Thankful Thursday – Summer 2012 edition

Tags

family, garden, writing

This has been the busiest summer I can remember, a whirligig of days and hours that’s had me racing to keep up. But now the whirligig is spinning to a close, and I see that despite all the commotion, it’s been a beautiful season.

Here are some writing things I’m thankful for:

The page proofs for Chantress are done! (I always lose my mind over page proofs, and it’s good to have it back.)

The cover is beautiful and I’ll get to reveal it soon!

But as I sit here tonight, watching the summer night draw in, it’s the non-writing things from this summer that have the closest hold on my heart:

A joyful family wedding with music that still sings in my head

Seeing my whole family for the first time in over 2 1/2 years

Sweetpea learning to swim

Quiet nights stargazing in the backyard, marveling at the Milky Way

The hedgehog who snuffles through our garden on occasional evening wanderings

Dear friends who came thousands of miles to see us

The roses that have bloomed all summer long

What stands out about your summer? I’d love to hear.

Lucia Day magic

Tags

family, food

For me, Christmas always really began with Lucia Day. From way back, I remember waking in darkness and dressing, then sneaking down to the dim warmth of the kitchen, where I would tie the smooth red ribbons of the Lucia crown under my chin. The crown was heavy, and the evergreens made it scratchy — but what a wonder it was when the candles were lit, and the light moved with me.

Wonderful as Christmas itself was, for me it was Lucia Day that was truly magic. The flaming crown, in all honesty, would have been enough to guarantee that. Yet there were other, subtler enchantments as well: the smell of cardamom, oranges, and chocolate; the glow of red candleholders against green boughs; our wistful recording of the “Santa Lucia” melody and the exuberant folk songs that followed it.

This year, for the first time, my daughter had her own crown of candles — electric ones, for safety’s sake, but still so beautiful. We lit our Swedish candles in the morning darkness; we listened to the same crackly Swedish recording that I used to listen to as a child; we feasted on Lussekatter, julekage, hot chocolate, and oranges.

And it was magic all over again.

Lussekatter (Lucia buns made with saffron and pools of butter) and Swedish candlesticks

Our Lucia Queen in front of the fire

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Tags

family, writing life

We’ve all been under the weather this week, sniffling and sneezing and longing for spring.

I’ve not had much time for writing, but I’ve been trying to be gentle with myself about that. Sure, I’d like to have another book published someday. But when (or even whether) that happens doesn’t matter to me anywhere near as much as my family does. And that being so, writing has to take a back seat. And sometimes not even that.

All things considered, I suppose the real wonder is that I ever finished the first draft of this novel, and that I continue, however slowly, to work on the next. And that I’m still excited by it and able to think in constructive ways about it.

(Sometimes, that is. Other days, I feel like it’s all I can do to remember my own name.)

Saying goodbye

Tags

family, writing life

It’s our wonderful sitter’s last morning with us, and I am feeling sad. She is feeling sad, too, because she has to make an out-of-state move for family reasons, and it’s hard for her to go.

I think about how things were when she came to us: I was very ill and in pain, determined to endure but exhausted and haunted and desperate for some kind of normalcy. And my daughter was so very young, not yet walking, not yet talking. It seems so long ago in some ways, but scary-close in others.

We interviewed many people, some good, some bad, but with this young woman I felt a sense of peace. She cried out for joy when she got the job, and we were joyful, too. It’s not every day that you find someone you’re willing to trust with your greatest treasure.

Having her here several mornings a week helped us find our feet again. At first I used the time to get to doctor and hospital appointments, and then later, as I grew stronger, to write a little. She was the right person at the right time, you could say, but that doesn’t go far enough. As we worried together over bumps and colds, and laughed at funny sayings and gestures, I came to love her. And I’ll miss her terribly.

Even though I know that no good situation lasts forever (or should), it’s very hard to say goodbye.

Spinning on ice

Tags

family, writing, writing life

Lots of bumps and kerfuffle in the real-life world this week. And one result is that I may have to give up most of my writing time for several months, possibly more.

This really does seem to be the year of letting go.

Sometimes it seems like the only answer is to run faster. But this morning as I loped down the snow-packed sidewalk, I hit black ice and went skidding. I righted myself in time, but even as I spun I could feel the metaphor in the moment: Speed isn’t the solution.

Maybe pacing is? (And sure-grip shoes?)

Resolutions

Tags

family, goals, writing, writing life

Two weeks into the new year, and only now am I posting about resolutions. I hope this isn’t A Sign of Things to Come.

Back around New Year’s Day, I’d been thinking that my writerly goal for the year would be to complete a second draft of my WIP, a draft that was good enough to send out to first readers.

And then came the computer crash. And the round of evil viruses that knocked our family flat. And the unexpected visitors and various other wrenches in the works that I won’t even try to go into here.

