Woolston Magic Part 2

(The following blog post is not meant to embarrass anyone. All overwhelming praise could not be helped.)

Blythe’s book, The Freak Observer, arrived one afternoon soon after she and I had made contact. I opened the package and pulled out a small and beautiful hardbound book, black dust jacket with a human heart on the front cover and a brain on the back.



I was supposed to be working (my fake work - the stuff that makes me money until I’m being paid to write). Immediately, my laptop was cast aside and this little nugget of a book was cracked open. I read the first 100 pages in about two hours. By that time, I was honestly sitting in my big chair, clutching my heart as I turned the pages. I immediately wrote Blythe an email:

"Your gorgeous book appeared in my mailbox today. My heart hurts sufficiently enough now that I think I'll go back to work for a while. I'm definitely in the love it category. I'm more than thrilled that I can just send you a message telling you that."

Her protagonist is Loa, a smart, funny, tortured teenaged girl, and you know how fond I am of those. My connection to Loa’s internal life was immediate and sustaining. I could totally identify with her. My perception is that she felt like an outcast in her own family, that she carried her pain around like an extra appendage, that she was ill-suited in her skin and that it was difficult for her to be a smart girl in a family that doesn’t talk about anything. Loa reminded me of the affliction of adolescence. It’s amazing that any of us survive.

I coped by doing a lot of drugs and telling myself and others that I was actually a princess and that my real family was soon going to come claim me in order for me to go rule my country. Either that or I was an alien. Sometimes a friend of mine and I would drive out to Molt in the middle of the night, park on the deserted road and scream at the top of our lungs for the spaceship to come and get us.

For Loa, escape was physics. In an unbelievably Sagan-esque way, Blythe weaves enough physics into Loa’s story to mystify and intrigue. I loved that about Carl Sagan too. It consistently reminded me how small I am.

My real feeling, not to make everything in the world about me, was that Blythe and I wrote books that take place in parallel universes; YA books that are dark and brutal and smart – complete with swears and sex. Books that speak to young adults like I was – ones who feel more out of place than they actually are and who do or think about doing any number of terrible things to try to get their skin to fit.

I emailed again and let her know how much I loved the book, how it touched my heart, and the next day at school Chris brought me another book. This one had the same look – a small gem covered in black. The Absolute Value of -1, by Steve Brezenoff. I loved every second of it, even when it left me on the verge of slitting my throat. It was like Blythe was introducing me to a reading world I didn’t even know existed. I think she had told me that both her book and -1 were published by the same house. I don’t remember how it ended up that I did a little research, maybe the little LAB logo, but I got online to look up Carolrhoda Labs, their publishing house. Here’s what I found:

“Carolrhoda Lab is dedicated to distinctive, provocative, boundary-pushing fiction for teens and their sympathizers. Carolrhoda Lab probes and examines the young-adult condition one novel at a time, affording YA authors and readers an opportunity to explore and experiment with thoughts, ideas, and paradigms in the human condition. Adolescence is an experience we share and a condition from which some of us never quite recover. All of us at Carolrhoda Lab are proud to proclaim our lifelong adolescence and our commitment to publishing exceptional fiction about the teenage experience.”

WHAT? My mind screamed (yet again!) It was better than anything I could ever imagine. I’ll be honest. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it’s going to be like – when it happens. It’s important, I think, to know what I want out of this whole experience. What I want is to be hooked up with an agent who will advocate for my work and my family, who brings out the best in me and who is brilliant and funny and creative and exciting and who loves my books as much as I do.

Carolrhoda Labs is an amazing example of how low my expectations have been, how much I would have shortchanged myself.

Here is an entire army of my kind of people. The big nerd posse of my dreams. A collective of people dedicated to helping all those who are running around with their nerves on the outsides of their bodies. Sympathizers. Wow.

