Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Frances Li's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
12:49 pm	Livejournal is concerned about me. "You've only made 2 friends. Find Friends and Communities" I don't know what strikes me as so funny about this. I mean, maybe they've tasked me with some kind of behavioral surveillance because I only have two friends and 90% of my entries on this blog are private. It's because I used this blog for writing stuff that I hope to someday have copywritable. Well, I think I'm going to go get something for lunch now. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 3rd, 2007
10:43 am	Poison and Art As I was mentioning elsewhere, I had a bit of a poisonous dream last night. I was wondering if it had to do with what I was writing or because I've been hearing The Great Gatsby as a book on tape. Now when I say poison, I mean a poison such as alcohol which the compulsive personality indulges in despite negative consequences. But I have a nagging idea that one man's poison is another man's medicine. Before the sanitation of water, for instance, many people drank wine because it poisoned that which might harm people (they talk about this in Sunday School sometimes, at any rate.) Likewise, the only sense in which our industrial water is safe to drink is because it has been processed with poisons. Well, I don't know. It feels like a bit of rationalization to say a little poison is actually good for me. I really want to go forward on what I'm writing, perhaps out of what migth be termed bloody-mindedness, because I so often don't finish things. I can write it and then decide what to do. As far as my last project, the one about the Gospels, I've gotten a bit hung up in incorporating John into the mix. There is just so little in the way of co-referrents. Also, I had a great idea for the one illustration, but nothing, really as it regards anything else. John is such a different book, and that's saying something. As we Mormons say, if it were fake, don't you think he would have tried harder to make it make sense? (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 1st, 2007
5:39 am	The shape of the story Another breakthrough takes me back to where I began in large part. Well, I now believe the story ends where I originally ended it. Where it began is what came to me not too long ago. Did I write about it? It was something I explored when I was in the writing seminar, but I explored a lot of things then. Sept 05, I guess it must have been? But probably since January I knew that was the start. So what do I do from here? I feel at times paralyzed by the fear of hurting my parents, but I guess I can promise them if they read the whole book they will hopefully rejoice with me. I guess in large part the beginning was kind of shaped during conference, though I did experiment in the intervening time with leading with my flaws, and then I realized that would not be necessary. And necessity, Tolstoy's necessity, of destiny, is what drives me. But now I am back to the matter of whether to use my own name. Here's the deal- anyone close enough to the situation to recognize us is going to recognize us anyway, so why not just tell the truth? (Comment on this)
Friday, March 30th, 2007
4:34 am	Backing up my journal I just copied all but one entry (which was an alphabetical listing of hymns from the church website) and it was 271 pages. That and 147 on my other livejournal. I wonder how much is overlap. I think the early outlines of my first book are on both, and several chapters. Still, I was impressed. There were fewer posts on this one. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 29th, 2007
4:56 am	Perplexed but Not in Despair So at some point (as noted in my paper journal) I realized I want to focus on the period up through my marriage, kind of end with a happily ever after situation. Then there will be a different book that is the Strait and Narrow Jacket. But there is always the question of where to begin. When did I recognize the need for change? I guess when I hit bottom. When did that happen? How do I arrange the photos, as it were? I've decided my theory for autobiographical fiction is like photography, whereas fiction is like painting or other media where the image is created. Photography uses captured images, but it is far from the case that you present the image as it was captured. There is a good deal of pushing, burning, dodging, and cropping that can go on at every stage of development. The idea is to stop short of dropping in enormous moons on my landscapes. An excellent example of photographic artistry is the death of Bobby Kennedy. The original image was very dark, Kennedy's face nearly invisible. Well, I have it somewhere. Maybe. It might be in that book I lent to my brother-in-law. (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 14th, 2007
3:04 pm	fifteen percent Something else I've been thinking is how most people spend about 15% more than they anticipate. It's because of things like car repairs or medical expenses that they wish won't happen, but they do, it's just part of life. I think sin is like that. I mean, there is a certain amount of sin I know will happen that I think is taken care of by the sacrament each week. Arguing with my spouse, judging others, etc. etc. But then I think this other stuff kind of builds up and blindsides me. I don't really like financial analogies to sin in general, but this is just a way of describing it. I don't know if that makes any sense. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 1st, 2006
9:57 am	Nanowrimo Day 1 I was so keyed up yesterday, it was hard to focus on anything else. That's how it is, with the deadline that you can't start writing before the month begins. I thought about staying up and starting at midnight, but decided to go to bed about 10. I did glimpse the clock while turning over at one something, but when I got up at 3 I was up. I came down and wrote 1400 words,then fixed my writing buddy list, then did another 1100, completing my first chapter. Of course it seems brilliant to me now. Maybe I'll email it to my sister. After my 12 step meeting this morning I want to embark on chapter 2. I think I'll write as much as I can as fast as I can. I have a real road laid out with this novel, I don't think I will complete it if I only do one chapter a day. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 17th, 2006
