THE TROUBLE WITH SECOND DRAFTS

Rewrites are a good thing. In general, a novel gets better with each rewrite. Often, I read a novel that I feel could have used just one more run-through. When I come upon a scene that’s just a bit implausible or some dialogue that doesn’t ring authentic, I think to myself that the writer would have benefitted with another draft.

There are decisions that get made in rewrites. Usually those involve cutting something, or re-arranging elements of the story: This thing needs to happen sooner, or that bit is just a little too long, or too cute, or maybe it’s too melodramatic. There can be any number of things “wrong” with a portion of a novel. The trouble is the fix.

I usually know on a gut-level when I’ve got a problem in a story. I don’t always have the solution when I start my second draft, but I’ve got those places that need extra work earmarked in my mind. Those trouble spots always slow down the second draft, sometimes considerably.

When I do my first read-through, I mark up my pages mercilessly. I have to have a hard copy to do this, so for me, writing a novel takes reams of paper and numerous ink cartridges. I've got to have those margins, to make my marks, and remarks, and notes to self. I’m like a teacher grading a paper.

Trouble comes with knowing when to cut and when to add. It’s easy to cut out things, and then later say, “I need that first bit back in here,” which is another argument for the must-have hard copy. You will still have hold of the part you cut out if you decide you need to add it back again.

On the computer I keep a desktop folder labeled “CUTS,” and when I'm ready to make changes after my pencil-edit, I save all the deleted scenes, interior monologues, and wordy descriptions into my “CUTS” folder. It’s easy to add them back this way, although frankly, once something gets the chop, I rarely paste it back into the story, at least not in its original form.

Another problem with rewrites is being too close to the story, not being able to ferret out the parts that aren’t working. This is why critique groups are sometimes helpful (although I’ll do another blog post on those at some point). Preferably an editor or an agent can help with this problem, but if you’re a beginning writer, you likely don’t have either one of those. At any rate, there comes a time when you need an outside reader, but just not yet. You need to do a couple more drafts first, unless you know someone you really trust, someone who can see the forest despite the trees. (And if you do know someone like that, lend them to me, please.) I have to get a novel as far as I can get it before I ask anyone for help. After all, nobody knows your story better than you do, and it’s important that you listen to yourself before you listen to someone else. You’ll get so you know when it’s the right time to share your baby.

After my third novel came out, I was asked to attend a reading club meeting of members who had all been assigned my book as their monthly novel. This was an excellent group of intelligent, thoughtful, articulate readers. Good discussion happened, and they weren’t the least intimidated by having “the author” sitting right there among them. It fascinated me to hear everyone’s opinion of my characters, their take on what the theme of the book was, on the story arc and on how they were affected by the ending. It was the last part of the discussion that was the biggest revelation to me. Out of the twenty or so people attending, only three felt the novel ended happily. And I was one of the three! Everyone else came away feeling it had a tragic ending. Oops!

I have always wished I’d taken aim at that ending just one more time. So the reader would come away with the feeling I had intended.

The current novel is halfway through its second draft. There are chapters that are already greatly improved, but there are some that still stump me. I find I have more research to do, even after all the research I have already done. I have a multitude of rough edges to file down. Once I’m finished with this rewrite, I will once again let the manuscript rest for a couple of weeks, before I start the process a third time.

Onward…

THE END -- But Not Really

Two weeks ago, I typed THE END. It was a big deal for me, because I started the current novel seventeen years ago. During that time, more often than not, I believed in my heart I would never finish it, never write fiction again. Since beginning this book, there has been mayhem in the world and personal upheaval, death (a lot of death), divorce, rebuilding, love, loss, sickness, and just a whole lot of living. In other words, one thing and another seemed to take me farther and farther away from the thing I love to do, that I believe I was meant to do, and I just did not think I could ever reconnect with it. But life has finally calmed down again, and I have finally forgiven the publishing industry for not living up to my expectations, a resentment I didn’t even realize I harbored until it was brought to my attention. So when I left my job with the county last fall, I was determined to get back to this book. I told myself that if I never wrote another thing, I wanted to finish it.

About half of it was written. I mistakenly believed I had much more than half, but I had never gone all the way to the end of it, so there was really no way to know exactly what I did have. Along the way, a few people had read some of it – the beginning mainly, which was unexpectedly polished, although it shouldn’t have been unexpected. I had started over – and started over -- time and again, written to a particular point, stopped, gone back to the beginning, started over yet again. When something gets rewritten that many times, it gets polished. I just never could get the story arc straight in my head, or even what it was really going to be about. I had a main character and I had a time period, and that was about it. So when I would get to the hard part, the pivot, I would get stuck. Two weeks ago, when I typed the words THE END, it was like WOW! I had finally worked passed that pivotal middle, put my nose to it, and bulled through to an ending. And it felt … well, it felt just fantastic. I told exactly two people. I wanted to keep it to myself because I knew it wasn’t a real milestone. But it was, at least, the start of one.

Having been down this road a few times before, I know it’s not finished. But it’s huge to get a first draft – a whole, big, start-to-finish first draft. This book is not a thing of beauty yet but I’m hopeful. Like I always told my classes back when I taught workshops – you’ve got to give yourself permission to write badly just to get that first draft DONE. The real writing comes in the rewriting. But first I needed to let it rest, to put it away for a short while, to think about it as a whole, before I even reread it in its entirety for the first time. I have given myself two weeks. Any more than that, I feared might become a month, then two months, then three, and before you knew it, I could be back to procrastination inertia. It’s certainly easier to THINK about a book than it is to actually write one.