I emailed my friend Blythe to let her know how I felt. As you know, I’ve had some bad experiences with other writers along this road. It makes me wary. I couldn’t have these wild yearning feelings hanging in between us in our burgeoning friendship. I just told her that even though I felt like I fit in with this group of people like a hand in a fucking glove, like me and my lovely little book belonged there, I wanted to be her friend no matter what. As soon as I wrote it, the crazy feelings vanished. Honesty – the magic elixir.

I don’t know if I’ll fish my wish. It doesn’t really matter. Now I know how big to dream.

I’m a lucky girl. I am surrounded by women who bolster me and feed me and make me laugh, women who have watched my children come into the world, who have held my hair back while I vomited and let me borrow their toothbrushes afterward, women who have known me since I was 13 and still love me, who will take midnight phone calls, women who take care of my kids and who let me be a significant part of their kids’ lives, women who I watch crappy TV with, who get excited with me when each new Twilight movie comes out, women who understand me, who hold me to my highest, women who are truly my sisters in this life.

Where this journey is concerned, they’ve come out in full force. I have a myriad of women who have shown up for me to encourage and read and critique and kick my ass when it’s been necessary. Gorgeous writers and talented editors have volunteered their time and attention to help midwife my book into being. And of the tens of women who have helped, only two have hurt. Pretty good odds, no?

It’s been a while since I’ve added to my collection of stellar female siblings. Honestly, this crowd is hard to bust into. Blythe Wolston has done it with ease. And not only is she my friend, she’s my supplier too. Poor Chris is obligated to ferry books back and forth. He keeps them hidden in his coat like contraband.

Woolston Magic, Part 1

My son has gone to school at the same elementary for five years. He did kindergarten twice. (We just couldn’t reconcile eventually having to send him to high school so freshly 14.) The only parent friend I have at Broadwater I made because she lives around the corner from me. And we met during the summer.

I am not a joiner.

I have an inflated and warped perception of the PTA. I pay my dues. I help with vision screening and bake sales. But I never – seriously never – hang out with the other parents. I may smile at someone as I wait on the playground before my kids get out of school. If I’m standing next to you in line at the ice cream social, it’s possible I will say a few words. But at the core, I am not a joiner. I get the same feeling at Hannah’s dance classes and at Little League. I don’t fit in. Or, at least, I don’t think I do.

I’ve identified the problem: They’re grownups and I am a 12-year-old in a 35-year-old body.

So when Mrs. B., Zach’s teacher, asked me to help out with a little writing thing in her classroom on Fridays, I was thrilled. I love being in my kids’ classrooms. And now I was going to get to combine that with this other thing that I love. Sign me up. But when she told me I’d be volunteering with another parent – another writer, like the real kind, who gets paid to do it – I got a little nervous. What if he found out that not only was I not a real writer, but I was also 12?

I met him the afternoon I communicated my conditions of surrender to the Universe. You remember, when I said I wasn’t going to try to force anything to happen, that I was just going to focus on writing and let the Universe do the rest?

I was sitting on a bench waiting for my kids to be dismissed when Chris walked over and sat down right next to me. Zach and his son had been in the same class for the past four years. I had never even said hi to him. It was absolutely not personal. I’m just not a joiner. It’s my natural instinct to isolate in uncomfortable situations. School of any kind automatically fits into that category.

“So, you’re a writer?” he asked me.
“Well, yes, I am. I finished my first novel last year.”
“What’s happening with it?” he asked.
“Well,” I replied, remembering my recent conversation with God, “it’s written.”

Then he comes out with this:

“My wife just got her second novel published. You should talk to her.”

What?! My mind screamed. You’ve got to be kidding me! “I don’t need you,” I heard God say, like a sassy teenager. “I got people EVE-RY-WHERE!”

Blythe writes YA novels. Dark and beautiful YA novels. If you’ll remember, there was a time I thought perhaps I did too. I went home that day and ordered her first book, The Freak Observer.

Chris writes a column for the LA Times and does freelance travel writing. He provides our Friday morning classes with the structure that 3rd graders need.

“Here’s what a lead sentence looks like,” he’ll say. “And here’s the organized manner in which you build off of it.”
“Well,” I counter, “I just get a really cool idea I like and then it just sort of...” then I wave my arms around like a crazy person to help make my point.

