(step over this way for a moment)

There is more, much more, to be said about Bermuda, and I will say it... but for now, skip over to my other blog, to hear about Larry the taxicab philosopher, and what my parents should have named me...

writers in black & white

When I get up in the morning, I always have the desire to sit down to write. And most of the days I do write something. But then I get telephone calls. -- Isaac Bashevis Singer

I am home now, and well, and I have a thousand things to blog about Bermuda... well, maybe three.
But this post isn't about Bermuda--it's just to say that I am transitioning from post-travel fogginess, and trying to put things together again. Teasing my brain out of hiding, trying to turn my attention back to bookishness, to my story again...

As part of that, I'm rereading The Writer's Desk, a glorious book of black and white photos, by Jill Krementz. (If you are a writer, do not rest until you get your hands on this book.) I love it so much, seeing all these tricky, difficult, brilliant people at work, in chaos, in stark surroundings, in whatever habitat they choose.

So they are keeping me company today, in this half-full, noisy coffeeshop where I'm reading. They encourage me to write wherever I am, to get the paragraphs flowing again. There's Ann Petry, on page 101, so calm and comforting that I want to have tea with her. And Isaac Bashevis Singer, on page 90, who looks so dear I want to reach into the picture and pat his hand.

It is so reassuring to read what they say in these interviews, to know that they are cranky and snarky in the same ways that I am. And hopeful, sometimes, just as I have hope for my book again.

I'm looking at their pictures and their words as if they can be crumbs in the forest for me, as if they will tell me how to dig myself out of this slump, how to believe that my story will stretch and stand up. That times of crisis and chaos pass, and that these words will come back, the thread of my tale return. If I stare at these writers' faces long enough, they will become a map for me, a map to find my way home.

r&r

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how. -- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

This late spring mix of May and June has me completely undone. I have been so tired that I'm tired of hearing myself say I'm tired. (You see? It makes you fidget, too, doesn't it?)

Enough. We're going on a trip, then, writing and me. For a week. In Bermuda.

I'll pack the shreds of dreams and scraps of scenes into a big handkerchief. Tie it to the end of a stick and go far away... Then shake them all out onto pink Bermuda sand, and see what they sound like there. Different latitude, different longitude, a little punctuation mark in the sea of blue...

They'll be competing with the squeaky-swingset call of a million tree frogs, the percussion of Atlantic surf, the lure of pub food, the sunshine that spills out of Bermudan accents.

But I know that after a week of island, this honeymoon-with-book, we will come back stronger and refreshed. And then, look out, Part Three. Look out, draft. We will spin the wiliest storyweb you ever saw...

finish lines

Remember this? The afghan that I was going to crank out in, oh, say, a week? Mmm, I took a little longer than that. Somehow, impossible deadlines have been a theme of mine lately, and knitting was no exception.

I did finish, though. Yesterday. And even though it took a little longer than I wanted, I still finished it wonderfully fast. Four weeks isn't bad for something this size...


What I'd like to know is: why do I sing crazy songs to myself in the first place? These strange lullabies of invincibility and limitless energy, when it turns out that energy is quite limited after all.

Why knit an enormous afghan in a week when you could take four? Why tell yourself you can write 300 pages in two weeks when you might have six?

I've made some kind of virtue out of speed... I think I'd rather embrace a slower pace for a while. The grace of more time, time enough to soak into every good project. It's summer, after all. Time to slow down.

get out the jam jars

The first firefly. I just saw it, just, scooting low over a patch of clover, winking in chartreuse.

So. It's official: summer is here.

bookstore wanderlust

Wear the old coat and buy the new book. -- Austin Phelps

I am at the very edges of my brain, and so this might not come out coherently, if it comes out at all. ... I have just spent two and a half hours wandering bookstores. I went there looking for nothing at all, and yet something very specific. I didn't know which books I needed to find, but what I wanted was this: to lose the self that I walked in with, and to come out being someone else.

I left home worn to a crisp and exhausted from impossible deadlines of my own making. My joy in my book and in book-writing and in all communication was slim. Withering, even.

Sometimes I need my faith in narratives restored. I need to see other tales being told, and being told well.

And sometimes, I need to buy a whopping stack of books.

So I went to shed this skin of cranky disillusioned alphabet-hating Me, and to walk out loving stories again. To remember how breathtaking a perfect sentence can be. To touch covers and tattered edges and crisp typefaces.

I talked to booksellers, I watched readers, I listened to their passionate opinions. Then came home with beautiful books and unusual books and perfect books. (And a lighter wallet.)

And now I just want to read. Let's close the blinds, take the phones off the hook, pull the Internet connections, and just read and read and read. Perhaps for a month. Maybe two.