So later this morning I’m driving down to the bay house, by myself, to read the thing. To see if it holds together. And if it doesn’t, to see what needs to be done to get it so it does. There’s no internet there. There’s barely television. But there’s a kitchen table, and a dreamy view out the window at Carancahua Bay, at the sunsets, the diving pelicans, all those calming things that I hope will allow me to shut out the noise and hear the voices in the book. I’m so excited that I'm up before dawn, anticipating my own personal writer’s retreat. I hope to come back full of the momentum it will take to wrestle this thing into a real novel.
Onward …

The Longest Four Months

I can’t think of a time in my life when four months have taken longer, except maybe for when I was pregnant, or when I was waiting for my first novel to appear in the bookstores. But aside from those times, the four months between when I tendered my resignation to the County Judge and now have been endless. First there was the search for my replacement. Then there was the pleading for me to stay on long enough to train her. Well, I knew there was no way I could train her in four or five weeks, and sure enough, I have two more weeks to go, and she’s not trained, and really won’t be trained until she has a few elections under her belt. Even then there will be more and more for her to learn. (Are you reading this, Blanca?) It is a challenging job, and I gave it a lot of sweat and tears and worry and thought, and now I’m almost out the door, and the days are creeping by.

When I agreed to stay on, I made a deal to work no more than 27 hours a week, and they are paying me pretty well to do this, but it has only given me a taste of what the days will be like when they belong to me again. I have to work my hours in and not exceed the magic number, 27, so I often go in late in the morning. This allows me some serene time in my yard, drinking coffee, keeping an eye on Sam as he wanders and plays in the gardens, and to read. Oh wonder of wonders, to actually read again. To have time for that and a mind that is free enough to enjoy and comprehend the construction and development involved in writing a good book. I have been devouring books during this time of training, one after the other. Books I’ve saved up for when I had time again, and that is soon to be NOW.

And I’m longing to write. I want to dive in and finish the “Unfinished  Novel,” and start on new projects, too. I want to write articles, I have ideas, so many stories to explore before my mind gets too feeble to do all of this. Gee, I hope that doesn’t happen soon, if it has to happen at all.

I’m reading a wonderful, poignant novel right now by Cathleen Schine, called THEY MAY NOT MEAN TO, BUT THEY DO. It’s about family dynamics, the aging of one generation, the caretaker guilt of another, the coming of age of a third. Very well done. I can hardly put it down, but then, that’s my kind of story, the interaction of people who love one another, why we do the things we do to and for each other.

However, once this job ends, I am well aware that I will have a transition time, and I’m preparing myself for that, to be able to let go. I know my personality, and I’m a control-freak, too detail-oriented, magnetized by any challenge. My replacement will learn to do the job her way, and I will be OK with that, I am OK with it already. It has been good for me in so many ways, this job, and if I had found it at a younger age, before I took the writing leap, I would probably have made it a career. I know I will miss the bi-weekly paycheck. There is something to be said for bi-weekly money, even though I always felt I was sorely underpaid. But I will find a way forward. I almost always have. And I’m confident, and really ready for this long four months to finally end.

Onward….

Between the Flu & the Olympics

My SO left exactly a week ago on a work-trip. I had a list of things I wanted to get done during the ten days he would be gone, articles I wanted to start or finish, returned manuscripts to get back out, the endless novel, as always, my secret cat book. Within two hours of him leaving, I knew I was getting sick. My throat had been sore since the day before, not horribly sore, but naggingly so. By mid-day last Wednesday, it was beginning to feel horribly sore. But I did finish the gardening article. It was mostly finished anyway, just needed another edit. Raced to the post office to get it off, and that was the last of my productivity.

By day two, my list was not getting done, or was getting done in slow-motion. Throat really sore now, chest heavy, head aching like a hammer. By day three, the body aches began. I had run out of all my medications, so I ran to town. Well, drove -- it's 26 miles! I picked up a few groceries while I was there. Good thing, too, because this thing -- this flu -- was about to take me down! Seriously.

I had a date with some friends for Saturday morning. We were going to the Heritage Home Tour they were having in town, tours of 8 different historical homes -- my kind of thing. I had bought the ticket. I was really looking forward to it, wished my SO was here to go, but he would not have liked this as much as me -- just wasn't the sort of historical thing he really likes to do. But alas, twas not to be. I awoke on Saturday morning feeling like a sick, thick, snorty, achy, hoarse blob of raw flesh.

I staggered to the kitchen to make coffee. The HOT coffee might help my scratchy throat. I dug out the Robitussin. I drank it straight from the bottle. I let the dog out but didn't go with her. Hell with it. Let somebody holler. All she would do anyway was go hunt chipmunks by the wood pile. I'd get back to her when I felt less dizzy. I flopped down in the chair with my coffee, turned on the television, which I never do when the SO is not here. The Olympics were on. I stared slack-jawed at the picture. Zombie-like I dialed my neighbors to tell them I would be skipping the Heritage Home Tour. My neighbor didn't recognize my voice. "You sound horrible," she said. "I feel as bad as I sound," I said. I hung up and staggered over to the let the dog back in. She spent the rest of the day out on the deck while I slumped in my lounge chair with my coffee and the Olympics.

I watched every single event that day. And the next day. And the next. By then, completely hooked. I lost my voice, so it was no good going anywhere. My head hurt most of the time. I was so medicated I would fall asleep in my chair and wake up when the cheering crowds on TV alerted me that something wonderful had just happened. I dreamed about Olympic events. I was back in junior high school doing tumbling routines, or trampoline routines. Baton twirling had become an Olympic event, and I was trying desperately to remember the fundamentals. We used to get tested on those fundamentals during try-outs. I worried about being too old for the event. But I did still fit in my twirling outfits, a real dream if there ever was one. It was kind of cool, though, almost like hallucinating but not quite. I'm pretty sure I was really asleep. I woke myself up snoring a couple of times.