We’ve formed our own little nerd posse. I’m excited. Maybe some time in the future we can get in a brawl with the PTA. I like to envision us crossing the playground jauntily, snapping our fingers and pushing up our glasses as we danced toward them

“You’re always alone.” Snap, snap, snap. “You’re always disconnected.” Snap, snap, snap.

A couple weeks into our Friday morning writing intensive, Chris met me on the playground with this:

“I have something to talk to you about. My wife just got a call from her agent. They’re looking for a young, talented, unpublished author to do this YA project.”

Not. Even. Kidding. I don’t know what I was more excited about – the fact that I was considered talented or young.

“You’re lying to me right now,” is what I said. I don’t think my new friend knew quite how to handle that.
“Um… no,” he said, looking at me like I was nuts. “Blythe will email you with the details.”

I got that feeling in my throat. You know, the tight one where you kind of want to squeal but you’re a 35-year-old mother picking her two children up from school with all the other parents around and no one would understand, so you don’t.

Blythe sent me the information. We batted a few emails back and forth. She’s lovely, and I’m excited about that. Here is a snippet of her loveliness: I thank her for sending this my way, especially since she doesn’t know me from Adam, and she says she knows I’m Zach’s mom, and that’s quite an accomplishment.

*sigh*

She gives me some direction about sending a writing sample and I take the direction. I figure, this literally fell into my lap. It doesn’t smack of “trying” at all. It’s just me taking the action that’s in front of me.

And then I make sure I write that day. For three hours. 10 minutes of dealing with agenty/publishy/selling/possible rejection kind of things is the spiritual equivalent of three good, solid hours of writing. That’s what it takes to combat the impending yearning/desperate/aching thing. And then this incredible thing happens.

I actually let it go.

I don’t check my email any more often than I normally do. In fact, while grateful for the opportunity and grateful for some kind of cosmic confirmation that I’m still on the right path, I don’t care really how that turns out. I only care that I still wrote that day, that I didn’t get caught up in the waiting of it all and that I have these two new friends.

More on Blythe in Woolston Magic Part 2.

Resurrection

Resurrection. How intimidating.

What can I say? Sorry I’m inconsistent and unreliable. Except I’m really not. So maybe my natural abilities to be consistent and reliable will show themselves here once again.

A catch-up post, just in fairness. I must say, when you’ve let your blog wither like a crunchy little worm over nearly a year, there’s a freakin’ lot to cover.

I just reread Giving, from last February, and I could hear the hopeful goodbye in it even now. I don’t think I knew how to say it outright, but I can see I had been writing myself into it for a while. Isolation is my go-to place. When I’m uncomfortable or embarrassed or hurt or afraid, my natural instinct is to retreat. At 20 years old, feeling all of those things for about a million reasons, I hid in my parents’ basement. Seems like it was for at least six months, but in recognition of my lying nature, it was probably more like two or three weeks. Isolation was pretty much a guarantee that no one would be hurt any more than they’d already been. I just needed to lick my wounds for a while, gather my strength, get some distance and try to figure things out while watching as many John Hughes movies as possible. It’s actually a pretty good plan if you ask me. In cyberspace, I guess that looks like abandoning your blog.

Some time for reflection was in order, and, to be frank, some time to get my shit together. Even though rejection sucks, especially in comparison to acceptance, it’s really not that big a deal. I’ve kind of come to appreciate it. I mean, at least something’s happening. Movement of some kind. And, as a lovely person once said, each “no” gets me that much closer to the “yes.”

It’s the waiting place that gets me. For me, trying to sell myself, trying to make someone notice me, to be constantly seeking, yearning, grasping is soul-destroying. Yuck. Yuck times 1,000. I hate grasping. It took me a little while to put my head back on and feel comfortable walking around, knowing it was going to lead me in the right direction. Until I was able to do that, I stopped writing. Not intentionally. Like I couldn’t. Eventually I got to the place where I had to admit, sitting on Bestie B’s couch in the middle of the night, that, yes, in fact, I was. . . blocked.

