Dull Drums

I confess. I’ve been in the dull drums for months (yes, I intended to say dull drums, not doldrums). Feeling dull, my drums gone quiet. I’ve been pacing the house or sitting watching TV. Feeling old. Tired. Not in the mood for anything, even murder mysteries on the boob tube couldn’t hold my full attention. I was getting sick of myself. I did shower, and cook, and grocery shop, but beyond that I just wasn’t happy. Maybe “depressed” fits. Maybe it doesn’t.

My next novel, A Bird in the House, was sitting in the computer. Waiting. I thought about it often. What happens next? Who does what to whom? Couldn’t make up my mind. Too many pieces. Too complicated. Too hard.

One day I decided to clean a closet. There was a huge plastic garbage bag filled with fabric scraps that hadn’t been touched in at least fifteen years. It was a jumble of little squares, tangles of frayed thread, and odd bigger chunks of cotton cloth. I pulled the bag out and started sorting by colors. All the greens went into a zip-lock bag. All the beiges went into another. Eventually I had sorted all the scraps into their own little color coordinated homes. Bags of colors filled two wicker baskets. 

That was months ago. 

Recently, I cleaned out another closet. I discovered 18 inch squares of pieced together red and purple fabric that had been centerpieces for a dinner I organized eighteen years ago. Memories of that dinner aren’t happy, but the pieced squares were nice. I spread the nine squares out, side by side on my bed. If I added few more pieces (sixteen), it would be a whole quilt.

I moved the sewing machine into the room where I write and loaded it with red thread. For the past two weeks I’ve been buying more fabric and sewing my silly head off. No TV in the daytime. 

Three days ago I opened the laptop and read some of the novel.  I read pieces of story, events not fully sewn. I found lines that needed to be cleaner, straighter, more to the point. Dark sections needed more humor. Purple needs red. Short sentences need long ones to avoid boredom. Fabric combined in little squares and big chunks is more interesting. Words are little squares. Paragraphs are pieced together blocks. And what about transitions, how should I connect the pieces or paragraphs to create flow.

Yesterday, in the middle of quilting mayhem, the novel got 900 new words. Today I wrote another 800. Life is good. 

This afternoon, I have work to do. I have another idea for the quilt. One craft feeds the other.

The Doing of It

The novel’s written, the launch party’s over...so now what do I do with myself?

For weeks when John left the house each day to see clients or work in his “office” at Panera, I wanted to say, “Don’t leave. I don’t know what to do with myself.” I didn’t say it.

He left.

And then here I was pacing the house. I couldn’t clean. Cleaning takes concentration. I thought about putting things in piles—donate, sell, keep. Pare down. Get my life and this house in order. I’d pick up an old box of some cleaning product, and I’d think, “I should take this to the recycling center where they could properly dispose of it.” And then I’d put it back in the same spot. 

It was too quiet. I watched TV. I ate things.

I was exhausted. I had pains. Maybe my arteries were clogging? Maybe I was catching John’s heart problem? I went to the doctor. I was healthy as a horse. But why is health equated with horses? 

I reread Intentional and discovered some formatting errors. Imperfection. Aargh! Revisions would mean getting a new ISBN number, a new bar code. Resubmitting, fussing with the cover, redoing the Kindle and Smashwords versions. Would it mean a new Library of Congress number too? Just thinking about it made me feel even more exhausted.

The thing is, I was suffering from post book depression. Maybe it should be called Post Bookum Depression. It happens. When you're finishing a big creative project (or maybe any big project) there are frantic, final, all consuming finishing touches. When all the tasks are done, you’re wiped out. 

It’s over. Now what?

This isn’t to say that the month since the book launch has been all bad. Many people sent emails or even cards saying they liked my novel. And on March 11th, I got an email from Kirkus Reviews saying:

Your review for "Intentional" was selected by our Indie Editors to be featured in Kirkus Reviews 3/1 Issue. Congratulations! Your review appeared as one of the 20 reviews in the Indie section of the magazine which is sent out to over 5,000 industry professionals (librarians, publishers, agents, etc.) Less than 10% of our Indie reviews are chosen for this, so it's a great honor. You can view the 3/1 issue here: 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/02r3p9urpffgckd/Kirkus_Online_030115.pdf?dl=0 

And that was wonderful. But I was still in a funk.

