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Posts tagged ‘writing’

Jul 20

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Boston Globe: Five Laws of the Novelist

An article in this morning’s Boston Globe picks up rather nicely where we left off last week. On Thursday, Brittany expressed her frustration with the process of finding a publisher and I wrote a rather lengthy comment about publishing in general (which hopefully helps spur our writers to action, rather than prompts them jump out the window). In the Globe, Stephen Bergman wryly illuminates the publishing process in “Five Laws of the Novelist“:

Law Two: Editors Are Ephemeral and Don’t Edit. The editor of my first novel moved to another publishing house for my second. In the middle of my third, at another publishing house, she was fired, and my new editor, after sending me terrific edits, was fired the next day. The editor on my fourth novel, at still another publishing house, said, “I love this novel. I won’t change a word.’’ But when I got the manuscript back she had marked it up with so much red pencil that each page was pink. We struggled. I took few of her suggestions. In our final conversation she said, “You’ve ruined this book. It will get bad reviews,’’ and then she was fired. As one editor told me: “We no longer edit, we acquire and market.’’

Law Three: Publishers Don’t Publish. When my first novel was about to come out, I asked my publisher if it would sell. “No, your novel won’t sell.’’ This startled me. “It’s about medicine, and that’s good, and it’s funny and sexy, and that’s good.’’ Why won’t it sell? “Because it’s a good book. Good books don’t sell.’’ Bookstores can return any book for a full refund, a business model that spells doom for publishing. Only about 5 percent of books pay back their advance. Those hardcover remainders piled up in stores mean that the publishers overpaid, overprinted, and undersold.

Law Four: There Is No Humiliation Beneath Which a Writer Cannot Go. My second novel had come out in paperback, and my wife and I were on a hiking trip in New Hampshire. We stopped in a mom-and-pop store for lunch. There, in a spindle bookrack, were two copies of my novel. I immediately suspected my wife had placed them there, to make me feel good. Nope. I took both books off the rack and went up to the little old lady at the counter, and announced, “I wrote this book.’’

“Oh, you wrote that book?’’ she asked.

I averred yes. I asked if she would like me to sign the copies.

“Oh no, our folks would never buy a book that was writ in.’’

Another standard humiliation: At an author-signing in a bookstore, sitting at a desk near the window, facing a wall of Grishams, watching people hurrying past as if you are a child molester. Not fun, especially if your publisher has overlooked advertising the event.

Law Five: There Is Only One Reason To Write. During a post-second-novel depression, I spent six months, more or less, in the bathtub, trying to give up being a writer. Finally I realized that while I disliked publishing, I still loved writing. But if you want to respect what you write (rather than write for cash), you need a day job. Luckily, decades previously I faced a choice: between Vietnam or Harvard Med. I became a psychiatrist because I might learn about character and story, and could leave mornings free to write. Not as good a day job as my first, working the graveyard shift as a toll collector on the Rip Van Winkle Bridge – you can learn pretty much everything from what goes on at night in cars – but still.

Only write if you can’t not.

Read the full piece here. Then, get back to work!

Jul 16

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Brittany: In Defense of the Novelist

Recently, on my personal blog, I wrote about my latest rejection from the world of publishing. After asking to see my full manuscript, it was rejected one hour and seven minutes after I submitted it. That stings and I’m grumpy about it. But probably not for the reasons you’d expect.

I’m not one of those writers who thinks everything I write is genius. I don’t shun editing, or even re-writing, when it’s warranted. I like to hear criticisms of my writing (though obviously accolades are more welcome) because I do see writing as a process, and something you are always learning and growing from. So when I submitted my manuscript to this publishing company, I didn’t expect them to trip over themselves in their zeal to offer me a contract. I’m a realist.

But at the same time, I didn’t expect to be rejected so summarily, or so soon. The email I received said that while the “best editor” at the house loved my concept, she just couldn’t deal with the long laundry list of rooms in the house and their flaws and that I should re-work my book with an eye toward keeping my readers’ interest. Ouch. It’s obvious to me that the editor stopped reading at somewhere in chapter 1, at which point she suggested to the publisher, who then suggested to me, that after I reworked my book, I should re-submit it to them.

