Lemonade and Tea

It must be spring because I'm seeking out new in my life. In a few days I start teaching piano lessons, I'm hungrier for new books to read than usual, and I'm itching to find an old quirky piece of furniture and paint it an impractical color. I steeped herbal berry tea in lemonade and not only was it beautiful to watch the red swirling down through the yellow, it was delicious. And I started a new novel. 

Those first moments are so fresh, creating someone on a page, plopping them into a world and watching how they respond to it, how it soaks in and changes them. How cruel I sometimes feel when I drop them into problems so unfair I don't think I could conquer them myself. But like the tea in the lemonade, everything gets better when it mixes together, changed by the new.

While I search for a home for Time Walker, I feel I'm doing those characters a favor by letting them rest from plots and twists, since they held up so well through that first novel, being changed and deleted, poked and analyzed. Their story is waiting for them, as are a few of you, and it makes me so happy to know you miss them while you wait. 

My new victim is Alvey, and by page 8 I already feel terrible for what's happening to her, like I'm not the one who thought it up. But that's the interesting and addicting thing about writing: I don't usually feel like I made up any of it. The story is already there, in some surreal place, waiting, and I want to learn it and tell it, 

You really should try it sometime, writing. Even if the character is yourself and the setting is no stranger than your own life, your thoughts are worth writing down. It may surprise you what you discover in your own head, what words come together to shape a story you didn't know you knew, but somehow know how to tell.

In case you don't think you can do it:
 . . . everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.  ~Sylvia Plath

In case you don't feel the need:

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.  ~Toni Morrison

The best reason of all:

The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium.  ~Norbet Platt

And a quick tip from a master to get you started:

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~ Mark Twain

He's right. That was very damn lovely lemonade. 

Jess, what are you doing?

So, I've written this novel, TIME WALKER, (Click the link! I have a website!) and I find myself trying to explain to people what it's like, trying to become a published author. Well . . .

                                                                         
1. Learn how to write. It's so much easier and harder than you've ever imagined. There are rules, grammatical and otherwise, that you can learn from a lot of different people and, wouldn't you know it, from reading really great books.


2. Have the guts to write garbage and the stubbornness to rewrite. Give your story, which feels like a peephole into your soul, to honest people. Don't let their criticism wound you, and don't forget to listen to their praise. (My thanks, all you rough draft readers).  
        *be advised, steps one and two can take nearly half a decade or longer and are never really over. 
                  
3. Devote yourself to a career for which you will not be paid for a long time, if ever.    
        a. Do not forget about the rest of your life to the point that your family starts calling your novel, "That Book Mom Wrote Whilst Ignoring Us". 


4. Repeatedly convince yourself that no, you don't need to pack it up and get a job at the hospital being the registered nurse that you planned to be when you grew up. Which then makes you wonder if perhaps you have not, indeed, grown up.


5. Learn to write a query letter, which is, in essence, a one-page chance to convince a literary agent that they should stake their livelihood on the awesomeness of your story. You will spend months trying to learn how to condense 100,000 words into a single, gripping paragraph and you will decide it cannot be done. But you'll do it anyway. *insert defiant, primal scream of victory*.

6. If an agent likes your query letter, they will request either some or all of your manuscript. 
       a. Sit at your computer with your finger hovering over the mouse, the arrow hovering over   
          SEND. Sweat profusely. Stop yourself from staying up all night to read over the entire            manuscript one more time. Click. *insert defiant, primal scream of victory*.


7. And then you wait. Because agents get hundreds of queries a week, and they really want to give everyone a fair look. So you just have to be patient, and remember that having your manuscript requested places you in a very small, very hopeful group of writers. 


8. Receive a rejection letter, which everyone does. Several times. 
         a. Tell everyone that you're fine, it's just part of the game. Find a hidden place to cry. 
         b. Research another agent, and click send again.


9. Someday, an agent calls you and says the words that you've been hearing in the secret places in your head, the places connected to your heart, ego, hopes, dreams, and tear ducts: "I'd like to offer you representation."


10. *insert defiant, primal scream of victory*. Just not into the phone.


11. Calmly recite, "I would like to take  two weeks to consider your offer and give other agents the professional courtesy of considering my manuscript," which you only remember because you practiced.


12. Consider the offer and, most likely, become represented. *insert exhausted, relieved sobbing*


13. But you're not done yet. Your agent will give you suggestions on how to make your story better. So now you're back to step #1, though you have learned on this journey not to take feedback personally, but to be EXTREMELY grateful for it. 


14. Now your agent will take your shine-ily polished creation and offer it up to a Publisher. Or many Publishers, who will then bid on your story. Or they won't. It happens sometimes that even when you get an agent, the world of real books doesn't have room for you. But for the sake of faith, hope and sanity, we'll say that you find yourself with a deal.


