Debra Dockter's Blog

I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since we all went on the same, unexpected journey. A journey, oddly enough, of staying put. Of not traveling, not visiting others, not exploring or vacationing or getting away.

It’s been tough. Okay, tough doesn’t begin to cover it. When a trip to the grocery store is both a vacation and a dangerous expedition, life is, as the saying goes, stranger than fiction.

Some of us have learned how to work from home, alone, with no one to bounce ideas off of, no co-workers to inspire or annoy us. Some of us have been juggling our social, family, and professional lives, hoping our zoom links will work and that we won’t accidentally join with video when our toddler is running through the living room naked or with audio, when the dog is humping his favorite toy which just happens to be one of those squeaky rubber pigs.

It has been a year of resilience and fear. Mostly, it’s sucked, but if there’s one thing I’m very grateful for, it’s that long distance phone calls are free.

Anyway, in this world of walls we are currently living in, just thought I’d share a few words. Not mine, mind you. But words always help me make it through.

            “In solitude, where we are least alone.” Lord Byron

            “Loneliness is the poverty of self, solitude is the richness of self.” May Sarton

            “What life can compare to this? Sitting quietly by the window, I watch the leaves fall and the flowers bloom, as the seasons come and go.”  Hsueh-Tou

            “People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing everyday.” A. A. Milne

Stay safe and well. And sane. Life inside is still life, and spring will come and even when we feel alone, we are not alone because so many others are feeling the same way.

Today is the one hundredth anniversary of the ending of WW I — also known as “The War to End All Wars”.  A person could easily write about the evils of war. Many an author has done just that, but, personally, I don’t think any author could really get it right.

I don’t think any author can do justice to the horrors of war, to the loss and tragedy that comes with each stilled heart. Not even documentaries or war movies or newsreels can really grasp the scope of so many lives destroyed.

Sixteen million people died in World War I.

On the hundred year anniversary to the ending of an indescribably horrific time in human history, I’d like to offer two poems written by people who loved each other and lost their future together because of…well, historians may be able to better tell why the war happened and why an innocents was lost that will never be regained.

An entire generation of young men died in the war. Here is a poem written by one of those young men, to his fiance. Followed by a poem she wrote after learning of his death. I think these words transdend time (as perhaps, all words do).

I mourn the words that were never written. The stories never told. We are a darker world because of it.

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VILLANELLE

Violets from Plug Street Wood,

Sweet, I send you oversea.

(It is strange they should be blue,

Blue, when his soaked blood was red,

For they grew around his head;

It is strange they should be blue.)

Violets from Plug Street Wood—

Think what they have meant to me—

Life and Hope and Love and You

(And you did not see them grow

Where his mangled body lay,

Hiding horror from the day;

Sweetest, it was better so.)

Violets from oversea,

To you dear, far forgetting land.

These I send in memory,

Knowing You will understand.

Roland Leighton 1915 (Testament of Youth)

PERHAPS…

To Roland Leighton

Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,

And I shall see that still the skies are blue,

And feel once more I do not live in vain,

Although bereft of You.

Perhaps the gold meadows at my feet

Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay,

And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet,

Though You have passed away.

Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright

And crimson roses once again be fair,

And autumn harvest fields a rich delight

Although you are not there.

But though kind Time may many joys renew,

There is one greatest joy I shall not know

Again, because my heart for loss of You

Was broken, long ago.

Vera Brittain 1916 (Testament of Youth)

Okay. You finally come to that blessed moment when the kids are asleep, homework’s done, the boss is away, or maybe it’s just those hours of the wee morning or late night that you’ve set aside for that wondrous thing called writing.

You tap into your caffeine source of choice, pull out the laptop and…

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What’s the problem? All day and maybe all night and maybe all week you’ve been thinking about your story. Running scenes through your head like the director of a play or a movie. You’ve been yearning for this moment to get here and now…It’s so hard!

Why?

For years I’ve struggled with this question. I’ve struggled with finding ways to stop wasting time watching dog videos and sharing recipes and basically realizing, too late, that most of my writing time has slipped through my fingers like the bathwater in a compilation of “dogs bathing” videos. (Yes, that’s a thing. Please don’t judge.)

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Writers need to write. Writers have to write, but getting started, actually pulling up the document and filling your screen with your words can be so tough.

We’ve all heard various reasons as to why writers procrastinate. Lack of conviction in whether or not we’re working on the right project. Maybe it’s thinking about all the things we should be doing like cleaning out that garage or the closet or folding laundry or maybe fixing something healthier than Pizza Rolls for dinner.