I got online and whined about my bad luck on Facebook. My friends were split into two camps. There were the ones who said, “Excellent! They’re still interested in your work! Re-write it and re-submit it to them!” And there were the ones who said, “Send it to someone else. If this publisher can’t be bothered to actually read the entire manuscript, they’re big fat, giant poopie heads and don’t deserve to publish your book anyway.”

I can appreciate their reactions, and I agree with them both. But at the same time, I feel very sad. I feel sad for me, the writer, whose three-year work-in-progress isn’t getting published. I feel sad for readers, whose literary choices are controlled by publishers who expect every story to play like an episode of 24. I feel sad for publishers, who are so time and cash-strapped, they don’t have the time to read a novel and examine it through a wider lens. It seems like more and more, novels are going the way of news, where everything must be reduced to a sound bite. What happened to the novels of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, where a reader could get lost in the lengthy descriptions of another world? What happened to our collective attention spans that we can no longer absorb large amounts of information without singing, dancing, and catchy slogans? I remember from my experiences as a teacher that there was an enormous push to make learning fun and entertaining. That’s all fine and good when it’s appropriate, but sometimes, you have to know the basics before you can make the learning fun. People seem to forget that.

I devoted six double-spaced pages of my novel to a description of Alex and Will’s tri-level. It is the central conflict of the book, the “home” in Home Improvement, the place where the vast majority of the action in the book happens, the physical manifestation of all that is going wrong between my main characters. My reader has to see it, has to be overwhelmed with the “laundry list of problems,” has to experience the house the way Alex experiences it. They have to understand why buying this house seemed like a good idea at the time. They have to understand that this is the moment of no return.

Evelyn pulled into the driveway of a large brick tri-level with gray siding and cheerful yellow shutters. It sat on an oversized corner lot where several mature oaks and maples dotted the yard. We got out of the car and wandered up the daisy-lined sidewalk to the front door. Evelyn unlocked it and we stepped inside.

From the outside, I expected warm country décor, much like what we’d seen in other houses. But the entryway walls were chalk white, and instead of bandanna-clad cows, the only decoration was a large square of geometric-patterned carpet and a light fixture made of neon squiggles.

“The owners go for those modern touches,” Evelyn observed.

If a twenty-year-old light fixture was her idea of a modern touch, I couldn’t wait to see what else she considered current décor.

“Let’s start on the first level,” Evelyn said, and led us from the entryway, down a short flight of stairs to the family room.

The first level was mostly below ground, except for two small windows that were level with the Indian Hawthorne growing in front of the house. A cookie-scented candle sat burning on the family room fireplace mantle and filled the room with the irresistible scent of baking cookies. The-butter-and-vanilla-scented room was enormous, and looked extra inviting with its large brick fireplace on the far wall. Those were the room’s good points. Unfortunately, the room was crowded with mismatched furniture, and the wood-paneled walls were covered all over in little strokes of aqua and pink paint. After a few seconds, my vision began to blur.

I wandered through a doorway to my left and into the den. A homemade desk took up most of the room and black splotches circled the ceiling. “Is that mold up there?” I asked.

Evelyn squinted at the walls while Will examined the nearest patch. “It’s just paint,” he said after poking it.

Who in their right mind thought faux-mold was a good idea?

I asked the same question when we opened the door to the laundry room. Every surface was covered in pink sponge marks, including the pipes. As I stared at the paint job, Evelyn came up behind me and said, “This sponge-painting is all the rage right now. We just did it in our dining room. It turned out really nice.”

I had my doubts.

I won’t be re-submitting my work to this particular house. And I won’t be re-working anything with so little critique to go on. Again, I’m not averse to re-working my novel, but I have to feel like the changes I make are purposeful. I had purposeful reasons for writing the scene as I did, and I need to find an editor who, at the very least, understands my intent and can support my vision. That’s all I’m really asking for. I think that’s all any novelist can ask for.

The whole publishing experience feels a lot like that poem The Blind Men and the Elephant. Everyone “sees” something differently, and everyone is wrong. I know I still have a lot to learn. The first order of business is hiring a professional editor… someone who is looking at my book for its strengths, rather than its weaknesses. Then we’ll see where I go from there.

