My First Time

Baby Girl had her poetry reading last night (she won a contest). She marched up in front of a ROOM full (big room full) of adults, some students, teachers, etc., all but a handful of whom were strangers, to read her poetry. And she was shorter than the lectern. Literally. She stood behind it and there was no part of her--not even the tip-top of her head--visible. She stood on tiptoes, they lowered the microphone. I could see the top of her hair and her forehead. It actually highlighted how tiny and young she is. And she read her poem with confidence she didn't feel (she said she was nervous) and drew huge applause.

When she made it back to me, of course I told her how well she did--she really was wonderful. How proud I was and am. And then . . . I said, "You should be a poet when you grow up. No one really aspires to that anymore." "What kind of job could I have?" "You could be a college professor and write poetry." We talked about that for a while. Then I said, as I often do, "You should follow your heart and not worry about money. Do what makes you happy." And we moved on.

But I started thinking about her big night in light of this post that Stephen Parrish directed me to. That first time you realize your gift with words is a gift.

I wrote a lot of short stories as a child. They were usually about mice for whatever reason. Mice with complex family relationships who lived in libraries. Mice that were not python food (I really, REALLY hate Oldest Son's snake). And much as I loved writing them and reading them aloud to my poor unsuspecting grandparents and parents . . . I didn't think it was a gift.

Until 7th grade. Now to be utterly clear, I had a 7th-grade English teacher who was . . . I am sorry to say it . . . like a caricature of the unmarried spinster. I don't want to publicly skewer this woman, though I presume she is long deceased. But wrap your minds around a really, really plain woman with long frizzy hair piled high on her head. And she would assign us essays. The most amazing thing was . . . sometimes she said, "They don't have to be true." Like the ol' "What I Did on Summer Vacation" one they trot out every year? She said, "It doesn't have to be true." So I made up a story about how I spent it in a government experiment about underwater colonization. She read mine aloud.

I can still remember the angry reactions I got from classmates. "That couldn't have happened!" "Well, she said it didn't have to be true!" And then some in the class thought it was amazing and fun and how did I think of it. I had a lot of details about how our colony worked, where it was located--I even had a moment of crisis written in there about when it appeared that our glassed-in colony had a leak.

From there, we as a class went on to other stories and essays. And it kind of got to be routine that she read mine aloud. And finally, at some point toward the end of the year, my teacher pulled me aside and said, "Have you ever thought about being a writer?" And for whatever reason, I hadn't. I had wanted to be a doctor or a vet. But I hadn't thought about spinning my stories for a wider audience. I thought about it . . . making up stuff for a living. I tucked it away in my head.

Years went by. This movie came out. That seemed like an important job. It combined writing skills with saving the world! (Important music crescendo please.) But after I went to college, I discovered a case of terminal shyness and more importantly, the sense that I didn't really want to PRY (unfailingly polite) was going to doom that career. I just didn't want to butt into other people's business. So my best friend from college went on to journalism, and I became a book editor. Just the perfect job for a woman who preferred to be left in a cubicle with manuscripts for company.

But in my head . . . I never forgot that 7th-grade teacher. And I kept writing stuff that wasn't true. Fast forward . . . here I am.

Yes. Here I am . . . On a poetry night with Baby Girl. And I can SEE she has something. I can see it when she wakes up first thing in the morning, goes to her poetry notebook, scratches out one word ("It's not quite right, Mom . . . it throws off the rhythm.") for another BETTER word. I see it.

I think last night was an important night. I hope she remembers it always. What it felt to stand at a microphone behind a lectern taller than she was, in her brand-new outfit for the occasion, with her big sister's borrowed necklace, and read HER poem.

What was your first time?

The Bird's Nest

In my living room, I have a bay window . . . a picture window. And in front of it grows a maple tree. This spring, a robin decided to build a nest in it.

The nest is a haphazard affair. I can actually see strands of yarn that the robin must have plucked from my garbage cans (I knit, and I recognize some loose strands from old yarn--this white chenille). There's a silver ribbon from a Christmas present. The nest is in a place where we can see it from the chair in the window . . . and it's near Demon Baby's bird feeder. Demon Baby loves his bird feeder, which he fills with sunflower seeds. And he "defends" it with a passion from his mortal enemies, the squirrels. He defends it with a glow-in-the-dark plastic Star Wars light sabre. And he, like all Jedi, is fearless. He hates the squirrels like they are an incarnation of Darth Vader, and he is willing to fight them to the death.

We've had some hellacious weather here lately, and very often, Demon Baby sits in the chair by the window when it is raining and sobs. "PLEASE can we bring the nest inside. PLEASE can we bring the eggs inside." He is absolutely distraught--his face wet with real Demon tears.

It breaks my heart to tell dear Demon Baby that no, the nest must weather the elements.

