Writing and going online

   




I take New Years Resolutions very seriously:  think about them and talk about them and write them down --and, I admit, sometimes forget about them completely after all that.

But not always.

One I'm thinking of for this year is not to do ANYTHING online --even look at email -- until after I've done my morning writing.

In Scotland, I usually started the day by making a fire and heating water -- I had an electric kettle, but if wanted hot water, I had to heat it myself so the day ALWAYS started with that even if it wasn't cold enough for a fire. During that I would just sort of naturally think about what I was going to write and when I was washed, I'd start writing. 

Here, I often begin the day by checking email.....and I got so much more written in Scotland!

Just that little pause to make the fire and boil the water is enough to start the day in a focused way. Going online first means jumping into emails and other distractions -- and I'm easily distracted.  On a bad day, my whole morning can vanish online! That is not good.

So this year I resolve to only go online later in the day, AFTER I've done my writing -- or (on days when I won't be writing, and there will be some), yoga and meditating.

Process (and yes, this is a rewrite - and an example of step#5 too)

   

I sent my novel off to my agent last week -- electronically, but towards the end I can read it more objectively on paper, pencil in hand to make comments.
Now I'm using the time and energy I would normally be spending  on my book to sort through my possessions; donate, sell, and throw out throw out a lot (thank you for going through my shoes with me, Alvina!); and find a new place to live.
I'm going to blog about that (not here, on my personal blog), both as a way to get other people's ideas and remember what I saw.

But first: I want to write down what I learned about my process from this, mainly so I won't forget but if it's interesting to anyone else, excellent.

1. Love the idea myself, and test it before I start writing  -- Raold Dahl did that, sometimes for a YEAR. By test it, he meant: think about it, attack it from every angle, to see if there's enough there to make a novel and if it will WORK. Disappointing as it is to realize that an idea I'm really excited about just won't make an exciting, interesting book, better to figure that out before rather than after spending a year or more writing it!

2. Get to know the characters -- at least the main character. More may emerge as the story develops, but I think it's a mistake to start writing until the main characters are as clear to me as, say, the characters in THE LITTLE HOUSE books (who have always seemed like real people to me, people I actually knew)....both Noel Streatfield and Dianna Wynne Jones said they spent at least 6 months getting to know the characters before writing.

3. For me, first drafts are the hardest and most painful parts of writing. I flipflop between things just coming and being very excited; and times when NOTHING comes, or what does seems so bad that I think I'm wasting my time, this doesn't even make any sense, no one is going to read it ever....blah blah.
That second feeling is hideous and painful, but it just goes with the territory-- and I need to accept it. It doesn't mean I'm doing anything wrong -- every writer I know has it.

I also need to just accept that in the first draft I really don't know what I'm doing (that comes later). Writing a book is like jumping off a cliff without a parachute -- you just have to have faith that one will blow by and you will grab it.

Also, when something just COMES, even if it doesn't seem to make sense or fit in at all with the story as I then know it: trust it. If it comes with energy and conviction, it belongs in the book and I'll figure out why and how later.

The worst thing I can do is give in to those feelings of hopelessness; the best -- work on the book every day -- even if "working" means just sitting with it, clueless about what happens next; trust what just comes; and resist the urge to chatter when I don't know. WAIT.

4. The real book emerges in the second draft. Again, once I start it -- don't stop. If I keep at it, all the baffling blanks in the first draft will get filled in. And I do mean "get filled in," if I write every day, and get into that state of thinking about the book all the time, I see what should be happening in all the scenes that WERE boring.

5. Wait to polish until the third draft--polishing done before then (except for the first scene which I do think is really important: it sets the tone and the voice)  is  a waste of time. If I've polished something, it's harder to take it out-- and by the third draft, a lot that's in needs to go.

A generous author

Authors rarely seem FRANK in their advice to other writers -- maybe because those who are sometimes lose their mystique. Trollop, for example, admitted in his autobiography that he had trained himself to write one of his pages every 15 minutes (he did all his writing before he left for his job at the Post Office!) and critics have looked down on him ever since -- for that and other admissions. So maybe it makes sense that most authors talk a lot more about inspiration and characters just appearing etc.

Nevertheless I love to read writers' autobiographies, for many reasons: the differences between their lives and their books,  the experiences they've had, the descriptions of their writing processes. But I don't expect to get advice I can use or even, really, believe what most say about writing.....so Diana Wynne Jones's Reflections -- not an autobiography, but a collection of essays and talks and interviews -- was a real treat.



What she said about writing felt true -- and she was so generous with her advice, said lots that really helped! Some but not nearly all:

She thinks about her books for a long time before she writes them, but doesn't plan them out. Usually when she begins she knows only the beginning, the end, and something in the middle -- until she can see this scene in vivid detail, she doesn't start writing. Part of the fun of writing is learning how the characters got from the beginning to the middle.

She knows ALL her characters -- even the minor ones -- really well before she starts. She says that if you do, you'll rarely get stuck: when you need a character to be somewhere doing something you will remember that someone else, say, owns a grocery store and...You don't tell the reader NEARLY everything you know -- she, for example, knows exactly what all her characters look like, but rarely describes them: if you know, she says, their looks will come through to the reader.

She writes her first drafts in what she describes as a "white heat" -- just pours them out. Then in the second draft she gets very analytical and critical.

This was especially helpful to me -- I often get bogged down in being critical, and it really hampers the flow of ideas. The more the two processes can be separated, the better.

She advises  modeling villians on people we know; there is no need to worry that they will recognize themselves, she says, because few people think of themselves as bad...unfortunately I was unable to do this -- none of the people I wanted to use were quite right for the things they had to do -- but it's a good idea.