Jul 15

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Cathy: Of weekend, writing or not, organization and furniture, productivity or relaxation, beach, t-storms, dead battery, stand still traffic and old southern fishermen

I’m thinking again. Thinking of writing, thinking of editing, but waiting for editorial input from a few select friends in order to edit my manuscript. Of editing the poem I wrote the other day or not, or of writing the story I started or the one with the fully cast set of characters from about a week ago. Or of finding that script outline from oh, 4 yrs ago, that I still would like to develop. And three derivative character books from my manuscript that I could easily start, not exactly a series, but related books on existing characters.

I’m thinking I’m happy that Honey and I finally rearranged S’s bedroom on Saturday. I’m thinking how long will it stay this clean after he gets home from his dad’s. And of threatening to take anything left on the floor or shoved behind furniture away for eternity, but that’s a lot of money in legos and drawing supplies and dinos and godzillas that I’d rather he use.

I’m thinking I wish I had a laptop and a couple of hours a day in a café or elsewhere so I won’t be on toddler duty, or in the vicinity of laundry, dishes et al, so I can focus on writing and get to the deeper level, find the groove, without distractions in housework or parenting.

I’m thinking what an absolutely gorgeous day at the beach on Sunday. The water was perfect, the beach was packed, Honey and I relaxed, Baby C grew a little more accustomed to the sand and the water, and even pointed from the shovelful of sand I held to show her, and pointed to a speck on my arm and said ‘sahn..’ She watched a kite circle and dip and bounce. She pointed to gulls, to clouds to people to sandcastles, to the ocean for me to say what they were again and again. She pointed and giggled at the flock of squawking laughing gulls dipping and circling and diving at an unattended set-up, where they were stealing snacks, because the family all went to the water together, leaving their belongings to the snarky thieves. That is a lesson learned in my well-beached youth. She flirted with the young guys behind us who laughed and called her adorable, after gossiping about friends and others apparently at their college. I thought and said to Honey, I am so glad I am not that age anymore, when what people wear, their hair, their ‘tudes, their likes and dislikes matter so disproportionately to the entirety of world affairs.

And then the breeze became darkened sky, became drops. I watched the cloud direction and we packed up, headed to the van in the municipal lot, to discover alarm drained dead battery, and then the sky opened up, and Honey and I yelled at each other, til he stood at the edge of the lot to watch for Triple A, who arrived with handheld battery pack in an unmarked Nissan, calling me on my cellphone on the approach. I think, why do we yell at each other so readily, when all else fails.

I’m thinking of getting on the road and sitting in standstill traffic on the bridge. Of the ancient bent man wiping his new truck with a greasy cloth and getting out, hobbling slowly, fly half unzipped, toward his trailered fishing boat. He stopped and spoke to us on his way, offered us a pepsi or a mountain dew with multiple extra syllables in his deeply southern accent, as only the true locals in this highly transitory area speak, and of his spit of tabacca chaw in the midst of the conversation. I’m thinking of the four car slightly more than fender bender and emergency vehicles that held us up and of how C slept so well after the beach through the whole thing.

I’m thinking I have a moment right now in which I could be writing something mentioned above, but that right now, this is what I need to be writing, because I’m thinking of so many different things, including that the boys will be home in a few weeks, and of all the plans I am making for the week we will pick them up, we will spend trying to visit loved ones we miss, see my family, check up on my mom’s progress since the stroke, and of nephews and niece, growing so much – she’s twenty and the youngest nephew is three, and how much of life has passed in the time since I moved away, and since my brothers and I were growing up, and I need to write all of this down somehow, use it, love it, and turn it into something more than the ramblings of my life.

Jul 8

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Paper and pen still can’t be beat

Lifehacker is conducting ongoing surveys to determine a variety of “best” tools. Recently, Lifehacker asked readers to select their favorite journaling tool. Old fashioned pen and paper came out on top, by a wide margin.

Which Journaling Tool is Best? (Poll Closed)
  • Microsoft Word 8% (338 votes)
  • Pen and Paper 38% (1632 votes)
  • Microsoft OneNote 13% (548 votes)
  • Evernote 13% (564 votes)
  • WordPress 16% (702 votes)
  • Other 11% (489 votes)

Pen and paper also won in the recipe management department, despite a bounty of digital tools designed for that purpose.

How about you? Where do you rely on paper, and where do you rely on something that runs on electricity?

