Linked in a Chain of Writing Fools
I’ve been writing and rewriting the same novel, a middle grade novel about a girl who rescues a stranded sea otter pup and it saving it finds herself story, off and on for ten years. The switch had been stuck in the OFF position for the past 2 years because lacking the knowledge, energy and/or talent to do what needed to be done to make it readable, I had abandoned it. It wouldn’t stay OFF though, and so in mid-August, as a birthday gift to myself, I flipped the switch and began revisions with renewed zeal. Up until a month ago, Oct. 15th, the work had been going beautifully, I was digging deep, re-dreaming and re-visioning the story rather than simply re-writing, working hard and feeling good about my progress. Then I got busy with school visits and festivals in celebration of my new picture book, Dance, Y’all, Dance, and was simply too dog gone busy to work on the novel. Last week my agent, Erin, sent me an e-mail nudge asking how Otter revisions are coming. I ignored it. She sent another oh-by-the-way query in a note today—which I skipped over without responding. (Let her think I haven’t checked my e-mail yet, I reasoned.) I needed time to figure out how not coming Otter was, and how it might never be coming. Not working on the revisions coupled with the doubts that come from reading brilliant debut novels, including Joy Prebles’ Dreaming Anastasia, which left me feeling humbled and awed and like there was absolutely no way I could write anywhere near as well as she and maybe I should quit trying and who the heck did I think I was? had me close to flipping the switch again. And then this article in O about Junot Diaz comes along.
In it Diaz describes how after publishing his first book of stories he wrote 75 amazing pages of a novel followed by 5 years of writing schlock and finally even quite writing and became “a normal. A square,” he notes, “I didn't go to bookstores or read the Sunday book section of the Times. I stopped hanging out with my writer friends.” And slipped into what he calls his “new morose half-life” before eventually, one hot August night, pulling the novel back out of the box. Finally, a decade after beginning he finished it.
Diaz’s story, as published in the O, The Oprah Magazine, was referenced on author Libba Bray’s blog, which eventually reached my VC classmate-sister-mentor-friend, Cindy who sent the link to our VC class list-serv following a check-in during which several of us noted that our current works-in-progress were messy, ugly, unpublishable scribbles—because that’s what we writers do when we are feeling inadequate, we read and share other writer’s anguished overcoming-our-inner-critic-and-pushing-through-to-published stories.
"That's my tale in a nutshell,” Diaz concludes. “Not the tale of how I came to write my novel but rather of how I became a writer. Because, in truth, I didn't become a writer the first time I put pen to paper or when I finished my first book (easy) or my second one (hard). You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway. Wasn't until that night when I was faced with all those lousy pages that I realized, really realized, what it was exactly that I am.”
Yeah! Me, too Junot! Me, too! Even if there is not hope, even though nothing I am doing is showing any sign of promise, I’m going to keep writing this flipping Otter novel. The switch is back ON!
Thank you Oprah, Libba, Cindy, and any/all other links who helped bring Junot Diaz’s message to me.
Junot Díaz's novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Riverhead) won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008. Read the whole article: http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200911-omag-junot-diaz-writing
Dream Writing About Flat Tires
One of my writer-idols, Sandra Cisneros, says she dreams or day dreams scenes before writing them. I fear I may have taken it one step backward. I thought I wrote a scene but seem to only have dreamed I did. I wrote it sitting in bed in the Royal Plaza Hotel on Scotts Road in Singapore. The memory is so vivid I can picture myself plumping up the pillows—and even stealing one of Curtis’s before settling in to write. My legs are still singed from the heat of the computer on my legs—or at least I think that’s what it is…although it could be prickly heat….. It was a really good blog posting, too. One of my best. A follow up to my stuck-on-the-deserted-highway-with-a-flat story. In engagingly prosaic prose it revealed how I climbed out of my car to walk up the road to read the highway sign facing the other direction even though I know one is never, never, never, ever supposed to leave the car, but rather should roll up the windows, lock the doors and wait for help. In it I brilliantly described how the late afternoon sun reflected off the shiny black pick up that pulled to a stop while I was walking up that lonely road and how I knew, even as I kept walking closer to the pickup that I was signing my own missing persons report and how I hung up on the AAA operator after telling him we would “try to fix it ourselves and call back if we ran into trouble” (the “we” being the stranger