We Are Focusing Creatures

Last night, as I was getting ready to go to bed, I had a hard time letting go of something that had happened earlier in the day. As a joke, I told my boyfriend that perhaps I should solve a math problem in my head. Like, how much is 7594 divided by 12? Six hundred and twenty six, he answered, impressing me immensely with his long division abilities in the middle of the night.

The idea of refocusing by solving mathematical equations in our heads is not mine. I read it in Kristin Cashore fabulous Bitterblue which I reviewed here last week. Bitterblue’s father, King Leck, had a special grace, or ability: he was able to convince other people with his words to do, think or feel whatever he wanted them to. He could hurt people and tell them that they do not feel pain, and they would have to believe him. He could force people to hurt other people, and they would not be able to refuse. He could tell Bitterblue that he loved her, and she would never know: what was the truth?

When her father was alive, Bitterblue and her mother lived in a mind fog, never sure what was true and what was implanted in their brain by Leck. Bitterblue’s mother, in an attempt to dispel some of the fog so as to keep Bitterblue safe, would tell Bitterblue to solve complex mathematical equations in her head.

Mathematics is objective and unemotional, and I suppose King Leck never thought to confuse Bitterblue into believing that one plus one could be three. Mathematics saved Bitterblue and her mother, allowing them just enough clarity of mind to be able to escape (this happens in Cashore’s first novel, Graceling which I also reviewed). When the story of Bitterblue begins, Leck is already dead, but his reign of horror had left the country traumatized and suffering. Bitterblue, trying to heal her people, still uses her mother’s well-taught lesson to refocus her mind at times of stress.

Ruminating on life’s unpleasantnesses is one of my greatest faults. I might not have Bitterblue’s practice in calculating complicated equations in my head, but I am capable of focusing my attention on other, pleasanter thoughts if I want. In fact, we all are. Research proves we cannot really multitask, despite our desire to believe we can. Our brains are able to concentrate on only one thing at a time. We are focusing creatures, and sometimes a re-focus is what we need to change our perspective, lighten our mood, or survive.


Last night I refocused my scattered energy to this blog. I went to sleep happy. I had something to think about that gave me pleasure: a great subject on which to write!

For those of you who are fond of mathematics, by checking on my calculator this morning I can tell you that 7594 divided by 12 is 632 with a long line of decimals after it, but I think 626 is close enough.

Are you prone to ruminating too? What do you do to refocus your thoughts?

Buoyed by Friendship -- Review of Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Midway through Kristin Cashore’s fantasy novel Bitterblue I couldn’t help myself. I called my friend’s twelve year old daughter to gush about how she has to put everything down and read this book right now.

“Oh, I already read it,” she said. “It’s great!”

I had intended to do some serious raving about how marvelous the novel is, how much I’m enjoying it,  and how fabulous Bitterblue is as a queen, but my friend’s daughter was way ahead of me.

Still, I have to gush to someone. And I loved loved loved this book. I loved Kristin Cashore’s first novel Graceling with its powerful female protagonist Katsa. I enjoyed her second novel Fire whose mind-reading heroine Lady Fire lived a rich, conflicting (and poetic) inner life. And I finished Bitterblue, holding my breath all the way to the end, watching the young queen as she sifts through the chaos her father left in her attempts to heal her kingdom.

Bitterblue is surrounded by lies. From every direction, it seems, people weave a web of confusion and deception around her, doing their best to keep her in the dark. Are her strange advisers to be trusted? Are her guards really protecting her? Are her spies loyal? Is the information she receives from her clerks falsified? Bitterblue is just one little queen with a lot of good intentions. How can she overcome so much history of terror and fear when she doesn’t even know who’s on her side?

The rule in young adult novels says that the main character must solve her problems on her own, without adult help. Cashore stays true to this rule. The young Bitterblue, with her energy and strong sense of what is just and right fights her battle on her own terms and under her own power. But she is far from alone. Her friends might not solve her problems for her, but they are always there to give Bitterblue their love, their support, and their faith. Her cousin Po might not always hear her calls. Katsa might be away for most of the action. Giddon, Raffin and Bann might be bogged down by council affairs. But when they are there, they have an ear to listen and an arm open in a hug for Bitterblue. And sometimes, perhaps, that’s all a little queen needs in order to conquer ignorance and fear and reach the truth that lies behind.

I love that though the odds against Bitterblue are huge, Cashore does not leave the young queen hanging all on her own without any support circle. Bitterblue does not lie back and allow others to solve her problems, but that does not mean that no one is allowed to give her a kind word. At the SCBWI conference, Tony Diterlizzi said that all of us, in the end, meet our darkest moment alone. But how much stronger are we when even alone we know we have the love of our friends behind us.