15. Then . . . I don't know, really. There is editing involved. And I think there are meetings involved. There is joy involved, and lots of hard work and life rearranging and probably some more primal screams and sobs. But maybe also, it involves a really great kind of peace because "She believed she could, so she did."


So why, Jessica, would you put yourself through all of this when it may never work out? When there's a chance that you might make it to number 8 and no farther? And why are you telling everyone so they'll know if you fail? 


1. The stories are in there and if they don't leak out onto paper, pressure could build up. 


2. Books make me happy. Writing makes me happy. Making people happy makes me happy. I want to write a book that makes people happy and I want a lot of people to read it. And be happy. 


3. If I tell people, it's real. There's no deadline for success, so I won't ever fail. Will someone please remind me of that on a weekly basis? Wednesdays would be great.


4. (The big one) How can I look my kids in the eyes and say You Can Be Anything, if I don't believe it myself? Here's what I teach them if I quit: Dreams are fun until they get too hard. I could put it on a poster with a picture of me shrugging. 
               a. I would rather hand them my book someday and write on the inside, "Dreams             
                  are allowed."


So now you know, that's what I'm doing. Crazy, huh?

Picky, Picky

We don't get to pick out all the good stuff in life, like my kids pick the pineapple off the pizza, and the carrots out their salad. Dinner, for example. Three kids with stuffy noses chomping and smacking and talking. I could market it as a weight loss program because I eat 50% less every time I let myself listen. And I can't do anything about it. The noses came with their faces and if I tell them to chew with their mouths closed they'll asphyxiate.

Today, though, I was watching the Two Year Old chew. Because I wasn't sitting right next to him, I couldn't hear any gross mastication noises (which is one of my least favorite words, which is why I used it because it's one of my least favorite sounds). His little peach cheeks were happily stuffed and he must have been able to breathe through his nose because his lips were mooshed together like a little strawberry bouncing up and down above his chin that makes you pinch it.
Chew,chew, chew.

I got 31-flavors of happy. Because I love his face. Because he had healthy food in his mouth on the way to his stomach. Because he saw me watching him and started laughing and showed me the healthy chewed food. Because I know in a matter of months it won't be cute to watch him eat anymore. There is some line of demarcation when a child's mouth and drool and general body functions change and become suddenly disgusting, whereas before they had the pixie-dust of babyhood sprinkled upon them that made them somehow a gift. And because I took the moment, grabbed hold of it and appreciated it's brevity, which I don't always do. *small victory!*

So pick the pineapple off your pizza, is the point I'm trying to make. Maybe the trick in this life is to stand back a little, where you can't hear the slurping. Plug your ears when the whiny voices are nagging and just look at that face, how it has you in it, but this little person with strong opinions is NOT you. Amazing! Cover your eyes when you see that mutilated roll of toilet paper streaming down the hall behind a half-naked, crazed caveman in a bulging diaper, and just listen to the sound of the laughter for a second. And I mean a second, 'cause he's headed for the potted plants.

Time Walking Report: Christmas Booty

It's Christmas day, 2011. I'm so happy because not only did my kids believe me at 2 AM when I told them Santa hadn't come yet, but they went back to sleep until 7 and then we had "the best Christmas EVERRRR!" And now we're all dressed up fancy and I get to play the piano for the choir. We choose a pew close to the front so between songs I can sit with my family and feel warm and fuzzy.

You know, it's all Santa's fault, really. And I'm not just picking on him because I think he gets way too much credit for the gift giving. I don't have any elves and I manage. But if he hadn't put those little organza bags full of treats in the kids' stockings, everything would have been fine.

I stand, I walk to the piano for the next number, pleased with this happiest of Christmases. Behind me my family gasps and points at the organza bag clinging to my butt like a little white bow of Christmas cheer. Do they stop me? No. Three generations are rolling in the aisle, attracting the attention of ten surrounding pews who watch me mosey to the front of the chapel with a gift wrapped heiney.

So, my plan is to time walk back to December 25th and delicately pluck the decoration from my booty before anyone notices. But . . . here I am, and there I go, and my family looks so happy, faces burning red with the best kind of don't-laugh-in-church giggling, and the guy behind them leans forward and tells my husband, "Now that's a heck of a gift". And now my mom's wiping her eyes. Aww. Look at that.

Oh, fine. Merry Christmas, congregation. From the heart of my bottom.

Time Walking Report: Free At Last

My mom grew up in California in the 60s (sorry to date you, mamasita) and she's always called it turbulent. Things were changing, people changing. And they still are. There may be discrimination in our country still, but I like to believe that Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream has traveled through time to change the way most Americans see each other.
I only takes 17 minutes to time walk back to August 28, 1963 to be reminded of where we were, and hopefully, where we're going.
Think I'll read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird again, too. It helped a kid who grew up in a small town without a lot of diversity see a little bit farther.