Mostly, I believed it was self-doubt. What made me think that I could write anything worth reading?

Then I realized something. I realized that maybe, just maybe, the reason why getting started is so difficult has nothing to do with our insecurities and doubts.

Imagine that you’re about to start writing. It’s so tough that you abandon ship and decide to, instead, clean out that closet. Yeah, closets can be daunting, but imagine instead of ‘cleaning’ the closet, you have to transport yourself, mentally, into it. And not into an ordinary closet either. You have to transport yourself into a closet that has, in its small, cluttered space, a world – complete with characters and conflict and emotions. Not only do you have to transport yourself into that world, you have to create it too!

Is it any wonder why we procrastinate? It’s hard. Taking our minds, our imaginations somewhere else, creating a whole world and all the intricacies that exist there, not to mention characters with rich backstories and conflicted futures. No wonder cleaning the closet doesn’t seem so bad in comparison.

Over the years I’ve tried different ways of dealing with my procrastinating issue. One thing that’s been helpful is having a set time for ‘writing’ and a different set time for ‘social media’. In today’s world, marketing through social media is a must, but it’s easy to lose writing time because we get sucked into signing petitions and clicking on that email that says Your old high school classmates are looking for you!

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Currently, I’m adding another strategy.

What if…there are forces in the world trying to stop writers from creating our alternate realities – our worlds filled with conflict and love and nanobots and all the various things born in our imaginations? What if, every time we click on a cute cat video, we’re falling into a trap set by some dark, anti-creative force? The ANTI-WRITER! (I call him Damien for short).

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Okay, this may be a bit of a dramatic tactic, but hey, whatever works.

The world needs more creativity, more stories. So how do you fight off the forces that try to keep words from the page? What works for you? Feel free to leave your suggestions in the reply box. We’re all in this together!

I recently retired as a professor to concentrate fully on my writing career. That said, what I’ll miss the most are those discussions with my students. We talked about EVERYTHING. The best part was that we could discuss things that many of them didn’t feel they could discuss with their parents, or sometimes, their significant others.

I realized that those discussions can continue, just not in the classroom. And I realized that a lot of the information I wanted my students to have, I want anyone to have access too. I know my posts have kind of been all over the place, and they will still be a combination of a variety of things that I believe might impact lives, especially young ones, but to follow, I plan on several posts discussing things that maybe you wish someone had told you, but maybe they just felt too uncomfortable too.

Let me start with a word: penis. It’s a small word, only five letters, but when I was starting out as a therapist, I couldn’t say it. I grew up in a home where my brothers discussed the weather every time a tampon commercial played. When my mom told me that babies were made when boys and girls sleep in the same bed, I thought she was trying to tell me I was pregnant because I shared a bunked with my brother (I was eight so cut me some slack please.)

The thing is, we all have our comfort level when it comes to talking about different things. After my supervisor made me say penis twenty times every time I saw her, I got more comfortable with it. After working with teens who have suffered from sexual abuse, dealt with teen pregnancy and relationship issues, saying “penis” is like saying “knee cap” or “big toe”.

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The best news is that no matter what your personal comfort level is, information is always good. Informed decisions are always better than un-informed decisions. What’s also awesome is teens are much smarter than what they’re given credit for.

Let me repeat that. Teens are smart. Yes, there are connections in the brain (mostly the part that helps understanding of cause and effect but we’ll talk more about that later), but a lot of the poor decisions teens make are NOT because of a lack of intelligence, but because they don’t have good information.

So let’s change that. Let’s get out the information that might just help you stay on course to have the future you’d like to have.

Stay tuned for some intense discussions on all types of things you’d like to know but may be afraid to ask.

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Last fall I was on a panel discussing trends in YA. One author talked about the need for more fantasy and the view that YA readers want to escape reality. As an author and vivid reader and mostly as a human, I agree that people need an escape sometimes. We need a mental vacation from the monotony of daily life and from the stressors and tragedies that plague our world.

We all need a little sip of Netflix now and then. A giant gulp of a sweeping fantasy where a character just might have magical powers that make anything seem possible.

But what happens when the book is closed, when the movie is over?

Is there room for reality in YA?

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YES!

We all live in a real world. If Shakespeare was right, if “All the world’s a stage,” then some people get better parts in better plays, and others…well…others, through no fault of their own, end up in in horrific plays, in the role of tortured people.