Then yesterday I went into the room where I write. I’ve heard that sitting too much isn’t good for you, and I’ve been sitting too much. So I piled some things up and arranged my laptop at elbow height. I would stand at least part of the time to write the next novel.

I stood there reading over the first few chapters of A Bird in the House, which I’d started months ago when Intentional was off at the copyeditor’s. Then I wrote the gist of each chapter on post-it notes, so I could rearrange them on my white board, clarifying the order of events, and hopefully stop confusing myself.

Bird

I looked out the window and there was a shockingly red cardinal in the oak tree. All the chapters in the new book start with a bird quote or fact. Cardinal? Yes! Chapter 4 would be titled, “Cardinal Sin”. 

I started writing the new chapter. A sentence. Another sentence, and then it happened...words appeared on the computer screen that I hadn’t planned. This was it. The fun part! 

The funk lifted. It was my best day in a month. 

The best part isn't the party. It’s not the wine and hugs. It’s not the compliments on a job well done, although those are all very wonderful. 

The very best part is the doing of it.

Being Steven King

So you’re a creative person who likes to make things with words or paint. You’re also a nice person, or anyway, you usually think you are. There are love stories in you, flower petals to paint, and poems to your new baby or grandchild. You make pretty art; you paint sweet words; you kiss butterflies on the nose.

Then again...

What if you’re a nice person who also wants to cover a canvas in thick black paint, or fill it with naked bodies writhing in erotic passion? Can you allow yourself? What will people think? What if, in the story you’re writing, the bad guy—or worse, the good guy—licks the spit-up off the baby’s face. Ick. That's totally gross.

What if what comes out of your keyboard is unintentionally mean, revengie, and/or disgusting? Or worse...what if it’s sappy, stupid, preachy, or boring. What if it’s bad and you’re humiliated for life?

But what if it’s good and no one sees it?

Insecurity is having a party in my head, self-questioning is dancing a polka, doubt is twerking it’s fat butt at me. I just finished a final—I can’t say “the final”—revision of my novel about a suicide and what happens to the survivors, and I’m trying to be brave.

You can be creative without being brave. Your can hide your manuscript in a drawer or in a file folder on the computer, your drawings can be held captive in the closet. If you never expose your work, no one can judge you.

When Steven King writes one of his scary novels do you think he worries about whether anyone thinks he’s nice (which I’ve read, he is). He just does what he does, and then has a few trusted friends read it before going seriously public. 

So the first step after writing the book (which is really the first step) is imposing your masterpiece on some of your friends. 

The reviews of my novel (if graphed) would look like bad teeth.

• Barbara, John, Ann, and Joy all said they liked it. Were they being nice, or did they really like it? Maybe I should ask them again?
• Pat hated it (but loves me), and emailed, “I thought the characters were too black and white. Lacking nuances.” She was disappointed not to see the sly humor of my blog, which—since I’ve been working on novels—has been neglected. (The sly humor and the blog.)
• Carol wrote, “So intelligent and perceptive—a flowing, delightful writing style. The characters were very real.”
• Kristen, my environmentalist granddaughter, loved it and interspersed the manuscript with post-its of “Fun Facts,” most of which I added.
• Louise read two pages and returned it, she didn’t have time then, but never asked for it back.
• Jim DeLorey, who wrote an exciting thriller, Scream Cruise, took the time to write pages of valuable positive and negative comments. 
• Ed, retired professor of literature, had some helpful suggestions, but, bottom line, he said it deserved to be published. 
• My daughter, Sue, liked it, and I know she always tells me what she really thinks. 
• Bonnie said, “Ehh.” 
• Colette thought I should write a sequel. 
• Mary Cay said she liked it so much that she read it twice.
• Alison said, “The way you interwove the environmental issues felt very much like what Barbara Kingsolver does in her work, and I thought you did it equally well.” I immediately reread Flight Patterns. Alison’s comment was a stretch, but fun to hear, especially since I’m a fan of Kingsolver.

Most of these folks (likers and dislikers alike) had suggestions—excellent, helpful, and wise. 