heroic enough, or brazen enough, or demented enough, to stop for a damsel in distress). Those inspired words and phrases I recall typing: the way the condensation on the Pabst Blue Ribbon 12-pack nesting on the passenger side seat glistening in the gloaming, how trepidation about accepting the curly-haired strangers offer to change my flat was overridden by my fear of missing dinner and drinks with Liz and Dorothy; the way his curls leapt each time his head snapped up to check for oncoming traffic; how for perhaps the first and only time in recorded history, during the entire, seemingly endless, clock-stopping, fifteen-but-felt-like-fifty minutes it took him to change my tire, not one single, solitary vehicle cruised down that side of I-45, how his teeth glistened as he cranked down on the tire jack, were too vivid, too perfect to be just a dream. The posting was so near perfection I almost cried when I discovered it gone. After searching every file trail I knew to search, I implored Curtis to apply his arsenal of file recovery tactics. All to no avail. My brilliant blog posting may be gone, but the flat-tire-on-the-deserted-highway will never be forgotten, nor will my hero, Rick Rochelle, hopefully not the last man in Texas brave enough and heroic enough and kind enough to stop to help a traveler in distress. Okay, so maybe, after being stuck there on that long, lonely stretch of I-45 far from anything that way and even farther the other way, depending on how long it took the AAA assistance to arrive—despite my way cute short black dress and matching leggings which I thought I looked so cute wearing—I might have unearthed the jack myself and tried changing the darn flat tire on my dang rental car. But thankfully, I never had to try. Thank you, thank you, Rick Rochelle of somewhere near Fairview, Texas.
Head Bubble Bursts Again
School visits are great for a writer's ego. All that attention: hugs from the kids, applause, praise for my books from teachers and librarians acts like helium. Such was the case yesterday during presentations at Hastings Elementary in Duncanville, an exemplary school with interested, smart students who asked great questions and gave good hugs. In the course of a day’s presentations I was transformed, as I often am during school visits, from lowly, struggling, will-I-ever-write-a-good-sentence writer to ROCK STAR. Overflowing with Sallie Fields-esk “they like me, they really like me” jubilation, I strapped myself into the driver seat of my rented, should-be-a-chauffeured-limo-because-I-deserve-it Hyundai and headed back down the highway toward Houston. Off in the west, the late afternoon sun was shining, the radio was blasting Country and I was feeling quite puffed up and proud—especially delighted with how the impromptu 4th grade lunch-time book club chat had turned out—and looking forward to reaching The Woodlands early enough to enjoy a girlfriend dinner with Liz and Dorothy, when a tire blew out.
Believing the noise coming from the car’s rear end had to be caused by the grated road, I swerved across to the smoother other lane and then back over to the shoulder. This couldn’t be happen to me! Didn’t this car know who I was? People—Fans (aren’t all friends fans?)—were waiting on me. I didn’t have time to mess with a flat. The nerve…and me in a dress!
Nothing like a flat to deflat a swollen head.
Best Laid Plans
Just as there are two ways of looking at a glass, there are two ways of looking at life. We can either expect that everything will work out as planned and plan our time accordingly, or we can expect that things will go wrong and allow plenty of extra time. I come from the half-full glass camp filled with those of us who expect everything to go just so and so allow just enough time. Which is why I find myself sitting in a line of dark cars at midnight, waiting. It’s been a busy day in a busy two weeks. I’m in Texas celebrating the birth of my new picture book, Dance, Y’all, Dance. This past weekend, I had a grand time at the Texas Book Festival where I hugged on lots of Texas writer friends, made a few new ones, and saw some fabulous books and presentations. Today I met with Marty, my picture book exploration partner for a few hours followed by a late lunch with other writer friends, Kimberly Morris and Kathy Duval then raced (rather puttered through) Houston traffic to Tracy Gee Community Center for the SCBWI-Houston meeting. Such a joy to see so many old friends mixed in with the new faces gathered for the meeting. After the meeting, I jumped into my compact too-cheap-to-pay-for-frills rental Hyundai and zipped north on I45. Tomorrow, I have a school visit at Hastings Elementary in Duncanville, 3 ½ hours away.
I passed the first hour of driving rehashing the day and the meeting with Marty. The next hour whizzed by with the highway signs. Proud of my progress, I was contemplating using a few of my extra commuter minutes to treat myself to Taco Bell when I rolled into a construction area. Unconcerned, I slowed, expecting to coast through the zone; the road ahead looked clear expect for some flashing lights in the distance, which I took to be a construction crew.
