This week I'm finishing up my shitty rough draft of THE BIRTHRIGHT OF PARKER CLEAVES to send to my beta readers, and I'm pretty sure it sucks and they will think less of me for reading it. Yesterday, I tried to list THE OBVIOUS GAME on a discount site, but it wasn't accepted. I suspect it's a little heavy for their genre-heavy readership, which I totally get, but it was disappointing because I could use the boost in visibility on Amazon. This year I've watched other blogger anthologies rising to heights SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK never saw when it came out. I realized a long time ago I don't have the personal following it takes to nudge my books over the echo chamber wall of who I know into the mainstream world of who I don't. It would take marketing dollars to get there, marketing dollars my publishers don't spend and I can't spend. I understand the business behind the business, but the art/business marriage keeps separate apartments. 

When I get low, Beloved always says, "But you got published." 

To which I retort, "But I didn't take off."

To which he responds with a frustrated stare, because he is never able to convince his ambitious and bullheaded wife that her goals are too lofty for her circumstance and abilities. Which is basically the premise of THE BIRTHRIGHT OF PARKER CLEAVES. It's something I have struggled with for years -- when my overgrown ambition does battle with my talent and financial support.

This week, BlogHer syndicated a post by Kyran Pittman, which discussed why creative people compare themselves to the superstars of their fields when accountants and bus drivers don't. She writes:

The actors who don’t get Oscar nominations, the authors whose books don’t make the bestseller lists, the songwriters who don’t go platinum, the cellists who aren’t Yo-Yo Ma -– they aren’t underachievers.

Oh, the metrics available in this world, how bone-crushing they can be. I've stopped looking at metrics more than once a week for anything -- my blog, my books, my weight. There are too many ways to measure yourself with indisputable numbers in 2013. I'm the type of person who prefers problems with no one answer. Am I a success? The numbers don't lie. But subjectively, am I a success? It depends on your perspective.

I fight every day to push away the feeling that everything I do artistically is the adult equivalent of chalk drawings on the driveway before a rainstorm. 

But Kyran's right. The point isn't to matter to everybody, it's to matter to somebody, and it's my job to beat back the emails telling me I'm not doing enough to market my work and the emails trumpeting who won this or that award or made this or that bestseller list. I can't really manufacture that any more than I can force a stock to go up or down on Wall Street. 

Who and how many notice the art can't be more important than the existence of art. The existence of the art has to be the point.

And so a new day starts, and I remind myself this again. 

"Mama, why does heat make you so tired?"

We crossed the street and headed into the art festival. We're heat-hardy, my daughter and I, indiginous to the sultry Midwest summers like goldenrod and cone flowers. The 105-degree temperature didn't stop us from wanting to look at paintings until we hit the pavement, where temperatures had to be even higher. And the humidity, thick like a washcloth, making it hard to breathe.

"I'm not sure, exactly. Maybe so you'll be forced to slow down and it will be harder to give you heat exhaustion. It's probably your body's way of protecting you."

Each step seemed a little harder. The heat wrapped around my body. I could feel the air molecules pressing on my skin, heavy and saturated. I looked over at my daughter. Her pale cheeks had a high flush with beads of sweat hanging above her lip, unable to evaporate in the thick air. 

"I don't feel good," she said.

My head swam. "I don't, either. Let's get out of here."

I had to pull her by the hand the two blocks back to the car. I actually felt a little dizzy as I squealed onto Main Street and directly to the QT, where we stumbled into the delicious air conditioning and gasped for filtered air. We bought a huge bottle of water to share and hung out for a few minutes by the freezers, alive in our skin in the way of extreme temperature relief -- those first few moments when the cold limbs tingle with warmth or the icy air hits hot skin and you think, in that moment, everything is right in the world, there is nothing better than having this need fulfilled, the return to equilibrium.

We piled back into the car and cranked the air conditioning, turning back toward home. 

"My head hurts, Mama." 

I dropped her off at home to cool down and rest, and I drove to the grocery store to get food, finding myself still wandering a little awkwardly amid the rows, my head achy. 

