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.