So it is with writing. We build it, strand by strand, adding shiny Christmas ribbons and bits of yarn we've collected. We build it word by word, strand of plot by strand of plot. And some day . . . we lay the proverbial egg. A finished book. Then we sit on it . . . we sit on it and nurture it and hope an agent likes it . . . and then it hatches and a tiny bird, a hatchling, leaves the nest--sometimes it's even PUSHED from the nest. And we hope it flies.

But the other part of it, of course, is the rain and the windstorms. We can't protect our work forever. It has to survive the elements. If we're lucky, our agent and writers' group and critique partners will be like Demon Baby, defending our work with a plastic light sabre. The super-cool glow-in-the-dark one. But in the end, it has to weather the storm. Alone.

And if we're lucky, our baby birds will soar.

In the next two weeks, two hatchling manuscripts will be leaving my nest. I am sad to see them go. But they're ready to fly. Shiny ribbons and all.

Thoughts?

The Most Important Thing My Mom Ever Taught Me

Yesterday was Mother's Day, and I spent it with my mom. And in pondering it . . . I wrote her something in her card thanking her for the most important thing she ever taught me. Because ALL the advice my mom ever gave me, over all these years, from birth until now, can be summed up with these ten words:

PUT ON YOUR BIG GIRL PANTIES AND DEAL WITH IT.

Yup. Frankly, this advice from mom applies to everything in life.

Because in the end, what choice do we have? Suck it up or die whining.

I have converging deadlines.

See mom's advice.

I can't get this scene to work.

See mom's advice.

I got two rejection letters in one day.

See mom's advice.

I have a cold and don't feel good but my editor needs these galleys back.

See mom's advice.

I have a Demon Baby who was up no less than 13 times in the night and I haven't slept more than two hours and it was SUPPOSED to be Mother's Day, but I was up at 5:30 a.m., and was still cooking for Oldest Son's confirmation party at 8:30 p.m.

See mom's advice.

Today, after all that and no sleep again last night, I am really, really, really tired.

You know the drill.

So tell me, is there any bit of advice that seems to apply to all areas of your life? To writing?

Share.

Happy Monday!

What I Know . . . the Mom's Day Edition

Basically, when I had my first child, I was utterly and completely clueless. Sure, I took Lamaze. Sure, I read a book or two. Sure . . . I had a sister 10 years younger so I was an experienced babysitter and mothering fill-in from time to time. But still, what did I know?

The things I didn't know, of course, had less to do with swaddling a baby and changing a diaper and how to breastfeed, and more to do with the things you only find out once you have a baby, or two, or three, or four.

So . . . this is what I know now.

That sure, I could write a thousand funny, adorable, charming, smart, silly stories about my kids. But in the end, the lessons I have learned are far more profound than the stories I have to tell. That I am different because I have mothered.

I thought when I became a mother, that I would teach my children things. How to read and write, how to pray, how to ride a bicycle, the secrets of how to tie your shoes and make a decent scrambled egg, and all the rest of the mysteries of the cosmos. But in the end, through four children, I learned you teach them nothing.

You try to model a person worthy of their love because children seem to love most openly of all--and I trip and fall as much as anyone. I yell too much after too little sleep. I am eccentric and moody at times. I don't cook particularly well, and laundry is a haphazard affair. But they know, beyond anything, that I love them with all my soul, with a fierce kind of mother-love that is maybe a little bolder and louder than most moms. But what I know . . . is that babies come into the world with their own soul agenda.

They each are so different. So destined for the lives their little souls intend to live. Oldest Daughter played this concert last night. She arranged (!!) songs by U2 and the Beatles. I cried through the entire thing. Oldest Son . . . my math genius. My kindest child in many way, a gentle heart with a mind for numbers. Baby Girl--who won the poetry contest (remember when she was guest blogger?? She won!) and is my creative writer and crafter and painter. The mushy one, who loves to curl up with me. And then . . . there is Demon Baby. We pray his agenda isn't this place. But I am fairly certain his fearless nature and passion will lead him places I can only dream of, maybe. Right now, he loves space and the stars.

I didn't teach them any of their essence. They arrive that way. They teach me. That's how it works, I think. That's what I know.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!

The Flea Market

When I was a little girl, my dad used to take me to the flea market. He LOVES places like that. He has easily 10,000 records. You read that number correctly. LPs. All jazz. And we would go hunting. (He is visiting me, and said he recently got airchecks of my favorite--Django Reinhardt--which he is going to give me.) The best thing about flea markets is the hunt.

Once in a blue moon, I still go to the flea market. I think because it reminds my of him and how much I love him. I like going ALONE (a flea market with Demon Baby is a nightmare I don't want to imagine). I wander the aisles in some kind of meditative trance. It relaxes me. I don't collect LPs, but I do buy useless crap sometimes--a pretty plate, or a teacup, or an old book. I sometimes spend an hour just looking through old family photographs there--you know, the old black and whites of families from the 1930s or what have you. I don't know the people, of course, but I wonder who they were. I also wonder why no one wants their pictures anymore. I think of family, and even death. After I am gone, and my kids are gone, and my grandkids are gone, who the hell is going to want my pictures? My crap! Will my junk end up in a flea market?

