A Writer Afoot

Polishing

So, COOKING FOR THE DEAD (not sure we'll keep that title, though I love it), the book I've been working on all winter, is in the final polishing stage.  My editor had a few suggestions to brighten things here and there,  and bring out two characters a little more.   My own need was to let the manuscript become cold enough that I could spot those pesky repetitive words and images. 

This is the fifth time through the entire manuscript, and the pickiest.  I'm sitting down with the book every day for a few hours to read carefully, sometimes aloud, marking the manuscript as I go, and making notes on a legal pad about what is still required.   I think I need to switch the order of a couple of scenes to give more sense of narrative drive.  Pare down the narrative to a leaner point in a couple of other places.  Backstory is very important to this tale, and figuring out how and where to layer that into the story without slowing it down is challenging.  I always put in more than I need at first, then cut back.   

Come to that, I don't know why I write characters with such histories, either.  Maybe we all have that much history?

Anyway, slow going.  Careful, persnickety going a the moment.  I did stumble over one lovely alliterative, internal rhyme in a paragraph that was sweet, and I'm keeping it.  On the other hand, I'm slashing entire paragraphs in places.   Smoothing, smoothing. 

We have had a great time this year, Elena and I.  This is like the last day of camp.   

Barbara Samuel website back up

I've sorted out my hosting issues and the barbarasamuel.com website is back up.   I had a surprising amount of email about this--thank you all for checking in so regularly.

The reassuring natural world

Yesterday, I walked to the YMCA for a yoga class.  There is a park system that loops through the entirety of the subdivision, connecting play parks with grassy sidewalks in a network that is miles and miles and miles long (and people still jog on the street...not sure I get that).  It was an excellent yoga class; it always seems to me that yoga nets about 10x what it should, and I was in a softly blissed state as I walked home.  I happened to glimpse a blue jay flashing through the trees, and stopped to admire him, taking it as a nice little gift from the universe--"here, have a visit with your favorite bird",   and saw there was a pair of them.  And then I saw their baby who had been shoved out of the nest and was none too happy about it.  Parent one nudged him along and the baby squawked, fluttered his wings and protested--"I can't, I can't!"--before lifting off maybe a foot and slamming into the fence. 

I watched him for twenty minutes or so, following behind at a respectful distance, which wasn't all that much, maybe four feet.  I was prepared to chase away a predatory cat or raven, but wouldn't have interfered in any other way.  He panted in the shade, then made another try, flapping his wings until he nearly captured the low hanging branch of a pine.  And missed. 

That's when I left him to the business of learning to fly.  But what a lovely gift for the girls in the basement--all those fluttering feathers; those flashing sapphires and turquoises and grays; all that effort and metaphor, the reassurance that baby birds, small and defenseless and vulnerable as they are, do mostly manage to figure it out, launch themselves and grow up into big blue jays. 

ORANGE!

Orienteering orange, that is.  I completed an orange course at Frisco on Sunday.  It took me three hours, which is hilarious, but I don't care.  I couldn't find control #5 but I was absolutely not going back until I located it, and finally I did.

And what does that have to do with the writing life, you ask (as well you might)?  Plenty.

Orienteering for those who have not been following along, is a sport that teaches map reading.  I know, I know, it sounds dull.  The reality is much more interesting, and highly rewarding.  It's highly empowering to use a map to navigate to a position deep in the woods and locate a particular position at the top of a hill or behind a boulder or at the top of --my favorite orienteering word--a reentrant. I felt ten feet tall when I finished that course.  I have a skinned shin and sunburned shoulders, but it's all mine, that finish.  I was alone in the woods with a map and a compass and I found the flags. All of them.  Every last bloody one.  With no help from anyone.   

CR, naturally, did two courses while I did one and was sitting there, changed into his regular clothes and worrying about me by the time I returned. (I think he took firsts in both courses.)   But he's a master, and a natural endurance athlete.  I am only an enthusiastic participant. 

There is a lot of endurance and patience (stubbornness) required to complete an orienteering course, or a book.  It's all in your head, too, thinking you know something that may or may not be true.  There are always those spots when you could give up, and feel frustrated. 

