Jeannine Atkins

My daughters’ roommates went back home for a bit, so Em was feeling a bit freaked out coming home from work or class to an empty apartment. I’m visiting for a few days mostly to be someone there, but it’s been so much fun to have time with her. Having breakfast of a new-to-me kind of cereal, looking through a fridge and cupboard where other things were like those at home: the rice cakes, the rye crackers, the hummus, the brand of peanut butter. And on her bookshelves – Mom, there’s New Moon if you get bored – Tudor era novels, art history textbooks, and she pointed out books I wrote. I like the blue, saffron, and silver scarves dangling from the pole in her closet, the pictures all around – those with me when she was little, and the family dogs; more with friends, many taken here where she’s surrounded by so much possibility, so much what-will-come.

After she left for work, I throw in some laundry and begin what I’m calling my writing retreat here. I break to walk for coffee and the smells of flowers are stunningly sweet -- or is that sunscreen? Mmmm, a whiff of eucalyptus. And I get to work on nothing that takes place in either L.A. or western Mass, but send myself off to ancient Iraq. Become neither a mom making up a bed for her grown daughter, nor that grown daughter at work in a cubicle or stepping out for a view of the Hollywood Hills. For most of the day, when I’m not folding laundry, or buying coffee in a shop where everyone’s sandals are much more glittery than mine, I’m a sixteen year old girl near the Euphrates River, waiting for news from the moon.

The sun is trying to come out, over Lake Champlain and a friendly little island that’s been good company. After thirty days in gray Massachusetts, even sun-sightings through clouds are enough. We’ve got sun, we’ve got the lake, and we’ve got coffee that Kara and Debbie drove out to fetch when there was a glitch with breakfast. “We were just missing one element,” Kara said, and she fixed it.

Our days will be foreshortened by long drives, but I think those south-bound cars will be filled with happiness and accomplishment. For me it won’t be the staggering fourteen chapters, I think it was, someone mentioned last night, but then my hopes re word count and chapter count are always more modest: I know myself and my limits. We didn’t have a lot of rituals on this retreat, but a lovely one last night was sitting on the porch before dinner and everyone saying what they did that day. And if we did well, Marjorie adorned us with a lei. And we all got one.

MJ said that her husband asked her how writing here would be different from writing at home. She shrugged and said, “If you have to ask…” Many found that working along with others made them want to work harder and better.

Okay, the sun is already less tentative. I’m seeing sparkles on the lake. And I’m determined to revise a chapter before I get back in my car. Tomorrow I’ll try to post a few pictures.

Yesterday was gorgeous on Lake Champlain. I drove up via the scenic route, which included lots of mountains and a stop at Northshire Bookstore http://www.northshire.com/, where I did a quick invigorating browse and got iced coffee and the Tom Sawyer sandwich (roast turkey on seven grain bread) for the road.



Once at Valcour Conference Center, close enough to Canada to see signs written in French, after greetings, I settled in with my laptop. Then there was wine on the porch, talking about the massive hopes of what we hoped to accomplish over two days: Was forty pages possible? Confronting an event remembered from decades back? Figuring out how to plot a mystery? Finishing a revision, or at least a chapter? Why not? Dinner, more laugher, then more writing in a main room that is both elegant and cozy.

--Did you have a productive evening? Erin bostonerin asked.
--Um, something got done.
--You were tearing up some pages pretty definitively.
--Well, yeah, I can rip pages with some confidence.

But I did move things from the very messy stage of thought that my handwriting reflects to a slightly tidier and firmer stage.

This morning began with yoga, from a teacher who said she really just started to read last year. (“What got you started?” I had to ask. Marley and Me.) She put about half of our group through sun salutations and down dogs, then said, “Go. You’re really just going to write all day? Really? Write? All day?”
Yup.