Anyway, what I love about the hunt is you find something cool, but there, 'round the bend is a table--and maybe there's something even COOLER, some hidden treasure that is just meant to go home with you.

So it was with my work-in-progress yesterday. You see, I have a perfectly servicable plot point. It works. It has a "cool" factor (this is for MAGICKEEPERS, my middle-grade fantasy). But then, out of the blue, I thought of something SO MUCH BETTER. I wavered for a minute. It will mean rewriting a couple of scenes. BUT . . . with this new addition, I know exactly where the book will end. Exactly. My young hero is going to say, "Why didn't I think of this before?"--and he will have an epiphany--just as I did yesterday.

And I guess my point is I can't help myself. There's always the promise of something hidden 'round the next bend. And that hunt, I suppose, is one of the neatest things about being a writer.

Thoughts?

Vapor Trails

Last night I had a bad dream. I'm not sure what it was about exactly. I just slept awfully. I was overtired--Demon Baby and I drove to the airport to get my mom and dad at 9:00 p.m. Oldest Son has had a raging case of strep and lost over a tenth of his body weight since the weekend. I had to clean the house from top to bottom to get ready for the Invasion of the Parental Units. By the time Demon got to bed, it was midnight. I gave up my bedroom for my parents, so I'm bunking with Demon Baby, and he was up--easily--ten times between midnight and dawn. So after a while? I start hallucinating. And somewhere near four a.m., I know I had a nightmare.

I vaguely recall an urban apocalyptic feel to it. I think the Blue Wiggle was in it. (Regular readers know when I start lacking sleep, I develop strange crushes on children's TV stars . . . I went through a Steve/Blues Clues phase . . . and trust me, Steve is not the sharpest knife in the drawer). And I "think" there was an Invasion of the Body Snatchers vibe going on--the Donald Sutherland version.

Anyway, when I woke up, I started trying to remember the dream. I'm not sure why except that there was something about it. So I felt like I was grasping at vapors . . . these leftover remnants of a dream . . . snippets of pictures in my head . . . a feeling . . . a wondering. And it dawned on me . . .

THAT'S what it's like to write a book. At least for me.

Yesterday, as we talked about process . . . I realized I left something out. Or maybe it's best left for today's blog post anyway. And that is what it's like to have a vision in your head and to try to make it finite . . . on a computer screen, on paper. It's sometimes so elusive. You have it there in your head--sort of. But you're chasing these vapor trails.

THAT'S what it's like. For me.

Thoughts?

Self-Editing

I tend to edit in my head. It's how I write. What you see in, for example, THE ROOFER, published, is pretty close to my first draft, word for word. First draft.

Yesterday, I opened my contracted work-in-progress, read 100 pages, and changed about 30 words--mostly by changing single word choices.

I can do this--I think--because I worked as an editor for years and years. And also because I've been in a writers' group for 12 years. And because my PROCESS is, near as I can tell, the following:

1. Open file. Sip coffee.
2. Decide what happens in the new chapter I am about to write in a big-picture sense in terms of plot. And a big-picture sense in terms of the emotional growth of my character. Thinking of a recent chapter in my middle-grade fantasy, I wanted Koyla to break the rules of his newly found clan of Vegas entertainers/magicians and sneak out with his cousin to the top floor of the secret family quarters at the casino--where the family keeps polar bears and penguins from their act. And I wanted him to be having fun with his cousin, being amazed at this magical world that has opened to him (the animals obey the commands of the females of the clan), and then for him to be in grave danger from the sworn enemies of the clan and nearly drown in the icy pool. In terms of his emotional growth, after he is nearly killed by the shadowy other realm . . . he will realize that he MUST throw his lot in wholeheartedly with his clan--or he could die. But he will ALSO realize that he cannot be too foolhardy because he can endanger the people he is just STARTING (baby steps) to care about.
3. Write without stopping. One chapter. Just get it out--again, I'm virtually a first-draft writer, so what comes out is fairly polished, but "slim"--more on that later.
4. Close file. Sip coffee. Deal with Demon Baby.
5. Elapsed time? About 25 minutes. I don't berate myself, agonize, etc. Just write it.

Okay. So Demon Baby will generally have, in that elapsed time (judging from yesterday, for instance), pinched me and begged me for storytime (which we'll do). Dumped the ENTIRE container of soap bubbles that I have given him on the carpet on my porch (enclosed room) thus RUINING carpet, and then let the dusty/dirty dogs run through it. In which case, clean-up is involved. He will also, likely, have fingerpainted with the blueberry yogurt snack I gave him. Walls need a wipe-down. Carpet . . . forget it. Dogs need a bath. Then, after storytime, there is cuddle time and then the FUN (!) of laundry. (Can you STAND the excitement? What theoretical physicist WOULDN'T want this?--see yesterday's post.)