So here it is a week later. I'm feeling better but I still can barely talk. I still have a nasty cough, and I tire so easily. My body is telling me to take it easy and I am, with the Olympics, and my new Mac Book Pro. But my list is still sitting here unfinished. And my sweet man will be home on Friday. Wasted alone time -- between the flu and the Olympic Games. But hell, they only come around every two years.

Onward ....

Home Again & Back To Work

So we have been in Denver for a week, at my SO's semi-annual market/convention. This was my eighth time to go with him and what happens is you get into the merchandising mindset, sort of caught up in the hoopla that goes on at these things. And having been an outside salesman myself years ago, I'm familiar with all that goes into these markets, how you have to psyche yourself up for them, and how gung-ho you get while you're there. So, in the spirit of the moment, I signed myself up to sell a line of ladies embellished tops for a company, thinking it would or could be some "gravy money," as my son said when I told him. I  might be needing a little of that, who doesn't, in the upcoming years. So, samples are supposed to arrive in the next few days, and then I guess I will be seeing which stores I can sell these things to -- who knows. It might be fun. Might help pay for the new office I would like to build outside the back door someday.

In the meantime, though, I am committed to getting myself back in the writing frame of mind, setting aside a certain time each day to sit at my desk, as I am right now, and putting some words on the screen. I used to say "words on paper" but those days are waning fast. Re-reading THE PASSION OF DELLIE O'BARR for Kindle conversion has given me the itch to get back to working on that screenplay I started last summer, before all the tragedy and interruptions came along to waylay the whole household.

While we were in Denver, I visited one of the Apple Store there, looking into getting a new laptop, finding out what is compatible with this old one and what is not. I have decided to wait until this one just absolutely conks out before spending all that money. This one still serves most of my purposes and the biggest trouble with it seems to be the slow internet connection I have in the mountains, not the computer itself. Inside the Denver hotel, with their "for-real" high-speed internet, this old laptop worked like a youngster instead of it's true 6-year old self. I like the Appleworks word processing program and don't want to have to learn WORD or PAGES or any of the other newer stuff. So me and Bessie will soldier on together. (Hey, I just gave my laptop her name!)

And speaking of writing time -- don't want to spend it all writing this blog.

Onward ....

2012, Changes

Is that Two Thousand Twelve, or Twenty-Twelve? The second sounds more hip, but the first is most correct.

I've decided to re-start this blog. It's been a peculiar time since I quit. The main thing I'm ready to discuss is the fact that we have moved, lock, stock, and a partial barrel, to the mountains. I have mixed feelings about it, but a big move like this always takes some getting used to. I miss the Buffalo Wallow -- its space, the storage, the huge kitchen, all its conveniences, and the little things like a gazillion exterior electric outlets. I don't miss Cuero, the gas & oil boom, trucks roaring around at all hours, the humidity, the work involved in keeping up that place, the snakes, the bugs, or the stickery plants. I miss my cat, miss him immensely. I think I would be sad there now without him, would constantly be on the lookout for him in his usual spots. I miss the hot tub, sipping wine there and looking at the stars with my darling. I miss my dad. I don't miss the narrow-minded people, or that godforsaken WalMart. I miss having a town the size and convenience of Victoria within 30 minutes. But I never was able to sustain any writing at all during the time we lived there, and I have a new feeling about that here.

We have just come through some hard winter weather, and we're on a steep learning curve when it comes to living where it can snow 15-inches in a single day. The SO has lived with snow before. Yours truly not so much. I'm finding out about layering, snow boots, icy driveways, dripping roofs, slushy roads, and hungry wildlife. We've been putting out alfalfa cubes for the deer, and the bird feeders are constantly being re-filled. I now keep an ice pick on the deck to crack a hole in the birdbath so our feathered friends can have something to drink.

We slogged across the street to a Christmas Party a few weeks ago, dressed up fancy, with snow boots and my party shoes in a bag. Changed shoes on the host's doorstep and stuck my boots with some others behind a porch statuary. Some of the guests were in their stocking feet. One lady had brought her mules from home to change into. Looked kind of funny, everybody dressy with alternate footwear. Then on Christmas Day we slogged the other directions, to a different friend's house for dinner. That time I did the stocking feet thing and was the only one who did. We had a snowman contest. Our Trevor won. We named him Trevor because of the Aussie hat the SO put on his head. He is melting as I write this, has already lost his eyes, nose, mouth, and his buttons. We took off the hat and scarf on New Year's Eve. He is kind of pin-headed now. The four-foot long icicles hanging from the roof melted in the Chinook wind that passed through here over the weekend. We've nothing but sunshine in our forecast. But there is still plenty of icy snow on the ground. The predominate color outside is white.

On a writerly note (and I do intend to blog more about writing from here on), THE PASSION OF DELLIE O'BARR is being converted to Kindle and eBook at the present moment. This process requires that I re-read and edit any mistakes made in the conversion. I'm finding a plethora. But I'm also finding that I really like this book. It's been a long time since I've read it, and it's always been the one I had the most trepidations about, possibly because it was written during the time my mother was dying of cancer. There is a darkness to the book, it's true, but overall it is as good or better than other books I've written. I always wanted to write a screenplay of this story, and even have something like 20 scenes already done. I think once I get this back to the people doing the conversion, I will have a go at continuing with that project. Not so much because I'm hot to try to get something produced, but because it will be fun to revisit this story and to try my hand at a new way of writing. More to come on this, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, I have high hopes that 2012 will be a better year for those people around me whom I love, particularly my SO. I am quite certain that the new year will present its own challenges. We never know the path that life will present to us. Sometimes the turns can be sharp and treacherous. We just have to take extra, special care.

Onward ....