Before bundling up to write on the porch, someone told me about having a proposal due next week for a novel that didn’t have a subject. But last night she knew what it would be about. Where do these ideas come from? The vast gray lake, the loons, the wind-tipped spruce trees, the quiet company settled in a row of wicker chairs, somewhere deep inside? Who knows? Now I’ve taken my place in one of those chairs. Rain is keeping the temptations of boat rides and swimming at bay. I’m enjoying the soft sounds of rain on the water. Watching two intrepid boats drift around Valcour Island. Then diving into a day of words. I heard a myth, legend, or gossip that someone figured out a key piece of her book by some flat rocks near the water, and rain or not (I’ve got an umbrella) I’m getting there today.

I’m using the gray-but-not-raining-so-far day to sweep together some chapters, pull together a good chunk of work to attack and explore at a writing retreat I’m going to tomorrow. No thunder, so the dogs aren’t panicky, and it’s hot enough that they seem happy to nap. I did take off work for about an hour to take in a bit of Franklin Land Trust’s Farm and Garden Tour, stopping at an apiary just across the border of our town.



Owner Don Conlon http://warmcolorsapiary.com told me that the bees were sluggish, too, waiting for sun for most of the month. I was cautioned to stay about eight feet away from the hives, and I tripled that length, though apparently the bees bump before they’re apt to bite. I wasn’t feeling into the contact thing, but happily sniffed my way around. Like monarch butterflies, bees are fond of milkweed, and generally the older the flower the better. Sometimes Bonita and Don Conlon bring the bees on field trips to orchards where they do good deeds, pollinating apples or peaches.





I sampled some tasty honey mustard and honey-lime barbeque sauce. Sadly, though I dithered, the honey ice cream wasn’t ready by the time I left.



I asked why the hives were painted different colors. Don Conlon said that there were many reasons. First, he buys paint on sale, and isn’t fussy about colors. But also, bees notice color, and, after venturing out, can find their way back to their particular hive by way of its color. The darker colors keep the bees snug on chilly days, he said. So really lots of reasons, besides how cool they look. It was time to go back, and try to pull out layers in my writing: nothing there, or not too much, for just one reason, but several.

A few days ago I caught up with my friend Jess, nurse turned stress-management educator (“It’s so much nicer to bring people news that they can relax instead of, say, “I’m sorry to tell you it’s gangrene.”) We took a walk up to Smith College Art Museum, where we saw the most amazing exhibit called “I Heard a Voice” by Lesley Dill, a Smith alum. http://www.smith.edu/artmuseum/exhibitions/dill/index.html



Knowing nothing about the artist, I’d been pulled in by descriptions of her work as inspired by language, and …we were stunned. There was a great array of media – statues kneeling, some flat, or almost (mixing photographs and tea-stained paper) some brimming with thread or silk, , and one made of silver foil, organza, wire, to give you a taste. Most were of people with words coming out of or going into their heads or backs. She has Word Queens made of wire so you can see how the inside works with the outside. Sometimes small words are made from meticulously twisted wire; sometimes words are found embedded in saffron-dyed horsehair. Lots of quotes from Emily Dickinson, first and foremost, who Dill writes changed her life when she was fourteen, and also Pablo Neruda and some other poets had a presence.

When we left the museum, Jess asked, “Do you read much of St. Francis?”

“Um. Not too much.”

“The show reminded me of how he said, “Do I talk to the trees or do the trees talk to me?”

Did he say that? Maybe I should read more.

I had a good weekend in New York with my cousin, Megan and her daughter, Rachel. Megan flew across the country to see Rachel and meet her boyfriend, who was happily given the seal of approval. On Saturday, we went to the Botanical Gardens in Brooklyn, where we smelled roses and went through greenhouses (by the way, apparently you can murder a Venus Fly Trap by feeding it hamburger.) By the time we were passing Shakespeare’s Garden the mist turned to downpour and I was regretting taking a spare pair of shoes out of my bag in an effort to travel light.



The next morning, I went to the Brooklyn Art Museum. I loved how once in a while, besides the labels with dates and perhaps a bit of background, cards with reactions from visiting children were sometimes posted. Honoring that to look at water and feel free, for instance, is a great reaction to a painting.

