Notes from a Pandemic: Day 6

Day 1 of our official lockdown in Maryland. Schools are closed for a couple of weeks -- likely more. Public gatherings of more than 50 are banned -- down from 250 a couple of days ago. Columbia Mall and movie theaters are temporarily shuttered (thank God there's still Netflix). But my husband and thousands of others are still at work. No, he is not a healthcare worker or a USPS employee.

Meanwhile, I got up this morning looking forward to a day of writing with no other obligations breathing down my neck and no stream of emails to distract me.

You know what they say about best laid plans, right?

My cat Mimi had other ideas of how we could spend the day. Or should I say her bladder and her chronic case of idiopathic cystitis had other ideas. It is 3:54 p.m. as I scrawl these words in my notebook, keenly aware that at any time she might get up and start to cycle again. A cycle goes somewhat like this:

• Go to litterbox 1.
• Go to litterbox 2.
• Go to litterbox 3.
• Strain to pee in each one. 
• Cover resulting one or two drops of pee.
• Go to back door; scratch and meow until staff lets you out.
• When door opens, go outside. 
• Two minutes later, if that, paw at the door to get back in.
• Go to front door; scratch and meow until staff lets you out.
• When invisible force field (translation: glass-paned storm door) goes down, pause and sniff the air. Contemplate whether to go out or stay in.

https://www.gocomics.com/brewsterrockit/2020/03/15

The two times I have dared to take my eyes off of her when she's been inside, she rewarded me by leaving bloody drops of urine on the white basement carpet, the clean-up of which demands either locking her in the back room of the basement with the litterboxes or tossing her back outside so as not to incur more collateral damage while taking care of the needed clean-up-on-aisle-6.

Those of you who have or have had small children or colicky babies can surely identify. Or perhaps I should say, I can now feel your pain. The only difference being that your little one will grow up and likely grow out of that phase, while the best we can hope for is to keep these incidents as few and far between as possible for the rest of Mimi's life, which could easily be another ten years or more, if she lives to the average cat age of 17 or 18.

I now know what you parents go through when the crying baby finally goes down for a nap and you are afraid to go about your normal business or tackle the house chores that have been stacking up while you tended to said crying, cranky, or sickly infant for fear that you will wake the proverbial Kraken. Fortunately for me, writing can be done without a lot of noise.

So, I will sit here on the living room floor, leaning against the buffet, notebook on my lap, and finish scribbling these thoughts while six feet away, my cat sleeps, belly up, under the dining room table for who knows how much longer.

And then I'll think about clever titles for the journal I'll be keeping throughout this pandemic to mark significant local and global developments as well as to track the more trivial personal struggles and triumphs that go with a life of seclusion while we wait out the coronavirus' threat and do our best to flatten its curve.

Stay safe and healthy, everyone. And remember, we're all in this together.

Hearing Voices: Wisdom from a Weekend in the Company of Storytellers

I have been hearing voices.

Since coming home from the SCBWI MD/DE/WV regional conference March 28-29, I hear the voices of the illustrators, agents, editors, and authors I met there whispering in my ear each time I sit down to write and revise. It feels like I have a whole support team standing behind me as I write, which is probably the next best thing to having packed them in my suitcase and brought them home.

What are they saying? Read on for some words of wisdom that have been echoing in my brain.

From Illustrator and (visual) Storyteller E.B. Lewis's touching, entertaining, and inspiring keynote address and his session on Writing with Pictures:
1) "Leap."
     Why? Because the leapers make it.
     The longer version of the story is one familiar to all kinds of artists. A writer (illustrator, painter, etc.) stands at the edge of a cliff, looking across a seemingly bottomless chasm to a group of published authors and asks the question we all ask: "How did you get there?" The answer is simple: "I jumped."
     As important as it is to take the leap of faith, E.B. Lewis cautioned, success is also about timing -- about the universe recognizing that this is the time your work is ready to be seen -- and preparation. Which leads us to #2.

2) "They [the greats] won't let you on the stage until you've done the work."
     Success doesn't just happen. Put in the hours and the effort to learn and practice your craft. And don't be afraid to make mistakes. Which brings us to #3.