Cozy Field Mice and Daddy's Bad Spill

So, we're back in Texas. It's hot. I expected that. The cat and dog are both depressed about not having their deck to spend the long days. I'm having allergy problems. So is the cat. We did hire someone to come rake up these leaves and haul them off. Getting ready to have the real estate agent out on Thursday, so we're trying to spiffy things up for her. I cleaned the upstairs, packed up two boxes of books I don't want to keep, and uprooted a mouse who was making a nest under the bathroom sink up there. Guess this happens when you leave a house empty for two months. The mice move in. Anyway, my SO set traps, so maybe we will catch this thing tonight. You know the cat is sick or otherwise that mouse would've been history the first day we arrived.

While we were gone, I found out this past Friday, Daddy had a bad fall. It could've been worse, I guess. He could have broken bones. What he did do is rip the skin off his forearm, from his elbow to his wrist. He couldn't staunch the bleeding so he drove himself to the Emergency Room. There were no stitches to be taken but they bandaged him and advised him to report to his doctor on Monday. He did, and for the last four weeks he has been going in three times a day to have silver sulfadiazine burn ointment applied to the wound and a new bandage. I think it scared him enough he's ready to get Life Alert. I had the home health people here send me some information on that service. The most troubling thing about this who incident, at least to me, is that he can't remember what made him fall, and nobody, not even his regular doctor, seemed to think he should be tested for TIAs or something else that could have caused that fall. 


And here we are going forward with plans to put the house on the market and move permanently to New Mexico. It's a hard call but one that makes sense financially as well as logistically. I was thinking today as I cleaned upstairs, that at the other house I would have been done with the entire house in the time it took to clean just that one-third of this house that I managed to maul through. We don't need this large of a house and with this Eagle Ford Shale oil and gas boom, it is hopefully, the right time to sell, too. The only misgivings I have concern Daddy.


Wonder of wonders -- I was writing while we were there. Something new and not ready to be discussed but it felt so good to get lost in words again, even if it was short lived. I think all the reading I was doing there was partly responsible. I tend to forget how inspiring just simply reading books can be for a writer. I also seem to have more time to correspond with writer friends and that also is inspirational, just to talk about writing, like a REAL writer. I had a couple of stimulating telephone conversations as well. 


So it will be August tomorrow, when we get up in the morning. The hottest time of the year. I know I will be ready to get back to the mountains when we leave again in two weeks. I'm already counting the days.


Onward ....

Back at the Cabin

Left Denver yesterday morning about 9:15. Took six long hours to finally get back to the cabin. It was snowing up on Elk Mountain, but in the Valley it was 51 degrees. However once the sun goes behind the mountains, it chills down pretty quickly. I kept a fire going until bedtime.

This morning I put together the shelving unit I bought in Denver. I have the office just about done now, and I really feel that I could write here. Unfortunately, we're leaving in a few days so there won't be time to get anything sustained going, but it's good to feel the urge anyway. I might want to come up here by myself some time soon and just SEE if any writing might happen.

Meanwhile, on the Kindle front -- got the proofs from the people doing the conversion. They scan the book, then turn it into a WORD file. From there they format to Kindle, and the other e-readers. Anyway, I really didn't like it that the final WORD doc has a space between each and every paragraph in the book. I was under the impression that the Kindle version would look just like the hardcover pages, and that spacing bothered me. Primarily, as I tried to explain to the man I've been dealing with, because there are quite a few intentional spaces for time transitions within the text and they don't stand out a bit with all this spacing that has been put in with this conversion. I've requested that they take out all the paragraph spacing and he said that they would, although he didn't sound happy about having to do it. I guess I'm just too picky, don't know. But I figure if I'm paying for it, I want it done right.

Speaking of Kindle, I finished reading the first book I downloaded onto mine - A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by Jennifer Eagan. I had read a review of the book in TIME and it sounded intriguing. The novel was written in a weird, non-linear way that I really liked, almost like a jumble of characters thrown into stand-alone short stories, but that all had connecting threads. These kind of innovative books always make me want to write again. I think it's the endless possibilities, the opportunity to try something new, that always tugs at me.

Last night, since I was here alone, I rewatched "Sixth Sense," that old movie with Bruce Willis and Tony Collette. I had seen it before -- who hadn't? -- but since my SO likes it so much, I thought I should give it a second chance. I did like it more this time than I did the first time. But I still didn't think it was worthy of an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Pluuueeese! Must've been an off year.

The cat was very happy to see me. The dog wasn't as happy to see the cat. They had a little altercation, with the cat dominating, of course. I seem to spend all my time when I'm alone with the two of them, trying to make each of them feel they're special. They are, of course, but they're just so damned jealous.

Onward ....

High on Writing!

This is been a productive week. I have been working on the endless novel. Actually, what I’ve done is printed it out and I have been rereading it. Every day this week, from just after noon until four, I’ve tucked myself away and have thrown myself at the manuscript. It’s been more than three years since I’ve looked at it, and this is my perception so far: 1) It’s pretty darn good. 2) I need a villain. 3) The main character is not as in-focus as the secondary characters. 4) I’m surprised at how much work I had already done, well over 300 pages. And 5) What do you know -- I can write! 

I don’t know what I was expecting, but after the first day, I was really high about it all. Guess I was afraid if I sat down to read it, I would find it was trite and unorganized, or that I would see all the holes in it. But there aren’t many, and I’m delighted to find it’s not at all bad, and can probably be finished in short order if I just put my mind to it, and continue to work faithfully on it. Of course, once it’s done there’s no guarantee anyone will want to publish it, but that’s something I’ll worry about later.

In addition to reading the novel, I’ve also done some other things for my “writing career.” After a few back and forth emails with another writer-friend, I got online and researched getting the two books I have the rights on formatted for electronic readers like Kindle. Since neither one of these books is in digital form, it’s not an easy matter. They would have to be scanned and then converted, so I researched some places where that can be done. It isn’t dirt cheap to do, but I sent an email to one of the places inquiring about total cost. Haven’t heard back yet.