Then five agents rejected the book.

After six months, with only an auto response saying they got it—the agent I was most hoping to work with—emailed, “We would be pleased to consider your manuscript, INTENTIONAL, for possible representation.” 

Woo Hoo! Yippee! Yay! Can you believe!

Nine weeks later—NINE WEEKS LATER!—that agent sent a rejection email, a nice one, but still a rejection. Six months plus nine weeks, that’s a lot of waiting time, and I’m aging quickly.

Friends say, “Hey, listen, five rejections is nothing. You know how many times Harry Potter was rejected?” The reassuring legend grows; the last I heard J.K. Rowling was rejected twenty-seven times.

Steven King is, from what I’ve read, a nice person, a gifted literary writer who writes terror in black paint. “Carrie” was rejected ten times.

But I’ve decided I’ve had enough rejection. Years ago self-publishing was a huge no-no, but times have changed. I’m going to be brave. I want people to read me. If they like me, great, if not, that’s okay too.

Two weeks ago I sent my book to a professional copyeditor. I should have it back in early December. Then, after more editing by me, and more fussing with my cover design, hopefully, by January (two and a half years since I began) it’ll be a real book. 

PS. Some names have been changed to protect the innocent (my much appreciated readers). I want to be able to ask them to read the next one.

2012 CLOG

How did this happen? It's just twelve days until Santa. The pundits on Fox are all in a dither over the atheists and Liberals stealing Christmas. Huh? I want to know who stole Thanksgiving. Oh, right, it was Macy's and Kohl's and Target and all the baa humbug retailers putting Christmas shopping before the turkey.

I also want to know why my life is going by so fast. I heard it has something to do with the speed of light. Believe me, friends, I'm not getting any lighter. All kidding aside, I feel like it shouldn't even be November yet and it's the middle of December. How can this be? They say, time flies when you're having fun. I must be having a blast.

Do you get Christmas letters? I like them, basically because I'm a nosey person. I really want to know that Trudy's aunt Dorothy had her gall bladder out, and that the whole family went to Frankenmuth for chicken dinner. All good stuff. 

Since I haven't written any blog entries for MONTHS, I thought I'd send you a Christmas letter blog. We'll call it a Clog.

Here goes...
You may remember that I wrote a memoir last year. It's okay if you don't remember, It was pretty bad. But I liked the writing—the act of it. Since June I've been making up stuff. I'm writing a novel. This is incredibly fun. I'm getting old and in the process of getting old, I've had the good fortune and bad fortune to see and feel and hear a whole lot of interesting tidbits. So now I wake up early with people who don't really exist—Fred and Lily and Grace and Robert and Christina—filling my head. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited, I can't wait to get to the computer and write it down. But when I start writing these made-up people have their own ideas about what happens next. They have overtaken me. Seriously.

When I'm at the grocery store, or separating whites from darks, or watching Rachel Maddow, Fred will say something and Robert will reply. Whispering here...they aren't really real. I am possessed.

For my concerned friends, who think I should be painting, Fred and Lily and Grace and Robert and Christina won't let me. Sorry. They own me.

Other than that, we spent most of October gone. Airlines and car rental people love us. We drove down to Atlanta for a weekend in the beginning of that month to visit John's daughter Laura and her family. A week later we flew to Austin for our niece Nicole's wedding. It was all wonderful.

When we got home I talked John into a trip to New Mexico, so I could do some research for the novel. This involved a trade off. I got Santa Fe and Taos. He added Moab, Utah; Mesa Verde and Redstone, Colorado. Ten days total. What he really wanted was to drive us through the mountains up to Denver. So thanks to my being drugged up on Xanax, it was a beautiful scenic drive. In Denver we had a pleasant visit with his daughter Alison and her family.

Mesa Verde

Rio Grande River near Taos

All the gall bladders are long gone from the people in this household. We had a chicken dinner in our own kitchen last week. And I'm happy to report that we're healthy and happy. I wish the same for you and yours—not the gall bladder part, the healthy and happy part. 

May your sacred holidays be sacred, and your best gifts be intangible.

Happy Christmas, Merry Hanukkah, and a Glorious New Year to all of you.

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