Sunday, August 7, 2011

GINGERSNAP
by Karen E.

ONE

My name is Ginger and I just killed myself.
OK, I lied. My name’s not Ginger.
All right, I’ll stop. Actually, I told myself when I sat down just now that if I do this, I’m going to do it right: I’ll tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. If that means “no more fooling around,” so be it. The truth is, that’s just me, being silly. Honest. All that happy shit about killing myself is just a bunch of crap that I threw in there because:
A.       I thought it was funny (I mean, come on);
B.        I thought it would be a real kick-ass story starter (which it was, by the way); plus,
C.        if I started writing extraneous bullshit, I wouldn’t have to deal with the dreaded “main issue,” which is the real reason I sat down at this computer in the first place.
OK, then. No more fun and games; quit wasting time; it’s time to tell the truth:  My name is Mary. God help me, it really is.
Funny, and now I‘ll hop off the pity potty and talk “truth” here for a minute. The truth is, my name doesn’t matter one little bit right now. What matters is how I got here, how I got to this place, and I don’t mean “here” in the physical sense; what I mean is, how did I get into this mess, the mess I’m in right now?
This mess
I’ve got to wonder if I’ve really, finally done it, e.g., snapped, dove off the deep end, lost my fucking mind. The truth is, I may be, at this very moment, a few clowns short of a circus. . .and if that isn’t bad enough, I can’t stop singing that Kinks song:
‘Cause there’s a red, under my bed
And there’s a little yellow man in my head--
Hey! Maybe that’s my problem. . .but seriously, folks,  I think I’m in dire straits here. Maybe I’d better rewind for a minute.
OK, try to picture the scene: I’m driving in my car and thinking about nothing in particular; just cruising along on autopilot, listening to my Best of The Kinks CD and savoring that sweet, delicious cigarette—
Sidebar: In keeping with my "truth theme," I confess that I was on the road yesterday, not because I had to buy toilet paper (although we did need some; we were almost out), but because I had to fulfill that nagging urge to sneak a Marlboro out there on the road, away from the loving but watchful eyes of my husband. (No matter that he wasn't even home; he was at work. I just didn't want my smoke to mingle with his lingering presence and permeate everything.) Anyway, if that's the worse thing I ever do, it's not so bad, and anyway, it was going to be just the one; my first this week--
(Actually, the truth is, I’ve already had four this week and it’s only Wednesday. It usually happens five or six times a week: I’m folding laundry and suddenly I think, I could go for a cigarette; I’m making the bed and I think, I sure could go for a smoke right now. I drink a beer. . .)
Anyway, back to my story: I bought TP and a pack of cigs and I was back on the road, smoking that cigarette and kicking out the jams and thinking about nothing much at all. I remember looking at the clock and it was almost “on the twos,” as they say, so I shut off the music and switched on the radio to catch the weather report. A commercial came on: it was with this guy who owns a ritzy grocery down on Main who’s always pitching some new product or another, and he’s always trying to sound real “down-homey,” like he’s Garrison Keillor or somebody--
“When I was a young’un,” he starts, I wince, “my mother told me, ‘Little Joe, everybody’s got problems, but here’s something your Grandma taught me years ago: any problem you ever face in life can be solved by one fantastic gingersnap cookie.” 
I’m thinking, Did he just say what I think he said?
He keeps going. “Now, folks, ever since then, I’ve made it my life’s work to find such a cookie, and now I can say that I’ve finally done it:  I’ve finally found the best little gingersnap cookie in America, and it’s made right here in Ohio!”
I’m thinking, What? Is this guy nuts? What does he think we are: morons? Does he actually think we’ll believe that any problem can be solved by a fucking gingersnap? I mean, come on—
And the next thing you know, I’m driving my car right into the path of a big Mack truck and--
OK, let’s stop right there. I swerved my car, that’s true. But I didn’t go through with it; I didn’t do it. The proof is in the fact that I’m sitting here right now, listening to The Kinks and typing away on this computer, and not flat on my back in some basement morgue wearing nothing but a toe tag.
That was yesterday.
So, today (no surprise), I’ve been sitting here, trying to figure out what happened, and I’ve come to the conclusion that yesterday’s event was a red warning flag flapping in front of my face; no, it was a freaking neon sign flashing an inch from my eyes; a blinding pulse of neon, warning me to
DO SOMETHING--DO SOMETHING—DO SOMETHING--
I’m taking this thing seriously.
Needless to say, I’ve thought long and hard about what that “something” should be, and I know this is going to sound ludicrous, but here’s what I came up with, not ten minutes ago: I think I’m supposed to sit down and write myself a book.
No, that’s not true: I know I’m supposed to write a book.
And then (not five minutes ago), I knew exactly what my book should be about. Let me set the stage for you:
The title came to me like a bolt out of the blue: GINGERSNAP It makes perfect sense: Ginger, because that’s going to be my name, and snap, because what happens: I go for a drive and then I snap, just like that.