We saw the Statue of Liberty from the subway, managed to survive Times Square, and laughed through most of Gods of Carnage. We ate Thai, Mexican, and Tom’s Diner. On Monday we saw where Rachel worked and took this mother-daughter picture outside at City Hall Park.



After Rachel began her work day, I wandered off a few blocks and saw the empty air where the World Trade Center once stood. I stopped in the nearby St. Paul’s church where exhibits honored rescue efforts, and the benches outside, with an old graveyard, were a quiet haven from the bustle around the business district. I went to Books of Wonder and heard the green-carpeted floor creak and giggles past the employees-only curtain. Ladybug motif chairs were around the Cupcake Café, featuring small works of art with floral icing. Looking at old and new books, I made my way around a girl wearing a pink tutu and a bicycle helmet.



It was fun to see where my editor works so hard in the Flatiron Building. She gave me a tour of the offices, where I shook a few wonderful hands, and got a great view of the Empire State Building from the helm part of the building which looks out toward Fifth Avenue.



With a little time before I had to catch my bus, I stopped at the New York Public Library. I stared at the door behind which, I was told, stood the desk of Charles Dickens. I saw the original stuffed animals that belonged to Christopher Robin, and was most impressed by Piglet, who looked cocky and stalwart. I made my way around small children sprawled about treating books rather ungently, and recognized Betsy Bird http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1790000379.html on the floor, hand covered to elbow with a puppet of an off-white, whiskered animal. Cat? Mouse? I missed the story, so wasn’t sure. Betsy swayed her elbow and made the animal open its mouth in a way that delighted and only slightly alarmed the toddlers.

First there was that shiny gem of an idea. It became a picture book manuscript that went through lots of drafts, made a few eyes glimmer, but ultimately, turn dull again. I put the manuscript away for a few years, then, after selling my first book of poems, thought of my story again: could it be a novel in verse? Weren’t the themes of imagination and identity more geared to readers older than ten or twelve?

I wrote a first chapter. My writing group said – something. They didn’t gush, but I’d gotten enough across for them to say try again. I did.

Better, but not quite.

My third go-round with chapter one, I got yes, yes, and yes, from all three of my writing group members. I felt I had a way in.

For the past half a year, maybe more, but who’s counting, I’ve been drafting a novel-with-verse. I just sent the new first chapter and two others to my writing group and we met last night. Problems were pointed out, but none of the enormous kind. I’ve got detours and signs pointing the wrong day, but those can be hacked back or off when I’m further along. I think I’m on the right or right-ish track.

Today I’m taking some notes about what must be fixed, but going on to pull together my messy drafts of chapter four, watching for the buried story that needs to get out. And looking, from time to time at the rain.

Then I’ll pack my umbrella and camera to visit my cousin who just made the trip from Irvine, CA to Brooklyn, NY to see her daughter, Rachel. We hope to smell some wet roses in the Botanical Gardens or visit Prospect Park, which Rachel points out was designed after Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux practiced on Central Park, and so could fix their mistakes. We’ll see Gods of Carnage and go bowling, with the underlying theme of meet the boyfriend. My job is to take an edge off mom-meets-boyfriend and not make Rachel feel like two moms are breathing down necks. Can I do it? And on Monday, just before heading home, I’m excited to meet my editor!

Working at public university that has long coped with budget restrictions, we at UMass are more about grit than graciousness, so I’m grateful (and oozing alliteration) for the lovely tradition of the Annual Faculty Writing Retreat offered by the Office of Faculty Development. Earlier this week at nine a.m., about sixty people met at the Willits-Hallowell Center at Mount Holyoke College, where coffee was ready, bagels were offered, and we set up laptops three to a big round table.





Peter Elbow, professor emeritus, has been beginning the day he described as “all day study hall with free bathroom passes,” for I think eighteen years. He spoke briefly of one of his favorite themes of freewriting, or what he now calls “talking onto the page,” as he thinks about writing that feels good in the mouth and sounds right in the ear as a standard. He advocates beginning with uncareful, low stakes writing that replicates the energy of talking.

