Just Pick A Direction

I've been working on The Pirate's Bride at all hours of the day and night, mostly 'cuz I can't seem to sleep normal hours.

I've also been working on the synopsis for The Long Black Veil... which is to say, I have a synopsis already, I'm just not sure it's quite right, so I'm rewriting it.

And of course, I've been working on the query letter, too. We sent one, but if we hear nothing (as we've done so far... I know, not quite a week, but I'm impatient), then I'll feel compelled to tweak it before we send the next one.

And now I'm working on the screenplay of LBV. Again, I have one written, but I made at least 50 edits so far in just the first 15 pages.

All of which is to say that I'm working, I'm just not sure I'm making an progress.

I think I might need to get out more... just maybe not at 4 AM.

Doong Sa... Do Not Be Afraid

If you're a John Irving fan, you may recognize that "Doong Sa" is Vietnamese for the second half of this post-title: "Do not be afraid". I assume John got it right; I never checked beause he used the phrase so effectively in A Prayer for Owen Meany that if he did get it wrong, I don't want to know.

Fear is a subject with which I'm intimately acquainted. Blame it on parents with overactive imaginations, or blame it on my own. Chalk it up to pride, of which I have a wide streak. Attribute it to the chaotic world in which we live, where fear is sometimes considered a gift.

The fears I wrestle with most these days have to do with failure. It's the what ifs -- you know them -- what if it's not good enough? What if we never get it sold? What if I'm just a two-bit hack who doesn't write as well as that [insert derogatory comment & expletive here] Diablo Cody? (I hated Juno. Hated it. On multiple levels. And that was before I knew that woman got her start writing a raunchy blog. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I guess, but writers don't get taken seriously as it is. She's not helping.)

But I started this blog to hold myself accountable, so it's time to face my fears. We sent out our first query letter in three years on Wednesday, January 21, 2009. I wasn't going to say anything here, because almost all query letters end in rejection and getting rejected publicly is supposed to be humiliating, right?

Forget that. Instead, I'm going to take advice from -- of all people -- Bob Dylan, who said: "...Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most."

So... no more silence. I'll post about the silence of the agents we contact, if that's all we hear from them. And I'll post about the form letters and the no thank yous and the please send some more followed by more silences if that's what we get. Why not?

Doong sa... do not be afraid.

Hope

Where Friendly Paths Intersect...Looks Like Home for a Time

That's Hermann Hesse paraphrased in the title of this post, just to give the author his due...

I've been thinking about home quite a bit lately. The one I came from, the one I went to, the one I have now.

The North Country haunts me; how could it not? The setting of The Long Black Veil reveals some of my ambiguity about where I grew up, though in the end, the fictional town (Ballantyne) is truly a composite of many towns small and large that institutionalize a quiet racism while pretending morality.

The setting for The Pirate's Bride is even further north, and colder, its desolation as much a part of the tale as the characters. That bleak winter landscape leaves its mark on the people who live there and who have witnessed its unique frozen beauty. It's a fascinating hell.

And though I lived there for eight endless years, it's highly unlikely that I would ever set a story in Oklahoma. I'm sure many people feel at home there, but I never did. The lessons I learned there brought me back East, though, so I am grateful for the knowledge gained.

Maybe someday I'll write about where I live now, though this place does not entirely feel like home either. Maybe I'll never have a true home, except perhaps in the pages of my stories. Or maybe home is less about place and more about a person in whom we find peace and understanding. My husband has given me that.

And maybe that's enough.

Happy Little Planner

Here is how you know when you have too much time on your hands: you start planning your Valentine's Day surprise for your significant other more than a month before the date of the overrated and largely pointless pseudo-holiday.

And it's not as if I don't have anything else to do, between painting the upstairs, going through our accumulated years of crap in the attic & basement, writing The Pirate's Bride, and trying to work up both my nerve & a good query letter for The Long Black Veil -- not to mention the usual maintenance of running a house & prepping it for an additional person/sale/or both. But I like to plan things way ahead of time.

Which reminds me -- we're throwing a costume party for our friends (and my 39th birthday) in October of 2010. Start planning your get-ups, kids -- no time like the present.