Then all the more reason to escape, right?

All the more reason to curl up, alone, with a good fantasy.

It’s the ‘alone’ part that bothers me. Teens, like all humans, have to deal with reality. They have to live in it, and no matter how good a book is, if you’re locked in a lower cabin on the Titanic, reading that fantasy might not give you much comfort.

Okay, if you’re about to drown in icy, dark waters, nothing might bring you comfort, but given the choice, I think I’d prefer to read something about another person, another soul speaking to me from another doomed ship. “You’re not alone,” the words would read. “I’ve been where you are. I’ve felt what you feel. You are not alone.”

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As a psychologist, I have been humbled so many times by what people endure, kids especially. People can be unimaginably cruel. The world can be unimaginably cruel. Whether today’s challenges are extreme or benign, the one thing we all desire is to not be alone. To be understood.

Reality in books lets readers know that they’re not alone — that there are others out there like them. Others fighting to get through each day, others fighting to keep their rage at bay, their fears hidden, and their tears confined to their pillows.

Realty in YA gives voices to real teens who may feel as though they have no voice, or who fear that using their voice will result in more pain, not less.

It reminds them that they are not alone. It tells them that they are understood, and if others are reading the same book, about the same difficult issues, then maybe, just maybe, a dialogue can be started. Other voices can be heard and things can get better.

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I’m always telling my students not to escape from reality. If there’s something you don’t like, something stressing you out, making your life more difficult, change it. But you can’t change something you’re constantly running from, hiding from, escaping from.

Yes, give me a good fantasy,  a good science fiction story, a good romance. Let me step out of myself for a while, away from work and school and dishes. But once that story is over, let me not be alone. Let me read about others who struggle too. Others who have seen what I’ve seen, who know what I know. Others who have been in the dark, whose voices can sound in my head when I am there again and can tell me what I most need to hear.

You are not alone.

Is there room for reality in YA?

Of course there is. Reality is what life is made of.

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Like so many other individuals, I’ve been watching the Netflix version of the bestselling YA novel, Thirteen Reasons Why. Everywhere I go, people seem to be discussing it, and on Facebook, I’ve seen a lot of teens starting posts with, “Let’s play Thirteen reasons Why”.

For those of you who haven’t seen this, it’s basically asking their Facebook friends to comment their name. The person whose post they are commenting on, will then comment “no tape” or “tape and here is the reason why”.

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As a psychologist, a parent and a YA author, I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this. Then yesterday, I saw a post listing “Twenty Things I WILL NOT Do for my Child“. Things like, “fight their battles for them”.

This got me thinking about numbers. “Thirteen” Reasons Why.  “Twenty” Things I WILL NOT Do for my Child.  I thought of the “One” door I think so many kids today think they have access to, and that door is suicide.

Adults have to face the fact that schools today aren’t like the schools of ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Times change. We have the internet now. We have Facebook Live and Snapchat. We have a society where girls are publicly and privately sexualized, where girls are legally told that their work is worth less pay than that of males, where minorities and gays are legally persecuted and where schools hang anti-bullying posters in the hallway but then, so often, tell kids to toughen up and be less sensitive when someone bullies them.

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Years ago, I watched a documentary where a beautiful nine year old boy killed himself because he didn’t know how to do his math problems and he feared his teacher was going to humiliate him in front of the class for doing the problems wrong. He took a belt and hung himself.

I’ve seen a lot of comments about the fictional “Hannah Baker” and how she should have been tougher, should have stood up for herself more, should have tried more to stop the various individuals who were bullying her.

But here’s the thing. So many times kids, and adults, find themselves in situations that they can’t stand to deal with any longer. They may tell their parents, tell school officials, but so often nothing is done, nothing changes, and they find themselves in a room with one door.

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They hate the room. They hate how they feel in it. They hate how they are treated in it. They try and try and try to survive in that room, but eventually they just can’t anymore and so they open the door and walk through it.

The thing is, suicide shouldn’t be their only option.

Adults all know that middle school and high school are temporary. Once you’re out of them, they seem so incredibly insignificant, and as time goes on, they become less and less significant. High school is kind of like a root canal. While you’re gong through it, it might seem unbearable, but once it’s done and over with, you rarely if ever think about it.

But like Einstein said, “Time is relative.”

Just remember being little and your parents telling you it’s still two weeks until Christmas. Two weeks felt like forever.