Excuses, prize (book or chocolate) and new end date

   



I've asked the other Blue Rose Girls, and the contest now has a prize and lasts longer:

• the prize is the BRGs book of your choice, signed and  of course mailed to you OR  chocolate, dark or milk, also your choice.....if you want to stay anonymous, you can still enter -- if you win, just email us your name, address and prize choice.

• the new end-date is  April 1.

Send us your 50 word story as a comment -- all (or maybe I should say, ANY! -- it's two days and no one has entered anything) entries will then be posted all together so readers can vote. The winner will be announced on the blog.

How long does it take to write 50 words???? When my friend emailed ME about the contest, my first reaction was to start an email explaining why I couldn't....my second was just to write the damn thing.

That took less time than the excuse.

Perhaps I can extrapolate? I can and will -- and even if no one enters the contest, something good will have come out of it for me (if I remember this the next time I am telling myself why I can't write).

Back to earth with a thud

   




I've always loved Little Bear (as drawn by Maurice Sendak)

imagining himself flying to the moon and telling his mother all about his plans.
And I also love his mother, in the words of Else Minarik, replying that maybe he is "a fat little bear cub" and "will come down very fast, with a big  plop."

I've landed with a big thud: my book is off to its first readers and I'm back in the world of doing my freelance work and getting my taxes done and cleaning my house, those kinds of things. Being OUT OF that world and in another of one's own creation is part of the fun of writing.

But this book reminded me of the other things I love about writing -- things I haven't felt in a long, long time. When I revise, I can just do it -- and for long hours at a stretch; it's very satisfying to be so engrossed and to see something get better. The first draft is usually torture, though: all the waiting, all the times when nothing comes or what does seems (and may well be) completely inadequate. This time, though, sometimes what I wrote in the first draft  surprised me and  made me laugh out loud, and that was fun, too.

One difference between a book that has life and potential and one that doesn't are those surprises, those ideas that just come....but those moments don't mean the book as a whole is GOOD or even works.

What I enjoyed most, though, was being IN the book: not wanting to do anything else. Not thinking about anything else. Waking up in the morning and wanting to write -- even though it usually took a lot of dawdling before that happened.

This is the first book I've really enjoyed writing in a long, long time -- and whether it all holds together or not (my biggest worry), whatever my first readers say about it, I've had that -- and learned a lot, too, about how to make it happen.

First readers

   

Yesterday I finally finished* the first draft of my novel and printed it out, planning to sit down, pencil in hand, and mark it up.... and I now find myself reluctant to read it. But that's another topic. (Any insights into it welcome, though.)

When I do read it, I'll answer the questions I'd like someone else to answer, subjectively and honestly:

• Where did you want more?
• Where did you want less?
• What did you really like?
• What DIDN'T you like?
• What made you laugh? cry?
• What confused you?
• Bored you?
• What did I explain that I didn't NEED to explain?
• Did you want more background information/backstory?

Those last two questions maybe only other people CAN answer....I really struggle a lot with them always.

These next questions I wouldn't ask anyone else, but I will also be reading for where I could:

• make the writing better, sharper, more vivid

• increase the intensity and drama of scenes (or eliminate them all together!)

• speak more in my own voice -- I really like it when OTHER writers do this, and find myself sometimes not doing it enough

• shift (or not shift) the POV...I tend to go inside the main character's head too much --often, it's more interesting to the reader -- at least, this reader, and after all, I have to love this before anyone else can! -- to stay OUTSIDE

 

I'll scribble the answers in the margin quickly, without pausing to think. Thinking can come later! These first reactions are most valuable when they come from the gut.

When MY eyes start to skip over something, I will cross it out.

What do YOU want your first readers to tell you? I say it in the plural because one of the many things that surprised me at the end of the book VERITY was how many first readers she had.

 ____________________
*I thought it was finished, but there were lots of little things that I wanted to add -- I was surprised by how many and by how quickly I wrote them. I guess it was easier than usual because they'd been niggling at me for awhile.

Roald Dahl interview and hut

     



You can listen to Roald's Dahls' answers here. The interview was given in 1988, two years before his death, in the gypsy caravan (or shepherd's hut?)

in his garden. The interviewer was Todd McCormack.

WHAT IS IT LIKE WRITING A BOOK?
When you’re writing, it’s rather like going on a very long walk, across valleys and mountains and things, and you get the first view of what you see and you write it down. Then you walk a bit further, maybe you up onto the top of a hill, and you see something else. Then you write that and you go on like that, day after day, getting different views of the same landscape really. The highest mountain on the walk is obviously the end of the book, because it’s got to be the best view of all, when everything comes together and you can look back and see that everything you’ve done all ties up. But it’s a very, very long, slow process.

HOW DO YOU GET THE IDEAS FOR YOUR STORIES?
It starts always with a tiny little seed of an idea, a little germ, and that even doesn’t come very easily. You can be mooching around for a year or so before you get a good one. When I do get a good one, mind you, I quickly write it down so that I won’t forget it, because it disappears otherwise rather like a dream. But when I get it, I don’t dash up here and start to write it. I’m very careful. I walk around it and look at it and sniff it and then see if I think it will go. Because once you start, you’re embarked on a year’s work and so it’s a big decision.