My review of Graceling
My review of Fire
Kristin Cashore's blog
Bitterblue on Goodreads

The Price of Passion

Uri's main competition for my love.

Writers often claim that they write because they must. Why else would we write? Riches and fame, after all, are rarely the results. I have struggled with the inexplicable need to write for at least ten years, writing in bursts and sinking into doom and gloom when no writing comes. Having noticed the connection between not writing and my bouts of depression, I’ve made an effort to get some writing time every day. I channel my creativity into the blog when the novel seems too complicated an endeavor, and I’ve come to realize that the feeling I called depression was actually frustration in disguise.

Realizing how important writing is to me was only one tiny step. Ahead loomed a greater obstacle, so great, in fact, that terrified and ashamed, for a long time I preferred not to look it in the face. Even now, it seems to me both a ridiculous and crucial obstacle: my all-important mother-hood. Turns out that after all these years, I still doubt that I can be a mother and a writer at the same time.

My imagination, my creativity press on the dam of fears I’d built, lashing against it, trying to force a way out. When I write, I often don’t hear the children talking to me. I forget to tell them to go to sleep or to make them food. What will happen if I let all the passion of writing out from behind the carefully controlled dam? What if writing and novels and ideas will come rushing out in a great flood, overcoming everything? Will the mother mountain stay intact?

Yesterday my son accused me, “You love your book more than you love me.” I burst out laughing. I spend so much energy on being afraid that the kids will suffer because of my writing, and here he is blaming me for exactly what I fear the most. Except, he wasn’t talking about my novel, the one I am writing. He was talking about the ultra fascinating and unputdownable Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore.

Okay, so I admit that yesterday I was reading Bitterblue instead of playing with him lacrosse. And I was reading Bitterblue instead of paying him attention. And I was reading Bitterblue in the doctor’s office while we waited though he had nothing to do. But in one moment, with those funny and yet truthful words, Uri gave me glimpse of perspective about my great parenting-writing fear. Just a glimpse, mind you.

I have a feeling that if I let the dam loose the mother mountain will still stand safe and sure. I have a feeling that if I stop putting on the break with my writing, I will have more energy to spend both on my writing and the kids. And I have a feeling that it’s good for the kids to know that there’s more to their mother than just being a mother. It’s just a feeling. But I think perhaps it’s true.

Do you have a passion in your life, that makes you oblivious to the rest of the world?

Missing the Novel by Reading for Action

A few months ago I read Kristin Cashore’ Graceling. I loved the fantasy world Cashore created, the strong characters, the danger that bubbles below (and above) the surface. Graceling enchanted me, whole and complete from beginning to end, so much so that after I read the last word, I knew I was not yet ready to revisit its world. All around me, however, readers were raving about Cashore’s second novel, Fire, and so finally, expecting to plunge back into the world of Graceling, I began to read.

While reading Graceling, I wondered again and again how Cashore would challenge Katsa, the powerful fighter she had created. After all, what could possibly stop a woman so strong that none, neither man nor force of nature, can defeat her. When the challenge came, it was complete. The stakes were high, and I trembled and read faster, wanting to find out if and how Katsa will win the day. I cheered for her, because despite her immense strength I could see her humanity, her frailty, her dependence on the other characters which I knew would not help her when the moment came to face her test.

I had a harder time empathizing with Fire, the heroine of Fire. She appeared to me a passive heroine, floating through the novel, experiencing rather than causing the action around her, engaged mostly with her own inner turmoil. With mind reading abilities and the capability of altering people’s behavior and thoughts, Fire ought to have been a powerful character. And yet because she never fully acknowledges her magic, or because she is always surrounded by her bodyguards, I felt she never fulfilled the promise of her potential.

Fire limits the physical and mental manifestations of her powers. Since the sight of her beauty causes people to lose their self control, she covers her hair and downplays her physical appearance. She refuses to touch people’s mind unless for self defense, and even after the royal family convinces her to work for them as an interrogator, she reads the prisoners’ minds with a gentleness and kindness that attests to her distaste for any form of violence or invasion.

Though Fire deals with war, it is as calmly written and as introspective as a ride down a tranquil river. I think, after Graceling, I imagined something more like a class five white-water rafting trip. I wonder if I read the novel too quickly, with an eye for the action and plot rather than the intricacies of character development and relationships. Perhaps I ought to have taken the time to enjoy the thought process that turns Fire into the heroine she is. Fire, I think, is a novel to read slowly and carefully, not a race to the end.

Maybe my expectations were at fault, but far from feeling discouraged, I plan to approach Bitterblue, Cashore’s third novel, with fewer beliefs, to luxuriate in her poetic prose and enjoy her perfect building of character and world.