I don't often have extreme reactions to heat, but when I do, I'm reminded I'm a mortal, that life is delicate and beautiful and to be examined while I have the chance. 

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In something less heavy, I reviewed lice prevention products on Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews, because that is life I want eradicated.

The little angel has graduated to Level 2 at her ballet school. They are very formal there. Parents are neither allowed to watch class (except for very special parent watch nights) nor even exist on the same level as the classrooms while the children are learning their steps. The boys wear black pants and white shirts. The girls wear leotards, color determined by level. 

She started out pink. 

Then she was light blue.

And now she is red. This leotard has spaghetti straps, not the short or long sleeves of pink and light blue. Her feet are women's size six. Her classes are an hour and a half long, twice a week.

This is the first week of ballet school, and I'm finding myself with three hours a week for writing that I didn't have before. I'm excited and mortified all at once at the thought of losing my girl for three waking hours a week. My daughter has never played soccer or tball or volleyball or softball or any sort of thing that required her to attend practices without me multiple times a week. We have been together pretty much every day after school since we dropped after school care two years ago. 

She looks so grown up in her red leotard. Her father even did a double-take when he met us for that first class, thinking we were going to get the same parental talking-to as pink or light-blue. But instead, the teacher rushed through some basics and smilingly hurried us out of the room so she could get down to ballet business. I could tell we weren't the only parents sort of wandering aimlessly downstairs, wondering when our little pink and light blue babies grew up and turned red.

After red is blue. Then green. Then burgandy. Then black. 

I didn't think she'd still be doing this by red. I thought she'd lose interest. But on Tuesday night when she looked around and realized she'd graduated into the older half of the Lower School, her eyes shone. 

I took my manuscript and notepad down to the deserted conference room on the first floor and thought about the red leotard some more. Then I settled down to write.

All weekend I've been torn over Syria. 

The little angel caught some headlines as we were out and about and asked a bunch of questions. They were hard ones to answer. 

I don't know why people would hurt children.

I don't know whether we'll do anything about it.

I don't know know if we should do anything about it.

I agree, the whole situation is just terrible.

When it comes to policing the world, I'm ambivalent. Of course I'd love for a strong country like America to be able to help the world's wronged, but what if there are too many wrongs in the world for one military that's already so spread out? What if we have children who are hurting here? Is it our responsibility to attack if we were not attacked? Is this really about our fear they will use those weapons on us and not really about the children at all? And if so, is that a game-changer?

I started to educate myself better on the subject, then I realized that no one was going to come to me and ask me what to do. I am not in any way in charge of how the United States responds to Syria.

Sometimes the Internet brings the rest of the world too close to the window and demands I pay attention when I know in truth that to pay attention to something I can do so little about will only make me miserable, as it did every time I thought about it over the weekend.

I really don't want us to attack anybody else. I really wish we could bring all our troops home from everywhere and focus domestically. I wish we could fix healthcare and subsidize childcare and change funding so we don't have to buy our schools' copy paper anymore and improve care for mental health and beef up our infrastructure and and and ... do a million things with our energy that don't involve starting wars.

And so I close the window, on my laptop and in my mind's eye, and I stop thinking about Syria.

Y'all, I totally didn't watch the VMAs. a) I didn't realize they were on b) I have really never cared about music videos, even when MTV first came out -- I think it was the newness. I can't remember the last time I wanted my MTV. c) I hate awards shows, too.

So it wasn't until Monday morning that I realized Miley Cyrus had quite the bizarre performance. Such a performance that we actually created a series on BlogHer to house all the reactions. Now it's Friday, and I think it's taken me an entire week to absorb the stupidity of just all of it and the danger of at least one part of it.

I didn't even watch the whole video at first. After Miley-I-knew-that-girl-was-trouble-and-didn't-let-my-daughter-watch-Hannah-Montana walked out of a giant teddy bear and started yelling, I figured I was pretty sure how it was all going to go down. I didn't get to the full video watching until today, after I'd had time to read the responses and also pour bleach into my eyeballs. I've read a LOT of response posts to Miley -- people mad at people for judging her as a woman, people who are pissed about her gold grill, people who say as a society we've lost it.