HOW DID YOU GET THE IDEA FOR JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH?
I had a kind of fascination with the thought that an apple-there’re a lot of apple trees around here, and fruit trees, and you can watch them through the summer getting bigger and bigger from a tiny little apple to bigger and bigger ones, and it seemed to me an obvious thought-what would happen if it didn’t stop growing? Why should it stop growing at a certain size? And this appealed to me and I thought this was quite a nice little idea and [then I had to think] of which fruit I should take for my story. I thought apple, pear, plum, peach. Peach is rather nice, a lovely fruit. It’s pretty and it’s big and it’s squishy and you can go into it and it’s got a big seen in the middle that you can play with. And so the story started.

WHAT IS YOUR WORK ROUTINE?
My work routine is very simple and it’s always been so for the last 45 years. The great thing, of course, is never to work too long at a stretch, because after about two hours you are not at your highest peak of concentration, so you have to stop. Some writers choose certain times to write, others [choose] other times, and it suits me to start rather late. I start at 10 o’clock and I stop at 12. Always. However well I’m going, I will stay there until 12, even if I’m a bit stuck. You have to keep your bottom on the chair and stick it out. Otherwise, if you start getting in the habit of walking away, you’ll never get it done.

HOW DO YOU KEEP THAT MOMENTUM GOING WHEN YOU ARE WRITING A NOVEL?
One of the vital things for a writer who’s writing a book, which is a lengthy project and is going to take about a year, is how to keep the momentum going. It is the same with a young person writing an essay. They have got to write four or five or six pages. But when you are writing it for a year, you go away and you have to come back. I never come back to a blank page; I always finish about halfway through. To be confronted with a blank page is not very nice. But Hemingway, a great American writer, taught me the finest trick when you are doing a long book, which is, he simply said in his own words, “When you are going good, stop writing.” And that means that if everything’s going well and you know exactly where the end of the chapter’s going to go and you know just what the people are going to do, you don’t go on writing and writing until you come to the end of it, because when you do, then you say, well, where am I going to go next? And you get up and you walk away and you don’t want to come back because you don’t know where you want to go. But if you stop when you are going good, as Hemingway said…then you know what you are going to say next. You make yourself stop, put your pencil down and everything, and you walk away. And you can’t wait to get back because you know what you want to say next and that’s lovely and you have to try and do that. Every time, every day all the way through the year. If you stop when you are stuck, the you are in trouble!

WHAT IS THE SECRET TO KEEPING YOUR READERS ENTERTAINED?
My lucky thing is I laugh at exactly the same jokes that children laugh at and that’s one reason I’m able to do it. I don’t sit out here roaring with laughter, but you have wonderful inside jokes all the time and it’s got to be exciting, it’s got to be fast, it’s got to have a good plot, but it’s got to be funny. It’s got to be funny. And each book I do is a different level of that. Oh, The Witches is quite different from The BFG or James [and the Giant Peach] or Danny [the Champion of the World]. The line between roaring with laughter and crying because it’s a disaster is a very, very fine one. You see a chap slip on a banana skin in the street and you roar with laughter when he falls slap on his backside. If in doing so you suddenly see he’s broken a leg, you very quickly stop laughing and it’s not a joke anymore. I don’t know, there’s a fine line and you just have to try to find it.

HOW DO YOU CREATE INTERESTING CHARACTERS?
When you’re writing a book, with people in it as opposed to animals, it is no good have people who are ordinary, because they are not going to interest your readers at all. Every writer in the world has to use the characters that have something interesting about them, and this is even more true in children’s books. I find that the only way to make my characters really interesting to children is to exaggerate all their good or bad qualities, and so if a person is nasty or bad or cruel, you make them very nasty, very bad, very cruel. If they are ugly, you make them extremely ugly. That, I think, is fun and makes an impact.

HOW DO YOU INCLUDE HORRIFIC EVENTS WITHOUT SCARING YOUR READERS?
You never describe any horrors happening, you just say that they do happen. Children who got crunched up in Willy Wonka’s chocolate machine were carries away and that was the end of it. When the parents screamed, “Where has he gone?” and Wonka said, “Well, he’s gone to be made into fudge,” that’s where you laugh, because you don’t see it happening, you don’t hear the child screaming or anything like that ever, ever, ever.

HOW MUCH HAS LIVING IN THE COUNTRYSIDE INFLUENCED YOU?
I wouldn’t live anywhere else except in the country, here. And, of course, if you live in the country, your work is bound to be influenced by it in a lot of ways, not pure fantasy like Charlie with chocolate factories, witches, and BFG’s, but the others that are influenced by everything around you. I suppose the one [book] that is most dependent purely on this countryside around here is Danny the Champion of the World, and I rather love that book. And when I was planning it, wondering where I was going to let Danny and his father live, all I had to do, I didn’t realize it, all I had to do was look around my own garden and there it was.

ROALD DAHL ON THE SUBJECT OF CHOCOLATE:
In the seven years of this glorious and golden decade [the 1930s], all the great classic chocolates were invented: the Crunchie, the Whole Nut bar, the Mars bar, the Black Magic assortment, Tiffin, Caramello, Aero, Malteser, the Quality Street assortment, Kit Kat, Rolo, and Smarties. In music the equivalent would be the golden age when compositions by Bach and Mozart and Beethoven were given to us. In painting it was the equivalent of the Renaissance in Italian art and the advent of the Impressionsists toward the end of the nineteenth century. In literature it was Tolstoy and Balzac and Dickens. I tell you, there has been nothing like it in the history of chocolate and there never will be.
_______________________________________________________

I find what he said about writing being like a long, long walk through a landscape and not seeing the whole book until you're standing on a high hill at the end very encouraging. As I write things often I don't know what I'm doing -- or where I'm going -- only now at the end (I am ALMOST done with my last chapter!) do I see what is important (to me, anyhow!) in what I've written.

