With Nothing but Ghosts, my third YA novel, set to launch in eight days (I think that's right), I thought I'd offer a signed copy to one of you who answers the following question: How would you paint regret?
It's a question that Katie's father asks her, as he restores an odd and ultimately revealing painting. A question that becomes integral to the mystery in which Katie is embroiled.
Here's the relevant scene from the novel. I'll have my son assist me in choosing one of your names (from a hat or the nearest equivalent) on June 23rd.:
... everything is strangely quiet. I check the studio, but Dad’s not there. I head for the kitchen and there’s the in-the-oven-smell of pot roast, but not my father, who I finally find on the living room couch, no TV on. He seems asleep, but his eyes are open—staring straight up at the ceiling, no glasses. I used to find him like this every day for weeks after my mother died, until finally he began to work again, began to cook, like someone far away and maybe high above us, was forcing him back to life.
“You okay?” I ask him.
He says quietly, “Hey, Katie.”
I tromp over to the couch, sit at one end near his toes, untie my heavy, old, grunge-ugly work boots, which I will, I promise myself, dump in the trash once this garden gig is over. “What’s happening, Dad?”
“It’s that painting,” he says, after a while.
I wait for him to tell me more, to roll his eyeballs back down from the ceiling. “If you wanted to paint regret,” Dad asks at last, “what symbol would you use?”
“Regret?” I’m too confused, tired, hot to fake an answer.
“Things that you wished you could do over. How would you paint that?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t do much painting.”
“It’s a theoretical question, Katie,” he says. “Not like I’m going to hold you to the answer.”
“Regret could be a bird flying away,” I say, thinking out loud, playing this game for his sake, because for all I know he’s been lying here for hours, waiting to ask me this question. “Regret could be the shell you leave on the beach, or maybe the last leaf on a tree.”
Since I've already got a copy, I won't enter, but here's my answer:
I think regret is simply a whirlwind of confusion and hoping and wishing. It would be chaotic, wild, powerful, and ANGRY. You'd have a blur of colors -- reds and yellows and blacks and oranges and all the fiery colors in the world. And then, you'd have some quiet blue -- the color that says you really wish you could do it all over again.
Regret would be a girl leaning on a window sill, refusing to look out into the sunlit yard; held up by the portal she refuses to acknowledge.
To me, regret is a cold and windy beach, green waves collapsing against the shore. Salt air and the shadow of a distant ship on the far horizon. The landscape colorless, in varying shades of grey.
For me, regret would be a black/navy blue/dark purple whirlpool with all my regrets swirling around in it--there would be dashes of bright red, yellow, pale blue, etc. And at the bottom of the whirlpool, there would be shiny, sharp, glittering shards of glass. Poking right up.
(And don't enter me in the giveaway since Maya already has a copy.)
This is so interesting, because "regret" so fits the feeling of a painting I actually have kicking around in my head right now.
In my painting I have a woman on a trail along a lake. You see her from behind, and she is riding a rocking horse that appears to be moving away. There is a boat on the lake but there is only one oar and no one is in the boat. On the other end of the trail from the woman are two old and battered suitcases with travel stickers on them. It is gloomy and raining in the distance.
Hmmm. Intriguing. I think of regret as the inverse of longing but also its companion. There would be a ticket in an open box with a date stamped from long ago. The owner of the ticket never used it.
I think...regret would be painted with depression, misgivings. It would be this deep, dark sadness that can suck you into a black hole of what you should and shouldn't have done. But there is a bright side to regret. When you really think about why you are regretting what you did, it reminds you that you have a clear conscience, and that you can distinguish the difference between what is right and wrong. So if I had to paint it (though I am no artist, ESPECIALLY with paints), it would probably look like a black or a dark colored ball of tangled yarn, but each fiber of the yarn would go off into brighter colors such as yellow.
You already have some wonderful suggestions.
I might take the heart-shaped, red leaf on your book, Undercover, age it and rip it and call that regret.
I might paint a series of tear-drops in browns, grays, blues, and blacks, and maybe the lower rim of the eye they are leaking from....
B. Lynn Goodwin
www.writeradvice.com
Author of You Want Me to Do What?
Journaling for Caregivers
Regret would be a blank canvas left untouched.
I'm probably answering this all wrong, but if I was to paint regret... as in, what regret is personally to me then I'd paint a girl jumping off of a cliff into a sky that was a sort of collage of all the things I wish I did while I had the chance but didn't.
She'd be taking a leap of faith by jumping into those situations, maybe she'd fall and crash or maybe she'd land on her feet - she won't know unless she tries.
But that's because I rarely allow myself to regret the things I've done in the past, because at least I tried even if they didn't turn out well - the things I regret most are the things that I didn't say when I should've or didn't do while I could've... it's the things we don't do that turn into the biggest regrets because then we're stuck living life with big "what if?"'s hanging over our heads.