5:49 am	another Chapter One I'd never felt clearer in my life, but my husband Grant had got it into his head that I was crazy, and nothing I said seemed to convince him otherwise. He was snoring now, as I lay looking at the clock that indicated 01:45. What time was it in Turkey? I held my watch up to the green glowing numbers, but it was hard to tell the hour hand from the minute hand in such light. Either 06:40 or 08:30. Adam would have been one week old. I sat up but Grant kept snoring. You know, I think I'm just going to have to write this sucker in 3rd person. (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 15th, 2006
9:11 am	What does Frances most want? Looking at Frances in STNJ, what does she most want? I think she wants to understand the meaning of life. The meaning of suffering. God's purposes. She feels she was beat down, and not strengthened. I think it's a good place to start from. Perhaps December of 1994. Maybe. Frances had turned 24 the previous spring. June 16th is still technically spring, which always seemed wrong to her. And here in Salt Lake it was not yet technically winter, though there had been snow on and off for 2 months. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 11th, 2006
12:38 pm	Getting geared up for NaNoWriMo I actually got a whiff of this in September, when I realized I wanted to write my Recovery story. I think something that has become clear in the last two years is that my first novel needs to have more of a denoument, so I will be adding events through 2000. I've also been wondering a lot how to begin the novel, probably written 5 endings this summer, and I am leaning now toward an introspection on why I was crazy, and see where that leads me. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
7:45 am	The beginning I'm was a burner, not really a pyromaniac, it's not like I was crazy. I could stop anytime I want to. I didn't burn things that weren't meant to be burned. Candles, matches, okay, maybe some hairspray, but it was just that once. The way a small flame clung to the nozzle frightened me, as if a little spark could go inside the canister and ignite it like an engine piston. "Flame doesn't work like that, Frances, but it probably still isn't a great idea." my older sister said. "How does it work?" "Not like that." But I still wanted to know. Today I figured out how to carry a flame on a thumbtack. It was the brass kind with a little star in the middle of the flat part. I held it upside down with a pair of tweezers, and dipped it in the melted paraffin of one of the plain white candles we kept in case of power outage. I was originally letting them cool and peeling the wax off the back of the tack, with the little star formed on it. One time I got too close to the wick, and the wax within the top of the tack ignited. I'm not sure why it worked, if the shaft of the tack in the middle somehow acted as a wick, a point at which the paraffin climbed up and was consumed. I was at my desk, a drafting table really. My mom got it for my 14th birthday the summer past. I had it by my bed, which extended from under the window out to the middle of the room, which Marcy said wasn't very efficient. The ceiling sloped in with the roof, and on the west wall there was a panel to the eaves that I had painted a "no boogeymen" sign. On the sloping part was a black horse, running. (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 21st, 2006
10:40 pm	Dream each other's dreams Posted on Hatrack Well, it's interesting that the mind game existed before the Queens created the bridge to Ender that became Jane. The reason the mind game was of use is that it created a united story for a large number of people (every child who had been in battle school since... when?) There is a quote somewhere in the series about humans being lonely creatures who could not dream one another's dreams. But with the mind game is as close as they could come to that. On my last re-read of Ender's Shadow, sadly, I realized there was not any hint of Bean's father writing the mind game, since he programmed software for the... um, something other than the IF. But it is an interesting question, how old is the mind game? Not Posted on Hatrack It would be interesting if some of the initial programming were directed by Mazer Rackham, since he was the first guy who perceived the location of the queen, and has some kind of connection to how the formics think. If it began with him, then all the pilots sent on to the third invasion are part of this network of dreamers. Of course, the dream reading is a storyline I've had elsewhere for some time. I think that's better kept separate than get it all confounded with where Jane came from. (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 10th, 2006
12:28 pm	Godfearing Is the goal of recovery to fear God? Does God wish us to fear him? Could fear be a corrective stage like guilt? Is it fear when He is not known? Working out our own salvation with fear and trembling... what is this about? (Comment on this)
Friday, August 25th, 2006