But mainly, the link to the writing life here is that I love being outdoors in the mountains, or on a beach, hiking and moving and seeing and feeling the air.  I am happier there than almost anywhere, which feeds my love of putting things in words.  It's also a great balancing activity, which all writers must have. We live too much in our heads if we're not careful.  Being outdoors puts me in my body and in the world.   It feeds the well, which is so very, very important if we are to continue to have new details to feed the work. 

You don't have to be an outdoor girl to have passions.  Maybe you like going to the symphony and you're happier there than almost anywhere.  Or on a cruise ship.  Or at Nordstroms.   What do you love to do? What puts you in your body and into the world? 

A writing exercise.....I believe in----

In the Girls in the Basement class, one of the students wrote a beautiful paragraph based in the Bull Durham, "I believe in long, slow, kisses that last three days."  It was so delicious and empowering for all of us to read it that I turned it into an exercise, adding it to the week on Passion (which we are currently exploring).   The original quote from Bull Durham:

Annie Savoy: I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there's no guilt in baseball, and it's never boring... which makes it like sex. There's never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn't have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate. Besides, I'd never sleep with a player hitting under .250... not unless he had a lot of RBIs and was a great glove man up the middle. You see, there's a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys. I can expand their minds. Sometimes when I've got a ballplayer alone, I'll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him, and the guys are so sweet, they always stay and listen. 'Course, a guy'll listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay. I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe, and pretty. 'Course, what I give them lasts a lifetime; what they give me lasts 142 games. Sometimes it seems like a bad trade. But bad trades are part of baseball - now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake? It's a long season and you gotta trust. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.    --Ron Shelton, scriptwriter

Here's mine:

I believe in travel, in wandering far shores to discover all my bullshit and
my earnestness and honor.  I believe in earnestness.

I believe in beauty.  Beautiful songs and beautiful skies and beautiful days
and beautiful pears and beautiful pillows.

I believe words can change the world, truly, and the right sentence at the
right moment can turn a life from despair to progress.  I believe I was born
to write stories, and that's the main reason I'm on the earth this time
around.

I believe God loves me and everybody else, even the people I'd personally
leave out of the Love Everybody Commandment, like Hitler and Idi Amin and my
ex-lover, and She wants me to succeed and help others to succeed and She
uses my hands to do Her work, so when I'm being pitiful and awful, I'm not
really doing Her work.

I believe in good work and good thoughts and plenty of wine and long runs
and hikes in the silence of mountains and good friends and long lazy sex
with the right man or even the wrong one who makes you feel good for awhile.
I believe in sex, come to that, that everyone should have as much as they
want, because it helps headaches and heartaches and probably even diseases.
I believe in great meals and deep belly laughing, which could probably cure
anything, even cancer.  I believe in my sister, the cancer nurse, who scares
the heck out of me and makes me proud.  I believe that sometimes getting
drunk is probably the right answer, and other times, it's a long run.

I believe in balance.

I believe in meditation and reading and good cups of coffee and long airline
flights and in listening.   I believe in dogs and good movies and doing your
best.

I really, really believe in dogs.
------------------

I'd love to hear yours.  Post then in the comments.  Anonymously if that makes you feel braver.  Or not anonymously.   It's a big amazing world to be in love with.

Straight guys can't dance unless they're from the United Kingdom

My friend Liz sent me this link to a post featuring Chistopher Robin.  It's an account of the Harlequin party--if you scroll down past Coo-Coo for Cocoa Puffs, you'll find this:

I think there were five males at this whole thing, but who cares I was dancing and it felt good to shake things up.  I was also thinking of "It's Raining 300 Men" (the full song;  the shorter, funnier version)" at the time, and unfortunately made the "HOO!" sound, much to the astonishment of those who have not seen the video.

One of the decorative males was this really cute dude in full kit kilt--the real deal.  No fake kilt here.

Did I say he was CUTE?  He got cuter as the evening passed, lemme tell ya. And he could dance.  Straight guys can't dance unless they're from the United Kingdom.  Tattoo that where you can see it, it's true.  I never heard him speak, but he just had that UK look to him, sort of a shy David Tennant crossed with Tony Blair with just a hint of Orlando Bloom.