3) "Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes and art is knowing which ones to keep."
     Making mistakes is about being willing to fail. If you're not willing to fail, E.B. Lewis warned, you might not make it to the other side of the chasm. The best way to lose your fear of failure is to fall in love with the process. To love the journey rather than always racing to get to the finish line.
     How? See #4.

4) "Put yourself in a place of most potential, and by that I mean multiple right answers."
     The work of the storyteller -- writers and illustrators alike -- is to solve problems. Not by finding the right answer, but by exploring the unending possibilities, and by having the courage to take on the creative dragons we all face when we sit down to write or draw (some days with better results than others) day after day until a project is complete.
     Where do we find the energy to do that? In #5.

5) "As Mark Twain said, 'The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.'"
     We all have a chip, E.B. Lewis said, pointing to his head. And the chip has to get turned on in order to find out the why. But in order for the chip to be turned on, we must be exposed to the right conditions, people or experiences. Once we know why we were born, why we are here, that passion fuels the journey and keeps us facing our dragons. That passion also steels us in the face of resistance. Which brings us to #6.

6) "We are the documenters of the world. We are the feared ones in society. We cause the multitudes to think."
     They want sheep, not shepherds. We create the shepherds.
     (Personal aside: Good teachers also create shepherds. One more reason why teachers, writers, and artists make good allies. We're all on the same side.)

From freelance editor and author Kate Angelella's talk on Learning to Love Revision:
7) "Revision is where your novel comes from."
     Kate's detailed tips on revision merit a separate post. But I will say here that as she guided us through the hard questions to ask on a first and second pass, I realized that I don't hate the revision process at all. In fact, if anything, I love it too much. But then I heard E.B. Lewis whispering in my ear again, saying it's all part of learning the craft.

8) "Every writer must have a shard of ice in her heart."
     Without that, you'll be too easy on your characters. Be willing to make them struggle. Your readers will thank you.

9) Kate's favorite piece of revising advice from writer Neil Gaiman: "If there are things you aren't satisfied with as a reader, go in and fix them as a writer: that's revision."
     A terrific reminder that one key to revision is putting aside the writer's hat for long enough to see your work through the eyes of a reader. That's where the desk drawer comes in handy. Put the manuscript away until you can see it with fresh eyes before embarking on the next round of revisions.

(Sidebar: Kate also led a Sunday morning intensive workshop on the objective correlative, which sounds much more intimidating than it is. Best part? A series of writing exercises that allowed us to experience this tool of the writer's craft firsthand. Again, worthy of its own post.)

From author and Kid's Post columnist Fred Bowen's session Writing My Way to a Better Life:
10) "Have a way to write that isn't official."
     Why? Because writing unofficially is a great way to generate and capture ideas as well as a dependable way to clear the channels when writer's block rears its ugly head.

And from Agent Carrie Howland of Donadio & Olson: candid advice about traditional and not-so-traditional ways of querying. Carrie reminded us that Twitter contests like Pitch Wars and PitMad are good not only to get your name out there and practice your elevator pitch, but are also a great way to get to know something about agents and editors. A fun way to do your homework before submitting a traditional query. And also a way of finding mentors and a community of your peers. She suggested that we look for comps and cover copy in the things others say to us when we tell them about our books. (Great advice! This happened to me just the other morning in a writing session with an old buddy.)
     And one last comforting tidbit: "The number of followers you have on Twitter really doesn't matter." That said, you can follow her on Twitter.

     May these voices travel with you and echo in your head as you go about your daily work too. Happy creating!

Life's Little Victories: Birthday Edition

Yesterday being my birthday, there were too many celebration-worthy moments to try to cram them into one Facebook status update. So, as promised, this special blog edition of Life's Little Victories captures and catalogs (in approximate chronological order) the many blessings that surprised me throughout the day, starting with...