To Roald Dahl, "everything fit" (but maybe that was after rewriting?). I will have to take out some things and rewrite others in order for the whole landscape to work -- but that, as a friend said, is what revisions are for!

The idea of stopping for the day when you know what is going to happen next is one I had read before (in some Hemingway essay or biography). But Hemingway didn't explain it or admit the part about being stuck if you don't do it -- so I GET IT when Roald Dahl says it.

Hurray for Roald Dahl and children's books!

Nice finds

     

"Anne and her family lived alone on an island. She enjoyed having tea time with her friends the spiny lobster and baby hawk." National Geographic, August 1938

You never know what will turn up. I found these images while doing research for my novel -- by the way, it's NOT about a girl who lives alone on an island! But but the rock behind her figures prominently in the story. It is almost 3 billion years old, far older than these circles of it:

The Lewisian Gneiss Stone Circle at Callanish on an Early Autumnal Morning, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, by Lizzie Shepherd  .... her other images are amazing, too, and well worth looking at full-size!  

It's called Lewisian Gneiss, pronounced "nice." It comes in different colors, but is (usually? almost always?) striped:

 

Gneiss, from http://pig.sty.nu/photos/lewis_autumn_2010/gneiss_Rocks) 

Okay, back to work! It's hard to draw the line sometimes between time-wasting and research, but I THINK I'm getting better at it. Maybe one way is to stop once you've found out what you really need to know and save the rest for later?

Simple but not easy

We have a tradition on this blog of not reviewing books -- and I am all in favor of it. So this isn't a review, just a story about the effect this book had on me.

All my life I've dawdled in the morning -- no matter what time I get up. I can be up at 6 and still happily doing I don't even know what by ten or even noon.

When I worked in other people's offices jobs,  everyone showed up pretty late and worked until midnight or so. One boss insisted on everyone being there at nine. From nine to noon, I just sat in front of my computer -- not out of defiance (though I wouldn't put that past me), but because my brain was a blank.

Yet I am not a procrastinator -- at least when it comes to work for other people. I have never in my life missed a deadline. When I get one, I count backwards from the due date, make a schedule, and stick to it.

But when it comes to my own writing, I DO procrastinate. I know I do my best writing first thing in the morning. So why do I waste that precious time dawdling, drinking tea, writing emails?? On the occasional mornings when I get to work as soon as I get up, I'm always amazed at how carefree I feel for the rest of the day: nothing to feel guilty about, no nagging feeling that I should be writing--I've WRITTEN! And on some of these days, after I do the other things I have to do, I write more.

Recently I decided to try to stop the morning dawdling and read the first part of this (up until he started talking about changing businesses):

The ideas that helped me are, first, what a habit is. According to him, it has a trigger or stimulus (eg--see chocolate bar on shelf), a behavior (eat chocolate) and an immediate reward (easy to see in the case of chocolate, less so in the case of, say, wasting a morning dawdling). And the way to change the habit is to use the same stimulus, get a reward--BUT CHANGE THE BEHAVIOR. This is simple to say, not easy to do.

One of my freelance clients, who is a neuroscientist, said the author got the reward part wrong --that Duhigg defines it too superficially and too narrowly; it's really your sense of purpose, not the superficial reward, that drives your behavior. If your purpose is important to you and you see how the behavior affects it, you have a much better chance of changing the behavior. And if that purpose includes a larger good--benefits to other people -- your chances are even better.

But back to HABIT: If you perform the new behavior often enough, and get the reward consistently, you will create a craving for the new behavior; and at that point, you have a new habit. People who run or do some other kind of intense exercise  experience this all the time. But you have to believe in your purpose and practice the new behavior often enough (a MINIMUM of three times a week, and every day is better) to create a craving for it. Otherwise, when you get stressed out, you will fall back into your old ways.

The other idea that helped me a lot was what the author called "a keystone habit," a habit that supports all the rest of your behavior (like the keystone in an arch).

For me, it was hard to figure out how to start--I have no clue what the reward of dawdling is. I have such an irregular schedule that it was hard to find a trigger for it, or a keystone habit.

But I finally thought of one: I always, always drink tea soon after waking up. I'm addicted to it. What if I didn't allow myself to have had my first cup until I was sitting at my computer WRITING?

The first week went really well. The rewards are huge -- but I will wait until I've passed the real test -- sticking to it for, say, a month -- to report back on what they are.

Over my desk

The beginning of this was familiar to me, but the nots at the end -- not even needing to believe in yourself, always feeling a "divine dissatisfaction" that keeps you marching -- were new. They are what I find most helpful now.

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” -- Martha Graham

I don't think artists are any more alive than other people, but love the idea that discontent "that keeps us marching." In me it translates into  "I can make this better on the second draft." Logically I know that hardly anybody gets it right on the first one, though like many writers, I believe that for everyone else, it flows easily and that only I plod along.

Often I think that the only part of writing I can control is the sitting down and doing it....or in the great words of Jane Yolen, "BIC -- butt in chair." (btw Jane! If you ever read this blog! I am in Scotland too and have been since mid-April.) But Martha Graham reminds me that I can also TRY to "keep the channel open" -- focus, concentrate. 

This a friend has over HER desk and I've put it over mine, too:

"The place God calls you is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

I like the idea of writing from that place, or rather, trying to! Whether I can or not, the quote is a good reminder to write about what matters to me. It reminds me not to be satisfied with chatter,  but to write only when something that feels important   -- true -- right -- just comes.


