Stay the Course -- No Matter How Rough or Easy

I explained to my therapist Joanie a few sessions ago that I was prepared for the arduous journey to publication and the hundreds of rejections just waiting to be sent my way. “I know it will be hard,” I said. She answered, “Why does it have to be hard?”

I’d read so many accounts from writers who described the demoralizing, time-consuming process of querying, waiting for response (rejection), querying some more, and repeating the ritual, sometimes for years. These ‘cheery’ accounts did nothing for my confidence.

But Joanie had a point. She’d relayed the story of how she went back to school to become a therapist and how many people warned her of the difficulty of establishing a practice in a small town. And yet, she’s extremely successful and didn’t encounter any of the roadblocks everyone warned her about.

I’ve been fortunate to receive some early positive feedback from two literary agents who presented webinars for Writer’s Digest. Both offered to critique query letters and/or first chapters of participants. Here’s what one agent wrote about my first chapter of God Doesn’t Like Sweet Cornbread (and Other Things She Told Me):

I started reading and was immediately engaged. Such a strong and compelling voice, and what a story! I wanted to keep hanging out with Cissy. You are clearly a wonderful writer. But at the same time, the subject matter is so horrendous that I’m not sure if I’d keep reading. It would depend on how much you referred to the heinous acts of the father versus staying in the present. In any case, if I were reading this manuscript, I’d sure keep reading for awhile to see where it goes.

I just added a new post-it note to my inspiration board at the office that says, “It doesn’t have to be hard. Believe.”

Sometimes I think we make ourselves sick by anticipating the worst instead of expecting the best. Setting intentions is so important -- they keep us on the right path, regardless how rough or easy the journey. That's what matters.

In my next blog: Writing about horrendous acts and people without turning off your readers.

334 Pages! Hallelujah and All That!

At about 4:45 p.m. Central time on May 26, I finished the first draft of the novel. 334 pages. 82,000 words. It took everything in me not to type “The End” to make it official. I reached this milestone on the back patio of my sister’s house in Glen Rose, Texas. A huge grin came over my face. Then I felt like bawling. Then I felt like shouting. Then I grinned some more.

Alone for the afternoon, I had no one to tell in person and cell service was spotty out in the country. I actually didn’t feel like telling anyone at first. I kept downplaying the significance. My heart wanted it to be a big deal but my mind took the critical road, reminding me it was a ‘draft.’ “What’s the big deal about a draft?” it said. “Draft means unfinished.”

When my sister got home from work I asked for a hug and she asked me what was wrong. I said nothing was wrong but that I finished the first draft of the novel. She hugged me like nobody’s business and insisted she and I go out to dinner.

Facebook friends have been enthusiastic over the news, which helps me give that critical voice the finger. I texted Micki, my friend and fellow writers’ group member. She called, shouting her congratulations from Durango, Colorado. I could feel her smile through the cell phone, which was going in and out, but I got the gist of the message. She understood the significance of the moment because she had experienced the same gamut of emotions after completing the first draft of her book last October.

Like Micki did with hers, I took my draft to a photocopying place and made spiral bound copies for the writing group to review and mark up. Then my sister and brother each wanted a copy. I ordered six and charged a hefty amount to my credit card. Worth every damn penny because it gave me a substantial and ceremonious way to say “This phase has ended! Hallelujah and all that!”

Don't Kill Michael Ventura: He's Only the Messenger

This week, I ran across a fascinating column by Michael Ventura (well, all his stuff is thought-provoking but some pieces slice to the bone and leave you bleeding without a tourniquet).

Here’s an excerpt:
Writing is something you do alone in a room. Copy that sentence and put it on your wall because there’s no way to exaggerate or overemphasize this fact. It’s the most important thing to remember if you want to be a writer. Writing is something you do alone in a room. Before any issues of style, content, or form can be addressed, the fundamental questions are: How long can you stay in that room? How many hours a day? How do you behave in that room? How often can you go back to it? How much fear (and, for that matter, how much elation) can you endure by yourself? How many years can you remain alone in a room?

Ventura had validated the insanity I’ve felt at times (ok, often) when trying to find a literal room in which to write or the writer’s room in my mind that allows me to create anywhere and anytime. It gives me pause to think about being in either room for YEARS, silently creating, desperately rewriting, anxiously waiting… Waiting for what? I’m going to be in this ‘room’ for the foreseeable future, whether or not I publish the current novel I’m writing. Why? Because the second one has been waiting patiently (not so patiently) for me to finish the first. Then the third one will tap at the door, asking to be written, and I’ll still be in that room -- me, myself and I.