And he just kept getting more and more cute the longer I danced, but I behaved myself and tried not to stare at the way his kilt did fun swirly things around his backside while he danced.  Um, more woman-empowering music you could dance to and I had to breathe again and get a drink.  Ice water, I'm not that much of a fool, and the bartender was grateful for the change of pace.....

To the cute guy in the kilt: I SWEAR on all the books I've written that I did NOT intentionally brush your backside with my hand.  It truly was an accident.  Had I really tried to grope you you would have jumped a lot farther than that.

By the way, dude, nice arse.

Hmm, do you think I should send him the link? Or is that just too much empowerment for one runner-dude with a definite UK vibe?  :)

Post conference #2--the gang

We all met ages ago.  Ages and ages.  Liz Bevarly is on the far left; our careers and lives have taken oddly parallel paths and it has the power to startle us even now.  Next to her is Melissa McClone who is too young and adorable to have met us all ages ago, but is part of a long-time mailing list we all participate with.   That's me in the black tank, with Christie Ridgway next to me (if you could see the shoes, red wedges with ankle straps, you would see why she wins Cutest Clothes all the time).  And kneeling is the incredibly supporting and healing Teresa Hill. 

Layering in Lusciousness worksheet

As promised in my workshop on Saturday afternoon.  I didn't print enough of them.

HOW TO GO THROUGH YOUR MANUSCRIPT

First, a warning: THIS IS NOT A FAST PROCESS.

It can be, once you get the hang of it, but at first, as with any skill, you’ll need to practice it and take some time to figure out how all the tools work for YOU.

And the tools you use, the way you use them are not going to be the same for everyone. Remember that exercise we did at the beginning to help you find your primary senses? That’s a good place to start. Visual people, go with the colors, for example, and work on one other sense that you might not use as vividly. One thing that gets neglected a lot in our culture is scent. Americans are weird about smell. We deodorize absolutely everything. Add some smell to your manuscript and you’re a long way ahead of the game.

TAKE YOUR TIME. 

Purely practical details on how to enrich that manuscript.

1. When you’ve finished a rough draft, more or less, let it sit for a week or two. (I realize that is not always possible, but give it as much time as you can.) Let it get cold, so you’ll be able to give it a fresh read.

2. Sit down with the book and read through it. Keep a notebook at your elbow to write down any repetitive images. Note which scenes feel soft and which are pedestrian. Just make a little star on those scenes. I use D.I.B. which means, very simply, Do It Better.

It’s important to remember that everybody’s rough drafts kind of suck. It’s meant to be a sketch of what the book is going to look like. You get to erase and rearrange and make it gorgeous in later drafts.

This is actually more of a problem for working, published writers than it is for those still working on earlier manuscripts. Both time problems and the feeling that the rough draft should be somehow kind of polished. You can get trapped by the feeling that your current work in progress is supposed to be as good at the book you just turned in.

3. Make a note of the themes that are showing up and the images your subconscious has coughed up. Trust me you’ll have both of these things. They might be a little soft at this point, but try to find some images you can work with.

4. Once you’ve done that read through, go through each scene. One scene at a time to layer in the things the book needs. If it feels slow or soft or dull, try some things on to see what might make it better. Again, go back to your primary senses. What are the colors in this book? What is the setting and how are you putting that on the page—are you using all five senses? Where can you add imagery to underline your theme? (For example, in a book about ghosts, I used images of the Day of the Dead—marigolds and skeletons).

5. Do one more read through—read the book aloud. This will reveal more flaws than almost any other technique, seriously. You’ll hear clunky language, catch repetitive works, notice that you have used the word “luminous” 16 times. It’ll help you catch plodding language and places where you’ve just missed making a paragraph sing.

6. Then, roll up your sleeves and layer it all into the rough draft. It might take you a few weeks of daily work to go through this process start to finish, but I guarantee the results will be worth your time.

HANDOUT #2

FINALLY, TO BE ABLE TO USE THESE DETAILS, YOU HAVE TO KEEP ADDING THEM TO YOUR COLLECTION.