How disgustingly average of me.

The past 10 months have been all about surrendering and writing and surrendering and writing. Basically. With some kindergarten and guitar lessons and dance classes and laundry thrown in there and maybe bleaching a bathroom or two. Also, the Kings’ new album came out. So that was good.

The first book has been placed on the backburner of someone’s house in Antarctica, completely and mercifully exiled until very recently. It’s been a breath of fresh air for us both I think it’s safe to say. I don’t know what’s going on with it, if anything is going on with it. The results aren’t up to me. I’m so good with that right now, it’s not even funny.

For the 400th time, what is up to me is the writing.

And for a while, a long while, that was not happening. Like maybe six or seven months. I had very good excuses that made a lot of sense. (see previous paragraph re: kindergarten, dance class, guitar, et al.) And the only one that ever called me on my crap, besides the occasional salt-in-the-wounds question about “The Book,” was Bestie B. Whenever my dark degeneration showed its ugly head, regardless of where it looked like it was coming from (i.e. fighting with my husband, mother, self), she would always bring it back to the writing. So many times that I sort of wanted to punch her in the face. Or, at the very least, never speak to her about anything ever again.

Thank God for consistency in besties.

Eventually, I met the inevitable end of the road. Turns out it didn’t look that different than any of my other end-of-the-roads. I was curled up in my mommy’s lap on her basement floor, crying my eyes out because it had been six months since I’d written a word. I could feel the atrophy inside of me. I was probably scared it was permanent. She is an amazing mother and she said the exact right thing, which in this case was, “Go get your laptop right now. You’re not going to do anything else but write for the next three hours.” Then she grabbed my face in her hands, like a good Jewish mother ought, and said, “You cannot neglect your gifts. You. Cannot.” She looked at me really hard. Do you understand me, her eyes said. If I hadn’t been so desperate and scared, I might have blustered my way out of it. Thankfully, I was desperate and scared. So I nodded my head in affirmation. Lip quivering, snot running, I listened to my mother.

I started writing again. I don’t think I would be exaggerating if I said that since then I have been focused and committed to Novel Deux, even though I don’t have a whole heck of a lot to show for it, comparatively speaking. The writing hasn’t been the whirlwind romance I’m used to. It has been slow and steady, which isn’t all that bad. I love these characters and I love the story and I think it’s funny and smart and heartbreaking and really, really yummy.

I got to this place where I had enough distance from the first book, from my experience with the business side of things, from my expectations and disappointments and from my SELF-WILL and OBSESSION to really see the truth.

“Okay, God,” I said one morning a couple months ago, “I’m not going to do that again. I’m not going to go through any more of my life healing up from the rejection/yearning/seeking/trying to get myself an agent/get published/make something happen thing. If this is how I feel when I’m trying to make something happen, then I’m not going to do it ever again. Like for real. No matter what the consequences. Even if it means it never happens. Just so long as I don’t lose the ability to write again. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen through You, not me.”

Here’s the hilarious thing:

I could almost hear God say, “Finally! Yeesh! I’ve been trying to get my hands on this thing for months, but you just wouldn’t let it go! Now, get out of my way.”

That very morning little reverberations started in the Universe, breezes left by movement. I’ll tell you about it next time.

Giving

Much of the time I think I need to be making art in order to feel creatively fulfilled. For a person like me, who knows very little about balance, this thought can be a tad stifling. It limits me in the way I can be fed artistically. Sometimes (a lot lately) I’m not so much into the making of the art as I am into procrastinating, whining, thinking and not moving. I can see that I’m going to have down times, times when I am unable or unwilling to commit to my own work. The cool thing that’s happening lately is that I keep seeing, whether I want to believe it or not, I can be fed through the famine.

Fiction writing came to a standstill let’s say a couple months ago. You’ve all watched (haltingly) the process of me surrendering my ideas about how this was going to go. My willingness to be naked in front of you (metaphorically, of course) (and sporadically as well) is the one thing that’s kept me semi on track. Writing to you about my process, forcing myself to think about my process has helped me keep what little there is left of my sanity. And, more important than my mental state, it has helped me stay on the path.