It's the End of the World As We Know It (...And I Feel Fine)

The History Channel is running a docudrama on Nostradamus and the end of the world in 2012 as predicted by repeated mentions of the Maya culture & their astronomical prowess and Nostradamus' name. Wow. Based on this show, I will not be flying anywhere in December 2012.

However, since we've got a couple years left, I guess I'll try to finish The Pirate's Bride and maybe finish painting the upstairs hallway.

At least now I have a deadline. Thanks, Nostra! (Can I call you Nostra?)

The Universe Works in Mysterious Ways

Three years ago today, I met for the second time the man who became my husband on October 6, 2007. At the time, our situations were complicated, and while I still wish that our beginning had come at no cost to anyone else, I wouldn't change the outcome. I never believed I could love someone as much as I love William. He is everything I wished for in a friend and partner, and I am so grateful to God and/or whomever/whatever else brought us together.

And I know now the Universe does listen to our most heartfelt requests. About 3 months before we met at a party in New Orleans that second time, I posted the following to a blog I used to write:

25 October 2005
Ask and... Well, Who Knows? Anything Might Happen

Wanted: 1 adult male (no children masquerading in an adult’s body). Age range: 28-50 (ish). Looks/race/religion not that important, and excessive vanity discouraged: no hair longer than mine (mid-back), and no one with more facial/skin/body products than I have (a good bit of wiggle room there.)

Must have: intelligence & common sense; a sense of humor; a job (no pimps or dealers); some financial responsibility (ie don’t borrow money on a weekly basis); some social responsibility (no litterbugs); some faith in something (your choice as to what); respect for (but not necessarily agreement with) my opinions; a liking (or at least tolerance) for cats & family; ability to entertain self while I’m writing; general understanding that all good things come from moderation.

Would prefer: kindness & patience; quick but gentle wit; someone not easily embarrassed (I am so easily embarrassed); talented hands; a good debater but reluctant arguer; an artistic soul; an appreciator of books & music; a good dancer; electrical and/or carpentry skills; a calm, pleasant voice; panache & gallantry.

Must like: quiet (at least sometimes); New Orleans; women only; monogamous sex

Must not: pursue strange or kinky sexual gratification; believe self or any family member is Messiah/Napoleon/Dracula/victim of alien kidnapping/a rock star (unless self or they actually are any of the above); consider fists/feet/additional weapons as the final arbiter to any argument; find constantly undermining others a sport/life calling

Dealbreakers: smoking, serious drugs, excessive drinking/gambling/other addictions; violence; serious lying; failure to support my writing (emotionally, not financially)

In exchange, I offer: reasonable intelligence; strong verbal, editing & writing skills; a willingness to fight fair; amazing massages; keen insight (usually); an appreciation for history/film/gallows humor/politics/Ireland/exercise/beauty; style & flair (at least I think so); some cooking ability; love, valor, compassion; a healthy distaste for real-life relationship drama; good legs & large breasts; warmth; stamina (when interested in task); charm; passion; loyalty; determined innocence; home ownership; occasional insanity & moments of despair; impatience for dithering; good phone voice; faith; hope; color & light Undecided on: marriage; children; place where I want to settle down. Convince me. References available upon request. References required. Serious candidates only need apply.

With the exception of electrical & carpentry skills, he's got it all, because even though he says he can't dance, I sure love to dance with him.

Christmas Wrapping

It must be Einstein's Theory of Relativity: I can spend 8 or 9 hours staring at a blank screen and it seems like an eternity, but 11 days can pass without me even realizing it. Spending Christmas in NYC with good friends did make for an extremely pleasant passage, though, so it was worth it.

From Queens to Gandhi to the Empire State Building, from John's pizza to Grand Central to Times Square to Grand Szechuan to Teany's to Chinatown, from the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the New Venus diner to Equus to Rockefeller Center to the Malibu Diner, and finally from Penn Station once again, NYC and our friends offered a perfect respite from our first Christmas without our mom. If there were moments of melancholy, given the circumstances, they were both fitting and necessary.

And now, on to the New Year...

I Think I'll Keep My Day... uh...Occupation

A friend of mine writes an exceptional recipe blog that makes meal prep sound almost fun and worthwhile. I personally despise cooking, though I am the chief planner & executioner of this chore in my house (with lots of sous chef assistance from my husband and some salad prep by sis).