Then I come back, later, to my wip. It could be that day. It could be that week. Hell, it could be a month since I juggle projects. When I do, I open the file and re-read the last chapter and self-edit. So here's what I do.

1. Open file. Sip coffee. Listen for sure signs Demon Baby is really enjoying the Matchbox cars he is playing with. If the coast is clear, I . . . .
2. Read it for flow. For sense. For making sure it accomplished what I set out--the two goals--one action, one emotional/character growth. If it didn't, can it be fixed or does it need to be cut?
3. Read for emotional resonance. I am a touchy-feely writer. If my face isn't smiling during the happy parts, something is wrong. If I'm not feeling somewhat crushed by the sad ones, something is wrong. Reads #1 and 2 are simulatenous. In short, I'm aiming for an overall sense of whether or not the chapter rocks or sucks.
4. Now I focus word for word. All adverbs are immediately suspect. I try to punch up EVERY single verb.
5. All adjectives are immediately suspect (in case there's a better one). ANY TIME two adjectives are used in a row to describe something, even MORE suspect. One should do it if they describe the same thing--i.e., a hairy black bear is OK (one adjective for color and one for texture), but a hairy and furry bear is not. Obviously, that's a silly example as I don't think anyone would write the latter--but you never know.
6. Check comma placements, sentence flow (break anything into two sentences because the sentence is just too long for the average reader to muddle through or is a muddy sentence).
7. Read dialogue carefully for realism. Eliminate any tags I can. Punch up the dialogue so the lines are more identifiable by character so I don't NEED tags. Make every line of dialogue advance the plot--it's dialogue NOT conversation. Cut any conversation/small talk.
8. Cut anything that shows, not tells.
9. Cut ANY sentence in which a character asks himself something. Once in a while, I slip up here, but if a character asks himself, I wonder if the culprit is Mary, that means the writer didn't do a terribly good job of connecting the dots. Most of us don't question ourselves. We simply arrive at the conclusion. Lawyers lead witnesses. We don't have to lead readers (except invisibly--asking a question--that's not invisible).
10. Finally, I layer in description. As I said, I write slim. Now I make sure every sentence helps create a picture of the world, piecing in the things I "notice" as I look around their world in my head. Not TOO much, since most of us only notice a few things. While questioning a suspect, for instance, no cop is going to notice the chintz on a chair in the room. Details must MATCH the character.
11. Hear a crash in the pantry. Save file. Close it. Run to see that Demon Baby has climbed up the pantry shelves to get the dog bones that I erroneously thought were out of his reach, in order to feed the dogs.

Now, all this sounds sort of methodical (except the Demon Baby stuff). It isn't. At ALL. At this point in my career, it's fluid and pretty seamless. But in thinking about self-editing . . . I tried to break it down.

So . . . Demon Baby aside . . . what's your process and any self-editing tricks you have?

Theoretical Physicists Apply Here

I don't know anyone who dates the "old-fashioned" way. It's all online dating services. I even know two couples who met online at E-Harmony and are now married. One happily. One not. Sounds like the 50-50 odds of marriage.

If I ran an E-Harmony add, it would say something like:

Utterly exhausted mother of four seeks theoretical physicist. Bad fashion sense, wild hair . . . fine. Do you like talking about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle? Big Bang Nucleosynthesis? Then I want to talk to you! Must love children and dogs. Son has a python, but I don't like her, so snake phobias are OK. Must be spiritual, but if you don't believe in the Big Guy, I understand. Most physicists don't. Music lover, please, as my iPod is more important than food. NO SMOKERS. Must be neat . . . but tolerate mess.

The last line of my personal ad is because my house IS messy, but there is NO way I am EVER going to pick up after another man again.

So do you think I would get any responses? Me either.

But here's the thing . . .

While there are exceptions to every rule, don't you just love how in the movies, physicists look like Russell Crowe??? And how in romance books, fabulously wealthy men who would just as soon eat their corporate opponents for breakfast are secretly just pussycats? How male chauvinists are usually just "messin' with ya" and are actually chivalrous, instead of just really being a**holes?

Which is, I suppose, why we call it fiction.

Why am I pondering all this? Well, I am working on a romance with a professor in it, and he is really dysfunctional (agoraphobic). And I am showing all the ways in which this is paralyzing. It's not something "cute" that just the right combination of romance can cure. Like one day, a la Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets, he can just venture out and be fixed.

Which is why, I think . . . any romances I write are generally not quite what the genre demands. Which can be a good thing. Or a bad thing. Depending, entirely, on the reader.

Thoughts?