It wasn’t.
It was a line of cars and trucks waiting beside a flashing police vehicle.
I joined the queue expecting any second that we would be flagged to go.
As it turns out, we may never be flagged to go—definitely not for a while.
At the head of the line is a beached sixteen wheeler. It flipped and skidded on its side. The guy who called this news to me as he passed didn’t know if anyone was injured, but did know we were going to be here “a good long while.”
And so, an hour in distance from Duncanville and my waiting hotel bed and my school of expectant students and teachers, and no telling how many waiting hours away, I’m sitting in the driver seat waiting--and my water bottle is empty.
I Choked
I heard the call: “Doctor! We need a doctor! CPR! Help! Does anyone know CPR?” and I choked. If asked, never in bazillion million years would I have said I would turn away. Before tonight, I believed I was one of them….
I looked around the room, expecting someone else to respond.
The Literary Advance of Houston Champions of Literacy Series dinner, sponsored by the Junior League of Houston, was coming to a close. I was standing at my table, saying farewells to the copyeditors and publisher of my new picture book, Dance, Y’all, Dance, when the call rang out.
I jumped when the call rang out.
I was ready. I knew CPR. I could help….
And maybe, if the person who needed help had been within eyesight I might have flown to her side.
But she was out of sight.
In the hallway.
And there were loads of people still in the room.
“I can’t believe there isn’t a doctor here,” one of my companions remarked.
I agreed. In this vast pool of fully literate and deep pocketed attendees who could believe not one was a doctor….there had to be a doctor.
We continued with our conversation.
And moved onto other subjects.
I had pretty much forgotten the distress call when our goodbye group was interrupted by the arrival of one of the event organizers (one in the “know”).
“What happened to the person?” someone in the group asked. “Is he or she alright?”
We didn’t’ know the gender, hadn’t cared enough to find out, I Choked.
I heard the call: “Doctor! We need a doctor! CPR! Help! Does anyone know CPR?” and I choked.
If asked, never in bazillion million years would I have said I would turn away; before tonight, I believed I was one of them….
I looked around the room, expecting someone else to respond.
The Literary Advance of Houston Champions of Literacy Series dinner, sponsored by the Junior League of Houston, was coming to a close. I was standing at my table, saying farewells to the copy editors and publisher of my new picture book, Dance, Y’all, Dance, when the call rang out.
I jumped when the call rang out.
I was ready. I knew CPR. I could help….
And maybe, if the person who needed help had been within eyesight I might have flown to her side.
But she was out of sight.
In the hallway.
And there were loads of people still in the room.
“I can’t believe there isn’t a doctor here,” one of my companions remarked.
I agreed. In this vast pool of fully literate and deep pocketed attendees who could believe not one was a doctor….there had to be a doctor.
We continued with our conversation.
And moved onto other subjects.
I had pretty much forgotten the distress call when our goodbye group was interrupted by the arrival of another.
“What happened to the person?” someone in the group asked. “Is he or she alright?”
We didn’t’ know the gender—hadn’t cared enough to find out—let alone the ideentiy of this “poor-unfortunate-in-need-of-aide we had been so consurned about minutes before.
I was one of the “good Samaritans” or so I had always assumed. One of those who jumped ran, rushed to the aide of a countryman. Smug in this belief, I had conducted myself: passed judgment; heaped praise but when the call for “help” an honest call, a true call rang out, I ignored it...
What does that make me?
National Gallery of Writing--Open for Viewing!
October 20, 2009 was the National Day on Writing! And the day the National Gallery of Writing— “a virtual space—a website—where people who perhaps have never thought of themselves as writers—mothers, bus drivers, fathers, veterans, nurses, firefighters, sanitation workers, stockbrokers—select and post writing that is important to them,”—officially opened.
“Writing is a daily practice for millions of Americans, but few notice how integral writing has become to daily life in the 21st century,” notes the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) who established the National Gallery of Writing in an effort to “draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in and help make writers from all walks of life aware of their craft.”
The National Gallery of Writing includes three types of display spaces where writing can be found:
1. The Gallery of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) represents a broad cross-section of writing hosted by the National Council of Teachers of English.
2. National Partner Galleries include writing that corresponds to a theme or purpose identified by National Partners participating in this initiative.