Perhaps the bread I recently tried to make sensed my ambivalence. As it oozed across the floured pan like a horror-film escapee, I made an executive decision to toss it out, because though I followed the recipe and even set the bowl on the stove -- ostensibly the warmest place in the house -- for 18 hours, I think the house is too cold to get the dough to set up.

I suppose I could turn up the heat from 67 to 70 degrees... but I don't really need a $350 loaf of bread, which is what would happen from the increase in our utility bill.

Guess I'll try making this again in the summer.

In other news, the writing is going well. Not counting pages these days, but conceptual progress. Harder to quantify but probably more important.

I'm Dreaming...

of peace and quiet.

And inspiration.

Maybe some will come tomorrow.

Careering From Career to Career

Suddenly everywhere I go, the question du jour seems to be, "What do you do?"

Not an unreasonable query, but I'm finding it difficult to answer without a lengthy explanation. Can I say I'm a writer if I haven't been paid for my fiction (even if I have been a paid for writing for other people in various past jobs)? I'm a little uncomfortable with that. I am a writer, and I do write, but in the U.S., when we say "do" we mean "get paid for right now".

Sometimes I say I'm retired. However, at my age, that answer garners disbelief and a dogged repetition of the question.

I'm thinking of saying I'm a professional alcoholic. Don't want to offend anyone, though.

I've considered saying I'm a telecommuting fluffer, since my husband recently told me what that means. However, not everyone may get the joke, and I don't want to give the wrong impression. (Ummm, come to think of it, I may have already given the wrong impression... I swear, I'm only kidding!)

I've also considered saying "I'm a stay-at-home". People will no doubt supply the "mom" that usually completes the phrase, and that's a bit of a fib too. I'm mother only to my animals, and not always a great mom to them.

Maybe I'll just say I'm on a Gibson Writing Fellowship. Those that know my hubby will get it. Those that don't may be suitably impressed.

The Lure of Spider Solitaire

If the first book was written in between taking phone calls and making copies, the second one seems to owe a debt to Spider Solitaire.

Play two hands, write a sentence. Play a couple more, write a word. Play a couple more...

You get the picture.

I didn't know you could make a career out of playing computer card games at home -- oh, wait, that's not the career I was going for.

And yet, I've managed to break through the block this week. I can't say it's going fast, but at least it's going.

Weekly Wrap-up

If I were my boss, I would probably write me up this week for failing to perform up to my abilities. I've been distractable, unpunctual, and largely unproductive.

What I did get done: typed, edited, printed and mailed a 50-page biography of a family member for a Christmas present per request. This did not require much of a re-write, per se; mostly it involved checking the grammar & spelling and reorganizing a few thoughts for a more linear presentation.

Two pages of The Pirate's Bride. That may not seem like much, but considering how stuck I was feeling last Monday, it feels great to me.

The opening scene (two pages) for the screenplay of The Long Black Veil. We had a different opening altogether when we first wrote this way back when, so I finally updated it to reflect the book's opening. It's been awhile since I worked on a screenplay, so this was both interesting and kind of productive.

One page of the newest screenplay, tentatively titled The Season of the Witch. I had a vision for how I wanted this to go, but frankly, I don't think I captured it yet. Still, it's a start.

Other stuff: played lots of spider solitaire, spent time with my husband and sister, put up plastic on several windows to cut the drafts down a bit in my old house, came up with several Christmas present ideas, provided support to my dad (whose wife is extremely ill), took care of a sick kitty, cooked a bunch of meals, did a lot of laundry, and let the guys in to fix the elliptical.

What I didn't do that I said I would do: send out query letters to agents. For whatever inexplicable reason, I just don't think it's the right time yet. William, Jeannine and I will look over the query letter again before the year is out and make sure it's saying all it needs to say. I am going to bow to my instincts and wait a little longer.

Okay... time to round 'em up and head 'em out. I guess I'll just give myself a warning for now that I better show a little more initiative in the week to come...

Old Wounds

Maybe this is why I write: because when you create the world, you can control what happens in it. Like everybody else, I am endlessly discovering all the things over which I have no control. I couldn't save my mother -- not that in the end she wanted to be saved, but still, I really tried. And I still can't change the past.