1) Saturday, June 14, 9:12 p.m. Happy Birthday wishes from my husband, it already having turned to June 15th in the country where he is away on business. (Yes, bad timing, but we made the best of it.)
2) Sunday, June 15, 5:37 a.m. A happy birthday text message from an early rising good friend that set the tone for the whole day by wishing me a day of wonderful surprises. The day did not disappoint. (Note: I did not discover the message until somewhere after 8:00 a.m., a more civilized hour!)
3) The cats let me sleep in until 9:00 a.m....not!
4) Songs from the universe DJ who inhabits my iTouch shuffle (and at times, my car radio). The first three of the day: "No One in the World (can love you like I do)" by Anita Baker, "I Believe in You" by Luka Bloom (an Irish folksinger my string quartet used to open for during my college years), and "Bad" sung by Luka Bloom (but a cover of a U2 song), which doesn't sound birthday-ish until you hear the refrain of "Let it go...surrender" -- one of my go-to mantras.
5) Big bowl of Greek yogurt with fresh blueberries (my favorites!) and honey for breakfast.
6)  Wore my birthday present to myself -- a new favorite shirt!

(Only the colors are much more vivid than the pic shows.)
7) Unable to find the keys to my car, I drove Paul's to church, only to discover that he had left an interior light on which would have eventually drained the battery.
8) Front row parking at church even though the lot was crowded.
9) Wink from the woman I sat down next to in church -- and wishes to have a great day as we left.
10) "For God so loved his only son..." gospel reading, followed by sermon all about LOVE.
11) Free doughnuts and coffee after mass (usually the first Sunday of the month).
12) Universe DJ, this time in the car, plays Pink's "Perfect."
13) Traffic light karma -- greens all day long.
14) Found a planter of those flowers that look like mini-petunias and verbenas, normally $20, on the clearance shelves at Lowe's for just $5 (such a great discount, the cash register could not compute.) They already looked happier this morning.

15) Universe DJ strikes again -- in car -- Katy Perry's Happy Birthday song.
16) A late lunch with my Godmother, her husband and a couple of her choir friends on her front porch.
17) Serenaded with "happy birthday" in beautiful two-part harmony as dessert arrived (see #18).
18) Homemade gooseberry tart (with berries from her garden) topped with schlagsahne (that's German for real whipped cream). Yum!
19) Perfect weather all day long -- sunny, low humidity, blue skies -- aaaahh! (Thanks, Mother Earth!)
20) Birthday Skype call from my husband, who...
21) ...revealed where he had hidden a card and presents before departing.
22) Voicemail birthday message from my brother and his family...and later a conversation with them.
23) Cards and presents from family, including...
24) ...a beautiful scarf -- in our wedding colors (light green and lavender purple) -- from my sister.
25) Ice cream for dinner. Birthday rules. Haagen-Dazs swiss vanilla almond. How did I used to eat a whole pint in one sitting in college??? (H-D, you can thank me for this shameless plug with a free year's supply, hint-hint.)
                                                                                              
26) A boatload of birthday greetings and wishes from Facebook friends and family!
27) Happy Birthday/Father's Day call with Dad and Mom during which they shared memories of the Father's Day afternoon decades ago when I first entered the world.
28) Put my feet up and watched Chronicles of Narnia. Can I have my own personal Aslan?
29) Gemini b-day Horoscope highlights: "Reach for your dream by working hard at your job and developing goals during the next 4-6 weeks." Exactly what I plan to do. Full immersion writing period coming up. Time to crank out some serious words!
30) One word: Flow.

As midnight approached, I didn't want the day to end. But as I tweeted last night, if Day One of this new year was any indication, it's going to be a splendid year!

Thanks again to all of my friends and family who made my special day enjoyable, memorable, and filled with love!

What's Taking So Long?!?!

"What's taking you so long to finish writing that book?"
There, I said it. You know you've thought it.

Well, let's see. In the past ten days, I've rethought the first chapter, the first page, the first line, the first few chapters, the whole first quarter of the novel, the climax, and the ending, not necessarily in that order. And let's not even talk about the middle...

I've realized, among other things, that:

• The events of the novel start mid-school-year (January), not the previous September.
• My main character, Gabby, is a sophomore not a freshman -- about to turn 16.
• What Gabby is missing/lacks is as important to the story and to the reader's ability to connect with her as what she desires most. (Thank you, moodywriting.blogspot.com, for that insight.)
• Gabby has another flaw I hadn't quite discovered or consciously identified until last Thursday.
• The character who turns out to be one of Gabby's greatest allies is in her grade, not a year ahead.
• I was way too kind to and protective of Gabby in the first draft -- didn't make her squirm enough or at the right moments. (A common mistake of first-time novelists.)
• Certain characters know more (or less) than I thought they did about a certain main event.
• Something I thought was just a subplot is actually quite possibly the main plot. (Adverbs intentional.)
• I need to totally rewrite the scene in which the antagonist enters the story --and take her out of the one she originally showed up in -- to give her more power.
• The next three chapters up for revision -- or what were the next three in the first draft -- will most likely not make the final cut at all. (It's like they say: "Kill your darlings.")
• The climax I wrote for the first draft is not the real climax -- there is something even more powerful working its way to the surface.