I used to think the anxiety I felt before sitting down to write was because I hadn’t found the perfect room. That search could be endless: a comfortable chair and desk, the right rug, a piece of art, maybe a favorite mug. The room would have to be the right temperature in all seasons. What a time suck (and mind fuck) to search for the elusive room when it's right there in front of us, scary as hell and empty, waiting for an occupant with the sheer mental tenacity to be a writer.

What I love about Ventura is his bluntness: regardless of your talent, you must find strength of mind and spirit to survive the isolation of a writer’s life.

Oddly, I don’t feel overwhelmed by this message. It’s the smelling salts I need right now to face what I’ve always known: writing is hard, writing is lonely, writing is as essential as air and water.

Of Marathons, Cupcakes and Champagne

I recently posted on Facebook that I’m close to finishing the first draft of the novel but I needed to stay motivated. My friend and work colleague, Janet, posted a comment saying my situation sounded like “mile 10” of a half marathon. She described it as a point when she feels almost a sense of relief, yet knows she still has 3.1 miles to go. She said she just digs in, focuses her mind and pushes through.

I haven’t run a half marathon but I’ve walked three. Janet is so right. By mile 10, I’ve put in so much hard work I want to cry. I get an odd sense of euphoria and despondency about the last push to the finish line. I start making deals with myself. “Dear body, if you just finish, I’ll let you eat whatever you want. I’ll find you a hot tub to soak in. I’ll find some ice for that knee. I’ll schedule a massage.”

Today, I can see my writing finish line, just right there, off in the distance — 85,000+ words committed to paper, ready for review by trusted friends and writers.

That’s just the end of the first race, though. Completing a rewrite is half marathon number two. Landing an agent is a marathon. Getting a publishing contract is the Iron Man Triathlon.

Each finish line deserves respect and celebration. I could have sworn that Deonne (a writer whose blog I follow) celebrated her first draft with champagne and cupcakes, yet I can’t find that on her blog. Maybe I was daydreaming of the way I wanted to celebrate. In fact, that sounds damn good. Champagne and cupcakes all around (if you’re in Durango, Colorado, that is.)

I'll cross the finish line sometime in late June or early July. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, any ideas on how I should celebrate other than sobbing hysterically and napping for 18 hours?

P.S. Cupcake by Yellow Carrot, Durango. Photo by Carson Jones, Red Scarf Shots.

It's Damn Near Impossible to Interview the Dead

When I attended a writers’ retreat last August at Ghost Ranch with about 80 other writers, I was surprised to learn how many were writing memoirs. I always thought of memoirs as something you wrote as you neared the end of your life (like we can even guess when that will happen!). A woman I met there just finished the first draft of her memoir. I never asked her age but she doesn’t look like she’s hit her 40s yet. Still, she’s committed to paper a history of her life.

I’m ashamed to say I used to think memoirs self-indulgent (what makes your life so interesting, huh?). I’ve done a complete 180 on this. Every life is interesting! More importantly, if you think you’re going to remember all the juicy, painful, intoxicating moments of your life when you are on your deathbed, you are wrong. It takes work to remember the past, analyze it, sort out what happened and how you felt about it, as well as its significance in your life today.

The first novel I started more than a year ago (23 Conversations Before My Funeral), I called a work of fiction when in fact I used many experiences from my own life, only I expanded on them and called the character Audrey. She had children; I do not. She’s dying of cancer at 48. I’m not ill, nor am I 48. The point is that there are compelling, heart-wrenching, lesson-filled experiences in my past that make for interesting reading (or at least I think so).

Both my parents are dead, and buried with them are the many fascinating stories of their lives I will never know about. My dad was in WWII but speaking of his time in the war was taboo in my home. I knew his experiences were painful enough to lead to alcoholism and a very angry life. His younger brother, now almost 90, served in the Navy in WWII as well. My brother, Paul, visits this uncle every Sunday to have lunch. Recently I asked Paul to ask my uncle about details of his time in the war as well as my dad’s. It struck me that my uncle is nearing the end of his life — and he is the last one alive who can pass down the stories of my father’s life. I almost had a panic attack that he would die before my brother could ask him the questions!

Through my brother’s visit with him, I learned so much, including that my dad served aboard the USS San Francisco in the Battle of Guadalcanal. His ship was being blasted from all sides. Daddy was on the gun crew, the guy who put the powder charges into the big gun. The last guy in the "bucket brigade" tossing powder charges to the gun saw an enemy plane diving for them and at the last minute tossed the 50-pound charge *at* my father who, unaware, was knocked off the platform. The rest of the gun crew was killed in that battle, Daddy the sole survivor.