... I'll need a year, actually. Because I fell for Julie Rose's translation of Les Miserables. (With a cover that exquisite, can you blame me?) It's over 1300 pages, but I want to be pulled into something enormous like that, something epic and broad, something that actually takes time, a lot of time.

I'm out of patience with everything that's quick and easily forgotten. (Don't get me started on text messaging.) I want dynasties and the sweep of history. Slow-rising bread and long-lasting afternoons. Conversations with pauses. And very, very long books.

And I want the time to hover over every sentence, to swallow every word, every comma, to savor one long book-symphony being played, this time, just for me.

the writer at rest?

Ideas are elusive, slippery things. Best to keep a pad of paper and a pencil at your bedside, so you can stab them during the night before they get away. -- Earl Nightingale

Oooh, and the book is back.

I wish I could figure out the moods that capture and sway this writing life. For most of May, my poor writing life was right down the drains, lost in the mists surrounding a thousand activities, a thousand emotions, everything urgent or dear. And when I'd have a spare moment, I'd squint at my characters and see strangers instead.

Not a pleasant feeling.

But somehow, the book is creeping up on me again.

I don't know what the trick was: what made the difference? The dogged and difficult Monday I spent all-but-shackled to my computer, clawing my way toward this story? The nights I spent staring at my ceiling wondering about what this next bit of drafting might hold?

Whatever it was, we are now back in full swing, and I feel the unfolding joy of work again. I am so cranky when the work isn't going well... you really don't want to be near me.

Though, come to think of it, perhaps it's not easy to be around me when writing goes well, either? I zone out during conversations, because a character is tugging on my ear. I forget to do things.

And at night I crowd my bed with books to read, and fall asleep on pens... Once I woke up certain I'd broken a rib somehow... nope. Just a ballpoint pen digging into me through the night. And that's if I fall asleep...

When work is good, I'm thinking about the book instead of trying to sleep. I keep snatching at the scraps of paper I have beside the bed, scribbling in the dark. Those are a joy to decipher the next morning--what was I writing in, Sanskrit? One of these days, I'll scrawl some fantastic line on my sheets and never be able to read it again...

But that's me these mornings, stumbling out to breakfast dazed, inkstained, and full of words.

the marathon

Shameless bragging, that's what this is.


(It's a bit blurry because I'm trying not to drop my needles... I didn't.)

On Sunday, I told Mom that I needed a big knitting project: big. Something to sink my needles into. Who's running from her book? Not me.

And so this afghan was born. It's a gift for some friends of ours--we kept them company at the hospital on Wednesday, as their son had a long surgery. (He's doing well.)

Isn't it comforting to watch someone knit? Probably not if she's me, and has this feverish gleam in her eyes. Are you giving yourself carpal tunnel syndrome? they asked. Let's hope not.

So, Sunday night we grabbed the yarn for it, and I've knitted fiendishly since then. I'm about halfway done, and for an afghan (and for me), that's pretty darn good! A knitathon. What a lovely thing.

(Um, have I been writing? Interesting question. Very interesting.)

the first day of the rest of the draft

"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop." -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The next stage of drafting: begun!

1667 words down today, spelling out the opening moments of Part Three, in my enormous, ever-continuing novel. 1667. A little over five pages. Not bad. Not great.

We could use more scenery--my poor characters dance around on a blank stage. But then, I always write like that. I get facial expressions and dialogue and protagonist thoughts first, and only later think about what she's looking at, what it smells like there, how the air feels.

Still, the first scene is down, the first hurdle is over, and I remember that I'm not a scene-planner after all, but a writer. How nice.

Though, in the first days of a draft, I always half-expect my characters to roll their eyes at me. "Why should I do that?" I can hear them say.

"Because I said so" doesn't go nearly as far with rebellious characters as I would hope.

What I'm most excited about: my protagonist, E., showed up today. She's sitting in the corner as I write this, throwing out sassy opinions about her lot in the novel's life. But she earned the right to be snarky: she had her first verbal sparring match with the Antagonist today, and poor E didn't exactly win.

But the chocolate-raspberry truffles I had waiting outside her trailer? All gone. So that's a little compensation, at least.

(She's very smug about how the Antagonist only received celery sticks.

... At least, that's what I told E.)

let's make the world better

Everybody has won, and all must have prizes. -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Here's what I think. Let's all get pots of confetti, all of us, and put them by our desks. And every time we have a good idea--or even a half-way decent one--or just think of something that's not awful, we take a fistful, throw it over our heads, and cry I'm a genius!

(But you have to say it really loud, okay? I have to be able to hear you.)

I think this would make everyone feel better.

It would sure make drafting more fun.