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.

Five Things on a Friday

Tags

garden, publishing, writing, writing life, writing process

1. Plenty of kerfuffle this week, but fewer icy patches. Fingers crossed, but things are looking less dire. Now I just need to find the energy to make good use of what writing time I’ve got.

2. I went ahead last night and signed up for the NESCBWI Conference in April. This will be the first conference I’ve been to since P was born. Despite David’s encouragement, I’m still not sure whether I’m ready to stay overnight, but oh, how I’m looking forward to it all — seeing good friends that I haven’t seen in years, making new friends that I don’t yet know, and above all to spending a weekend immersed in WRITING.

3. After weeks of being buried in snow, my rosemary bush has emerged with its fragrant needles intact. I just ducked out for a snippet — heavenly! I’m used to thinking of rosemary as a frail flower in these northern climes, but this particular plant seems to be tough as old winter boots.

4. You’d think with all shake-ups in publishing right now I’d be fairly shock-proof, but the news this week that Harper was closing Bowen Press stunned me. What a loss! And before they’d even had a chance to launch their first list…

5. On a happier note, the fabulous Sue Williams, who writes wonderfully about writing (and much else), has a great blog entry about messy drafts this week. If you’re feeling discouraged about your own drafts (and even if you aren’t), I recommend reading it!

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?)

Naming the rose

Tags

writing life, writing process

Still plenty of stormy seas, but I’m trying to snatch time here and there to work on this revision. I’ve been examining subplot arcs, checking for inconsistencies in the main plot, and tracking scenes to see how they build (or don’t) from one another. Sometimes this is fun, particularly when I see a way to do something better, but some days it’s slog, slog, slog.

Fortunately I also have a few characters who need new names, and for me naming is pure indulgence. Since just about everything I write is historical, it’s an excuse to go dipping into all kinds of fabulous primary sources — ships’ lists and census data and church records and diaries — trawling for names and nicknames.

I’ve been known to spend days, even weeks doing this, mostly because it’s so delicious. The best part is finding a name that is both historically appropriate and apt for the character in question, but happening on wildly inappropriate names has its merits, too. I’ve yet to write a novel about early Puritans, but with names like Repentance and Faint-not (not to mention Safe-on-high and Small-hope), it’s tempting.

Thanks to the internet, I can now search for just about any kind of name in any kind of period (17th century Dutch surnames, anyone?), and be sure of coming up with extensive, well-researched lists. Genealogy sites are wonderful for this. Depending on the era I’m working in, I also spend time over at the SCA’s Medieval Names Dictionary or at the Social Security Administration’s site on Popular Baby Names (which lists the top 1000 names by decade, starting in the 1880s).

Wonderful as the internet is, however, I also rely a lot on books. My favorite is The Oxford Dictionary of First Names, which I ran across when we were trying to name our daughter. I used this as an excuse to buy more naming books than anyone has a right to, but this is the one that’s been most useful to me as a writer. It gives me the lowdown on meanings, origins, and relationships between names: Where else would I learn that Marigold and Rosemary had their beginnings in the 19th craze for flower names, but that Rose has its roots in the early Middle Ages?

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.

Epiphany

Tags

goals, writing life

“To hold, you must first open your hand. Let go.” – Tao Te Ching

This is one of my favorite red-letter days of the year: January 6th, the Feast of Epiphany. Could there be a better holiday for writers? If we’re not in the business of celebrating epiphany and revelation, I don’t know who is.

It’s rare that I actually have an epiphany on Epiphany, of course. But I think I may have had one today, in the wee hours of the morning.

I was up because my computer crashed yesterday. And by crashed I mean imploded — horribly, randomly, catastrophically. Most of the day I was okay with this because (a) I thought it would come back and (b) I thought I had saved all my files.

But as evening set in it, became clear that (a) my computer was dead as a dodo and (b) I had not saved everything. I have my writing files, thank goodness, and my pictures. But eight years of email is gone, gone, gone. And when I realized that, I was not okay.

In the middle of the night, my mind tallied the losses: the treasured letters from friends, the first photos of their babies, the silly jokes and the fan letters and the notes of consolation. Worst of all, letters from friends who have passed on, so that their words were all I had left.

All of them gone.

But then, lying there in the dark, it occurred to me that maybe what’s most important about all those letters is actually still here. Those words of encouragement and comfort and silliness have helped shaped me, and the friendships behind them remain. Maybe it was time I let go of the letters themselves, knowing the best of them are already deep inside me, even if I can’t remember the shape of the sentences.

And — this being the feast of epiphanies — it crossed my mind that this is what I need to do with the manuscript I’m reading now, and maybe in the rest of my life, too: Be ready to let go in order to move forward, and in order to understand better what is really worth holding onto.

ETA: Forgot to add that this is typed on my husband’s machine. It’s possible my computer can be reconstructed from the ground up (sans data), but I’m not holding my breath. I may be scarce for a while. But for what it’s worth, I’m trying to make the most of this computer-less time by plunging into the reading and planning stages of revision. (That is, when I’m not trying to recall lost email addresses. Oy.)

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.

Out for the count

Tags

health, writing life

Misery. I have a cold, a throat-piercing, chest-grasping cold. When I try to speak, I rasp and clack. My limbs feel heavy as sandbags. Not quite sure how I’m going to manage with P today. I’m longing for bed and books and snoozing, but that’s not how it’s going to be with a toddler around.

It feels so strange not to be writing something. I was glad to finish the first draft of this book; it was often a struggle to find time and heart and courage to write and make progress. But as time goes on I feel lost without it. My free hours are a patchwork of bits and pieces now, mostly pieces that I don’t especially enjoy — website work, clothes shopping, medical appointments, and a million other errands.

There’s reading, too, which I generally do enjoy. But it doesn’t buoy me up the way writing does.