You don’t have to be a memoir writer or published author to capture your family’s history, including your own. The significance of knowing where we come from can’t be underestimated. Don’t wait until it’s too late to ask those you love about their lives.

Yes, Detective, She Was Wearing a Purple Wig

I spent a portion of the weekend revising chapters that my writing group critiqued last week. I was a little put off that one member of the group said a chapter was unpolished but a good first draft. What?! Well, she was right. It struck me that handing over pages for review is like submitting a police report. I provide the details as I see them but then the detective’s job is to ask more questions.

What color was the car? Was the car still running? Who else was in the store? What was she wearing? Could you tell us more about her surroundings? When X was standing in the hallway, where was Y?

The funny thing is that one member of my group is actually a police detective AND a damn fine writer. So her questions probe for details my mind has brushed past in order to get the story on paper. At times, I rush through the telling and need someone to slow me down and ask those questions that allow me to fully develop scenes and characters, to paint a picture that others can see as clearly as I do.

It also struck me that everyone – not just writers – can benefit from slowing down. When your spouse or significant other asks you to describe your day, do you rush through it perhaps missing those details that are most important to convey?

When you describe a movie, do you fall back on clichés like “lots of action” or “too much gore” instead of describing how the purple-haired, 12-year-old Hit Girl bounded through the narrow hallway like an acrobat, climbing the walls at times as she stabbed one bad guy after the other, finally landing on top of the last guy’s shoulders and stabbing him through the top of the head.

I’m just saying that life is in the details.

When I'm Not Really the Author and I Realize I Can Fly

The last two weeks, I’ve enjoyed a period of prolific writing on the novel. I've leapt ahead from halfway to almost two-thirds complete. I’ve felt an urgency to write that I haven’t felt in more than a year. Actually, I’ve felt an urgency to tell the story. The hitch is that I don’t always know where the story is going.

I’ve taken to writing long hours in my recliner-that-is-made-to-not-look-like-a-recliner. Andy wanders in and out of the living room where I sit and write. He reads the paper or plays Sudoku or watches a bit of TV. I mumble aloud sometimes, partly to him and partly to myself.

Last Saturday afternoon, he asked why I was crying. I said, "Because Grandmother is dying of cancer and has to tell her best friend." Until I had written the scene, I had no idea that’s where the book was going. This development has serious implications for Cissy, the protagonist. Grandmother has been the only family member to stand by Cissy after she killed her father and was committed to a state psychiatric facility.

When he caught me crying, I was writing the scene where Grandmother would tell her black housekeeper, Natty, also in her 70s, about the cancer. This was one of those pure moments of inspiration, written from both within and outside myself, where I’m the author and yet I’m not the author. During these precious moments, I try not to think too hard about it lest I wake from a beautiful dream where I'm flying.

Here’s a snippet from that chapter.

Natty and I have been together longer than I had been married, but we didn’t always get along. She came from a family of women who took care of other people's households. Her mama had kept house for my in-laws since the dawn of time. When Beau and I married in 1922, Natty joined our household. I suspect she resented having to wait on someone her own age. My people weren’t from money, so I crossed boundaries Natty had been reared to never breach. I wanted her to like me and I wanted her to respect me as her employer. Reconciling those two desires took some time and more than a few shouting matches to stake out our respective territories.

After I had Caroline, we called a truce and territorial lines blurred. That baby mesmerized Natty, softening the hardest of her edges. She couldn’t bear to hear Caroline cry and would cry along with her. Some nights I’d find Natty, tears running down her cheeks, rocking a squalling Caroline and singing an old Negro hymn. More than a few mornings, I found them asleep in the nursery rocker, Caroline slumbering across Natty’s sizable bosom. After Caroline’s birth, I’d miscarried two other pregnancies and Natty mourned for weeks, heartbroken she’d been deprived of loving two other precious souls as she did Caroline.

“I love you, Natty,” I said and patted her forearm. “I don’t tell you often enough.”

“You’ve never said it, Mrs. Clayton. Is the heat getting to you again?” She winked.

“Natty, you can call me Janelle if you like.” I didn’t know why I made the offer. Lately, my words had declared independence and it proved impossible to stop them.

“I’ve called you Mrs. Clayton for too long to go changing to your first name,” she said and let out a deep, throaty laugh. “You needn’t worry. I know we’re friends.”

“I haven’t always been a good friend,” I admitted.

Natty let the comment sit between us, its truth too heavy to dispute or joke about.

“I know you have the sickness,” Natty said.

“I figured you did.”

She didn’t ask for details and I offered none.

“It’s getting to be lunch time,” she said slapping her thighs. “How about some cold fried chicken?”

“That’d be fine. And why don't you bring the rest of the blackberry pie as well.”