Add to that a herd of smaller details that shifted or emerged in the past week or so, including what posters are on the walls of Coach's classroom, what speech or document they are discussing on Gabby's first day in  history class, how a certain note is discovered and by whom, what popular '80's song Gabby's friends dedicate to her at her roller-rink birthday party, Gabby's grandfather's favorite beverage, and the subject of the puzzle she and Grandad are putting together in the most recent version of chapter one. And so on.

I was relieved to read that this is completely normal for writers like me. Author and head of the literary agency bearing his name, Donald Maass explains it this way in his book Writing 21st Century Fiction:

"Organic and intuitive writers tend to need more drafts, which are often radically different, and may wind up with a manuscript more original and unexpected in its form, but also less tight, sharply focused, or smartly marching." (45)

This is not the revision process I applied to high school or college essays. You know the one -- rearrange a couple of words or sentences, check for punctuation and spelling errors and call it done. No, this revision process feels like mini-earthquakes shifting the ground beneath my writing feet on an almost daily basis. A bit unsettling. And a good sign, I think.

What's taking so long? All of the above and more. For me, this is about more than writing a book. Or becoming a published author. Once again, Donald Maass says it beautifully:

"To write high-impact 21st century fiction, you must start by becoming highly personal. Find your voice, yes, but more than that, challenge yourself to be unafraid, independent, open, aware, and true to your own heart. You must become your most authentic self." (4)

And that, dear readers, is a journey that cannot be rushed.

Life's Little Victories

Each year during the season of Lent, I dedicate myself to creating a new habit or way of being. I find this practice much more powerful and potentially life-changing than the alternative of giving up something (like chocolate or ice cream) that I inevitably go back to when the 40 days of deprivation are up. Besides, no woman -- or writer -- should have to live without chocolate or ice cream, Lent or no.

Inspired by author Kate Messner's keynote address on failure (see Feb 2014 entry) in which she reminded an audience of 1,000+ writers and illustrators (and all around awesome human beings who share the unfortunate tendency of dwelling on their flaws and imperfections) of the importance of pausing to celebrate the little victories in our work and our lives, I made a promise to do just that: celebrate life's little victories at least once every single day.

Now, instead of getting to the end of a day and dwelling on all the things I didn't get done or that didn't go as planned or that went decidedly (or even the slightest bit) badly, I take a moment before bedtime to reflect on what little victory from my day I can celebrate and share it with my Facebook family.

Already, this practice has had a happy side effect. I look for the little victories (consciously) during the day and notice them when they happen. For example, as I write this, I am celebrating that the high, gusty winds of the last 24 hours did not knock out our power or bring a tree down on our house. Admittedly, that one is entirely up to Mother Nature and the power company and other forces beyond my control, but I'm pretty sure Mother Nature doesn't mind a little gratitude every so often when we stop complaining about the winter weather or gloomy skies or unending precipitation (snow, rain, or ice) for long enough to pay her a compliment.

There is plenty of bad, depressing, and otherwise yucky stuff going on in the world, and the media is more than happy to report on it (repeatedly), broadcast pictures (whether or not we care to see them), and generally raise our collective anxiety level to ridiculous heights (without our permission).

So in the spirit of countering the yuck, I encourage you to develop a habit of celebrating your little victories and of sharing them with family, friends, the Twitterverse, or the dog. And we will happily celebrate right along with you.

From the Writer's Confessional

I have a confession to make.

As a fiction writer, I struggle to create detailed characters and settings -- at least in a physical sense. Sometimes I forget that the reader can't see what's in my head as I write -- what the girls seated around the cafeteria table are wearing or what posters are hanging on the wall of the main character's bedroom. And sometimes, I can't see the finer details clearly enough to write them in. Or, if I can, I can't translate those images into words that give the figures who haunt the shadows of my mind life on the page. Yet.