Jul 6

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Brittany: Early Work

The other day I was going through some old boxes, when I found these:

britttany

I have no idea how old I was when I made these, but it was probably during elementary school. I would guess second or third grade. During that time, my great-grandmother babysat me in the afternoons after school. She spent her afternoons sewing, and often I joined her. I always loved dollmaking, and Mama (pronounced mamaw) gave me full reign over her fabric scraps, yarns, buttons, etc.

Sometimes, I would make the doll pattern, cut out the fabric, and sew the doll together myself. Other times, she helped. I’m sure she embroidered the face on the pink doll, and probably helped me make her long-lost clothes as well. I’m pretty certain I made the sock Pickaninny on my own, probably inspired by the episodes of Our Gang I watched with my grandmother. I made dozens and dozens of dolls with my great-grandmother.  I can still hear her voice in my head right now. “Honey, you just use whatever… You do whatever you want.”

It was around this time that I started writing, too. I’ve enjoyed books my entire life, and in second grade it dawned on me that I could write books for myself. I remember cutting out pictures from a magazine, pasting them to construction paper, and then writing a simple story (having to do with Mary’s little lamb) to fit the pictures. In third grade, a reporter from the Asheville Citizen Times came to speak to my class about being a journalist and writing for a living. I thought to myself, “You can get paid for this stuff???” and remember knowing, with complete certainty, that writing was what I’d been born to do.

When I was eight or nine, it seemed like the grown-up thing to do to know my own mind. But now that I’m an adult, I marvel at my elementary-aged self, and my ability to zero in so early on two of the three creative pursuits that would bring me most joy.  (At eighteen, I discovered embroidery.)

I look at my boys in wonder as their interests begin to unravel. John is extremely tactile and loves to manipulate small objects. Sam loves nature–waterfalls, rain, trees, animals, insects. He loves trains. He loves music and dancing. He has plenty of time to discover his passion in life, but I try to encourage him whenever he finds a new love. I know how important a little encouragement was to me and how it has sustained me all my life. I hope I can do the same for my children.

Jun 16

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Brittany: Bringing Plans to Fruition

I’ve made a couple attempts to write a blog on here recently, and they just didn’t pan out. The last few months have been an odd combination of being at a complete creative standstill while still running 90-miles an hour with my hair on fire. I haven’t had time to breathe, much less blog. Luckily, the creative standstill has passed, and like Bethany, I too have been gifted with the idea for my next novel.

I say “gifted,” because I’m not exactly sure where the idea came from. One minute I was sitting in the car, and the next, it was uncoiling itself in my head, much like a spider spinning a web. This circles around to this, this connects to that. It was amazing and exhilarating, and felt a little bit like being touched by the divine.

I’ve been frustrated with my current novel, How Home Improvement Saved My Marriage, because it’s a little absurdist, and doesn’t really fit into any of the various categories of women’s lit.  The agents and publishers who’ve seen it couldn’t relate to it. But then again, I didn’t write it for them. I wrote it for women like me, who live in the suburbs, shop at Walmart, have never seen a pair of Jimmy Choos in person, and would rather wear a scuffed pair of Keds anyway. The book is like my zaniest mom friend. The one you hope and pray gets a sitter on Bunco night because she’ll fill you in on all the neighborhood gossip and then say something incredibly funny that will make you laugh harder than you have for days. It needs to be out there, dancing on a table with a lampshade on its head, and not collecting dust in my file cabinet. So I decided I’d send it out to one last publisher, and if they didn’t accept it, I was just going to publish the book myself.

Since I’d come to a final decision about my book, my creative brain was a blank slate, so to speak. I was thinking about writing a romance novel (again, just to see if I could do it), and was asking myself what situation might make a good story. I was thinking about the kinds of characters that would interest me, and the image of a girl with hair “the color of a wheat penny” popped into my head. She was a healer/midwife in turn-of-the-20th-century Appalachia, who has her whole way of life turned on its head when a brand new graduate of Harvard Medical School decides to open up his practice on her side of Bear Wallow Mountain. I was trying to think about what big event might bring two antagonists together (because I didn’t have a BIG event in my previous novel), and I suddenly remembered family stories about a terrible flood in the region. And so popped up my new idea.

In 1916, Ivy Lyda (name subject to change) lives on Bear Wallow Mountain and tends to the sick there. Her grandmother was Cherokee and taught her all manner of folk remedies. She’s well respected in her neck of the woods until the arrogant (but intoxicatingly handsome) doctor John Emerson arrives  During the summer, a horrible (hundred-year) flood wrecks havoc in the mountains and forces them to work together even as their lives are put in danger.