Adults can look back and see those four years of high school as just drops in the bucket of time, but when you’re there, when Facebook posts ping on your phone even when you’re trying to sleep and you know people are constantly judging you, high school can feel like a life sentence. And there’s no parol. There’s no early release for good behavior.

I don’t have the answer, but I know as a society, we need to create a second door and a third and a fourth. We need to LISTEN. We need to help kids fight their battles because they are kids. Yeah, we all want to teach self-reliance, but wars aren’t fought by individuals; they’re fought by armies, and in the stressful world we live in, sometimes kids need an army behind them.

Whether you like the Netflix show or not, the reality is that suicide amongst teens is up 600% from 1950.

Hannah wasn’t guilty of selfishness or lack of creative thinking. She was trapped in a room and only saw one door. It’s up to us as a society, as parents and friends and teachers to create more doors. Or better yet, let’s bust the walls down.

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Hi Everyone,

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted. I’ve fallen into that place where writers are told not to go. You know, that place where you start a blog, keep up with it somewhat and then masked men with Mac computers come take you away to a special place where you’re ordered to write and write and write and are forbidden to do anything else — including dishes, laundry and taking the dog out before the next accident on the carpet.

Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic.

The truth is, I have fallen into the trap so many writers, and other professionals, fall in to. We start a blog, and then….life happens. Or in my case…a book happens.

Writers love their books, we have to to spend so much time with them, but this book is very special to me. To be honest, I didn’t think I was ready to write it. (It’s definitely one of those training-wheels off types of projects!)

I’m nearly done with the first draft and I’m still not certain I’m ready to write it, but sometimes a thing just has to be written and if that thing lives in your head, you have to be the one to write it.

That said, that’s where I’ve been — writing and researching and living in a mental cave deep within the earth, excavating very very dark things.

I love blogging and reaching out to people and feeling that odd cyber-connect. I also love reaching out to people with pages and pages of black ink on white paper and touching people in, I think, the most intimate way possible — by sharing stories.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, I’ve just fallen in a very deep hole with my laptop and my story.

I’m near the end of it now and there’s that excited running-downhill thing going on.

I’ll be excited to share this book with you when it’s ready. Though I have to warn you, it’s dark, and truth be told, it might take me a while to climb out of that dark cave. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll make it all the way out.

So if you see a hand reaching out from the earth and hear a voice calling from the darkness, it might be me.

“I’m here!”

Every writer knows that waiting is a part of the job. Waiting for beta readers to give feedback, waiting for responses on query letters. Waiting for your agent to say it’s time to submit and then waiting to see if any publishers want to offer you a deal.

It’s excruciating, but there is something to ease the pain and to make the minutes, days, weeks, even months go by faster. Work!

Writers write, so write already!

In an earlier post, I compared the publishing process to having a baby. It is a lot like that, the waiting and the wondering what life will be like once it (the book or the baby) arrives.

Because we tend to think of our books like offspring, it’s hard to imagine getting pregnant with another baby, before the one you’ve been carrying is born. But writers never carry just one story inside of them at a time.

Right now, I bet there are characters, just waiting to be written, passing the time playing cards in the deep regions of your cerebral cortex. We think waiting is hard for writers, just imagine what it’s like for the characters who get hopeful every time we pick up a pen or sit down at our keyboards. Think how their hearts race when we order that double shot of espresso at Starbucks and take a table in the back corner.

The thing is, stories want to be told and as writers, it’s our job to tell them. So forget the clock and the calender. Stop checking your email every hour. Eventually, you will hear something, but in the mean time, work. Give life and freedom to your characters. Spring them from your brain and let them live on the page.

For me, there’s nothing better than the moment a story takes hold of you and pushes you, blindfolded, down a steep hill. The exhileration of not knowing what’s going to happen and the certainty that you’ll figure it out is the best!

So yes, waiting is a part of being a writer. But remember that waiting should always equal writing.

While these letters are for anyone who wants to read them, these words are inspired by the teenagers of the world.

Why?

Because I have a special regard for you, for your struggles.

You’re caught between childhood and what will become the long arduous, yet rewarding, years of adulthood. Let me put it this way.

Suppose life is a swimming pool. An infant would be able to do little more than lie at the base of the ladder leading to the high dive. A toddler might be able to begin the climb but certainly not much else. A child may make it to the top, but would stand frozen on the edge of the board, too paralyzed to venture far from the ladder. The adults, both young, middle-aged and old, would already be in the pool, swimming with various strokes, various strengths, various amounts of interest.