Under the circumstances it’s hard to make resolutions with any kind of confidence. I feel like I go where the winds blow me. Still, I guess it helps to have some kind of rudder. So here (much belated) are my resolutions for the year to come:

(1) Stay open to new things (in writing and in life)
(2) Keep listening to instincts (ditto)
(3) Live in the present as much as possible (ditto)
(4) Spend at least 15 minutes/day on revision/writing whenever circumstances allow
(5) Experiment with new revision (and re-visioning) techniques

There. Late this list may be, and rather quirky, but that’s what I’m setting to sea with.

The Lazarus files

Tags

family, writing, writing life

Cue the trumpets! My computer is back from the dead.

My miracle-working husband reconstructed the entire machine from the ground up, starting with the operating system. Right now nothing looks the same, and I’m missing all sorts of programs and files — but (huzzah!) I have every single scrap of my writing and all but a handful of emails.

So it looks like I don’t have to let go of those treasured emails just yet. And I’m so relieved. I was trying to be brave about it, but losing them was devastating.

Still, I can see I’m going to get plenty of practice this year at letting go — of my own words, if nothing else. (Please may there be nothing else.) While my computer was down, I read through the first draft of my WIP. Ouch. I’d forgotten just how rough my first drafts can be.

Between the plot holes and the scenes-that-don’t-work and the glaring inconsistencies, I nearly gave up then and there. There was much weeping and wailing. There was even the traditional making-of-the-list (in which I catalog career options open to failed writers, something I do with pretty much every book, usually after reading the first draft. Not that I could think of very many, especially in these hard times).

And then, out of the blue, I had an idea of how to fix one of the plot holes. And then a while later another idea came to me about how to fix some of the scenes that don’t work (which involve a character who doesn’t work). And then still later I had another idea about how to resolve some of the inconsistencies.

It is going to be an *enormous* amount of work. And I still feel shaky about it all. But I’m more-or-less back to thinking like a writer, and that feels better than weeping and wailing.

Developing an ear

Tags

family, writing life

Writers need an ear for words. But how do you acquire one?

I knew the process started with listening — both to the world around you and to books. But I’m only just beginning to realize how early the book part starts.

When I think about developing an ear, my mind goes straight the golden age of reading and reading aloud, from Little Women to the Jungle Book to the Wolves of Willoughby Chase — all those scrumptious books I read and re-read and remember still. But now that P is nuts for nursery rhymes, I am confronted with living proof that an ear for words and meter begins well beyond the reach of memory.

For fun, Mr. HM and I sometimes scramble the words of a few of P’s favorites: “Hey, diddle diddle, the cat and the violin” and “Twinkle, twinkle little car.” The reaction? An immediate, “No!” and painstaking correction from young P.

Every single time.

Already she has a clear sense of how the lines are supposed to sound, even if the meaning of some words (“fiddle” v. “violin”) is still somewhat obscure.

Which makes me wonder how much of my own sensibilities can be laid at Mother Goose’s doorstep.

Unabridged

Tags

family, health

Well, the cold went from bad to worse, calling at laryngitis, bronchitis, and finally stopping a few steps short of pneumonia. Thank God (and science) for antibiotics.

As luck would have it, it was on the day that laryngitis took hold that P made a quantum leap in picture books. No longer was she content to have us merely page through the longer ones and point out a few highlights. No, she wanted *every word* of Blueberries for Sal, and Mr Rabbit and the Lovely Present, and I, Crocodile. And sat rapt for half an hour at a time.

Fortunately P’s dad was in good voice.

I hear America singing…

Tags

family, history, politics

I stayed up late last night, watching history unfold before my eyes.  Now I am foggy with lack of sleep, and I am not at my best.  But that doesn’t matter.  What matters is that this country was at its best yesterday:  People bowed low by despair and discouragement stood tall.  They stood up and were counted.  And this country turned a corner. 

These are sobering times, make no mistake about it.  But sometimes hard times draw out the best from us.  Last night "the American Civil War ended," Thomas Friedman writes in the New York Times.  "The struggle for equal rights is far from over, but we start afresh now from a whole new baseline."

When I was a little girl living near Philadelphia in the 1970s, history was in the air.  Bicentennial fever ran high in Philly, so there were Franklin and Jefferson and Betsy Ross re-enactors everywhere, and fifers and drummers stepping to the Spirit of ’76.  And that wasn’t the only history that lived for me.  At school and at Quaker Meeting, we celebrated the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights movement.  While I peered through the translucent black stones called Indian tears, my dad told me how our 19th-century Cherokee ancestors had been forcibly moved to Oklahoma, and he shared his own boyhood tales of dust storms and roadrunners and a flat, dry land.  From my mother’s big Irish Catholic family I heard stories about everything from the Depression to World War II to Kennedy’s Camelot and the War on Poverty. 

I was so small that I didn’t understand the timeline that separated these events.  All these pieces of American history — all these struggles and triumphs — were jumbled together, the strains of "Yankee Doodle" overlapping with powwow drums and "We Shall Overcome" in my mind. 

Today that joyous festival of music is ringing in my mind again. I am dazzled by how far we Americans have come, and I hear centuries of jubilant songs in my head.