Make yourself a spectacular detail collector. Be curious about absolutely everything. Eavesdrop. Learn how to stare without being obvious. At certain points of your day, take a one minute break to really be in the moment. You don’t have to always write it down, but it doesn’t hurt.

Carry notebooks in your purse. 

 

1. Take time to do things that feed your senses, all of them. Go to beautiful gardens and museums, fabric stores and restaurants. Smell roses, perfumes, other people.

2. Make a habit of eavesdropping and buy sunglasses so you can stare more easily.

3. Carry a notebook and make sketches of things. They don’t have to be skilled or even competent, they’ll just help remind you to really SEE things. A good second is to use your cell phone camera, a LOT. If you see something that jolts your senses, take a picture of it.

4. Travel. Wherever you can. Go to new neighborhoods. Go to faraway places. Pay attention to your surroundings, but also pay attention to how you feel exploring them. Are you excited, standoffish, worried about looking foolish or intruding where you should not go?

5. Find music you love and play it often. Go to concerts or out to listen to music in whatever venue you can enjoy. Go to the symphony. Go to plays. Watch movies.

6. Develop hobbies that excite your senses. Visual people might enjoy things like making stained glass or quilts or learning to use watercolors. Auditory people might like learning to play an intrustrument or collecting the music of a certain form or era. (I like the blues and baroque.) Texture people might like models or sewing.

I think a lot of writers are magpies, and that’s good. If you get a yen to learn to cook Indian food, or learn to speak Arabic, or play the cello, go for it. I promise that far from taking away from your writing, it will add to it.

7. Read poetry. Aloud. This is something we’ve moved away from in our society, but writers are the natural audience for poets. Read it and feel it. There is a poet for everyone out there. Find one you love.

8. Be alert to the themes and ideas you love to use in your work. How do you use them? What interests you? How can you keep coming up with fresh ways to illustrate them?

9. Spend the extra two weeks to make a manuscript really sparkle. To layer in those colors, the details of smell and touch and song, to tweak a scarf from blue to orange.

10. PLAY. ENJOY YOURSELF! Remember, this is about making something beautiful, not a big, impossible challenge.   

From: LAYERING IN LUSCIOUSNESS, by Barbara Samuel, www.awriterafoot.com

Great things at RWA

For some reason, I found myself thinking a lot of my first conference.   Not sure why.  That was in San Franscisco, a million years ago.   I met my friend Liz Bevarly for the first time, and we roomed together for the first half of the week, along with Christie Ridgway (who always wins "cutest outfits" category.)  Maybe that's why.  We all talked a lot about what it takes to keep a long career going, and it's not necessarily what you imagine in year one (or year seven).   We've all signed with new publishers this year, and discussed the ups and downs of time and the bone-satisfying pleasure of writing for a living.  For decades!

It was a busy trip, so I'm sure I'll forget some other great moments, but here are a few:

--Meeting with a group of writers who have met through the Girls in the Basement and the voice classes.  Naturally, I had pictured almost everyone in a different way. 

--The Libarian's Day, and lunch.  It's such a delight to talk with librarians and mingle with them and hear what's happening in their worlds.

--A Librarian's Tea, which is an appreciation tea hosted by John Charles and Joanne Hamilton-Selway, who have published a new book, THE ULTIMATE READING GUIDE, a Complete Idiot's Guide.   They passed out copies and we all reverently leafed through it, awash in the pleasure of remembering our favorites in many categories.  Because it was a bunch of writers, we had read entire lists, of course.  My nearly complete lists were popular fiction, romance fiction, literary fiction, and (surprise!) travel books.  There are lists at the back for making lists of your own.  It's just being published, and I highly recommend it, especially for booksellers and librarians and readers.  In other words, everyone.

--The Literacy signing, which was in a much airy than usual location.  I saw lots of readers and friends.

--Dinner with my new/old editor, Shauna Summers, at Craft. The shortribs were divine. 

--But naturally, the best adventure was with Christopher Robin, who took to heart the "ONE WORLD" tag of the Harlequin Party and found himself a sexy kilt.  I leave you to judge the results for yourself.   Photos courtesy of Melissa McClone, who posted a lot of wonderful photos of the conference on her blog.