A teenager on the other hand, stands on the edge of the high dive, ready, able, and often willing to leap into life, into the unknown. A teenager is the embodiment of all possibilities.

The amazing thing, the inspiring thing about you, is that you all leap. Some bound from the board with graceful ease, curving in the air and piercing the water with barely a ripple to disrupt the lives of those below. Some run first, jumping as far from the board as they can, deliberately forming awkward angles with their arms and legs and not caring who sees them or what’s thought of them.

These are my favorite. Perhaps it’s wrong to have favorites, but I do so love to see the carefree passion I’d intended for all to have. It is no wonder that these not only risk the pain of the belly flop, but seem better suited to deal with the inevitable pains of life. Passion and enthusiasm are great painkillers, great shields against the negativity you will no doubt have to face in life.

There are those whose goal is to enter the pool of life with a splash and those who are too scared to enter at all. These inch their way forward, holding their breath against the slight swaying of the board beneath their weight. Life, the uncertainties of it, terrifies them. While the carefree jumpers are my favorite, these frightened divers are the ones who draw me from myself, who pull that which is known as love, out of my center, as I catch them in their fear and lower them gently into the water. You see, they still jump.

They can’t help themselves, life, adulthood is waiting and to retreat back into childhood is not an option. They have to jump, either on their own, or after steady, unrelenting time pushes them. They have to jump.

The ones that hurt me the most, who bear on me with crushing heaviness, are the ones who jump, not into the pool, but out over the hard cement. I feel every broken bone, every collapsed lung, every struggling heart.

I mourn every lost chance. I mourn every smile that was meant to be, every tear, every laugh, every kiss or embrace or moment of wonder. I cannot tell you, I cannot create the words to explain the utter devastation that comes when one of my creations leaves their life un-lived.

This may seem hard, maybe impossible to believe, but it makes me feel…inadequate. How can I, creator of all, feel incomplete, not enough, hollow? I created emptiness because without emptiness, there can be no room to hold, and there is no greater purpose in life than to hold.

With each life, there are steps that are mapped out, plans that if left to proceed undisturbed, are quite miraculous, even in what you might think of as the most ordinary of lives.

Live. Please, live.

Imagine for simplicity’s sake, that you have been reading the most wonderful novel, a book that you are certain is destined to become one of your favorites. Halfway through, you turn the page to find that the words have stopped, the pages are blank. You are certain the protagonist was headed towards greatness, towards noble adventuring consisting of no less than love and passion, excitement, forgiveness, joy and fear. But it ends. Unfinished.

Imagine now that you are the protagonist and that you have chosen to step away, eternally away, from the page. You will experience none of the joys waiting for you, because the current page of your life is just too heavy to turn. But what if you could turn it? What might be waiting for you if you allow yourself to feel hope? To believe in it? To believe in me, to give me a chance to hold you in your pain, in your loneliness? To give you the strength to turn the page and go on with your life?

I know I may seem far away, but know that I’m not. I am in these words. I am in the melody of music that swells in your chest and brings tears to your eyes. I am in the smile of a stranger and the hugs and kisses of those who love you. I am in the blue above you and the ground beneath you and all things in-between.

I love you.

You matter. Never forget that. Never.

Love Always,

God

Second love letter from God.

There are so many things I want to tell you. So many things to discuss, because I know your hearts and your minds are full, are heavy.

But today, let us start with something simple.

Yes, I created the universe and all things in it, and that being said, I must seem so complex, so powerful. But I don’t want you to think of me that way. If you go outside and stare at a flower or a snowflake, they are very intricate objects. But your eyes aren’t meant to focus on each individual element. They’re meant to see the ‘whole’. Only by seeing the ‘whole’ can you see the worth, the beauty of something.

I don’t want you to think of my complexities. At least, not yet.

Today, at this moment, I want you to think of me as a shield, a blanket. I want you to think of me as the song you listen to when the words of the world are too ugly, to cruel to hear.

Today, with so much weighing down upon you, see me as your comfort. Yes, I created the universe. I created the stars, the galaxies, the elements of all things. And I created you. But today, I want you to know that I created a world that was meant to be better than this.

My spirit is heavy too and there is no song that I listen to to drown out the pain of your world. There are no earbuds big enough to keep out the cries and pleas and screams and I would not wear them if I could for what sort of parent blocks out the cries of their children?

I hear you.

And while there is so much to discuss, today, let me offer you the softness, the warmth of my love.

I’m here.

For today, let that be enough.

I love you always,

God