By a very odd coincidence, shortly before I was struck with inspiration, I took a time-killing Facebook quiz to learn the name of my Guardian Angel. My result: Uriel.

Uriel is considered one of the wisest Archangels because of his intellectual information, practical solutions and creative insight, but he is very subtle. You may not even realize he has answered your prayer until you’ve suddenly come up with a brilliant new idea. Uriel is the tallest and his eyes can see trough the eternity. All this considered, Uriel’s area of expertise is divine magic, problem solving, spiritual understanding, studies, alchemy, weather, earth changes and writing. Considered to be the Archangel who helps with earthquakes, floods, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, natural disaster and earth changes, call on Uriel to avert such events or to heal and recover in their aftermath.

I hope to get started on the writing soon. I’ve arranged for childcare for the boys Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 9-1 until the second week of July. I’m going to take my time outlining and really make the plot as tight as I can first. It will make it that much easier in the fall when I must concentrate my writing into two mornings per week (with invariable interruptions).

It’s exciting to have a plan again.

Jun 9

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Bethany: Ideas, they always seem better in my head*

As I lie in bed last night waiting for my daughter to fall into blissful sleep, I came upon a new book idea. I love those. In fact, I might go out on a limb and say I LIVE for those moments. The story idea, the characters, the plot lines all seem so clear. So exciting. Something akin to magical. The entire story makes sense in all the right places and so easy to just sit down and write. Well, when I get up and write them.

That is, until when I actually do sit down to type/write/stutter out the fragments of the idea into something more official. Whether that be in an electronic document, piece of paper or just verbalizing it to my husband. Then… it all gets ruined. The idea suddenly becomes real and I find holes in the plot that seemed so flawless only moments before. The characters, superficial. And well the idea, just not quite where it needs to be. And, yet, I still take the time to continue writing it all down. Every piece of inspiration. Just in case I need an idea to grow into something more.

Though the doubts that start when I start writing? Never go away. In fact, I think more and more of them creep up the more I write the story. I’m convinced it has to do with the fact that I am *actually* writing and progressing and doing what I want to do. The little old thing called FEAR has weird ways of trying to ruin your plans. And right now, I’m just going to blame him for how I feel about that idea. Because the other part of my brain–the better half–still likes it. And thinks with a bit more tweaking (and letting go), the great parts of it just might come out and play. If I let it. And right now, I have nothing else to lose. Except, the excitement that is all in my head.

* So I’ve been absent forever. And so has my writing and creativity. And really, my life (thanks to an over-bearing day job). This was one of my weak attempts at more committed blogging again. And Cathy asked me me to cross post from my blog. So, I am. Thanks for the reminder Cathy. And for always reading even when I barely post.

May 19

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Cathy: So I’m no John Updike

This is a crosspost from my new personal blog.

When John Updike passed away recently, Charlie Rose aired a great retrospective of his handful of interviews with Updike and I watched absorbed, as I have always loved Updike, and Charlie Rose fairly gushes when interviewing him. One stand out moment for a writer watching enraptured as I was — and I’m paraphrasing the wondrous Updike here — he said “If I’m not writing at least six hours a day, six days a week, I feel like I’m faking it, that I can’t call myself a writer.” He equated it with a carpenter and other professions showing up to the grind.

I caught the message, and while I do sit here for some extended hours of the day, I don’t write six hours worth of steady writing a day. My first thought when I was watching as he said it was: Yeah, well where was Mrs. Updike during those six hours, six days a week? For many years, I imagine, raising his kids, doing his laundry, making his meals, etc., while he got to wile away his time in front of his notebook and typewriter, blissfully alone with his thoughts in order to write them down.

I have a strong work ethic that plants my butt in this chair in front of this computer everyday. But it’s a highly interrupted work ethic as I still manage the household from my seat as well as watch the baby and the guys, and garden and laundry, and well, you get the idea. While I am writing, or not writing as the case may be, I am still managing S’s special needs with his school, which currently involves shooting emails to his teacher, but not much more, thankfully. It was a rough couple of years there. I’m still trying to figure out the better ways to manage his development positively at home and keep tabs on the teen and the toddler who is generally in my arms or getting into the wires underfoot.