That doesn't have to be anything deep or heavy, things that are funny and fun are needed, too. They're just as important as serious things. Maybe MORE important -- yes, I know grim dystopias are popular now, but there is a need for lighthearted joy, too. As Matilda said,
what was wrong with CS Lewis was that there were "no funny bits. Children are not so serious as grown-ups and like to laugh."

What do you have over your desk that inspires or encourages you?

Frankly: writers' conferences and retreats

My impression of writers' conferences and retreats is pretty negative. I think of competitive people sucking up and looking down -- and feeling like I'm in 7th grade, NOT as part of the in-crowd. But Alvina's post yesterday got me thinking. Maybe I am being way too negative, maybe it would be fun to go to one, and useful, too.


As you may have guessed from my last post (and like everyone else, I apologize for not posting more lately), I'm living on a small Scottish island. I am writing, every day except Sunday, but I want this book to be good so much that I'm clutching. The word comes from a pitcher on This American Life who said no matter what he did, he couldn't get the ball near the batter and the harder he tried the worse it got. They say in baseball that you can't think and hit or pitch at the same time, and maybe the same goes for writing.


A retreat or writers conference where I could do some exercises and get some tutoring on how to get out of my own way, and have some laughs with the other attendees in the evenings and MAYBE have someone read my work without having a meltdown (that is me I'm worried about melting down, not them) -- might be just the thing. 


There is a retreat for writers in Scotland, above, where no one seems to take themselves too seriously (the bio of one staffer described her as making a huge change in her life "in a mad fit")....and someone who attended one of the workshops described her experiences as "magical." A friend of mine in America went to a workshop on the writing process at  Kripalu (the teacher didn't read anything they wrote, just talked them through sitting down and getting it done) -- three months later, she's still getting up at 5.00 a.m. (two hours before her children) to write. I know a lot of it will be the luck of the draw -- who the teachers are, how they like me and my work, what the group dynamics are -- but maybe it's worth the risk?


What do you think? Have any of you attended a conference as a writer/student (not one of the teachers) and had good experiences? Feel free to answer anonymously if the answer is no!


As a first step, I am definitely going to a one-day workshop at the Scottish Story Telling Center (for 1/20th the cost of a weeklong retreat). They have lots of classes to choose from  -- I'm going to the one on fairies in Scottish legend, literature, and song, that has everyone singing as well as listening to talks and practicing their own story telling. No way can I take myself singing seriously! And it will be fun to go back to Edinburgh, which I have finally learned to pronounce. Here they say Edinburra.

On writing

Last week I was listening to NPR on the way to the grocery store and they were talking about the subject of writing. There were two quotes that have stuck with me all week.

“I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.” - James Michener

and

"Becoming a writer is not a 'career decision' like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don't choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you're not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days." - Paul Auster

They both seemed quite true and particularly relevant as I chug slowly uphill, knee deep in revisions...

Waiting and letting go or just timing?

Some of you may have noticed that I've had the same book on the right for the whole history of this blog (and for quite a few years before that, too). I've written books for other people, and some of them have done quite well; but despite 6 mss. out there, no published books of my own.

At first, this bothered me a lot, and even affected my confidence -- I didn't think I was a bad writer, but I did think I hadn't found my niche and never would. And then, I just let it go. I wrote what I wanted, when I wanted to, and -- aside from an occasional pang about a novel that never sold -- I came to refer to it as "poor ______" (heroine's name) -- poor Camm. She was a neglected child in the book and now is in real life too -- I really and truly stopped minding, even about her.

This was all I am sure helped by having had freelance work -- enough to live on. I feel grateful and lucky and (last week) finally felt financially secure enough to give some money to causes I believe in. One was CASA, a group that recruits and trains people to be court-appointed advocates for abused or neglected children. Children who have such an advocate, statistically, are much more likely to finish high school, stay out of jail, and stay with the same foster family. The site doesn't say they are also less likely to be abused again: maybe this is assumed? If anyone knows of other good groups that help abused children, and homeless children, please tell about them in the comments....I'm trying to find a group that just gives money to homeless families so they can get apartments or move into hotels. AS someone said and it makes sense to me:
"What poor people need is money."

The other group I found that seems really great is in the UK. They're called SOS and what they do is gather groups of 6 or 7 orphans, build them a house, and hire someone to be their mother. The ideas is that they will stay together as a family unit for life. This group was recommended by the Dali Lama and that's good enough for me!

The day after I made the donations, I got a call saying someone was going to publish one of my manuscripts.

It may be just timing (friends have said, and truly, I think, that getting published is a lot about that -- the right editor at the right time). I believe that these events (the letting go and even the giving and then getting the call) could be causally related, too -- that the shift in attitude helped it happen. Whether it was or not, I am going to keep trying to let go of things, keep giving, and (when I have something to say, not otherwise) keep writing.

Decisions, decisions

The New York Times recently had an article about how every decision you make depletes your energy -- and your supply of glucose (blood sugar). A friend immediately thought of me, saying:
"When you write, you must have to make decisions all the time."

Now I know why we -- or so many of us -- like to eat candy while we write! The more we're concentrating and deciding, the more blood sugar is getting used up.

The article said most people deal with decisions by:
*NOT deciding
OR
*deciding impulsively.

I do both -- instead of deciding, I'll obsess and overthink.

One of the many astonishing results of my vacation is that I've stayed more relaxed and it's a lot easier to let go. I THINK this makes decisions easier. To make decisions well, you have to (this is me, not the TIMES) be able to let go -- to trust that forgoing all those other possibilities (choosing one thing does usually mean others won't happen) is really and truly okay. When you believe that letting go of those possibitilies is not only okay, but in fact opens new possibilities, it's easier to act instead of just think, decide instead of obsess.

