short story anthologized! Check it out here, and visit his blog here.
Jennifer Bosworth… What Would YOU Burn??
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Today I am excited to hear what Jennifer Bosworth, author of the electrifying STRUCK and forthcoming novel THE KILLING JAR would like to burn. Here is what she has to say:
“When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.”
That’s one of my favorite quotes. I get chills every time I read it, or say it out loud. I have no idea who said it, or what that person meant, which means I get to interpret in any way I please. What it means to me is that once you think you’ve given everything you have, it’s time to look inside yourself, see what’s left, and sacrifice that to the fire, too.
What would I burn? All of me. With the hope that I’ll rise from the ashes like a phoenix, ready to do it all over again.