I’m the proud owner of a copy of Nothing but Ghosts, one in which there in an annotation written by the author especially for me. Although I left young adulthood behind many moons ago, this exceptional book by an outstanding writer had me captivated from the very beginning. It’s a book that will make you think about the very essence of people, about sacrifice and love and about what is important in life. The poetic prose and witty, eloquent first person narration make for a truly absorbing story which leaves the reader touched and inspired. Beth has crafted that rare thing, a novel that is insightful, observant and enthralling – Nothing but Ghosts is a truly compelling read. And the wannabe director in me was shouting all the way through – what a fantastic movie this story would make!
Regret is the painting of a girl walking across a grass runway to a small plane. She is carrying a straw hat, a bright scarf tied jauntily around the crown in one hand and in the other a brown leather suitcase. To her left are a family of warthogs mowing hungrily away at the stubbly grass. She is looking away from the aircraft, staring across the sun-bleached savannah towards to ring of mountains etched in hazy blue against a sky bleached white by the harsh glare of an equatorial sun. The small plane will take her to a bigger plane which will take her away across the world, leaving Africa just a memory in the fading, broken line of it’s vapour trail.
Regret is the look of a puppy on its hind legs in a cage in an animal shelter watching a little girl holding her dad's hand and walking away. It is the look of the little girl looking back at the puppy.
Nothing But Ghosts is such a marvelous book. The lucky reader will be enchanted by it.
For me, regret would be the Pietà (as depicted by many artists - like Michelangelo or Bellini) - The Mother with the dead adult son across her lap. The Mother not being cause of the crime, but still a part: Her vulnerable position as a mother not being able to protect her child. Her part in humanity where we make mistakes all the time. The two together symbolizing so much love, such deep scars - yet an embodiment of HOPE.
I think regret would be symbolized by a crying little girl held in the embrace of her mother. In her hand is a burnt match and her fingers are slightly burned with a light pink glow. The house in the background is in flames and there are firefighters bringing out a girl who is slumped over and coughing.
What an interesting post and comments. I think for me regret would be a jail cell with a closed door but the key in the lock--on the outside but reachable.
Perhaps, very simply, a blank canvas or a canvas with one simple brush stroke floating off the canvas to nowhere.
I've been thinking about this since yesterday. I don't generally believe in regret. I try to do everything the first time around and as long as I've tried, well, there's nothing to regretting.
Could it be an afternoon in a garden without sound? A fresh baked cake without taste? A beautiful scarf you can't touch? It would have to be the absence of a sense, something stolen away, something lost by having not taken that chance the first time 'round.
I would paint regret in tears.
I would paint regret on paper that holds the weight of water colored.
I would paint regret with vivid images to portray my sadness and shame.
I have painted regret with all of these things, but sometimes I have found myself more lost in the sending of regret, then in the painting of it.
Good question, and I love the idea of this passage in your book, as well as the passage itself!
Maybe a young woman sitting on the edge of a bed, looking down, her hands folded in her lap...there is a man sleeping on the other side of the bed...the regret could be over a myriad of things..
Peace - Rene
Regret would be a wash of watercolor, a scrim of gray with hints of color, faces, hopes, indistinct, but there nonetheless.
I think I would paint regret as a solitary scene - a woman looking out the window...a man sitting at the beach, gazing out toward the horizon.
I, too, have my special copy, which I read as soon as I received it, savoring every sentence. Please apply my entry to someone who has not yet had the pleasure of reading it.
As for how wonderful NBG is, I could never top the review written by Tessa (above). I second her words!
Congratulations on the debut, Beth!
XO
Anna
The bird flying away, the sign down a one way path with a storm waiting beyond. I like these illustrations.
I can think of nothing original, especially after all of these fine paintings everyone has shared. But my daughter showed me a music video today that also spoke to my feelings about regret. The song talks of forgetting the words to a song you once knew so well. Regina Spektor's "Eet" http://explorefar.warnerreprise.com/
This is what I'm picturing in my mind...
Regret is a heart that won't let itself be filled by the now.
When I picture this, I don't see a heart like the kind you draw on a Valentine's card, but a real one, all bloody and veins and muscle. It's beating softly, ever-so-faintly. And it's worse than empty, because it's filled with the past--no room for the present and especially not for the future. What can be will never enter it; it's filled to the brim with what could've been.
It's just a heart, laying all by itself on a butchering block, only the knife never drops to stop its pain.
Wow - there is some great imagery in these answers.
Regret would be a teenager, standing at the side of an open grave.
There could be many reasons for regret with this picture.
Regret is...like my last poem. Sitting alone on one side of a park bench, gray skies and grass that's not as green as it could have been. Head tipped slightly down. Yes. That's regret.