But letting go is still hard, on all fronts. I'll know I've learned to do it when I can confidently throw out or delete old drafts.

I'm practicing by getting rid of clothes -- those of you who know me know that I've always had the fantasy of owning ONLY clothes I love. This sounds so easy to achieve! But getting rid of clothes is so hard!

One thing that makes it hard is thinking of all the money spent on the useless items...so I've been repeating as a mantra, "The money is gone, no matter what I do. It's MORE of a waste to have clothes I don't like sitting in my closet, taking up space and energy."

I'm selling some on ebay -- any tips on that? Good pictures, I know; but what about shipping? Does it make any difference if you do calculate per sale or fixed price? (I only ship Priority Mail -- buying shipping supplies is too much bother). And what about price? Do you have to start items at $9.99 if you really want them to sell?

Advice much appreciated! And if anyone is on ebay -- I'm dislikepaypal.

All ages

On some Scottish islands when it's sunny all day they call it "a given day," and I was lucky enough to be given several, all in a row. The best way to convey the beauty of these places would be to hand you my laptop and let you look at the slideshows -- but since I can't do that, I'll add more pictures to this post later, and write now about other things.

I had expected that my last week would be a kind of retreat, but instead, every evening people on the island invited me to things and the last one was on an island even more remote than the one I was on (5 hours by the once-a-day ferry from Oban to reach B., where I was staying, then a long drive across a causeway to V. The causeway was built after a bull drowned while being swum to pasture for the summer on V.).

The town council had thoughtfully hired a bus, to leave from the main square of B. and then drive people home. The family who had invited me had said we were going to a "concert" -- I had asked hopefully if it would be a ceilidh, but they said no. However, on the bus, some young teenagers -- talking in that excited way teenagers talk before a party -- were making jokes about "having some tea at the ceilidh" and giggling, so I began to hope.

We arrived in a long hall: tables with bottles and people of all ages, literally -- from babies held in their parents' arms to people who were at least eighty, and everything in-between. As soon as the band -- THE VATERSAY BOYS (listen here -- and to get an idea of what they played that night, skip the first two songs!) -- started, people JUMPED up and danced. I wish you could see the two girls at the top of the set more clearly -- but even in my blurry picture, their energy (the way they're kicking up their feet!) shows.


And they danced until midnight -- old dances, with sets and patterns and steps (swinging your partners, dancing forwards and backwards and sideways a certain number of steps, clapping in certain places): "Strip the Willow," "The Grand Old Duke of York," "Canadian Barn Dance," I wanted and wanted to dance, but I did NOT want to be the clueless American messing up the steps, so I joined in only to the hokey-pokey, which they did differently than we do....but I could at least do it.

Alas! My pictures are dark and blurry like this, but maybe they convey something of the energy and enthusiasm with which the dancers threw themselves into the sets. The older girls helped the younger children by shoving them in the right direction, or holding out the proper arm with which to grab a partner.






People danced until midnight, getting more and more into it -- even the children didn't flag. The short girl in the dark dress (the one at the top of the set in the first picture, the daughter of one of the band members), in fact, stood on the stage, clapping her hands over her head, making all her friends do it too, urging everyone on -- and then danced more herself. Another band member told me later that at another event, she had a very badly hurt foot,but didn't tell her parents until afterwards because she didn't want to miss the dancing.

The bus was supposed to drop us off at the main square, but instead he drove everyone home, right to their doors -- refusing tips and also telling us we'd never seen him do it. Two men on the bus were really, really drunk; the children were polite to them.
"I'm fine," one of the men said belligerently.
"You seem fine," a student said, smiling in a friendly way.
(Later, he told me that living in Glasgow had taught him how to deal with drunks.
"How?" I said.
"Agree with everything they say and don't look them in the eye.")
Before passing out, the man had given a glass of whisky to a young girl to hold. When she reached her stop, she woke him up and said politely,
"Here's your glass back -- thank you."

When our group got off, and we were discussing the evening, and those two (who were staggering to their door within sight) someone said:
"Only two in the whole crowd -- that's not bad," and her sister added,
"And they were from Glasgow."

Walking home -- I hadn't wanted to be last on the bus with the two men, so I got off with the family who'd invited me and they walked me the rest of the way-- there were more stars than I've ever seen. In bed, I looked out the window for a long time, thinking about how much I love it there,--including spending an evening with people of all ages DOING something together. I want my writing to be for all ages, too; and hope I can capture something of the intense joy and energy and courage of the people I met, and the stories they told me, too.

The next day, there was time for one last long walk -- believe it or not,this is across the road from the airport; behind this field is another beach --



and then I got on the plane (it only lands and leaves at low tide, so the water is way in the background). I will be back: in my mind, in my writing, and I hope, in real life.

NOTHING TO DO WITH WRITING?

This week, I did a "detox" using juices from the amazing NYC vegan restaurant Blossom. I know these are not designed for weight loss, but to get rid of toxins -- but I *have* actually lost weight and feel lighter and brighter inside.

Those of you who have no issues with weight, read no further! This will sound crazy. Maybe it is. But for those few who do occasionally think about food and dieting, this little story may help -- and I'd love your insights, too. I don't think I would have been able to do this without a long conversation (over lunch, of course) with a friend.

The second day of a detox is apt to be really, really yucky -- headache, unable to think clearly, kind of weak, weepy.....detoxing has this affect on lots of people. At least if you believe in the mind body connection, it makes sense: you're releasing toxic emotions as well as things stored in your fat cells.