Maybe this is because of something in my creative DNA. Choreographer Twyla Tharp calls it "focal length." In her book The Creative Habit (a staple on my writing reference and inspiration shelf), she proposes that "All of us find comfort in seeing the world either from a great distance, at arm's length, or in close-up." According to her classification system, I am a great-distance person. Or at best, on good days, an arm's-length person.

What does this mean to my writing? It means that the close-up, make-you-feel-like-you're-right-there sensory details don't come easily, or naturally, to me. This is something my critique group finds incredibly (or at least somewhat) annoying, even though they don't put it that way exactly. But they do beg and plead -- persistently -- for more visual and tactile and gustatory and olfactory (love that word) cues so they aren't left guessing.

It means, that at least in early drafts, my characters are doomed to float around in a vast, empty, undefined space. They are stranded in the middle of a big white room or left standing aimlessly in front of a blank green screen. After all, it's hard to tell what kind of sneakers a character is wearing or how she eats an Oreo when you're seeing the fictional world she lives in as a pea-sized blue-green orb floating in a vast universe.

It means silencing my inner critic long enough to get a first draft on paper, knowing that I'll have to work at adding arm's-length and close-up sensory details to future drafts in order to bring the story's fictional world into clear enough focus for my readers to inhabit. Not sure yet if that will happen in draft 2 or draft 92 (Jack Gantos swears he writes everything 100 times), just that it will.

Seems that the great-distance perspective creeps into my real life too, like the way I view the community of professional, published authors. I know it exists, have orbited it for a number of years now, and have even been lucky (or proactive) enough to visit it and get within arm's- (or even pen's-) length at writing conferences and book-signings. But for now it remains an elusive, shadowy world built on shifting sands of creativity, hard work, and inspiration.

For now, I content myself by keeping that distant marbled orb in my sights, knowing that my writing journey is bringing me closer every day. And that one day, I fully intend to inhabit that world just the way my characters will inhabit theirs.

From Failure to Farewell

Still feeling inspired by a weekend spent with my tribe -- the 1,000+ writers and illustrators who gathered in New York City for SCBWI's annual winter conference. The story echoing in my mind this morning is one that award-winning author Kate Messner told in her hugely successful keynote address on the "spectacular power of failure." It went roughly like this [the original anecdote can be found in David Bayles's and Ted Orland's book Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking]:

Two groups of potters were given the following instructions: one group was told they could earn an A by creating just one fantastic pot while the other group was instructed to make as many pots as they could (the more pots, the higher the grade). When the researchers went back and looked at the results, they found that the group instructed to focus on quantity were more likely to have made a high quality pot than the group that tried to make just one work of art.

The lesson? If you want to create art (of any kind), create lots, and you are more likely to succeed. The message for me as a writer? If I want to write something good, I'm going to have to write a lot of bad stuff along the way. Hard news for a perfectionist to swallow.

For the last few years, as I have dived into re-inventing myself as a writer, I have been a potter in the one-pot-of-highest-quality group. Most of my energy has been devoted to writing my first young adult novel. And to show for my efforts, I have, as Anne Lamott would say, a "shitty rough draft" that I am now working to revise. Progress has come in waves. Periods of productivity followed by periods of stuckness. Through it all, I keep writing in my notebook, whatever words come, along with snippets of ideas that may eventually give birth to another novel or story or poem. I keep practicing my craft. Keep reading other writers to learn from their successes.

Lately, the question "What's taking so long?" has become more and more insistent. I used to think it was fear of failure. And then an insatiable drive for perfection that fueled that fear. And it was. But as I listened to Kate Messner talk about her own experiences of failure, I realized that the emotional roots reach even deeper. What slows me down is a wall (or a well, take your pick) of shame. A subconscious but oh-so-powerful avoidance of experiencing or feeling shame. The shame that might come from writing, sharing, posting or publishing something that is less than perfect.

Well, Shame, I write this entry to tell you that I'm not going to let you push me around any more. I know what it's going to take to get to where I want to go. Write. Write lots. Then write even more. Sometimes my aspirations and ambition will outshine my abilities, but that's okay. That's what's supposed to happen. And I will choose not to feel you when it does.

Yes, Shame, I am going to write you right out of existence.