6:47 am	What is the truth of codependence? I thought I had learned this shortly after asking it, it had to do with liberty and agency, but it didn't really stand up after time. Dostoevsky had a quote, I believe, about men needing to get rid of their freedom. Maybe it was Tolstoy. I had it in a calendar once. So I woke up thinking about it more this morning, about making a gospel hobby of family or service or some other things being codependency. Also living on borrowed light, of loving god with our mind and strength or our heart and might but not all four at the same time. Of being double minded. Of not being one within ourselves. It was of the disciples in Gethsemane that Jesus said "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." The same to whom he had said "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." What is more or less than this... what did that refer to? Can we love God too much? That had to do with the definition of truth, the seeing of hidden meanings in things, dream interpretation and so forth. Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come. The Glory of God is intelligence, or in other words light and truth. Whatsoever is light is good, because it is discernible. I will speak the truth of it in your heart and your mind. And the parable of the Ten Virgins, that is where it all begins. In sunday school we learn that this refers to the members of the church at the last day. Half are missing, for whatever reason, an adequate supply of oil. The sunday school lesson also interprets the two cruses of oil roughly as spirit and truth, or faith and works, or prayer and study. Heart and mind. If both are not fully dedicated to God, then there is a risk that one will be caught short of the kingdom. It was the spring of 2000 when this lesson was taught. I had been rebuilding my testimony for nearly 4 years. My first son had died in 1992, followed by my nephew in 1994 and for the next two years I was deeply skeptical about God and his dealings with people. When my daughter was born in 1996, I was given two experiences that affirmed the existence of God to me. One was when she was four days old, and the other came in a Stake Conference shortly after. But I still had a substantial problem in having suffered mental illness at the outset of these events. I had suffered postpartum hyperthyroidism, compounded by grief and sudden displacement, that turned into full-blown psychosis. It was concern over my stability that prevented us from having more children for 4 years (the first year I was on a teratogenic mood leveler anyway.) Between the illness and the treatment, I had turned my back on revelation, inspiration, miracles, the Holy Ghost, visions and all that other "weird stuff" that is essential to a testimony of the restored gospel. I had the Word, or scripture study, as my means of salvation. At the time I interpreted the two cruses of oil as the Bible and the Book of Mormon. I'm not quite sure how I thought about the two experiences I mentioned. In the first, I had reached the end of my patience in caring for my new baby and had cried out to God and felt comforted to go on. It was the beginning of trusting in God, for I had been raised to cultivate a similarity to God and not to rely on him. The other event was a kind of transcendent artistic appreciation moment while singing a song, and seeing a pattern of things that I kind of wrote off to the gospel being seeded in my subconscious. But the important thing that these events were not was hearing voices or seeing things like spirits, which people seemed to expect from me, especially my mother. I wanted practical religion, which the restored gospel certainly has plenty of. Serve. Study. Worship. I thought I was serene, unperturbed, not tossed about by every wind of doctrine as the saying went. My third child was born, another son. The first son on my side of the family to live in 12 years. (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 23rd, 2006
10:13 am	Hearts Knit Together I was looking at Ezra Taft Benson's talks "Cleansing the Inner Vessel" and "Beware of Pride" this morning. The emphasis on not comparing ourselves to others, not having emnity, just really struck me in this relationship with codependence. What is the truth about codependence? Am I ready to ask the Lord this question? Strangley, I feel drawn to re-read "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." Well, I'm not quite sure what I got out of the first chapter of 7 habits, aside from a desire to re-read it somemore. But while I was in Sunday school today I was impressed with the idea the codependency is "captivity and death" (2 Nephi.) I had been wondering all week what was the fundamental difference between being influenced by Satan vs. the Holy Ghost. But the word "influenced" cannot be applied equally to both. Satan tempts and compels. The Holy Ghost confirms actions we have already taken, or on occasion warns against danger. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 4th, 2006
7:01 am	This is Life Eternal For this is life eternal, to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent. The first principle of the Gospel is to know of a certainty the true character of God (quote?)(Joseph Smith) Take the case of Peter and Cleophas, walking on the road to Emmaus and joined by a stranger. We know this stranger is Jesus. They report to him all the news about Jesus. The stranger in turn expounds unto them all that the scriptures have witnessed concerning the Lord. At evening they ask him to stay and eat with them. When he breaks the bread and blesses it, they realize it is him and he vanishes. Imagine the scene, surely they must have first thought they were in the presence of a spirit, but on the table before them is the torn bread. As I was reading our first scripture I continued through the next chapters into the trial of Jesus, and Jesus had prayed: 12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. Now of course we know this son of perdition was Judas. But during that night of the trial when Peter denied Jesus three times, might he have imagined it to be himself? Cleophas who is the disciple in Marh 14:51? I supposed a disciple who wanted to persist in resisting the arrest, but fate intervened to prevent it. Perhaps it was Mark himself. I think since this is a prety prominent entry on the subject, I'd edit this to mention I became reacquainted with the statement "To be spiritually minded is life eternal" the other day. It was kind of funny, one of the sister missionaries called it S.M.I.L.E. (Comment on this)
Monday, June 12th, 2006