Be that as it may (and who knows if these things are even true?) I decided to think of this as a sign that a new start and a new me was on its way and use some of that "releasing" energy to get rid of stuff OUTSIDE of myself as well as inside: throw things away! Donate them! This had an energizing effect.

By Day 3 (the last of the detox), I was writing and doing lots of yoga -- though I admit to also thinking about food quite a lot, since I couldn't eat anything, only drink the juices. So, remembering the conversation about why I eat too much, I decided to use that day to plan meals and menus for the next week or so -- when I have healthy meals in the right portions READY, I eat sensibly.

But I hardly ever plan ahead enough. I run out of things. I make everything, always, from scratch -- there is no such thing as just eating something from a package or can or box in MY house. Plus I usually (even food-loving as I am) get absorbed in what I'm doing, especially around lunch time. I don't want to interrupt what I'm doing to cook -- so I skip lunch. If I'm babysitting, I skip meals because there's nothing in the house I can eat -- I'm gluten-intolerant and everything in the house has flour in it.

(Sample meal of one child in one household: Frito sandwich -- hot dog bun, spread evenly with Fritos on both sides).

The result is that by the end of the day I'm ravenous. This is my real dieting downfall -- getting so hungry that I eat mindlessly. Once I get that ravenous, it's all over.... If I'm that hungry (or upset or whatever), and DECIDING at every meal, I'll make bad choices. Also I think letting your blood sugar get that low really ruins your energy level for the rest of the day.

The solution:

1) spend some time every week planning, cooking. and packing things into single-portion containers

2) type up a menu and put it on my refrigerator

3) stick to it as rigorously as I've stuck to the juice fast.

If I do #1 and #2, (believe it or not), #3 will be easy, because I will have made one decision ahead 0f time, a decision that accounts for each meal and snack. Then I can and do stick to it, as I stuck to the juice detox. It's the getting really hungry and THEN deciding (or rather acting completely impulsively) that ruins everything.

So here's to new beginnings, which is what Easter and all the other spring-time fertility festivals all over the world are really about. (Alvina took this picture at an Easter BRGs gathering four years ago.)

For the next few weeks, I'm going to be posting the best meal of the week, with recipes -- and very briefly reporting on my progress. Since today I'm still fasting, I shall post what some of the kids I babysit for (not the frito-sandwich boy) call

LIBBY's FAMOUS SCONES

(makes 4 scones)

NOTE: Working with gluten-free flour is really different from working with wheat flour, which is why these directions are so detailed. Once you get the knack, the recipe takes less than 10 minutes of work, another 15 or so of baking time.

1 cup Bob's Red Mill gluten-free all-purpose flour

1 1/4 tsp. baking powder (still searching for one that tastes good --recommendations, anyone?)

1/4 tsp. salt

2 1/2 tablespoons butter OR Earth Balance buttery spread, original -- cold

2 1/2 tablespoons cream OR Silk Soy Creamer -- cold

1 egg -- the better the egg, the better the scones! If you can get fresh eggs, please use one

scant tsp. brown sugar

1 or 2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 bowls, rubber spatula, pastry blender or two knives, rolling pin -- I use the Finnish kind, which is tapered at the ends and allows you to roll really lightly -- pastry brush

preheat the oven to 400, assemble the ingredients

1. Sift the flour into a bowl with the salt and baking powder.

2. Beat the egg with the cream and vanilla and sugar in another bowl.

3. Cut the butter or Earth Balance into the flour. Don't touch it: just use the pastry blender or knives to break it into small pieces (pea size with some smaller). Don't cream it -- the buttery bits should stay distinct.

4. Pour in the liquids.

5. With a rubber spatula, scrape up from the bottom until everything is blended and the dough SORT OF sticks together into a ball.

6. Still using the spatula (gluten free flour is much more tender and delicate than wheat flour), flip the dough gently a few times.

7. Sprinkle some flour on the clean counter, and roll the dough out from the center VERY LIGHTLY, once or twice on each spot should be enough, until it forms a thick pancake.....about the size of a salad plate.

8. Cut it into 4 wedges and place on an ungreased pie tin or cookie sheet. Brush the tops with the left-over liquid.

9. Bake at 400 until the scones puff up and turn golden brown.

If anyone is interested, I will get someone to video me doing it.

NEXT WEEK: My progress, and either

*yam noodles (made with a Spiralizer!) and cashew cream sauce

OR

*Thai-inspired curried broccoli soup that uses coconut WATER instead of coconut milk or cream (much less fattening).

Meghan! I know you are rolling your eyes if you've even read this far, these vegetables are not your thing. Some people wouldn't like them, I know, but some people, I also know, will love them. They've eaten them and said so!

Lastly, I say this has nothing to do with writing; but really, it does. Working on a novel is like a long-term, gradual diet -- I can't write a novel in a few days any more than I could lose 3o pounds on a three day crash diet. It takes steady, persistent effort to make progress. And eating healthy foods in sensible amounts will give me the energy I need to finish.

Problems an editor can't fix

In addition to writing children's books, I do a lot of editing, and when it comes to fiction (non-fiction is completely different in this way) I've concluded that there are some problems that an editor just can't fix.

An editor can take a good idea (even if the person can't write at ALL) and help the author make it better. She may even be able to help the author find the story. But she can't make a dull story, or point of view, interesting, or turn well-written description into a story -- she can't give the author something to say.