People from all departments brought old dissertations to look at, or drafts of new papers, or in my case, a novel in process. Whatever. I had a productive day – looking at a different view of green, enjoying the quiet company of word-adorers and word-wrestlers, with the barely audible chrr-clic of computer keys, the slightly louder sounds of spoons clicking on coffee mugs, splash of water being poured, or hands ruffling through folders.

At 12:30 we took a break for lunch – and what a treat it had been not to be distracted by thoughts of what I should make, and has the lettuce gone by, and should I check, etc? I sat with a few old friends and met some new ones, including a fiction writer (who I immediately liked as she described spending the past three hours moving things around in a paragraph) and a poet. We talked about how we’d spent the morning, and the small friendly pressure of writing in company. We agreed pressure is good, as long as it doesn’t push into the realm of scaring yourself. For instance, many thought the word “goal” sounds better than “deadline.” Peter felt talking about a piece can bring energy, while Elizabeth, who, like me, was not working on a paper but a creative project, found that talking is more apt to make the work disappear. I suppose it’s different for everybody.

Since most of us at the table teach writing in some form, we discussed how to balance that with writing. Spending time fixing other people’s sentences and paragraphs can drain energy from fixing your own. Peter Elbow said that when he asks students to write, he writes with them instead of checking up on them, as he used to do. “Cause, you know, if some want to fool around with a game or something instead, well…” Yeah. That’s their life. And ours is ours. When I was leaving at 3:30, someone told me about making a weekly date with a colleague to go to the Faculty Writing Place, a room in the library dedicated just for that. He said he usually doesn’t even know what he’ll be working on until he’s walking there, but then -- it’s a big campus – once he’s made the effort to get there, he’ll pursue whatever came to him on the walk over.

Telling this to my friend Mary, she said, “Yeah, but you’re pretty disciplined about writing. So why did you need the retreat?”

Even before the day, I was inspired to force unruly words into sentences, having set a goal of what I wanted to be working on that day. Then there was coffee I didn’t make myself, and a waterfall, ducks, and flowers, though I had to walk in the rain afterward to see these. And there is a peace about sitting in the midst of creative people at computers that’s stayed with me in the days since.

About sixteen writers met at Oak Grove School in Brattleboro, Vermont on Saturday, a group that was a merging of two critique groups and a stray several, like me, who are friends of Jessie Haas. http://www.jessiehaas.com/ The day was intended for discussion about how to sustain our writing lives emotionally, spiritually, and financially, and without too much ado, it seemed, coffee, tea and scones appeared in the morning, while others of us stashed things for a potluck lunch in the kitchen. After we gathered around pushed-together tables in the lovely library, someone thanked Jessie for organizing the day.

She laughed and said, “We’d better put organizing in quotes.”

“We’re here. We have tables. We have food,” others pointed out.

Introductions took a while, and we got into applauding for sold manuscripts, of course, but also for receiving an encouraging note or for keeping on after rejections. For picking yourself up after a wonderful editor left. For teaching kindergarten or running a library for decades, for holding five jobs (!), and for still making time to write. For twittering, for not twittering. For landing an eager agent, and for firing a less-than-attentive one. We were amazed at each other’s strength and creativity.

We critiqued a few query letters and we all learned from them: the art of being succinct and expressing a confident spirit: this is not the time for mights and ifs. We shared resources. Other practical things included being reminded of the need to follow up. Steve Swinburne http://www.steveswinburne.com/ told about giving out cards at IRA, and got a very cool school visit invitation (think the Caribbean in January) because he went the next step and followed up with an email. Lynn, who’d finished a novel involving tracking in the woods, wondered how to research agents interested in nature. Someone suggested looking for acknowledgements in books about the out doors, while I pointed out that an agent needn’t care about nature to want to represent her novel.

“Yeah, they don’t have to love nature, they just have to know what it is,” Jessie said.

We kept circling back to the question of what keeps us going. Michael Daley http://michaeljdaley.com/ used time between writing science fiction to self publish a book about solar energy, which taught him huge amounts about the business. Some of us realized that sometimes what keeps us going – say, the community and information we find online – may be what gets in our way: too much time at the computer taking away from writing our books. Leda Schubert http://www.ledaschubert.com/ told of her resolve to approach her computer as two different people, and the one who logs on as a writer cannot access the internet.