Now, picture this: GINGERSNAP is an “autobiography.” We meet Ginger (that would be me) at a moment of crisis: she’s a writer, but she cannot seem to find the words; her inspiration has run dry. Her distress blooms into crisis—she snaps (the truck!)—and then she finds herself slip-sliding toward deep despair. In a flash of clarity (insanity?), Ginger realizes that this could be her defining moment as a writer—so (in the first half of her book), she forces herself to chronicle her journey down, down, down; writing everything, sparing nothing, laying herself bare.  .  .
Then (in the second half of the book), Ginger takes us along for the ride of her life as she stumbles and falls and rights herself again; as she confronts her demons and struggles to find her way back. . .
And she succeeds! By the end of the book, Ginger has healed herself and, in the process, she's written a best-selling autobiography and that's exactly what I'm going to do with this book Ginger I love you--
Stop. Hold on.
Why? It’s brilliant.
No. It’s. . .unrealistic.
I disagree.
Well, what makes you think you can actually do it?
Do what?
Write yourself out of all of this. Come on, Mary, you nearly plowed your car into a truck. This is serious business. You need to talk to somebody, a professional--
Probably. Maybe. Bullshit, I can do this by myself. Why not? I’m smart, I’ve been through it before, and anyway, I’m a writer, that’s what I do. I’ll figure it out. And the best part? When all is said and done, not only will I have written a kick-ass novel, but in the process, I’ll get what Ginger gets: a big, fat, juicy dose of sanity, wrapped up in a nice, warm, sesame seed bun. Plus, the cost to me this time will be zilch, zero, nada, which is a shitload less than a bunch of actual therapy sessions would cost; plus, I’ll make myself some major dough from the thing. OK, that’s a “maybe.” But do you know what? It doesn’t matter. I have it all figured out: it’s “win-win,” as they say. I just have to tie up a couple of loose ends first. Cases in point:
A.                It’s Ginger’s autobiography.
B.                 I ain’t Ginger (minor sticking point).
C.                 The “snap” part is still being debated by certain individuals (e.g., me, myself and I, ha ha).
Here’s a sidebar to point C: Actually, I don’t think that yesterday’s event was actually a “snap,” per se; at least, not yet. What I think happened yesterday was that I had myself a little epiphany of sorts; what Oprah might call an Aha! moment; what Little Joe might call a li’l ol’ jolt of veracity. The truth is, I don’t care what they call it, here’s what I think: I think that I haven’t snapped yet, but it could happen, I could lose it, I’m definitely bending in that general direction; I haven’t snapped yet but I’m pretty damn close; I’m close
I think you understand what I’m saying. OK, back to business:
D.                As far as the whole “story” idea goes, well, that’s something to consider, too, because that would mean I’d actually have to write something (funny, I know), and it would have to be something substantial; something coming in at what. . .60,000 words, absolute minimum? I just checked: I’m only at a little over 2,500 words right now and anyway, I can’t count any of this ramble as part of my story, so I’m actually holding steady at a big, fat zero
Crap. Anything less than 60,000 words won't be an easy sell; it won't be something I could easily peddle; it won't have the weight of "import" behind it that will allow me to saunter into some agent's office, swinging my big ol' balls of confidence, knowing for a fact that I wrote something good, something to be reconed with, something--dare I say it--marketable. . . 
No doubt about it, it would have to be marketable: first, to a go-getter agent; then, to a powerhouse publisher; then, to some high class book reviewers; and then--maybe, if I’m lucky--to a statistically significant portion of the U.S. population.
But then--if I were extremely lucky--that thing might make me some serious dough; and then, finally, it might prove, once and for all, that YES, that gal’s got some serious talent; there is no doubt about it: that hot little gal can write--
Funny, but true: I’ve wanted that since the day I was born. OK, that’s a slight exaggeration; but honestly now, I’ve always felt like writer, I love to write, and I want the world to know that I bloody well can write.
I’ve been a writer my entire life. You want cases in point? All right, let’s see:
When I was a kid, I was always writing poems and cute little plays and stuff like that. (Admittedly, this fits the proverbial “Everybody has to start somewhere” model; in other words, it’s trite, but true.)
When I was eight or nine, I switched to writing scary short stories and they were pretty good, I don’t mind saying; hell, I even scared myself. Seriously.
At thirteen, I started a diary and I’m still keeping a journal, which is what--twenty years later? Yep, I’m thirty-three, so it’s been over two decades now.
Anyway, when I was about nineteen, I put pen to paper in a serious way--
OK, sidebar:  It was all—choke--poetry, and if I’m going to be truthful here, I’d have to admit that probably ninety-eight percent of it was nothing more than cheesy crap. If you think I’m being too hard on myself, here are two examples that I thought of, just now:  

What does it mean? I mean, what do I do?
I mean, scared and alone, I feel lost, frightened, too.