There’s something that bothers me about all this, though. Shouldn’t they be paying me, instead of the other way around? I’ve been paid for every other subsidiary right that was  sold on any of my books. There’s something about this that smells of vanity publishing, and it just isn’t going down my gullet well. I would like to get the books back in print, or circulation, of course, but do I want to do it THIS way? I can’t make up my mind.

I also found my old agent-friend on Facebook. He was once in hot pursuit of me, read the endless novel in an earlier draft, and also a YA I have a few chapters of written. I sent him a little message, just asking if he was still in the business. Might not be the right way to approach this, and I’m so anti-agent right now after my last one, but I figured I have nothing to lose at this point. Another writer friend of mine makes a trip to New York to interview agents when he finds himself without one. I think he’s probably got the right idea about the whole thing. But I’ve never had quite that much self-confidence. Probably that’s the reason I ended up with a crappy agent the last time. There’s just so much ego tied up with this whole business of writing, and I would really like to learn to separate that part. I imagine this is something all writers struggle with, though.

On the home front, my SO’s birthday is coming on the 30th. His son and daughter-in-law will be here this weekend to help us celebrate. I’ve been trying to decide what cake to bake. Probably a German Chocolate. I used to do those pretty well. Don’t know about dinner. I have a special gift to give him, and I’m trying to decide if I should give it while the kids are here, or wait until his actual birthday on Monday. I had a flag flown over the United States Capitol in honor of his father. It was flown on July 6th, and a certificate came from our Congressman with all this stated. Now, that I’ve done it, I’m not sure it’s such a great gift, and will probably find some other something to give on Saturday at any rate. 

Hummingbirds are trickling back. I have four feeders up and I hear them buzzing about when I venture outside, which I do very sparingly. It’s been over 100 degrees all week long! Will this summer never end?

Onward ....

Unfinished Business, or Living in the Moment

Each and every time I turn on my computer, I see all these unfinished projects on my desktop. There’s the endless WWII novel, the YA western, the food memoir, the lost doggie children’s book. And then there are all the ideas in the folder marked “magazine articles.” Have I become one of those wannabe writers now, who wishes to have written rather than having to actually DO the writing? What was it that caused me to lose my fire?

It used to be the purpose of my life, writing. Time was whatever writing project I had going consumed me completely, sleeping and waking. I lived and breathed it. And in some ways, lost my life to it. Now, I just don’t seem willing to give myself up to it with that intensity anymore. I have so many theories about why that is, but none of them seems to be exactly right. Maybe they’re cumulative.

It began after the completion of RIGHT FROM WRONG. I do know that I felt betrayal during the publication of that novel, felt that the publishing business had taken a bad turn on me, hadn’t lived up to what I had hoped it would be. I remember sitting in yet another book store with a pile of books stacked on the table, pens lined up for autographs, and nobody walking through the door. The futility of it crept in a little deeper. I had the thought: Is this all there is to it? All those lonely hours at my desk, sweating over each paragraph, each sentence, each word -- for this? And in such a little while, three months at most, the book would be off the shelves in all but the smallest of independent bookstores. A blip.

Also, life gets in the way. My dad began to grow older and to need me more than before. He had moved closer and those cloistered days of writing began to seem almost selfish with him so close and needing me. My grandson needed his Granna. My youngest son’s marriage began to disintegrate, and then my own marriage sounded its death knells. A whirlwind of change began. A new house, a new life, new friends. I was upset by the changes, by the political climate, by the ongoing war, by the buffoon of a president we had in the White House. I got active. I strung myself out too thin, obliging myself to this cause and that committee. Pretty soon, writing was the farthest thing from my mind. It seemed frivolous to sit down and make up love stories. It no longer interested me.

But I didn’t really stop writing. There were all the book reviews for the newspaper. There were the contests I judged, the monthly newsletter for the local Democrats. There were the journals I filled. And filled. And yes, these bits and pieces of things now sitting on my desktop. None of the writing in these book parts (I almost said body parts) is bad. Writing has become second nature to me, and for the most part, just putting down thoughts on paper (or more correctly on computer monitor) comes easily. I know how to make myself clear. I understand structure and tone. I know how and when I can break grammatical rules and get away with it (like right there!). In fact, I understand so much about writing I can hardly enjoy reading anymore. I’m unforgiving of weak stories, hypercritical of poor endings, always aware of devices and writerly cop-outs. Reading fiction is not as rewarding for me as it once was.

Truth is, I’m having too much fun just living these days. I’m in the moment, to use a cliche. If I self-analyze, I see that writing was my panacea. I realize now that I spent most of my life unfulfilled, under-whelmed by my love life, by the joys of motherhood and wifehood (OK, I’m allowed to make up words, too), and writing was my only outlet. I buried my unhappiness in it, made up more interesting lives than I was leading, more satisfying romances, more beautiful people, more heroic, more passionate scenarios. I played paper dolls.

Now, that no longer seems like enough. Yet any more feels beyond my capabilities. The thought of laying aside my real life to finish a play-pretty one on paper doesn’t interest me anymore. I wake up eager to see what each day holds in store. I love my man, my animals, our place, our travels, our friends, our habits. Nothing bores me more than the thought of sequestering myself away from all of this, mundane though my life might seem to an outsider, to arrange and rearrange words all day. It’s just not there anymore for me. And I really cannot explain it more fully than that.

Have I mentioned the wildflowers? The raccoons in the trap? The tomato blossoms in the garden? The bird’s nest in the baby’s breath hanging basket? The paper whites I transplanted from one bed to another? The gut-wrenching movie we watched on Saturday night? The family reunion or the coconut pie I made? The Christmas party I’m planning? Have I mentioned that we’re so busy we can’t find a free weekend to go see my son in DC this summer? Did I talk about the RV trip we’re taking to New Mexico? Or the long Father’s Day week at the Coast? Or the birthday bash for my SO’s mom? Did I write about the back-to-back luncheons last week or the quick trip to Seguin? See? I’m living too much in the moment to even keep up with this blog properly.