We acknowledged that what we do is hard: when we sit down with a manuscript, we’re often facing crummy sentences, whole chapters that got very little across and our wondering – did we ever do anything right?
But we’ve gotten past this before, and we’ll do it again.

Most of us keep writing because we can’t really stop. We’ve all been visited by self doubt as well as some success, and, at least once in a while, we get to eat cream cheese brownies and laugh together. It was a good day.

Sending good wishes and prayers to Amy historymaven tonight and tomorrow.

June can afford to send not just flowers, but peace, your way.

Jessie Haas http://www.jessiehaas.com/ invited me to a mini-conference she organized with her critique group and a few others. Some have published, some not yet, and the group of about twelve includes some who work as teachers and librarians. We’ll meet in the library of an elementary school in Brattleboro, Vermont, about an hour north of my house. The goal is share strategies for surviving tough times in publishing and to leave inspired. “If we have to get through a lot of swearing, whining and complaining to do that, then that's what we'll do,” Jessie, a practical person, wrote.

Here’s what will go into my car as I get ready to leave early tomorrow morning:

1. A list of questions to start off discussion about school visits, self publishing, MFA programs, and our stories of struggles and joys.

2. Some writing and query letters some of the group sent for critique.

3. A bag of publisher’s catalogues I picked up at the NESCBWI conference to share.

4. By way of introductions, we were asked to bring anything we’ve published and also to read “a brief piece we’ve written and something we wish we’d written” I’m going to bring a few poems from my upcoming collection and thought I’d bring “Love That Dog” by Sharon Creech, but the small yellow book seems either to have been temporarily swallowed up by my bookshelves or lent and unreturned. My hand went to Melissa Sweet’s “Carmine: A Little More Red,” which is clever and eye-opening, but that choice still could change.

5. We’re having a potluck lunch at the school, which is giving us access to computers, printers, and a copy machine, then late in the afternoon going to someone’s house for wine and cheese. I’m bringing a big salad, but yesterday strawberries appeared at farm stands in town. So I might need to bring some of those, too.

6. Directions. I hope Brattleboro’s annual Heifer Parade (we’re talking cows in the street), also tomorrow, doesn’t run by the school.

I think it’s cool that this critique group set aside a day for sharing and generating positive ideas about sustaining life as a writer, and it seems like something anyone anywhere might get going. I’ll report on the day early next week!

My bloggy pep talks seem to be working on me. I’ve spent much of the past few days sticking to my project at hand. Fixing, tidying, and getting a bit of pleasure in the neat corners. Seeing a few fresh pages stack up – okay, stack may be a generous term – and feeling like this work will turn into something that’s maybe not all the gorgeousness I can envision, but something that at least someone can read.

And yesterday I took a break to go with my friend Sue for a picnic lunch with this view of Shelburne Falls at High Ledges Sanctuary.



And, looking in the shade, we found some lady slippers.

Becky Levine on the Writing Path http://beckylevine.com/ recently asked about metaphors for the writing process. When you write a lot, many metaphors come to mind about what you’re doing. Some not especially attractive, and others I mix like mad. You know, a sledding metaphor in May with some housekeeping thrown in. I believe blogs should be a little edited, but kind of a playground, too. Let the metaphors mix and mingle!

Sometimes when I write a sentence that comes out right, I feel like the teenager I once was carefully putting the needle of a record player on the song I wanted. The needle falls on exactly the right line so I can hear Laura Nyro sing “Stoney End” one more time. It’s the needle on the black circle that comes to mind when I feel words fall into place. I’m all for new technology, but I sometimes wonder, would life be different if I didn’t have that tangible moment from my past?

Another stored moment is of placing sewing patterns on cloth on the dining room table, pinning together crinkly paper and cloth, and cutting out shifts and skirts. So I kind of knew what Eudora Welty was talking about when I heard her on TV long ago. She was shown walking around papers laid out on her elegant dining room table, saying in her Mississippi accent that revising, deciding what paragraph goes where, is “just like cutting out ah dress.”