3. Local Partner Galleries include works from writers in a classroom, school, club, workplace, city, or other local entity.
Add your writing to the Gallery Collection:
Writers who “would like to share their craft and find a broad and diverse audience” are encouraged to submit their writing for inclusion in the Gallery. Guidelines are posted on the website: National Gallery of Writing website
The National Gallery of Writing is open for submissions/viewing/reading through June 30, 2010.
In The Still of the Night
It's 4:53 in the morning. I'm sitting on the toilet in my daughter's Manhattan studio apartment clicking on my computer. I've come into "the other room" because I can't sleep and I'm tired of lying in bed trying not to move while thoughts whirl like gazpacho in a blender. I would be thrilled to have stayed in the cozy bed reading my book or writing down some of these ideas, but I didn't want to turn on the light and disturb Lexi. She deserves her sleep; she has to work in the morning. I was sleeping, cozy on my side of the pillow barrier with my daughter's familiar sleep breathing serenading me from her side. But something woke me. I believe it was the upstairs neighbor moving furniture around. Furniture moving seems to be his hobby. His movements, like furtive hamster cage skittering overhead, usually begin at 6:00 am sharp.
I have decided he must work from home and compartmentalizes his day by moving furniture: 6 am, put up the Murphy bed or other sleeping platform and replace it with breakfast table and chair; 8 am, rearrange furniture to create office space; noon, turn space back into dining area; 2ish, reconfigure area into office; between 4 and 5, reopen the restaurant; around 7 create entertainment area; 9 pm, shove all moveable furniture to the edges of the space so there is room to pull down the Murphy bed or sleeping platform; rest, repeat, repeat, repeat. As annoying as this scratching, scraping, moving, shuffling seems, once identified, the sounds fade. Not as completely as the regular chiming of the Coo-coo Clock, but almost. Some Einstein theorized this phenomenon: Repetitive Noise+Pattern+Time=White Noise. The neighbor's activities are Gray.
My daughter lives in one of three soldiers in a row, each divided into studio apartments. Sitting here in the bathroom trying not to make noise, I wonder: I can't be the only one? In the studio apartments above and around me, are others hold up in bathrooms trying not to make too much noise? Or burrowed under covers with flashlights so companions can sleep? Have some of them created miniature "safe" spaces in their tiny studios with black out curtains and noise mufflers-perhaps under the sink...or in a closet? Is this apartment living?
I have an idea: The tub takes up quite a bit of space. Why not remove it entirely. Lexi could get used to sponge baths, couldn't she? In exchange for more room. The owner wouldn't fuss, would she? Or, if we have to leave the tub, what about adding a waterproof desk area on one end of the space-with a prefab plastic chair and a pull-down desk? Surely in this city of millions of people living in millions of similar cubicles, someone has created one?
Please tell me: Over time Gray Noise fade to White, doesn't it?
How much time?
Saying Yes!--BWA Chorus
It's surprising the places saying "yes" to a friend takes you. Yesterday afternoon, I ventured out in the midst of a thunderous tropical storm because of one such "yes." Some moist minutes later, I found myself sitting in a circle of women with a music folder on my lap singing Christmas carols in preparation for the British Women Association's (BWA) Christmas Luncheon. The BWA Christmas Luncheon is a festive gala and fundraiser-a high point of the holiday season. Each table is assigned a name and attendees decorate their tables and themselves in keeping with their names. Table names range from Santas and Elves to Fruitcakes and Crackers (crackers being party poppers not saltines-think British). A prize is awarded to the Best Decorated table.
For a few years I have been a member of the bawdy "American Table," as we are called, although our group has a more International flavor than the title indicates, including representatives from Australia, South Africa, Holland, Transylvania, Texas (a country unto itself), New Zealand and the US. The unofficial "bawdy" in our title is the one constant (and no doubt why we are called the "American Table" in contrast to the demure and understated "British Tables.")
One year ours was assigned the title "Angel" table. We dressed as angels, decorated our table with clouds of fluff, sparkles, heaven-sent silver-wrapped chocolates, buckets overflowing with bubbles and billowing smoke, and flew away with the grand prize. Last year ours was the "Bell" table-quickly changed to "Silver Belles." The eleven of us arrived as Hand Bell Choir dressed in black tops, matching silver hoop skirts, red sashes and bell earrings. Bells jingled from our skirts and jangled on our wrists and ankles. We decorated our table with a red runners and gaudy silver papier-mâché bell-shaped bottle covers concealing spirits and juice. We took the grand prize, again (our closest competition being the Gifts who had tied packages onto their heads like hats). We celebrated our victory as any true Hand Bell Choir would, with an rendition of "Silver Bells" to the accompaniment of our swaying/playing belle skirts. While our performance elicited mixed reviews: applause and hoots, high-nosed "those Americans," glowers and head-shaking, I have a suspicion it also planted a seed...
