I really, really, really don't want to go to work today, but I'm taking off Thursday and Friday, so I really, really have no excuse. And since we weren't there last Friday, work will be busy, too.
Argh.
At least I have the next scene of F&W nearly whole in my head, ready for me to write. Maybe I'll get some of it written today. I also have to read Bryn's synopsis, which I have forwarded to myself at work already.
I didn't get but a sentence written last night. I had another conversation with Chris.
You see, my mom called while he was on the phone with his dad. And so I called back, and my dad told me that only one of the books (The Tenth Ghost paperbacks) that he received had the error I knew about. The others were corrected. So I told dad that he had one of two copies in existence, because Sandy has the only other proof copy. And that when I'm famous (*g*) that book will be worth a lot of money.
And mom told dad that she was going to try to get the Bethel Journal to do an interview (!!!) on Thursday (!!!) if they wanted to (!!!) and so that was a bit of happiness in my weekend, there.
And so Chris walks upstairs and asks, "What did your mom want?"
And I told him.
And, predictably, he gets mad. "Now I know where you get it! They call you up to tell you about your damned book, and here you're going through a crisis! No one but my family cares how I feel. Your family doesn't care how I feel."
I think, Gee, I was kind of happy to hear that, because that brightened up what was a pretty damned depressing weekend. But I don't say that out loud. What I say out loud is, "They know my point of view, Chris, just as your family knows your point of view. They know you've yelled at me and hurt me ever since we've gotten married. They want me to be happy. I want to be happy."
And so he tells me that yelling and screaming to get people's attention was the only thing he knew, and that he now knew that was the wrong way to go about getting someone's attention. And then he tells me that I should have been more attentive, that I shut myself up here in front of the computer and ignored him, and that, in his eyes, the computer was my lover and he was a jealous husband. (Finally, we get the word jealous out of the boy's mouth.)
And I ask, "Have I ever once ignored you when you came upstairs and wanted to talk? Even if I was in the middle of something? Have I ever once refused to go out with you because I was writing, even if I was on a deadline? I will admit that your way of telling me these things really irked me, but I tried not to let it get under my skin." (I mean... I hate "Oh, by the ways" and he was the king of "Oh, by the way, we're going out to dinner tonight with so-and-so (spoken at 4pm on the day of.)
"Well, you shouldn't have waited for me to make all the moves."
"Well, every time I wanted to talk to you, you were watching TV and you never once turned away from it to talk to me." (Which bugs me to no end. I know he did that to make the point that I did the same thing to him, but I didn't ignore him when he wanted to talk. I'm not that rude.)
"Well, you put your writing first, and I should be first in your life."
"Writing is what I do. And I only asked you to support me in this until I could write full-time. Did I say one word when you wanted to join the Army? I was ready to support you in that."
(And not even supporting me financially, mind you. Just emotionally. I never once said I wanted to quit my day job to write (before I could.)
"That's different. That was only going to be for four years. And they were going to pay me, and for housing, etc., etc."
"Say that again."
"That was only going to be for a couple years."
"Exactly. I wanted you to support me until I could write full-time. To understand that it would take time and effort and determination to succeed. To understand that I have to spend a lot of time doing it if I want to succeed. To understand that if I worked like a dog now, later on I'd have all the time in the world to spend with the people who love me."
(A small aside here: I seriously did not make my wishes known very well, so this is partly my fault; a miscommunication. I thought he understood. I thought I made it very clear. But I honestly think now that he can't understand.)
(To be continued...)
Continued... 9:08am 8/26/02
Because, according to Chris, he likes the creativity and imagination and intelligence that makes me me, but he doesn't like the finished product or the time I spend involved in anything other than being with him.
He tells me that I should not define myself by what I do. He tells me that I am not part of the things I create; that there isn't a piece of me in every novel and short story I have written or every doll I've made. That's it's a product, nothing more. A product of creativity and imagination, but a product, nothing more.
"There is nothing of me in the houses I build."
"But there's something of me in everything I create."
"You're not getting it. You can't define yourself by things."
"Okay... I can understand that part... But how can you support me if you don't like what I do?"