Over the past year opportunities have come into my life that continue to confirm God’s desire for me to live inside my gifts, whether I’m writing fiction or not. My mind tells me that in order to be fulfilled I have to be writing. As of today, I have about 100 pages of a second novel waiting patiently for a bit of attention, a series of short stories rolling around, a blog post or seven, all begun but none finished. This proves that the writing thing isn’t really working right now.

Last week I was asked to write a screenplay by two women who trust me, who know my writing, who have a story to tell that they want me to be a part of. I’ve never written a screenplay before, but I didn’t shrink from the idea at all. In fact, the possibility filled me with a little excitement, thinking about how scary and new and brilliant it’s going to be to learn to make something entirely different than I’ve ever made before.

I also have another opportunity to take a woman through The Artist’s Way who is completely outside my monkey sphere. I had never met her before, but someone recommended me, said that I would be a dependable source of help in this area. I didn’t shrink from that idea either.

The reason I am walking into these things with a fair bit of confidence is because I know I actually have something of value to share. I know how to be receptive and teachable, to collaborate and give while working on that screenplay. I know how to be gentle and understanding with this newborn artist, how to share my experience, how to encourage her to be brave.

I can hardly stand to even write those things. I would hate to come across as arrogant or snotty or too big for my britches. It might make it better for me if I tell you that I'm not giving anything away that hasn't already been given to me by people even more giving, gentle, understanding and generous than I will ever be.

I’ve known for a long time that I have to give it away to keep it. I’m fairly good at putting that into practice in my life in general. To have that principle show itself here, in this place I love the most, is a remarkable thing. This is a very cool place to be in for a girl like me.

THERE IS ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE

As I said in my ode to RBP, one of the most important things I’ve learned through all of this is that THERE IS ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE. Of everything. Creativity, talent, attention, success, money, ideas, time, love. Everything.

As you know by now, I eat books. Reading only one author for nine months was like sustaining my vampire existence on animal blood instead of human blood. (HA!!) It was hard to go hungry. I would try to pick up some other author, thinking it couldn’t possibly be as dramatic as all that, but it was always true, right up until the very end. Apparently, I couldn’t read while I was in that new territory, writing my first draft of my first novel.

As I also mentioned, there were two reasons for this. First, especially in the beginning, the voice I found was fragile, susceptible. I didn’t want it to be unduly influenced by someone else’s voice. Chances are, if you’re a published author (one that I’m reading anyway) you have a strong voice. I wanted my characters to remain purely mine, as purely mine as they could be. I didn’t want to start trying to mimic John Irving.

The other reason was jealousy. It worked one of two ways. Either I became enraged that whoever I was reading had managed to get published and took up some of the finite amount of pages available in the Universe.

Or.

My heart sunk, my self-esteem plummeted to new lows, I became certain that I would never be able to compete professionally in a world where Cormac McCarthy existed. More often the latter.

I didn’t know then what I know now. And that is: THERE IS ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE.

I read something a while ago that talked about how when I’m thinking about my goals, focusing on being a “being a famous writer” doesn’t serve me as well as having a desire to touch people’s lives. That makes sense to me. Sure, I want to be on Oprah’s couch, but only part of that is my ego. The better part (hopefully the bigger part) wants to leave Oprah’s studio and head right for some high school auditorium where I can talk to hundreds of girls who have torn off pieces of their soul bit by bit by their own actions, so that we can talk about how my book shows that nothing is irreparable.

Yes.

That’s the thing. When I’m offering myself up to be the transcriber, I am hearing things only I can hear and saying things only I can say. My stories are told through the filter of MY life, MY brain, MY heart. No one else has that perspective. THERE IS ENOUGH room in the world for both me and Cormac. That guy can write the crap out of anything, but he can’t write about a woman’s transformation or a sustained, touching, intricate female relationship or motherhood and marriage in quite the way that I do.