When it comes to something to say, people either have it or they don't.....you can help them write it, or even figure out what it is (I've done this with illustrators, and it's fascinating and inspiring -- to me, anyway!). But you can't give it to them or teach it to them.

I'm mentioning this because I think this pretty basic idea -- having something to say -- is often lost in the discussion of 'story arcs' and the like. What do I mean by something to say? An angle of vision-- a way of looking at other people and the world that's your own -- fresh and original -- deeply felt (or I guess very amused or just fascinated could count too?). If you want to write fiction, an editor can help you craft that into a story with a beginning and a middle and an end and all the other things that make books satisfying for readers. It's a lot easier for the editor if you have those three already, but even if you don't, an editor can help you find them.

And she can suggest ways of making the story more intriguing or faster-paced. She can suggest how to make it richer or deeper by adding add a secondary plot or more characters; or suggest that a different point of view might work better.....but the sad fact is that not everyone who wants to write has something interesting to say.

It has to start with that, not with wanting to have a book published. There's a big difference between those two points of departure!

Research

Usually the boys I babysit for aren't too interested in my books and writing. But when the topic was TRUCKS, all that changed. The four-year old lugged down a volume the size of an old encyclopedia (all devoted to trucks) and began eagerly turning the pages and explaining the various vehicles. The ten-year old supplied the names KIDS use, and some of the sound effects.

Soon I had quite a long list of truck names and sounds, and both boys helped me pick the ones that would be the most popular with kids....but the ten-year old wasn't sure we had made the right choices.

"I know! To find out what kids really like, let's look at Mitchell's trucks."

It was quite a collection, and encompassed most of the house, and, with his brother's Leggo creations and planes, the entire dining room table.








There were far too many to include (these pictures do not do justice to the range of the collection, but you get the idea), so we asked him to show us his favorites.



By the end of the afternoon, I was confident that I'd made the right choices, and liked the names of the trucks and Mitchell's onomatopoetic sound effects, too. At home, I made my final selection and then, while trying to get the sounds right, found this amazing Web site: the sounds of every truck on our list and many more. Here, for your listening pleasure, is a plain bulldozer. There are many more exotic ones.

On Monday, or maybe as I write this, my agent is sending the ms. out to editors -- but whether anyone buys it or not, I had a lot of fun researching it and writing it.

And that, this year, for me (I am NOT presuming to advise anyone else), is the point. If *I* don't have fun doing this, I might as well "be an accountant or something."

The quote is from Anna, in one of her posts on this blog. I forget what the main topic was, but she, while acknowledging some of the disadvantages of being an artist (and let's face it, there are MANY), concluded: "At least I don't have to dress up in a suit and be an accountant or something."

Not that there's anything wrong with being an accountant, I'm very grateful to mine. He makes probably about 20 times what I do -- but, at least when I'm doing research and writing books like this one, I do enjoy what I do. For a long time I thought of my writing as a way to make money, and when I thought of it that way, I put myself under the kind of pressure that wasn't productive, and felt, was, poor all the time, too. If you can count on your writing or artwork to make money: GREAT. Lucky you! I know, I know, it's not just luck, it's talent and hard work as well. If you've made it, well done! Bravo!

I'm just saying that for me, thinking of it this way works better. If I genuinely enjoy what I write, and can make enough money from my freelance work and babysitting to live on (and as our loyal readers know, now I do), I really can't lose.

Freelancer's vacation

I haven't taken a going-away vacation,

or, in fact, ANY declared,I'm-not-working-for-two-weeks time in 5 years. Freelancers! What about you? Who else hasn't?


So I declare from now until the Tuesday after Labor Day TIME OFF. Time out. If you (like me) can't go anyplace, make a vacation at home -- do things you don't normally do. Me, I baked a peach pie yesterday (gluten free) which the guests declared the best they'd ever eaten.

Today I'm going to the beach.


And every day from now until the Tuesday after Labor Day, I'll do something really fun -- probably, by the water. Noel Streatfeild writes in both her autobiography and her Bell family books about a holiday by the sea, "a mountain top of a holiday; one by which all the others could be measured. Afterwards the family all knew what was meant by 'nearly as good as St.Anne's.' " (Most of their holidays were rather horrible for the children: their father lived in a dreamland where everyone loved swimming in cold English water under grey skies, lips blue all day (the picture below is me and my siblings at an English beach -- but our parents didn't make us swim! Neither did anyone else's! Most kids didn't even wear bathingsuits!),

as much as he did, and relished staying in out of the way cottages with no books, no games, nothing at all for the children to do. The children's real feelings would slip out afterwards in casual comments:
"Isn't it glorious to be home after that awful Poppy-land!" or, when drinking some new medicine:
"It's nearly as nasty as Derbyshire.") But this was a real, true, happy family vacation.

Of all the places my family went -- and as anyone who's read Blow Out the Moon knows, we travelled a lot -- OUR best vacation was when we drove to Okracoke Island, in those days only accessible by four-car ferry (just visible in the small picture, very clear if you look at it full-size)

and inhabited by not very many people and a herd of wild ponies. One of the many highlights of the vacation -- to us, at least -- was when one

stuck his head through our (closed) car window, smashing it and not hurting himself one bit. Grace is on Okracoke as I write this: Grace, I hope your time there is as happy as ours was!




As for my vacation: no babysitting, no client work, and if, or as they say in math, IFF ("if and only if") I want to, my own writing. I bet this will bring something new to it, whether I write or not over the vacation.

"One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach, waiting for a gift from the sea." --Anne Morrow Lindbergh (probably mis-spelling her name, but the vacation starts now, with not worrying about things like that!)