(In February of 2001, when I told him I sold my first book--what I considered to be a monumental thing--he shrugged. "Where's the money?" When I explained to him my reasons for choosing smaller publishers first, he got mad, degraded them as "fly-by-night" scam artists, and told me I would never succeed.)
I want to make one point: If this were me going to school and spending two or three hours a night doing homework or going to classes, that would be different, in his mind. Because, in his mind, that's legitimate.
And I've said it more than once... If he can't accept and support what I do now, how will he be able to once I do make enough money to quit my job? To me, what I write now has just as much validity as anything I write in the future for more money. There shouldn't be a difference.
"You might be successful," he says. "I hope you are. But if you don't have anyone to share that success with, you'll be all alone. What's more important, the person or the thing?"
Well, for one, I have a family who loves me, friends who celebrate with me, and a handful of fans already. Who says I won't have anyone to share my successes with?
And for two... I tried to explain it to him.
"Love me, love my stuff" pretty much sums it up. You can't have one without the other. If you want me, you have to accept the fact that I come with all this baggage (writing, crafting, books, procrastination, disorganization...) I mean... I didn't complain about his quirks, other than the anger and the yelling.
I also told him that I needed more support when I moved up here. He told me I needed to grow up. I said, Yeah, but I could have used a bit more loving when it was hard to figure out how to do things that I had absolutely no experience doing. He said, "Well, you should have known by then how I was." I said, "But Chris, you pulled me out of my familiar world and drop-kicked me into total chaos. You should have been behind me, telling me that it would get better, and that you would be here for me. Instead, two weeks after we were married, you yelled at me because I hadn't unpacked all the wedding presents. I was so homesick, and all you did was yell."
I mean, at Christmas 2000, he told my aunts and uncles that we were having problems, and that I wasn't a good wife because I didn't know how to clean or fix supper. I mean... that was THREE MONTHS AFTER THE WEDDING!! And he told them this behind my back, too. So much for spousal support.
"Well, you should have known."
Well, I didn't. And I still don't think that what I asked from you, Chris, was too much.
I also pointed out that yelling and screaming at me did not make me want to make him number one in my life.
Argh.
At least I have the next scene of F&W nearly whole in my head, ready for me to write. Maybe I'll get some of it written today. I also have to read Bryn's synopsis, which I have forwarded to myself at work already.
I didn't get but a sentence written last night. I had another conversation with Chris.
You see, my mom called while he was on the phone with his dad. And so I called back, and my dad told me that only one of the books (The Tenth Ghost paperbacks) that he received had the error I knew about. The others were corrected. So I told dad that he had one of two copies in existence, because Sandy has the only other proof copy. And that when I'm famous (*g*) that book will be worth a lot of money.
And mom told dad that she was going to try to get the Bethel Journal to do an interview (!!!) on Thursday (!!!) if they wanted to (!!!) and so that was a bit of happiness in my weekend, there.
And so Chris walks upstairs and asks, "What did your mom want?"
And I told him.
And, predictably, he gets mad. "Now I know where you get it! They call you up to tell you about your damned book, and here you're going through a crisis! No one but my family cares how I feel. Your family doesn't care how I feel."
I think, Gee, I was kind of happy to hear that, because that brightened up what was a pretty damned depressing weekend. But I don't say that out loud. What I say out loud is, "They know my point of view, Chris, just as your family knows your point of view. They know you've yelled at me and hurt me ever since we've gotten married. They want me to be happy. I want to be happy."
And so he tells me that yelling and screaming to get people's attention was the only thing he knew, and that he now knew that was the wrong way to go about getting someone's attention. And then he tells me that I should have been more attentive, that I shut myself up here in front of the computer and ignored him, and that, in his eyes, the computer was my lover and he was a jealous husband. (Finally, we get the word jealous out of the boy's mouth.)
And I ask, "Have I ever once ignored you when you came upstairs and wanted to talk? Even if I was in the middle of something? Have I ever once refused to go out with you because I was writing, even if I was on a deadline? I will admit that your way of telling me these things really irked me, but I tried not to let it get under my skin." (I mean... I hate "Oh, by the ways" and he was the king of "Oh, by the way, we're going out to dinner tonight with so-and-so (spoken at 4pm on the day of.)