I can't escape it, either. I volunteered to do a good thing for someone with whom I don't have a close relationship, but who is dear to someone dear to me. In doing so, I was presented with a perspective on an event that happened almost 20 years ago -- and yet it still has the power to piss me off, and not just for me, but for my mother and sister, too. Doesn't this stuff ever go away?

Maybe that's why I still think F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby has the best ending I've ever read:

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes befores us. It eludes us then, but that is no matter -- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther, and one fine morning...

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

A Plague on My House (unlike mccain i only have one)

Argh... bad, bad week for writing. Started out with sciatica (or so I suspect due to the pain in my left lower back & the occasional shooting pains down my left leg -- who needs an MD???). Then bad got worse when I ended up with a suspected case of food poisoning on Tuesday evening/Wednesday all day/into Thursday.

So much for the Thanksgiving plan to go out and eat Indian food. We had frozen pizza at home in our jammies.

Wahoo.

But I am grateful to be on the mend.

Oh, yah, you betcha.

The Birthing Process

One great joy (for me) in writing is finding a new story idea. When the idea comes from my sister and frequent writing partner, Jeannine, it is the greatest of joys. No one knows me as well or bounces ideas around with me better (with the exception of my husband, but we don't usually write fiction together, so it's okay).

Recently, Jeannine brought a possible new screenplay to me; in the past week, we've roughed out the setting (era & place), the 3 main characters, a sense of the throughline (or at least the point of the story), a couple of prime scenes, and a sense of the ending. We're starting to know our main character just by talking about her: why is she in the story, what's her emotional stake, how does she accomplish her intentions, where does she want to go?

This is the best time -- nothing down on paper yet, but we've planted the seed.

Milestone and Rule #1

Actually wrote several pages today, in between letting the cat down cellar at 6 AM, the dog out to potty at 7:40AM -- first time for him with snow on the ground, and he doesn't know what to think -- and fighting with the drain in the tub for 2 hours.

That's 2 whole hours trying every trick known to womankind, from easing plastic tubing down the narrow pipe to the vinegar & baking soda bubbling trick to pouring boiling hot water & dish soap down it trying to get the works to drain properly... only to discover that somehow someone had accidentally hit the plug dealie so that it was halfway closed. Since the stopper is inside the drain and therefore invisible to the naked eye, it didn't occur to me to check that first. Aargh! But at least I didn't have to call a plumber.

Since this is a training week, I'm not terribly concerned about the slow-going, but it occurs to me that some milestones and rules might be in order to keep things on a more progressive track. So:

Milestone #1: Starting in December (no point pre-Thanksgiving, trust me), send out 6 queries a month to agents to try to get representation for The Long Black Veil. Send on Wednesdays; they make good administrative task days.

Rule #1: If more than 30 minutes passes staring at a blank page, work on something else. For example, if nothing's moving along with The Pirate's Bride, I'll work on the screenplay for "The Long Black Veil", or perhaps the screenplay for "Slide". Momentum breeds momentum.

That's all for today's progress report. Time for bed.

A Quick Search for Inspiration

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it. ~ Leo Rosten

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. ~ Robert Heinlein

You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair... You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page. ~ Stephen King

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~ Anton Chekhov

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. ~ Gene Fowler

One ought only to write when one leaves a piece of one's own flesh in the inkpot, each time one dips one's pen. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Books want to be born: I never make them. They come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such. ~ Samuel Butler

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. ~ Toni Morrison

The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen

Here's a happy little late night thought: my mother will never read the book I'm writing now.

I don't think she even read the bits I had started for this one over 3 years ago.

What the hell am I supposed to do with that?

One Week Gone...

So, I have not gotten a ton of writing done this week, but I feel as though I have adjusted my attitude -- and sometimes that can be more beneficial for going forward than generating a bunch of mediocre work. (Quality, not quantity.)

I'm starting to believe writing full-time may actually be the right thing for me. Even though the economy is tanking, I've given up a decent paying job, and our debt load hasn't changed much, I still feel better than I have in years. And it's not just because I don't have to answer to a supervisor; I still have to answer to myself, and I'd take bets that I'm a much harsher task master than any supervisor I've worked with. I've had some good ones, and they weren't half so exacting.

This week was orientation. Next week is training. Then the real work begins...