I've sort of lost my way. Kind of mostly feeling foolish for starting. Having enormous organizational issues. Stories are feeling so random and not coming together to form a picture, and mostly, I'm having such huge trouble thinking of interesting essays to provide transitions between essays so people who arent us know what I'm talking about.

Without a clear organizational structure, i.e, a way for a reader to get from essay to essay without confusion about Who These People Are, I'm just, GAH!

Without a clear organizational structure, i.e, a way for a reader to get from essay to essay without confusion about Who These People Are, I'm just, GAH!

Is there anything I can do to help? Cause organizing things such that there are fluid transitions is one of my obsessions.

Allyson, deep breaths. 'tis cool. The structure is the easiest thing to fix, because it can be done at the end; that's the nice thing about this kind of non-fiction work. Since there's no story arc to maintain, interstices can be done at any time.

And where is it written that you have to have essays as transitions between other essays? Anything is possible as transition, surely: interviews, for instance. Someone like Shrift, who deals with fic and fic sites. Any one of a bazillion specialty people you know who work in or around fandom. (edit: that's meant to mean that quickies conversations with other people in fandom can offer a nice interestingly lit pathway through that particular garden, for those of us who don't go deep into it.)

Not to worry about the linkage. If the essays are the core of the book, get as many of them as make you happy together first. The rest is addable.

Ooh. Deb has a sweet idea with the interviews.

Allyson, Deb's ideas of interviews is great. What about short news items, too? You might have an issue with securing rights to use them, though -- but you could take what you know and do a timeline of sorts, too. Even just a page between essays, with the simple facts: On Date Blah de Blah, Angel premiered. On Date Blah de Blah, the first Posting Board Party was held. Something like that.

Deb is totally right about structure, too -- think of it as a gorgeous handmade necklace. Everyone will want the beautifully shiny hand-painted beads; they won't care so much how it's strung together. And you'd paint the beads first, and wait to figure out what to string them with at the end. Get out the good stuff, the stuff you write so well -- the sharp, funny, wry, honest meat of it.

The nice thing about interviews, and why they become the easy perfect framework for this sort of thing, is that they're completely non-intrusive on Allyson's POV. Literally, rather than "I met Fangurl when..." it becomes "Fangurl got involved at the WriteNow! board after a weird little run-in with destiny in Chicago. As she tells it..."

I wrote something yesterday that I'd like some feedback on, if that's okay. Not necessarily nuts-and-bolts craft feedback, because it's just a first draft, and I play too fast and loose with the verb tenses. I already know it needs editing and polishing.

What I was wanting more is feedback on -- does it make sense, does it transition well (because I suspect it doesn't), is it worth continuing to work on, does it leave you with any questions you think I need to answer in the piece -- stuff like that.

I read it to my small group at class last night, and they found the tone of it to be overwhelmingly a tone I didn't really intend (which I won't tell you, so as not to bias you). I posted it in my LJ, but only got one comment, and I don't know if it's because it (a) sucks, (b) suffers from the aforementioned tone, or (c) is too much raw emotion and therefore no one knows how to address it.

So -- can I post it here? It's not particularly long.

Steph, hell yes. Although, did you filter the list to read it at LJ? I don't remember seeing it.

Although, did you filter the list to read it at LJ?

Nope. (Besides, you're on all my filters, anyway, so even if I had filtered it, you'd still see it.)

Random untitled navel-gazing piece:

Only one scene in Garden State made me cry. As the movie is nearing the end, when Andrew and Sam are sitting in the bathtub where his mother died, Andrew tells Sam, "When I'm with you I feel safe...like I'm home."

I want that, and I haven't felt like that with anyone for a long time. Romantically, I mean, which is a whole different level, a whole different type of feeling like home, than there is with friendship. But on this romantic level, there's really only been one person in my life who's been home to me.

Long ago, when I was another girl entirely, J. used to be home to me. Or, rather, I made myself think that he was, because of how much I wanted him to be. I wanted his life to be mine, wanted to merge my life with his and willingly erase all the traces of the things about my life that were ugly, or embarassing, or sub-standard. That was the problem, I think. He could never have really been home to me, because I never felt like I was good enough, never felt like I belonged with him. And isn't that the defining aspect of "home," of your soul's true home –- that you know you belong there? Though maybe he felt like home to me because it reminded me of the flesh-and-blood DNA home I came from, where I also felt like I wasn't good enough.

C. wasn't home to me. I wanted him to be, so much, but he wasn't. He's that intriguing, exotic location that I really enjoy, that I'm fascinated with, that I think I could make my home in. Ultimately, though, I could never live in those locations. They're always lacking something. The ease, the warmth, the welcome. I lacked that sense of ease with C. He's another relationship where I didn't feel good enough, that in some way I was inadequate, though I still can't quite articulate what it is that I think I was lacking. I just know that I always felt inferior, not hugely so, but enough to put me off-balance.

With J., and with C., I always felt like I was trying so hard to be good enough. I was always hyper-aware of everything about myself –- how I dressed, how I looked, how I was speaking, how I sat, stood, walked, what sort of preferences I had for food, music, movies, books. There was this sense –- and I'm sure that, if it didn't start with me, that I magnified the hell out of it –- that I had to get everything right to keep the relationship going, to keep them in my life. And ultimately, of course, because I can't escape who I am, any more than they can escape who they are, the relationships didn't work, no matter how much I wanted them to.

L., though –- L. was home to me. He was as familiar to me as my own thoughts, and my home as completely as any I've ever had. The sense of ease, of belonging, of not having to try and try and try to get things right -– I felt secure. And not the type of security that comes from knowing that he would never leave me –- the type of security where I felt like I knew for the first time which way my internal compass was pointed. My soul was quiet with him. I never felt inadequate, which is sadly comical, since I was ultimately inadequate in the one way that I could never, ever, change. And so, despite the fact that he was the truest home I've known, it still wasn't the right home.

And I've felt homeless for too long now.