1:36 pm	A stab at 3rd person It was foolish to use the tiny Middle East Center computer lab after cutting Dr. Muamar’s class that morning. Maybe on some level Franc wanted to get caught. She was staring at the door collecting her next sentence for the overdue linguistics term paper when he appeared in the stream of faces thronging through the humanities building. She looked down but his brows folded as he realized he was angry at her. He leaned in the door and shifted his load of papers and dictionaries to one arm so he could wag a finger at her. “You, I don’t like this. Not at all. I teach a class, and then you must come see me in my office.” He paused just long enough to ascertain that she wasn’t raising any objections and strode away. How had things reached this point? At the beginning of 101 when they choose Arabic names, the idea of a matronymic was appealing. He had apparently graded her easier because he thought that she was dealing with the hassles of parenthood. By spring, when she finally had the vocabulary to explain that her son was taken up to paradise (the simple word “dead” was never applied to people), he was angry rather than sympathetic. She was a liar, a trickster. But Franc had never asked him to grade her easier. She hadn’t told any stories of what a hassle motherhood was. She even dropped the matronymic after the first term. Why had she waited so long to bring it up? Franc could tell him she had been crazy, that she was in counseling her first year back at the University. But who could tell what effect this would have on his judgement of her? And she needed to pass his class to complete her minor. She glanced around the lab, which was a converted office or utility closet. No windows, it was brick up to shoulder level and white painted cinderblock above. None of the others were in Arabic, which probably explained why they were willing to major in Middle East Studies. Franc tried writing a bit more, but the pointlessness of linguistics was given a new urgency by her impending visit with Dr. Muamar. She saved what she had and packed up. The hour had turned, so there were fewer people in the hall but most of those were late and in a terrible hurry. She had to go upstairs to get out of the building. (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 10th, 2006
7:11 am	When they told me Adam was dead a pall of denial had shielded me. Perhaps it was the same now. Grant and I had been waiting in the hospital hallway near the operating room, me in a wheelchair because I had just given birth to him five days earlier. My dad arrived, dressed in his overcoat and holding his gray winter hat. I wasn't sure what time it was... my watch showed 4:37 p.m. but that was in Turkey from where we had been MED-EVACed. We were in Washington D.C. now. Had he come from work or was he on his way in? He worked as a civil engineer for the government. When I was a little girl I'd flip through the magazines that came for him. They were about bulding bridges for roads and making things out of concrete. His home office had a motorized eraser. It had a motor the size of a soda can that plugged into the wall and spun a little white eraser. He also had an eraser shield, which was like a steel credit card with odd little shapes cut out of it. Calculators were just being invented, so he still used a slide rule and this six sided ruler with natural log marked on one part. I stood up to hug him. "We named the baby after you." I said. He nodded and patted my arm. "Here, you sit down and take it easy, Finch." When I was born, Finch was the best pronunciation of Frances that my sister, Rita, could make. She actually called me Binch, but my mom had some sense about not adopting that. I was named after her, as my closest brother Adam had been named after Dad. The first four children were named after Mom's parents, and then her sister and Rita had been their maid of honor. We had Chinese middle names from Dad, though they weren't "after" anyone, since Chinese names are apparently supposed to be original or something. It was something I wished I knew more about, but I hadn't been able to get very far with my Chinese classes in college and Dad had wanted us to be as American- or white, at any rate- as possible. "Thanks for coming, Adam" my husband said. "I hear your parents will be here shortly." My dad's voice had its own peculiar music, a stress on "your" and a slight pause before "shortly". I thought I must be sleepy, as I often was when the prosody of speech began to envelope me. A nurse came down the hall, her shadow interrupting the long reflections of the gray light through the windows. She had silver captain's bars on the collar of her white uniform, and her hair was all pinky-width curls. (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 24th, 2005
7:09 am	I think this aspect of our way of life falls under meditation. Taking one day or one moment at a time. Before "recovery" I would have new year's resolutions. I thought in the newness of the year I would have a fresh perspective to view what I knew to be the truth of my situation. But this is just a form of procrastination, and it relies on the lie that I'll be stronger at any future time than I am now. Oh, sure there have been various times when circumstances favored "success", and I thought that had something to do with me. It was just part of the roller coaster of codependency. In February of 2003 I hit bottom with the codependency. A confrontation with my medical provider forced me to see that my "success" and attitude were controlled by those around me, and that my world was governed by fear. It took me a long time to finally see that the Lord could be the one I looked to in decisions. If I would just remember the truth that I was given his spirit to always be with me, he would be the leading influence in any group I am in And with me when I am alone. Not to judge me, but to guide me and comfort me and nurture me, to encourage me along. He is my sheperd. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 16th, 2005
2:03 pm	Two weighty events I'm not sure which event occured first, but I'm pretty sure both occured during the second grade. We had to do a project about our families, and in mine I remarked concerning my father that I didn't know him very well because we didn't spend a lot of time together. My teacher told my mom and my mom told my dad. (Comment on this)