I am blessedly aware that I tell stories that have been told a million times. I’m cool with that. I don’t need to have an original thought. But I am telling them in a way that only I can, seeing things through eyes that belong solely to me.

And I don’t have to worry about not getting published because of the finite amount of pages available in the Universe. Or that I’ll never get another worthy idea again or that someone else will write it better than me. Those are falsehoods, lies my mind tells itself when it wants to feel badly or have an excuse to quit.

THERE IS ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE.

And I don’t have to stop myself from encouraging someone in my life who also has the desire to write because what if they grasp onto success before me or what if they write it better or what if they surpass me on the road to our dreams. That is my pathetic, wimpy, sniveling little ego trying to sustain itself on the worthless premise of lack.

THERE IS ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE.

I am surrounded – and I mean surrounded – by other artists. Some of these people are farther ahead on the path than I, already published, already successful, and some of them are trudging along, not yet seeing the worldly fruits of their labors, still struggling to gather up enough guts to stop listening to the terrible voices and forge ahead.

Before I knew that THERE IS ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE, I had a tendency to believe somewhere in the deepest, darkest part of me that these people and I were somehow in competition. Instead of being grateful that I was surrounded by an ego-bolstering, supportive, inspiring, ass-saving community of creative geniuses, I actually looked at them as the enemy.

Thoughts like that can make your life very, very tiny.

I am my very best self when I am encouraging others, when I take every opportunity to hold them and their work up to the sun, and say, “HEY, LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID!!!” or “You’re so good at telling the beautiful truth!!!” or even better “I’m so happy for you!”

THERE IS ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE!

An Ode, of sorts, to Robert B. Parker

As some of you may know, one of my all-time favorite authors died recently, and I thought I’d spend a little time reflecting on what he brought into my reading and writing life during his too short life, and very prolific career.

I am a reader. My husband says I eat books. My love for reading is as much a part of me as my brown eyes or fat toes. I was nine years old when the magic happened. I was at my dad's house for Christmas break and someone in my then-stepmother's family had given me a set of five books in a series called Couples. Change of Hearts; Fire and Ice; Alone, Together. You get the picture. There was a different teenage couple gracing each cover, dressed in all manner of '80s hideousness; primary-colored stripes galore, big frosted, feathered hair, high-waisted pleats, suspenders even. I'm sure you can imagine. They were teenagers in the ‘80s, with crazy, exciting lives. They pulled me into their world and out of the discomfort of my own. I had escaped successfully for the first time.

After that, the sky was the limit. I read everything I could get my hands on, at least until I discovered boys and drugs. My voraciousness coupled with my mother’s forward-thinking led her to pass on to me any literature she had fallen in love with and me to eat it promptly.

Getting my hands on something like Spenser is still the stuff for which I live. A whole series of scrumptious characters I loved spending time with, previously undiscovered by me, and thus coming in one big bunch. (I’m experiencing something similar right now and it’s just as thrilling – no big talk.) At that time, I probably had 30 books laid at my feet. I gobbled them up, and when I ran out, I waited with baited breath for my next installment. I also read most of his non-Spenser fiction (only one of the westerns, sorry to say). Love and Glory is still one of my all-time favorite love stories, yet another impossible love. I’ve probably read it six or seven times. I lent my copy out and have yet to remember who I lent it to, but if I had it in my house, I’d read it again right now.

Robert Parker is one of maybe four authors that can consistently make me laugh out loud, one of three whose fan club I have actually considered joining.

Externally, he had everything I want to have as a writer; wit, charm, soul-piercing insight.

Internally, he had everything I need as a writer; discipline - writing five pages a day no matter what, and the value of love - married to the same woman for 44 years, he dedicated nearly every one of his 30 Spenser novels, and probably a good deal more of his other works, to Joan.

Also, I learned all I know about writing a fight because I’ve read every one of his Spenser novels probably 12 times. When I wrote my first physical fight, I relied heavily on what I learned listening to Spenser’s head as he pounded on some well-deserving punk (and occasionally got pounded on himself). (I have to say, I also relied on Dan saying, “NO, Gaaby, they don’t need to TALK about it. They’re guys. They’ve made each other bleed. Move on.”)