Maybe it’s just a phase -- my “me” phase, or rather “us” phase. I haven’t had a lot of true “us” moments in the last thirty years. I think I’ll go ahead and wallow in this one. I’m pretty sure I’ve only got this one life.

Onward ....

Boots & Shoes

How many pairs of shoes does it take to make a woman happy? That’s the question on my mind today. I’ve been on a spree this week, ordering online, mall shopping, and now am down in the Valley with my SO buying boots. Well, he’s working. I’m the one buying.

He’s a manufacturer’s rep for a boot company that’s located in the Rio Grand Valley, and we’re down here because he needs to stop in at the factory once or twice a year to visit, see what’s in production, what’s in store in the way of advertisement, and because their big trade show in on the horizon in Denver.

While he was working, I went into the retail outlet store at the front of the factory, and found two pairs of boots I couldn’t live without. Then while we were walking through the factory, found another pair I couldn’t live without. The manager measured my foot, and put in the order for me. These are the nicest people you could ever want to meet, always make me feel welcome. In fact, the manager and his wife are actually fans of my LILY novels, so he always asks about what I’m working on.

Truthfully, he seemed less than enthusiastic about my children’s book when I mentioned it, but then the average person doesn’t understand how much time and work a whole big novel takes, and it’s only right that they shouldn’t know or care. It’s the writer’s job to make it look effortless.

I’ve brought the laptop along on this trip, just to see if I can work and play at the same time. Doesn’t seem to be going too well. Last night we had dinner with my aunt and uncle who live down here. I haven’t seen them in a year and the two hours we spent with them flew by in a welter of conversation and laughter. They seemed to have the grandest time telling my SO all about me as a child, which I secretly liked but sort of felt sorry for him, too. But he sat there smiling, looking handsome, and making little comments now and then.

We’re going to spend tonight at the Coast on our way home, sort of break up the trip a little. He’ll get up tomorrow morning and call on some more customers, and I will stay with the dog and try to work some more on the children’s book.

I really wanted to have it done by now, and there’s no reason in the world that I shouldn’t have except that I’ve just been too busy having fun, visiting friends, seeing plays, going to dinner, etc. I am ready to be home for a few days, though. I do better at home, although my office situation is less than optimum. I probably need to figure out some other arrangement. I’ve thought about a small desk for the guest room. I’m not sure yet, and can’t bring myself to completely convert it to a working space, but it’s actually the perfect solution, separated as it is from the rest of the house.

It’s just so hard to retreat into self-imposed exile. But that is absolutely what has to happen if a writer actually hopes to write. Or anyway, it’s what a writer like me, who is so easily distracted, has to do if I want to be productive again. And yet, I think there’s this part of me that feels I have to chose between living a REAL life and writing a PRETEND one, and I balk at that. I don’t want to sequester myself away from the world right now. Do I really have to? I just don’t know the answer to that yet.

Onward....

Writing for Children

My SO read the children's book yesterday, after I had -- I thought -- polished it as much as I could. Everybody needs a first reader and he was interested in what I had done. He knew the story, I've talked about it enough. In fact, I got the idea for it on a trip we took to West Texas back at the beginning of the year. So he read it, I felt, with care. He must've gone through it twice, said it was cute, but he had some problems with the ending. I could tell he didn't "get" some of the things I had tried to make clear, which is always an indication that I haven't done my job well enough. He also raised some questions I assumed a reader would understand from context. So it was a productive read and discussion, and I will incorporate some of the ideas we threw around. Also, I'll see if I can find an effective and succinct way to fix some of the problems, but I have decided to let it sit awhile yet. We're going to the Coast tomorrow, and so it feels like a good time to put the manuscript back in the cooker. When we return in a couple of days, I'll pick it back up and work on it once again.

This is a book for young (preschool) readers, a picture book, and I have so many ideas for illustrations. I wish I could draw. I understand that the publisher most generally choses the illustrator, so I probably won't get much input. But I wonder if the writer is ever consulted for ideas. If the thing is accepted for publication, it will be so much fun to see what an illustrator might do with the story.

One of the things I have read over and over is that a children's picture book should be 32 pages, and that every page should lend itself to an illustration. So yesterday I broke the paragraphs down into logical pages. It easily came to 32, and I think there are tons of illustration opportunities. I'm not usually so enthusiastic about things I've written, but I have really enjoyed this writing project much more than anything I've done in a long while. I'm anxious to finish it and send it off, just to see what might happen. I don't think I'll be crushed if it doesn't find a publisher quickly. I feel like I'm learning something new and I'm liking that a whole lot. After all, I wrote dozens of short stories before I had one accepted, and four novels before LILY found a home.

Meanwhile, the weather has warmed way up again. We're in the upper 70s today and it's muggy. There's a hurricane in the Gulf -- on November 9th! I think that's what has made our weather screwy. I am really ready for winter.

We met the man who owns the high-fence ranch behind us today. He was over at the only other (empty) house around here. The SO saw his pickup and thought we should go check to see who was over there. Turns out the man who owns the high fenced ranch, named Miller, also owns the land that house sits on, and the acerage adjoining our place on the south side as well. We talked to Mrs Miller for most of an hour, found out a lot about the history of ownership on this place, which also was at one time a part of the larger ranch surrounding us. It was surveyed out in the 1990s for the ranch foreman and his family. That man raised dogs on the side, and also shortly after moving in, divorced his wife. Apparently, he got custody of his two sons, and they lived here, the three of them, for a few years, then moved to another ranch, leaving this place to sit vacant. So it's no wonder the place was in such a terrible mess when we took possession. We still have lots of things to do.