In the meantime I’m constantly sketching scenes in my head when I’m away from the computer attending to life, and often find myself quite divided and making very slow progress on the manuscript. Never mind, being so close to its end that I’m leaping ahead mentally to other ideas… really can’t wait until I I finish this manuscript, so that when I am listening to my kids, I am present. When I hug them, that is all I am doing, not mentally writing a possible scene variation at the same time.

Is this ADD? Is it simply the limitations of a brain functioning on a minimum of sleep for several years now? Is it is just the thoughts at this stage of a manuscript for any writer who also happens to be a mother-wife-you name your hyphenation here. I have lots of them. I choose all of the above particularly that last bit. I am too busy having a life and managing so many others, that I can’t have the old Virginia Woolf Room of One’s Own experience. Neither can any of the other writer-mothers I know. I feel torn in many directions all the time, but mostly between the kids, my husband, and writing.

So I’m no John Updike. I do however really miss his articles in the New Yorker tremendously.

Mar 19

7 Comments

Cathy: Eureka!

I finally really figured out one major thing that has been holding me up in finishing this manuscript. But today, I wrote a good lead up to what I’m avoiding. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll be able to face the page that is why I started writing this book in 2004. I just can’t do it today, I’m shaking from the emotion of it.

I love my main character like he’s one of my own kids. The book is primarily about his getting bullied, but so far I have managed to avoid his actually getting hurt in a fight with the kid who has been threatening him since page one. Now, I have him ready to face the bully and the bully angry enough to do what has been coming for 90 odd pages. But I am not emotionally prepared to place the fist in the face of a character I love so much. However, because I need to resolve it, and quickly, before it keeps me awake nights with worry, I have determined, that I will in fact write it tomorrow. Today, I’m just too close.

Mar 9

6 Comments

When what you want to do most is write–and what you want to do least is write

When it seems like you’ll do anything and everything rather than show up at the page, turn to Jerry Oltion’s 50 Strategies for Making Yourself Work. His piece is full of gems. Here’s the intro:

Work avoidance is one of the major paradoxes of the writing profession. Generally, writers want to write (or want to have written), but all too often we find ourselves doing anything else but. We’ll mow lawns, do the dishes, polish silverware–anything to keep from facing the blank page. At the same time we know we eventually have to get to work, so we come up with all sorts of strategies for forcing ourselves to the keyboard.

Read Oltion’s stragies and the full peice here. Then, get to work!

Mar 9

6 Comments

Cathy: Weekends were built for excavations

Good news! Friday, I worked out a kink of a catalyst in an earlier chapter of the manuscript that I had conveniently skipped in my attempt to write the book chronologically. I had prior plans that day that had been cancelled, so as I showered, the ideas actually flowed with the water. My self-imposed pressure to write was off. It felt good to not just get that part out of the way, but to really feel inspired and write an idea into it I wanted to get across, besides get from point M to point Q. I’m really enjoying third-tier characters’ personalities these days, and truly believe I only have about 3-5 more good sit-downs to complete the plot line.

In the meantime, S’s room is slowly coming together. It had to come apart further before it could come together. I am staying away from it by weekdays, so I am not thoroughly frustrated with the one-step-forward-half-a step-back progress. This Saturday morning, my hope was to finish it so that I can move the monster of his bed and the mess of the bookcase to opposite walls. Pulling ye olde switcheroo. But I didn’t. I lounged. I enjoyed my coffee, my kids, and some low-pressure time. Then I drove out in the beautiful weather and went to my salon appointment. How much shorter that excursion is without the coloring time! Snip-snippity-snip, and a fifth of the previous visits’ price, then out the door. We took a family excursion to the giant home store and bought a ladder that was on sale.