A while ago, when John Hughes died, I read an essay written by a woman who had struck up a correspondence with him when she was a teenager, in the height of his career. It was a beautiful, touching piece and I cried when I read about how she had reached out, as only a tenacious teenager can, and made him notice her, and thanked him for his contribution to her life. She was fortunate enough to get to know him and to glean some knowledge about life and her art because she took that chance, or felt compelled sufficiently enough to act.

I’m sorry to say, I never even attempted. That’s the kind of bold move I am hesitant to make. What if nothing ever comes of it? What if I feel silly?

So Robert Parker never knew how much I loved him, and now he never will.

A long, long time ago, Bestie B told me to send my manuscript to Steph along with a letter telling her how hers were the only words I could read through the year I was writing my first draft, how I read them over and over because, one, I wasn’t threatened by her voice; two, I felt inspired by the relationships she was able to create and how they made me FEEL; and, three, I found something new inside them every time I read them over. Silly as I feel writing this, being able to go back to the safety of those books over and over again somehow brought me to a place where I was able to realize one of the most important things I’ve learned on this journey, that there is enough for everyone.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said to B when she proposed this idea. “It probably wouldn’t even get close to her.”

B, of course, said with the confidence that comes with being a teller of truth, “If it is meant to get into Stephenie Meyer’s hands, I believe God can have it hand-delivered.”

Hmm. Something to think about.

Freedom from Self-Obsession

For the past two years, I have been in what has proven to be – finally standing on the outside - a self-centered, creative coma. It was pointed out to me by a very important man in my life in a very blunt but loving way that, while I expect nearly everyone to wait with baited breath for whatever I might next produce, I give little thought or energy to anyone else’s work. It has been as if I have expected all of the creative attention in the world to be turned my way through these years. While I may have needed a certain amount of . . . coddling, let’s say, at the beginning, I certainly have grown enough confidence to shove off on my own, without everyone’s eyes needing to be pointed my way.

You know I’m a little dramatic and a lot self-effacing. It’s probably not been that black and white. There are a few people who have come to me for encouragement, who were obviously coming to me as a sort of mentor, and my ego could handle that and I could be enthusiastic about their work. But I think, though Bestie A might disagree (mistakenly), if you are anything like a peer, I may have discounted YOUR need or desire for MY participation in YOUR process.

I sat at my dining room table with Besties B and C sharing with them what this man had said.

“You know,” B said, getting that look on her face that made my internal compass prepare itself for hearing the truth, “we’ve all been in this with you for two years. And we’ve been IN IT. Maybe it’s time to take a step back.”

The breath was just a tiny bit knocked out of me, but I recovered quickly. And, actually, felt no small amount of freedom. AAAHhhhhhhhh. I could stop thinking about myself. What a joy! I could grow up just a little bit more and start treating the people in my life like they deserve to be treated, once again.
I’m pretty accustomed to public learning. I think that’s why I can tell you the uglies. My friend Jessica started a beautiful blog about what her family has gone through after finding out two of their children have Autism.

http://spearsfamilyproject.blogspot.com

My favorite part of her first post is at the very end, when she talks about advice she was given to stop her 3-year-old tantruming daughter (not yet diagnosed) from harming herself when Jess was nursing her infant son.

“One lady told me to spray her with water when she did it. You know? Like a cat. I had to try that one for posterity. I started nursing Cale with a spray bottle full of water by my side. Sure enough, she started screaming and banging her head on the floor. So, I squirted her in the face. She stopped and looked at me then started to scream and bang again. I squirted her in the face again. She screamed louder and louder and I squirted and squirted. Pretty soon she was soaked and screaming so loud her whole face turned red and water was dripping out of her hair and off of her big red screaming dripping wet face. It didn't do her any good, but I sure felt better.”