For this year's luncheon, the BWA has decided to add Christmas Carols to the Christmas Luncheon festivities. They are putting together a choir for the occasion. My sweet friend Barbara had been recruited to play piano and asked me to join her. After the unsolicited spectacle I had made of myself last year, everyone knew I could sing (loudly and off-key, but with enthusiasm), and that I knew the words (or made them up). How could I say no?
About ten ladies were already assembled when I arrived at the BWA house for the first official choir practice, yesterday. I knew most of the ladies. But even those I didn't seemed to know me. (A reputation had preceded me, but which one? I wondered.) One woman stood when I entered and came forward, offering a wide smile and ebullient "You must be Kelly!" She turned out to be Diane, the choir director.
After giving everyone a chance to "settle in and get acquainted" Diane corralled us into a half-circle around the piano. "We'll begin with a few easy songs to limber up our voices and bring us at ease," Diane said, passing out song books.A few bars into Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Diane stopped us. "I want to tell you right now." She paused, looking around. "You all are capable of doing much, much more than you think you are. I am hearing some interesting things." (What did interesting mean? )
After warm-ups, Diane passed around the official songbooks and pencils and began directing us to make musical notations on our music. "The little seven with a dot is a rest," she instructed, "circle those." Pf meant something fortissimo, mm something else, mp or pp or p each mean softer or softer still or even softer-or something else. I glared at Barbara's back. She misled me. This wasn't a going to be the casual fa-la-la sing-along around the tree, this was a real choir-as in Vienna Boys'-with altos and sopranos, two-part and three-part harmony and notations called fortissimo and something-crotchets. "Is something-crotchet a real music term?" I asked Elsa, the girl next to me. She smiled, thinking I was making a joke. As if...
Being the only non-Brit in a British choir (Aside from Barbara, a Javanese married to a scot and to a Brit by marriage, who I wasn't counting since she was at the piano) is not easy. Even if I could read music and did know how to sing properly, it wouldn't have been easy. The lyrics change from one side of the pond to the other. Who knew "bring us some figgie pudding," is part of the real lyrics in We Wish You A Merry Christmas? And while lyrics can be read, pronunciation has to learned and remembered. Flat or not, when most of the group is singing "bean" and one lone voice belts out "Ben" it's bad. (How do Brits pronounce womb, anyway?)
As rehearsal progressed, Diane stopped us from time to time with suggestions and encouragement: "I'm hearing some interesting things!" "try to keep to just one line, top or bottom whichever you think, but only the one-you may have to follow it with your finger" "want to have a go at adding a top?" (Top what?)
I finally got up the courage to ask Diane the question I had been wondering since the moment she started dividing us into tops and bottoms. "How do I know which I am supposed to be?"
Diane looked at me, sizing me up, no doubt wondering if asking me to turn in my song book would be committing some sort of political faux pas. "Do you have more difficulty holding high notes or holding low notes?"
I shrugged. "Sometimes both." I admitted. "Will you do me a favor and sneak up behind me sometime while I am singing and tell me."
I think Diane thought I was joking, then realized I was serious. She nodded. "A very good idea," she agreed, adding, "For the time being, why don't you try to stay right in the middle and just sing the tune. We need those who just sing the tune, as well."
During O Christmas Tree-a less that adequate translation according to Diane (different even than the American version)-the score became "quite daring" and the bottom (the alto line) crosses over the top (the soprano line) meaning that the low voices are supposed to sing higher notes than the high voices are singing-which doesn't sound so tough, but...
On about "let's try that once again" number 15, it struck me that the scene was like something out of a movie: a hap-hazard bunch of British women, a Javanese pianist, and one bawdy American coming together in steamy central java to organize a choir in time for the Christmas Fete. Yes! I can see the flashing marquee now: The Alto Who Climbed Up the Scales and Came Down a Soprano.
- Last practice the BWA sprouted antlers--must have been in tune!