This is always my favorite event.  Hundreds of women, dressed in their finery, come to dance and dance and dance.  Thanks to the good folks at Harlequin/Silhouette/Mira for hosting the bash year after year.

Christopher Robin, wearing Ancient Gunn.  He's qualified to wear Gordon tartan, but they didn't have that one. This matched my scarf.  Sort of.

My sandals are much cuter than they look in this photo.  Not that anyone wears shoes for more than twenty minutes.  Someone told me she had blisters on the bottom of her feet the next morning from dancing barefoot. 

Enough for now.  It's been a very busy three weeks and I think I've earned the right to lie on the couch in the basement (where it's cool) and read, read, read.

A couple of notes before rushing away

I'm headed out to the annual madness of the National RWA conference tomorrow morning.   I'll bring pictures back.  If anyone is in the Dallas area, the annual literacy signing is Weds night, 5pm, at the Hyatt hotel downtown. 

A couple of notes before I go:
--Yes, I know the main website (barbarasamuel.com) is down.  I'm a space case and have had NO time to fix the issue, but I seriously hated the hosting company and want to change.  Typepad has spoiled me.  I'll get all the material up again when I have time after all these deadlines and travel.  Truth is, much as we try, creative sorts are not always detail oriented.  You want me to write.  You want me to show up prepared to teach.  And I can talk all day.  Details of web stuff---sometimes not so together.

--I saw LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE over the weekend and it's fabulous.  If, like me, you thought it was going to be a total downer filmed in weird color schemes about people you'd avoid if they were your neighbors, well, you're wrong.  Rich and funny and layered and sick, just like real families.  Imagine!   What I loved most is how good I felt about myself at the end of it--there's a sense of tenderness toward our very flawed human selves that made me feel okay, just as I am.  The little girl is worth the price of admission, and I am more and more a fan of Steve Carrell.

--The novella goes in the mail this afternoon.  Luckily, I gathered clothes and shoes for Santa Barbara, so I just have to repeat pack.  Which was really just a repeat pack of the various weekends I've been spending elsewhere.  If you are the kind of person who keeps track of clothes, be warned that I am wearing my favorite black tank and ever-so-packable turquoise skirt.  Again.  And my fragile 40's-style blouse with the chemise with jeans, because I think it looks cool and I really am not a fan of business attire for myself.  Also the beaded shoes I found on a rack for $10 that are so Arabian nights my inner six year old goes nuts every time we put them on.

Hey, if you're going, and you see me, please hello.  Also remember, I'm quite nearsighted, so if I don't have my glasses on, trust me, I cannot see your face.  Come close and say hi. 

The Egalitarian Oasis of the Library

A couple of days ago, I desperately wanted to read a book recommended to me by memoirist and debut novelist Nora Gallagher,* The Situation and The Story, by Vivian Gornick.  I accessed the library computer from home, discovered the system had two copies---one downtown, but checked out, the other at a branch I'd never heard of, in a weary neighborhood on the city's east side.   After supper, I drove over there, and entered another world.

The branch is located in a mostly abandoned strip mall from the seventies, taking up a civilized space about the size of an old Duckwall's or Ace Hardware.  At first, I thought I'd go the address wrong, because the mall was so deserted.  But there, at the far, far end of the lot, was a cluster of cars like palm trees around an oasis. 

It was seven o'clock on a Monday evening, and the place was packed. Packed.  I saw a lot of teens and pre-teens, but also a lot of women and a few older men.  They lined the computer banks, row after row. They sat at tables and talked to each other.  Books in a language I didn't recognize and decided later must be Korean were propped up on the displays alongside glossy hardcover Spanish-language editions, alongside the latest bestsellers from Nora Roberts and James Patterson in English.  A huge young adult collection, I noticed, wandering through the aisles.  Fans blew overhead, sending that beloved, dusty scent of books dizzily into the air. A patient, overworked man with a slightly red face manned the desk.