The SO planted a new tree this afternoon -- like we need another tree -- but this is a Golden Rain Tree, a sapling from a large tree that he dug up over at his land a few miles from here. I like these trees, too, and we have plenty of oaks. Don't need another. Hopefully, we can keep the lunch bunch from devouring it before it can get a good start.

Onward ....

The Measure of Success

Well, the good news is, I finally put the children's book onto the computer. I write my first drafts in longhand, always have. So by the time my work gets put on the computer, it's already been through two drafts. So now, I have a second draft of the children's book, and it's not nearly as awful as I had imagined it to be. I think there is great value in letting a piece of writing sit. Or cook. Giving it a time out, so to speak.

This book was written right after a trip to West Texas at the beginning of the year. It's been cooking now for about six months. When I first wrote it down, I really had no idea what I was doing. I had never, at least not on purpose, written a children's book. I have had many ideas for one, just never actually tackled the beast. As soon as I had the first handwritten draft, I understood how difficult it is to write a children's book. It's a mistake to think that because it's a short piece it's easy. Short writing is often the hardest kind. In the beginning I was so unhappy with the thing, I just took the pages and stuck them inside the laptop case and forgot about them.

And then I started reading about writing children's books. I made a list of books to read, even though I've done a lot of that already, having raised two children myself, both of whom loved to hear me read books. When reviewing books for the newspaper, I would often get assigned the children's books that came in, so I have done a bit of reading for children. But still, you can never educate yourself too much. So I have a list of books to read, and will do that as soon as we return from the trip we're about to go on to Montana.

I'm actually excited about this book, now that it's gone through it's second draft. There's still work to be done, but I decided Sunday, after I had worked on it all afternoon, that I would not reread it again until we're back from the mountains next week. And yet, I find myself wondering if I still have a few contacts that matter at a couple of publishing houses I've dealt with -- and wondering how to find out about that, too. Things change so quickly, and have changed dramatically since I've had a book published -- any book. But that's putting the cart before the horse, something I've preached against in past workshops. Get the thing written, a final draft, then worry about a publisher.

Why is it that writers, many writers anyway, don't consider any kind of work that doesn't result in a published book to be "real writing?" This puzzles me. It's as if the only measure of success is to have something between hard covers. I am constantly asked when I'm going to have another book published. Answering that question is one of the reason I've sequestered myself away from people and places where books and writing are commonly discussed. Most of the people around me now don't really think of me as a writer, at least not a writer of books, and that's OK. That's actually much more comfortable for me. I feel less pressured, and the outside pressure has been one of the things keeping my writing at bay. And anyway, isn't there real value in just writing for pleasure, maybe for posterity, or even just for yourself?

We are still not done with the roofers. I cannot believe how long it has taken them to re-roof this house. Yesterday I made a list of things they had destroyed along with replacement costs. I intend to present the list to the contractor when he asks for his final payment.

Onward ....

Resonance

Resonance: When something echoes something else and deepens it. Makes it mean something more than it meant at first.

Pondering this morning "the novel," the long-stranded stack of papers asleep somewhere in my office, or in several places in my office -- boxes, wire baskets, file cabinets, on two computers, in my mind, locked in the recesses. I've told myself that the novel was irrelevant to my life now, that I was uninterested in writing a long piece of fiction again, that I had moved on, that writing fiction seemed too mundane, too overly intense, too frivolous in light of world events. Oh, I've given myself lots and lots of excuses. Excuses have always been a forte of mine.

Here are some of the truths: It's hard. It takes more time than I've been willing to give it. More concentration, keeping all those details corraled in my head. I haven't felt I wanted to exit the world long enough to finish a novel, any novel. I'm disappointed with the business end of publishing, don't like the "appearances" a writer has to make, don't like the fact that my hard work isn't mine anymore once a publisher takes it on. It's partly fear of failure, and it's partly being a control freak and not liking when something so personal is taken out of my control. But it's also not knowing how to finish the damned thing.

I've said to myself so many times that it would only take about three months of pure concentration to get the thing done, and that's probably a pretty fair estimate. But there has also been this roadblock, this wondering just what in the hell the thing is REALLY about, feeling it needed that kernel of truth that would make it worth reading, that would make it resonate for any given reader. And not knowing how to give that, if it's even in me to give.

So here I am this morning, before daybreak, reading someone else's work and thinking about resonance, what it means, why it makes a piece of fiction work. It depends, of course, on why a person reads, and I can only speak for myself. But it's the stories that resonate, the ones that stick around, the ones that make me feel I've reached some new level of understanding, and it's this resonance that the "endless novel" doesn't have. Right now, it's pretty much of an exercise in history, of research, of character building, but it doesn't have any deeper meaning, anything that would cause it to especially stick in a reader's mind.

It opens with an unexpected death, and continues with what that death causes the primary character to do, choices he makes, the road he embarks upon, but nowhere is that death, or the propulsion it causes, echoed. Nowhere is there a deepening of meaning, a new understanding. And it has never occurred to me until this morning that it's really this thing that's lacking that has caused this novel to abort and languish.

Should it take ten years for a writer to figure such a simple thing out? No, not one who is focused and I have been completely unfocused for a long time. But just figuring out a way to express what's wrong with the thing doesn't fix it. Pondering the significance of this morning's revelation, there's still the fact that I have to devote real time to it if I ever want to see it to fruition. Think I've been too busy actually living life.