"Well, you shouldn't have waited for me to make all the moves."
"Well, every time I wanted to talk to you, you were watching TV and you never once turned away from it to talk to me." (Which bugs me to no end. I know he did that to make the point that I did the same thing to him, but I didn't ignore him when he wanted to talk. I'm not that rude.)
"Well, you put your writing first, and I should be first in your life."
"Writing is what I do. And I only asked you to support me in this until I could write full-time. Did I say one word when you wanted to join the Army? I was ready to support you in that."
(And not even supporting me financially, mind you. Just emotionally. I never once said I wanted to quit my day job to write (before I could.)
"That's different. That was only going to be for four years. And they were going to pay me, and for housing, etc., etc."
"Say that again."
"That was only going to be for a couple years."
"Exactly. I wanted you to support me until I could write full-time. To understand that it would take time and effort and determination to succeed. To understand that I have to spend a lot of time doing it if I want to succeed. To understand that if I worked like a dog now, later on I'd have all the time in the world to spend with the people who love me."
(A small aside here: I seriously did not make my wishes known very well, so this is partly my fault; a miscommunication. I thought he understood. I thought I made it very clear. But I honestly think now that he can't understand.)
(To be continued...)
Continued... 9:08am 8/26/02
Because, according to Chris, he likes the creativity and imagination and intelligence that makes me me, but he doesn't like the finished product or the time I spend involved in anything other than being with him.
He tells me that I should not define myself by what I do. He tells me that I am not part of the things I create; that there isn't a piece of me in every novel and short story I have written or every doll I've made. That's it's a product, nothing more. A product of creativity and imagination, but a product, nothing more.
"There is nothing of me in the houses I build."
"But there's something of me in everything I create."
"You're not getting it. You can't define yourself by things."
"Okay... I can understand that part... But how can you support me if you don't like what I do?"
(In February of 2001, when I told him I sold my first book--what I considered to be a monumental thing--he shrugged. "Where's the money?" When I explained to him my reasons for choosing smaller publishers first, he got mad, degraded them as "fly-by-night" scam artists, and told me I would never succeed.)
I want to make one point: If this were me going to school and spending two or three hours a night doing homework or going to classes, that would be different, in his mind. Because, in his mind, that's legitimate.
And I've said it more than once... If he can't accept and support what I do now, how will he be able to once I do make enough money to quit my job? To me, what I write now has just as much validity as anything I write in the future for more money. There shouldn't be a difference.
"You might be successful," he says. "I hope you are. But if you don't have anyone to share that success with, you'll be all alone. What's more important, the person or the thing?"
Well, for one, I have a family who loves me, friends who celebrate with me, and a handful of fans already. Who says I won't have anyone to share my successes with?
And for two... I tried to explain it to him.
"Love me, love my stuff" pretty much sums it up. You can't have one without the other. If you want me, you have to accept the fact that I come with all this baggage (writing, crafting, books, procrastination, disorganization...) I mean... I didn't complain about his quirks, other than the anger and the yelling.
I also told him that I needed more support when I moved up here. He told me I needed to grow up. I said, Yeah, but I could have used a bit more loving when it was hard to figure out how to do things that I had absolutely no experience doing. He said, "Well, you should have known by then how I was." I said, "But Chris, you pulled me out of my familiar world and drop-kicked me into total chaos. You should have been behind me, telling me that it would get better, and that you would be here for me. Instead, two weeks after we were married, you yelled at me because I hadn't unpacked all the wedding presents. I was so homesick, and all you did was yell."
I mean, at Christmas 2000, he told my aunts and uncles that we were having problems, and that I wasn't a good wife because I didn't know how to clean or fix supper. I mean... that was THREE MONTHS AFTER THE WEDDING!! And he told them this behind my back, too. So much for spousal support.
"Well, you should have known."
Well, I didn't. And I still don't think that what I asked from you, Chris, was too much.
I also pointed out that yelling and screaming at me did not make me want to make him number one in my life.
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