In the afternoon, we gathered all but the teen, already off doing his own thing with his friends, and MIL was ready for a rest. We had a leisurely dog stroll through the neighborhood. S was in fine form with his very interesting questions, very loud. We walked by our neighbor who taught me how to make authentic Chinese fried rice, and he asked, after our chat, “Um, I forget. Are you Japanese or Chinese?” He has an obsession with Japan because of his obsession with Godzilla. We walked by his brother K’s best friend’s house, whose parents were also outside doing yard work, and he said as we walked away, “I always wondered why K2 wasn’t like African Black. Then I saw his father was married to a white woman. Since African-Americans got their Civil Rights in the sixties, is it legal?” I reminded him of the Supreme Court case of Loving v Virginia, which federally stopped states from prohibiting intermarriages between blacks and whites. Another obsession of his is the Civil Rights Movement. I think it’s hard for him to believe that any one group of people had that much power over another group. He’s been trying to wrap his brain around the concept since it was first pointed out to him in school while studying Martin Luther King, Jr., in kindergarten. I believe he’s asking perfectly innocent questions but my husband and older son think he sounds racist when he’s asking the things he asks. To me, I think he’s just trying to figure out the world in a concrete manner. Human relations are not a very concrete concept. This boy is just doing some digging.

Also on the schedule for the weekend was weeding and tilling the rest of the garden plots, doing something about the sprouts of crabgrass that have cropped up everywhere all winter. But Sunday was spent pruning instead. S’s room was put somewhat on hold for outside work, but I motivated him to do some of it on his own with the bribe of a new Calvin and Hobbes collection. I guess we have week five to complete the excavation of his room next week. The weather is supposed to chill down again, so I might actually return to the excavation site.

Feb 24

9 Comments

Cathy: Stopping the analysis

The February Finish-a-thon has been a great tool for all of us to realize where we fit in setting ourselves deadlines, what project we’re working on, how far we have to go, and whether can we finish it in a certain time frame.

For me, it turned my otherwise small penchant for analysis of why I’m not writing as much as I set out to into a life’s purpose in a public forum. I spent more energy on thinking about not writing than I spent on writing my manuscript. In the meantime, and it took 21 days of this, to realize that I was actually keeping the same pace I had been keeping on the manuscript since I re-opened it last spring: exactly the same pace. The six weeks around the holidays were taken up with the holidays and everyone in the house being very ill in long phases, including me. Otherwise, I have written a small burst of between three to six pages on one day per week, while Baby C naps in the morning, since the beginning. Those naps are rare these days.

There are reasons for this, not excuses. I am incredibly sleep deprived, and can barely function on normal household stuff, let alone have a clear thought for continuity in a novel. I am now on the older baby chase besides her usual kicking keyboard cuteness. She motors everywhere and I follow. We don’t have baby gates up or cabinet locks on, etc. I am all for letting her learn her world. The rest of the world doesn’t have baby gates, why should I here, except it would make my life easier in getting basics done. I am vigilant, and how will she learn to cope on her own, if she doesn’t understand how to get around safely. She needs to learn the stairs, so we teach her, when she wants. She wants to now, so there I am, following the climber up, and keeping her from repelling to her doom. I hold her hand while she scoots down on her butt. We do this over and over, and she laughs and learns a little more each time. The dog and cat enjoy it, too. We’re having a blast.

In the meantime, the little nagging voice in the back of my head tells me I’m making excuses to go fly kites, tend the baby, and bake cookies to avoid the writing. Once, it was a huge voice in the front of my head that told me who the hell do I think I am to write? Who wants to hear what I have to say? The voice shrinks and fades into the background, because, yes I am almost done with this novel. Now it’s just the voice that still wants a voice as I gain my own. During Feb-Fin, I let it out and let it inhale deeply in order to spout through my all my public analysis of not writing. Well, it’s time to show that voice the back door. I won’t give it anymore fanfare.

I will escort it back to where it belongs, as the distant echo in the back of my head. I will get on with writing, my little bit as I can. I will tend the baby, bake cookies, and fly kites. I will enjoy my kids, my husband and dare I say, the housework. I will do so without the dread that the time I am doing something else, or better yet, nothing at all, is time not writing. If my ideas percolate away from the keyboard, so be it. They will form better in the single two to three hours I really have to hobble all those ideas together.

As for the writing itself, I have blogged before that I can’t set a schedule for it. That’s just an axe at the throat of my writing. I can set a maybe schedule, but have to be realistic that if I “set aside” three mornings a week, really only one will serve for the possibility. John Updike may have written six days a week, but that’s just not how my muse works. Mine sprints and recoups. She’s always been like that to an extent. She’s never been a marathoner. Since motherhood, it’s her modus operandi. Regardless of my whining online about not writing, I really have been pretty good about recognizing this pace and letting the writing happen in its own time, and Baby C’s.

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