Not good. Not good.
Lay still, open handed; there a butterfly has landed.
Ouch.
I did write a couple of things that didn’t outright suck, if I recall, like the poem that started:
Though rarely be the brilliant wrath,
Attained through sorrow, midnight blue;
Attained through love lost, ethereal flight—

That one wasn’t too bad, but oh, the misery: those poems reeked of it. No wonder: I was awash in angst when I wrote that stuff--no, I was enveloped by it, consumed by it--for what, three months? I was nineteen and crazy in love with a jerk who didn’t love me back, and for three months, all I did was cry and drink cheap wine and write bad poetry. (Sidebar Number 2: I’ve kept those poems all these years. They’re in a beat-up yellow folder in my top dresser drawer, under the socks, still stinking up the joint and oh, Sidebar Number 3: The asshole wasn’t worth it.)
Anyway, then there’s the novel I wrote the spring before I started college. I was just twenty-one when I wrote “The Great American Novel” (aka: WEB OF LOVE): one hundred-and-two pages; typed, single space); banged out in three weeks’ time on my weary Smith-Corona.
Here’s another little nugget of truth for you: it wasn’t very good. I still have the five (brutally honest) rejection letters to prove it, and although I am loathe to admit this, I deserved every one of them because that novel was bad and I’m not just talking about the writing now; I’m talking about the story itself. (Case in point: there were pirates in it, and I’m not making that up.)
Still, I wrote a novel and that’s something, right? Of course, I’ve kept that momentous (if ridiculous) achievement, too: it’s in a floppy old cardboard box in my bedroom closet, shoved way in the back behind my tennis shoes.
I kept writing, and when I cranked out some pretty decent work then; sometimes, more than decent:  I still have the stuff with red A-pluses scrawled across the top, and accolades from professors like Wow! and Can I keep this? and Keep on writing! Never stop!
Now, to be truthful, I must admit that, for a few years there, I didn’t follow their advice. My output was spotty; most of the time, I just wrote in my journal. You might be wondering what was happening during that time and I guess my answer would have to be “Life,” and some of it wasn’t pretty. If you were so inclined, you could fast-forward through that bad movie in 20 seconds flat:
There she is, sweating in her wet, food-splattered uniform, piling a never-ending stack of dirty dishes into that steaming industrial dishwasher; there she is, hunched over her tiny desk, cranking out newspaper ads for men’s cologne and cat food; look, she’s getting married and now she’s struggling to balance marriage and homework and everything else so she can get that teaching certificate; there she is, exhausted after another day teaching those little kids. . .oh, no! The accident! And there’s the aftermath, and there’s the moment when she realizes she’s too messed up, she’ll have to resign, she just can’t do it anymore--
Last year was the worst year of my life.
I think that’s when I started to bend again. Before that, I’d always be able to pull myself out of it—clinical depression, I mean. Writing helped, I know it did. I wrote a lot as a kid after my mother died. I wrote after that asshole stomped on my heart. I wrote in my journal after the accident and again, last year, when I realized I couldn’t handle teaching anymore, but that last time was the toughest. I felt like everything good in my life just slipped away and I found myself slipping away right along with it; slipping down into that deep, dark well of despair again. No, the truth is, I sank right down in there, just like a rock and the worst thing was the sound when she hit the water. I don’t know where that just came from, but that’s exactly how it felt. The point is, it took a lot of crying on my husband’s shoulder, and hours of introspection in my therapist’s office, and Percocet and Flexeril and spilling my guts out in my journal. . .all of that, together, to drag me up, up, up and finally, out of that dark and hopeless place.
I thought I was all better. I thought I was OK. Then came yesterday, when I almost made a great big mess out of everything; when I almost splattered myself like a stupid little bug across the grill of that big Mack truck.
Maybe I shouldn’t try to do this by myself.
_________________________________________________________
Robert L. Bacon
theperfectwrite.com

For authors, The Perfect Write® is now providing
FREE QUERY LETTER REVIEW AND ANALYSIS.

Post your query to mailto:theperfectwrite@aol.com(no attachments) and visit the Sample Letters Page for examples of successful query letters.

The Perfect Write® offers comprehensive editing services, from manuscript critiques to complete revisions, including line-editing, along with query letter design and composition. For pricing, send your project requirements to mailto:theperfectwrite@aol.com