I tried looking up this old interview on youtube, but sadly couldn’t find it, though there’s a nice one of Beth Henly talking to Welty about “A Worn Path.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2fh37fzsOg You get to hear that slow soft voice. And here is a picture of her at her dining room table, borrowed from http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/welty/diningroom.html

A friend here on LJ recently wrote about a leery relationship with works in progress. I began to wonder if this may be because she has a small kindergarten, or at least triplets, of projects. When several noisy books-to-be are tugging on your trousers, how do you choose? Sometimes do you just shut the door on all to stop the noise?

I’m feeling the temptation now to shut the door as I pull together a few years of notes on my novel-with-poems. I'm raking pieces together, plugging in holes, trying to pull together a few finished chapters I can bring to my writing group. I want something pretty in my life, something that at least at first glance appears to be finished.

But I get distracted typing notes for another project that calls. I collect ideas and put them in very messy folders. Should I be giving these my focus instead? In some ways, the Voices of the New are always louder. There’s all that possibility, the salty taste of what’s unknown which, let’s face it, is attractive. We hear the promises, and don’t yet know the problems.

But with just a bit of pinching I can remind myself I love my older project, too. For better or for worse, in sickness or in health, to swipe a line. There are fewer surprises, but there are surprises. And while I like being dreamy, trying out this and that, spilling out uncommitted scenes riddled with gaps, if I ever want an adorable child – or even a loud rascal - to pick up a new book with my name on it, I’ll have to go through the big clean up at the end, wrestling fragments and run-ons into proper sentences.

So I’m keeping on with the old. Trying to celebrate the small beauty of a new sentence and have faith in time as something that will give me more chances once I finish what I started.


Azalea, blue-star flowers, and iris by my porch:

The porch is a little too chilly. The yellow iris is crunched up, no longer stalwart, but limp from a few days of rain. It’s too late in the day for hummingbirds, so the columbine look lonely. The dogs are barking at who-knows-what.

But the evening is actually warmer than the morning, and I’m out here with my laptop working my way through chapter four. Yesterday was full of pushing, but today there are some moments that feel magic. Words get shoved and shoved like a sled uphill, but now: we’re ready to ride.

Not the whole chapter. There’s a lot more climbing and pushing to do.

But I can remember how it feels to have wind over my back. Catching my breath.

And feeling like I’m getting a free ride, forgetting what came before.

It was lovely having my daughter around for a while, then bittersweet spending a day in Boston before she boarded the plane back to L.A, where she has an internship for the summer. We wandered about while I tried not to point out the perfectly great colleges in the city, which was on its best spring behavior. Here are the swan boats, the McCloskey ducks, and an ice cream truck which pays tribute to them, parked on a corner of the Public Gardens.







You've got to love a museum you can visit free if your name is Isabella! Emily was especially glad to see a famous portrait of Henry the Eighth's daughter, Mary holding one rather sad rose.



Emily in front of Trinity Church.



You can spin around and see the Boston Public Library, the first public library, so they say, in the U.S.





(p.s. apologies for initially saying the portrait was one of Henry's many wives, and thanks to my daughter for pointing out the mistake without pointing out my ignorance. Just the kind of editor I love!)

So after the a/c guy leaves, and I'm all ready to feel like the peaceful homemaker/writer or something, I go to the cellar where water is trickling down a wall and into boxes of Christmas ornaments.

I call Cory, who comes back and determines the leak is from the outdoor hose he used to wash the unit. He was very glad the leak wasn’t his fault, which I can understand. I called the plumber who called back and assured me there would be no more damage now that the hose is off, and he’d come next week.

Then Frank said he was recently at my in-laws, where my father-in-law told him, “Whenever I’m feeling a little down, I go into the basement and look at the good job you did there.”