Yeah, I thought she was pretty gross. Just as I really hated Madonna on a cross and Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction and any reference to bitches and hos no matter what color your skin. I hate all of it.

Was Miley's foam-fingered teddy bear worse or better? I don't know. But I really did think we'd come farther than this.

Get More:2013 VMA, Artists.MTV, Music, Miley Cyrus

Everybody in this medley had back-up dancers. The same red-pants-wearing black female back-up dancers appeared wearing teddy bears and not wearing teddy bears for Miley and for other singers, and they seemed to be doing fairly normal background dancer stuff. What I just couldn't figure out was this:

This woman in the tights was mostly shown ass-out to the crowd. You never really saw her face. Then Miley smacked that ass. Now. There are a variety of things going on here. While the robot teddy bears and the tongue wagging and the foam finger and the bikini are all annoying and just weird, the using a black woman as a prop and accentuating her ass in this way, THEN SMACKING IT just, no, Miley. And really, not just Miley, because who the hell produces this show? Where was the adult in the room to go OMG YOU HAVE NOW TRANSCENDED BAD TASTE AND MOVED INTO THE CULTURAL FUCK-UP ZONE?

You know, I never thought Miley was all that impressive as an artist, and that's fine. I don't have to like everyone. And I don't even watch this show, so it would be no worries to me except for that image above. That one is a little more powerful, and not at all in a good way.

I'm almost to the shitty rough draft stage with THE BIRTHRIGHT OF PARKER CLEAVES. It's about 10,000 words too short, but I don't know which 10,000 they should be. Also, I don't know the answers to certain questions myself, and those questions need to be answered in the draft. Finally, it's the clay and not the sculpture -- most of it totally sucks.

I spent about two weeks going through a printed-out version from StoryMill and trying to write connecting tissue because I'd written everything else just scene-by-scene and put it into the software. The export from StoryMill didn't look like a book. It looked like a bunch of scenes. So I ended up writing A on the paper and then handwriting out several pages of A in a notebook and so on until I got to Q. Then I went back in and typed all the handwritten stuff into the scenes in StoryMill and did another export.

Then I stopped. And I despaired a bit, I'll admit, because it just wasn't where I want it to be before I show it to my beta readers (God bless them). 

So I am taking this week to reread two books that have a bit of starlight to them, starlight I want to infuse into the characters of Helen and Parker in TBoPC. Perhaps if I wallow in the sentences of work I admire I'll get some inspriration by osmosis. Previous to this I've been reading a lot of dystopian stuff just for fun, but that's a totally different style than what I'm trying to achieve with TBoPC.

And so far, my sad little novel. Oh, it sucks. This part of the process is pretty frustrating. At least I've learned enough now to know I'm not done yet.

[Editor's Note: Prior to running the Warrior Dash, the blogger thought she was a badass. Also note: the blogger used a waterproof disposable camera, but it got "sent off" and will take two weeks to be developed, just like it's 1984, so she's relying on spotty memory of obstacles and their order.]

Oh, look! The starting line shoots fire! That's totally cool. FIRE FIRE FIRE

I probably should've trained on grass. Grass with lots of shale and sticks in it. 

No problem. I am doing awesome. I am going to try to stay with my brother-in-law, because I am a badass.

This is, well, quite a hill.

OMG, still a hill.

FUCKING HILL.

When will the obstacles start? Is this hill an obstacle or just a never-ending vertical slope?

Okay, a bunch of things to climb over. I've never really climbed over anything before. I should've played football.

That was not just a paper sign. That was a semi truck to crawl under. Nice job, Rita. Way to slam your back into it.

(at this point, my brother-in-law decides to wait for me after obstacles so he'll have someone to run with, as he puts it, or to make sure I don't die, as I put it)

Running, running.

Tires! High knees, hippety hop, look at me go!

HEAVY BREATHING. ANOTHER GODDAMN HILL.

Barbed wire. Why are these people just stooping over? Why not crawl? Here I'm crawling! And I'm passing people! 

Why did that bitch just tell me not to cut in line. Isn't this a race?

USE THE ANGER, RITA.