I mean, that is SO BRAVE. And I know how she felt when she wrote it. She felt clean. The secret is out and she’s the one who told. She might have thought for a moment, ‘I shouldn’t be saying this about my children,’ but she went past that and told the truth and got the gift. And someone else will get the gift too. Maybe a lot of someones will. Part of the power in that is the power of potential identification; experiencing someone else’s thoughts, however they be expressed, and realizing you’re not the only person in the world who feels the way you do.

Certainly, there’ve been artists that are self-involved and pompous and exclusionary about their work (not just me). But what I get to do since recognizing this (late in the game though it may be) is admit it and try to become better. That’s not the kind of person I want to be; a creative vortex, consumed with only myself, my ego too fragile to give anything to anyone, yet expecting everyone to give to me. I’ve experienced that from the other side, and it was one of the most heartbreaking experiences I’ve had.

So, the conclusion? I’m going to look out. From now on, I’m going to turn my eyes toward you and your beautiful gifts and I’m going to write about them, instead of me. And if something exciting should happen along the way, some lucky agent agreeing to represent me or when I win the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, I’ll tell you about it. Meantime, I think we can all breath a little deeper knowing we're getting a break from the self-obsession.

At least on this blog.

Big Talking

I’m a big talker. Like many other revelations I’ve come to in public here, big talking is something that’s plagued me much of my life, maybe ever since I sat on that counter at summer camp when I was two, helpless to get down without the assistance of my mother who had apparently lost track of me. “I’M BUMMED OUT AND PISSED OFF!” I shouted, trying to get the attention of whatever adult was close and able. What I really wanted to say was, “Can someone help me off this counter?” but what came out was what a friend of mine would term “blather.” Loud nonsense.

Apparently, my moods and neurosis ebb and flow. When I put myself in a position where I’m exposing myself and my trains of thought (however many there may be), I am subjecting anyone who takes a peek at this blog to what might be just the tiniest bit of . . . wishy-washiness. Today I feel differently than I did the other day when I professed my “love” for my new novel. Oops.

It’s really not as fun, it turns out. I mean, the first book is about love and pain and music and redemption. FUN! This second is about women and sisterhood and family and cancer. Um . . . not as fun? The other day when I was complaining to Bestie C about the sad state of my affairs and how none of the Besties are really “into it,” she said, in not so many words, “Gaaby, be realistic. It’s not like we’re going to get all excited, ‘Ohhh! She’s got diagnosed today! I can’t WAIT to read!’ Or better yet, ‘She’s dying! Woo hoo!’” Apparently it’s just going to be a different experience. But I’m not sure I want to have that experience right now.

So back to the big talking. I say I’ve moved on, I say I’m in love again, I say it’s exactly like it was, but, of course, it’s not. So I’m going to put it down for a little while. I’ve decided I’ve been trying to force a solution, and all that big talking was just a symptom. I’ve got about 100 pages, and it’s good, I like it, but I’m just not that into it right now. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of writing consistently, and I’ve got to do something to jump start things. Now.

It turns out the most painful thing about waiting for me is not writing, and I have to say, that fact comes with no small amount of joy. I’m excited that I’ve gotten to the place where I’ve let go of the results sufficiently enough that I’m not checking my email 45 times a day or in pain with anticipation. I’m just living my life, knowing that it’s going to happen, just maybe not in my time or in the way I think it ought. I can remember, though, on most days that every step of this way has brought me farther along the path. I have honestly just continued to move forward in this process, and I feel like I can trust that today. Fairly well-adjusted, right?

Except for the last stronghold I have on not letting go: I'm not writing.
So, among other things, like considering entering my novel to win the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, I think I’m going to try something different. Maybe essays, or a short story, and I think I need a deadline, so I’m going to look into some more contests. I NEED fire, and I’m apparently not conjuring it up on my own. Instead, I’m awake at 4:22, having been awake for a little while now, and, after spending a sufficient amount of time on Facebook and reading entertainment articles about Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck and how they keep the love alive, I’m at the end of page two here, getting some of the words out of my head. I’m certain I could be putting my laptop to better use.