Okay, it was a bad day what with waiting and mopping and random grief, but the thought of my father-in-law contemplating excellent pipe work in the basement and feeling cheerful, that cheered me up, too

My preferred place to write from is a calm spot with maybe a view of something green, maybe a quiet dog near my feet. Okay, this calm is not just where I most like to write from, it’s where I like to be. I’m lucky to have it enough, but this month I’ve felt kind of robbed, raw, scraped-in-the-belly, prone to wondering why isn’t the world more exactly the way I want? I know I’m much quicker than usual to anger, which I feel as a layer over tears which aren’t far enough down my throat. So when the air conditioner guy didn’t show up at ten this morning, after an earlier cancellation, I took it personally. When he wasn’t here at eleven, I was mad.

Trying to get back to my calm place, I told myself, you’re lucky to have air conditioning. You’re lucky to work at home and have something to do while you wait. And I do have the green view and the dogs, but, wah, I’d put off walking them. By noon, I felt the two hour lateness as the biggest ever act of disrespect. Does my time mean nothing to our heating/cooling guys? Well, yeah. I tried the benefit-of-the-doubt approach. They could be saving dogs in cars. Stamping out fires. Anything.

Benefit of the doubt felt like too much work. I pressed on with my revision, but seeing kind of cross-eyed, I couldn’t tell whether my character getting angry where she shouldn’t. I hadn’t realized how lonely she could feel.

When the new heating guy finally showed up in the driveway, he greeted my dogs and told me about his dogs and how his kids loved the little one. He became just a guy and not the ruiner of my day never mind my life, which was where my anger had been taking me. And I became less the queen of rage and more a normal person, trying to keep the house going, trying to write a book, trying to get a small handle on grief.

So is this the writing process, sometimes? Watching your character get mythic, then shrink back to more someone you might find in your driveway, making chit chat, before cleaning the coils or getting back to the computer and trying to see not through red or blue but a clear clean space?

Oh, it’s thankful Thursday, and I’m sitting on the porch watching hummingbirds loiter in their busy-winged way around the honeysuckle, the sluggish cat curled nearby, and a smelly dog near my feet. My walking friend Mary bought a shirt last weekend that was down a size from her usual, and she is feeling determined and fit, fit, fit. Yesterday she made me walk both morning and afternoon.

I’ve found my novel waiting for me after a few weeks when I could mostly just write in my journal, clearing out my head, and I’m grateful the novel is there, that it waited, and doesn’t look tired to me now.

I’m grateful for my patient and understanding friends, too. Sending cheerful and understanding messages here and through the mail: offers to talk or listen or eat eclairs. I’m grateful for my daughter and movies and a pedicure before she returns to her more glamorous, if sadly dog-less, domain. I’m grateful to my husband for sticking around and feeding me blackberries.



I’m happy to hear about the books of friends coming out, and read a great interview with Jo Knowles jbknowles about writing for smart teens that you should read, too. Follow the link to http://hipwritermama.blogspot.com/2009/05/sbbt-writing-true-with-jo-knowles.html and you can write a note about when you last felt carefree, and win a chance to win Jo’s first novel and an arc of her next one, due out soon. Thank you, Vivian, and Candlewick Press for offering the prizes!

I’ve been getting back to my novel-with-poems, which has been part of my life for a few years. I like to come and go with various projects. I lean hard for a few months to half a year, then go to something else.

So the book I’ve called all kind of things is drafted, but with holes and repetitions and inconsistencies. And when I say holes, I mean visible gaps between sentences – a jump where I couldn’t decide how to transition – and sometimes, I’m embarrassed to say, holes within sentences, too. Or lumpy or ragged endings.

But, really, the book is kind of all there in its lump-of-clay way. I know the main characters, plot, and patterns, so I’ve spent some of the past few days wrestling scenes into place. Reshaping dialogue so that one person is actually talking to another – not, as in the rough draft, one person going on too long, talking to herself, or one person supplying both halves of the conversation. Oops, who’s she talking to? There’s a lot of pushing stuff around, but sometimes my fingers unclench a bit and almost fly. When I write new rough conversations, which I’ll have to unbend, unscramble, or rake though later.

There’s the joy.