Eat my dust, sister. *passes immediately after obstacle in fit of immaturity brought on by extreme humidity and barbed wire*

HILL HILL HILL HILL HILL HILL

Oh, fuck. That is a twenty foot wall I'm supposed to climb over with a rope. 

Climb, climb, climb.

OMG, there is nothing but a rope on the other side.

WATER WATER WATER

Guess we're running again, huh?

Trenches! See, all those other people were going to have to crawl at some point, anyway. HA I SNEEZE IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION.

Running downhill is, like, so much better than running uphill. 

Climbing up and down chains. Anyone who has a child under the age of ten has a total advantage here. *scampers up and down over this oversized playground equipment*

Running through the woods. Sticks, rocks. Other people. OH, FUCK STEEP DOWNHILL. Make that quickly walking through the woods.

OH GOD NOW WE HAVE TO GO BACK UPHILL THROUGH THE WOODS.

I hate the woods.

More large walls to climb over. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. 

Running! 

Rope wall. Totally easy if you hold on to the top. Oh, boy. Not everyone is holding on to the top. Poor them.

WATER WATER WATER

Wait, what? Why are those people so short? You mean they are in a pit? And there is a giant dirt hill? And then another pit? SIX MORE GIANT DIRT HILLS WITH PITS?

This is it, I'm going to die right here. Look, they already dug my grave.

PANTING 

Brother-in-law laughing.

Brother-in-law teaching me the doctor way to quickly bring down your heartrate.

It so doesn't work for me.

Running through the woods again. So tired. Sticks.

OH SHIT I TRIPPED IN THE WOODS WITH TWO FEET OF TRAIL, OH PEOPLE ARE LEAPING OVER ME LIKE I'M AN OBSTACLE, TUCK AND ROLL, RITA!

BOING! I'm back up. Fuck it. Running.

No, ankle hurts. Walking.

No, dammit. Running.

Big tank of water with boards across. Under normal conditions would walk across. However, I just tripped over a stick in the middle of the woods and do not trust my balance at all right now. Sit on my ass and swing my way across. Ignore other people giving me the side-eye.

And there's the fire. I am so not jumping over fire. I would be the one person in the history of the Warrior Dash who trips and falls right into the fire and dies.

MUD AND BARBED WIRE. BUT WHO CARES BECAUSE RIGHT BEHIND THAT IS THE FINISH LINE! AND WATER!

*plop* Oooh. If I put my hands down I can just float under the barbed wire.

This mud feels incredible. I was so hot. I am not hot now. The mud is cool and peaceful.

I have just communed with pigs.

Trying to stand without falling over. This must be special mud, because I have seen mud before, and it has never looked so homogenous on people.

FINISH LINE!

We leave tonight for Iowa to run the Warrior Dash in honor of Beloved's 40th birthday tomorrow.

Hopefully will have pics on Monday, provided I can find a waterproof disposable camera!

Collapsing on the stairs after finishing a jog. In the humidity, the sweat forms like an internal dropper is pushing it out of my arms, my legs, even my hands, before it slides away to plunk in perfect circles on the cement. In the first few minutes after I plop down, all I can do is breathe and sweat and regulate my heartbeat back down to normal. 

I seldom think of sweating as an action, but in the thickness of Missouri's August, it is. Cicadas strike up the band and then stop as quickly as they started while I sit and sweat. Drink some water. Sweat some more. I become aware of a breeze I swear did not exist on the hills, but here it is, lifting just the edges of the leaves, sweeping across my skin until slowly, the bubbles stop forming and the rivulets slow. I can feel my heart slowing, too: crisis averted, she's not moving so fast any more.

My daughter is sick to death of summer and excited about school. She's tired of the pool, tired of barbecues, tired of the back deck, tired of the top down. I find myself clinging to these things and my favorite time of year and even the sweating, because sweating means I could be outside without a jacket, all day long if I wanted.

My breathing normal, the sweat dried enough to allow me back to the keyboard and the chair and the work, I reluctantly haul myself off the front step and walk back into my life, instantly forgetting the feeling of my skin touched by air.

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I thought this post in my head the other day, and then I forgot all about it, and then I realized I really should write it down before I forget it again.