The friend I mentioned a few postings ago, who went into the hospital for knee-replacement surgery and ended up in a coma, has gone home and he is damaged. Everyone is hoping it isn't damage beyond repair, that in time his brain will finally right itself, but he's still confused, barely ambulatory, and maybe more upsetting, he's angry and depressed. My SO and I are driving over this morning later to look after him while his wife goes to the beauty shop. She needs the outing, but both of us are dreading the trip. Up until last night just the SO was going, but I could see how he was longing for me to offer my time, so I did. He jumped on it, and so I will set aside writing once again and help him with his good old friend. And I don't mind this, certainly not the way I probably should. There are times, though, when I do feel superficial, personally unproductive. And more troubling, it would be very easy for me to continue along this path. It's an easy path, it's fun, it's a lot less stressful than making myself vulnerable, which is what any writer does when they decide to open that proverbial vein and lay it all out on paper -- or more appropriately for the times -- the computer screen.

The first real norther is on its way. Windy as hell yesterday, and already gusty this morning as the sun starts to lighten the sky. For some reason we've had an outstanding crop of acorns, and they were pounding the ground yesterday as the wind threshed the limbs of all the oaks. The bed of the pickup was layered with them. They're underfoot wherever you walk. With the serious drought we've had the last two years, so many acorns are a shock, another example of nature assuring its continuance.

Onward ....

Snakes & Scorpions, Sounds Like a Video Game

Two of the drawbacks to living in the country have shown themselves within the last 24 hours. Last night, as I took Lulu out for her final potty, there was a snake curled up on the sidewalk in front of the sliding glass door, just outside the bedroom. I recognized it immediately as a copperhead. We've killed six this year, but they have all been small, babies actually. The SO has said many times that the mama and papa were somewhere around, too, we just had not happened upon either of them. Well, Lulu and I had the unpleasant experience last night of finding one of the parents, curled and ready to strike. I never jumped so fast and high through a sliding door as I did right then. Lulu came pretty quick, too, although I'm not really certain she saw the snake as much as she thought it was playtime. I guess I must've come in screeching, because my SO sprang out of the bathroom, asking what happened. As soon as he heard the word "snake" he went in search of a weapon, came back with a broom. Seemed like a paltry little weapon against the deadly snake outside. But he managed to beat the thing to death.

Now, I'm sure there are those who would lament the passing of the snake. And I'm just as sure that the snake didn't have it in his/her mind to scare the bejesus out of me, or probably to even bite me unless I stepped on him/her/it. But I really don't care about any of that; when it comes to snakes I sincerely believe in the adage, "the only good snake is a dead snake." I liked him much better gone. We measured him later. He was 27 inches which is almost a record. The longest copperhead either of us had heard of was 30 inches.

A second drawback to country life appeared this morning in the bathroom, just as the SO was drying off from his shower. It was about two inches long, tan, with a prehistoric looking body, and a long stinging tail that was arched up and in position to defend itself from the enemy -- the SO, who promptly smashed the scorpion with his house shoe. Enemy indeed. This was scorpion number 12.

We have been here fourteen months. Both of us love the peace and solitude, the birds singing in the morning, the deer coming to the little corn feeder at dusk. We love sitting in the hot tub on the back patio, looking up through the silhouette of tree limbs at the star-studded sky, and at the moon rising over the rooftop. I still get a chuckle over the gaggle of lanky turkey jakes that greeted me one morning last spring, and even at the armadillo who comes out in the night to dig up my flowerbeds. But I don't love the snakes or the scorpions. Those I could definitely live without -- forever.

Turns out the Viewpoints editor at the local paper actually DOES want my piece. For some reason when I sent it, right before we left for the mountains, the email went into the newspaper's SPAM folder. I queried him again this morning and he found it there. He said he really likes it, feels it's timely and interesting, but he wants me to cut 400 words. Which is a lot. And I had so thought I had already ground it down to the bone, had a tight, fast-paced article. I told him I would do the editing tonight and send it again, all trim and neat, in the morning. Guess I better get to work on that.

Onward ...

Home Sweet Home

What is it about home that feels so wonderful? I'm just back from a long week, by that I mean more than 7 days, away from home, and the places I went were by far mostly much more beautiful and interesting than this place where I live. Still, last night there was just this huge "ah" as I stepped into the mud room and turned on the lights. This is where I can relax, take a nap, hug my kitty, make a mess or clean one up, whatever suits my fancy.

Coming up the driveway, the most obvious thing was how high the grass had grown. We had rain. Yea! Need so much more, but grateful for what fell. My SO said, "I'm going to have to get on the tractor tomorrow." So I know what we'll be doing today. He will mow the front acres, and at the same time, I'll get on the riding lawn mower to do the area around the house. We have three acres, and it's sometimes an awful lot to keep neat. The house needs cleaning. It got dusty with nobody here but the cat here. And I'm sure the bird feeders are all empty, probably have some pot plants that are dry -- the ones that sit under the eaves out of the rain. So it will be a busy day, and yet, I am so anxious to get at it I am up before dawn, just waiting for the first light to arrive so I can go see how everything out there fared.

And as I sit and wait, it occurs to me that there is just something special about home. Even though I love to travel, to see new places, the way other people do things and live, there is still nothing finer than ones own piece of the world. Mine is admittedly less lovely than the mountains I've been in the last week, but it's my nest and I'm happiest here.

I have yet to hear from the opinion page editor at the paper. Had the laptop with me the whole time I was gone, and he never emailed or responded to the last one I sent to him. It's Saturday so I know I can't reach him today, but will call first thing Monday to see if he wants to publish the damned thing. If not, or if I don't get some kind of satisfactory answer, I will simply pull it to send elsewhere. At the very least our little rural paper would probably be delighted to have something different, maybe even a bit controversial, to publish in their weekly. But of course, my aspirations are higher. They always are.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about cleaning my files, looking through some of those old, unfinished short stories. One in particular has been picking at me lately. Does it take twenty years to finally figure out what a story is about? Maybe. I still find the workings of the mind to be infinitely fascinating. Even if it's my own.

Onward ....