I wanted to cry.  It was quick and sharp, a sudden wave of intense emotion welling into my throat, my mouth.   At that moment, I didn't take time to analyze it, since it would be inappropriate (even for me) to be so emotional in public, and just squished it down.  I found the Gornick, then wandered down the fiction stacks to see if they had any copies of my books (they did). and headed for the desk, admiring a lushly beautiful young woman speaking Spanish and the slave of a youth who was reading to her in English, and the sharp coyote face of a woman making notes from the computer screen in front of her.  A boy of about twelve, dusky and plump, with a voice so soft I could barely hear him, asked for something of the desk clerk, who explained to him how whatever it was worked.  A cluster of tiny teenagers came in, chattering in an Asian language, again probably Korean, since when I left I noticed Korean grocery stores and a Korean church just down the street.

I stepped up to the desk.  "Busy night!" I said. "And you sure have a lot of computers here."

He nodded his very Scottish head, red-faced and red-headed and grizzled beard. "Fifteen!" he said proudly. "And they're that busy every day, from the moment we open the doors until the time we close." 

I nodded. 

"You can reserve one if you want.  I recommend it."

"Thank you," I said. "That's great."   I checked out my books. The memoir how-to, and another book I found on Edith Wharton's travel writing.

As I walked to my car, I thought of my three computers. I thought of the I-phone, $500, plus monthly service fees.  I got in my car and felt winded and grateful, for both my life and the library that isn't in it, that oasis of computers and books in many languages.  Nothing fancy, just a lot of shelves in a forgotten strip mall, and a good electronic connection across the street from blocks and blocks of affordable apartments.  It's a world I don't enter very often anymore.  But once, I lived there.   It was before computers took over our lives, and I used the library for finding books, for studying craft, for reading and reading and reading, absorbing all the things that were completely outside my blue collar world.  I found myself in libraries.  Without them, I could not have found the life I found.

I know sometimes people complain about computers in libraries, but consider how impossible it is for a minimum wage worker to have a computer.  Even if you could afford the computer, by finding a reconditioned model, maybe, or saving up for a big sale, how will you afford the access to the Internet?  It suddenly seemed breathlessly, incredibly wonderful to me to see all those people accessing the Internet there in the library. What are they using it for? I don't know.  Email.  Research. Job searches.  To see photos of a niece, far away in Korea, or maybe Mexico.  To stay in touch.  To read about a subject that fascinates them.  To get a break from life.  All the reasons I use the Internet. 

As I drove home, leaving behind one world and entering another by driving fifteen or twenty minutes up the road, a world were there is probably not a single house that doesn't have a computer, and probably most of them have many computers, I thought again what a marvelous, amazing thing our library systems are. Each one is an oasis of hope and knowledge and possibility, representing the best of us, the most democratic institution in our world.

It seems appropriate on this 4th of July holiday to say, VIVA the library system, and viva the Ruth Holley Branch in particular, because it didn't just have all those things for everybody else, it had the book I most desperately wanted to read, too.

Do you have a favorite library story? Tell us about it. 

* I heard Gallagher in Albuquerque at the librarian's day I attended. Then she happened to be in Santa Barbara, where she lives, and happened to sit beside me at the  booksigning.  I also have her books now in my TBR pile.

Most influential people

One of the speakers in Santa Barbara was Carolyn See, who was wonderfully wise and droll and witty and smart.   I bought her book Making a Literary Life , a highly useful little book no matter where you are on the writing path. (I especially loved her "recipe" for writing articles--as she says herself, it's worth the price of the book, and no, I will not tell you what it is.)   

One exercise she offers is to make a list of the ten most influential people in your life.  I took up a pen and started scribbling names.  In the end, I was startled by my list. I won't bore you with the whole thing, but I was intrigued to notice the people who inform my work. Some I expected. Some I did not.

I wonder if the list would be different if I'd been thinking less about writing. 

The first one is my grandmother and my mother.  In combination, the pair of them yin and yang.  Their relationship, and my place in it, is as important to my work and my own, very complex relationships with each of them. 

One I was surprised to realize was still on there is my ex-husband.  Larger than life, with a laugh that fills a room and hands as big as platters, he's complex, not easily known, and shaped much of my thinking about families, music, culture. 

Who is someone highly influential in your life?  If you are a writer, can you see that stamp in your work?

Layering loves into the writing

I guess no one else found the flowers being delivered and arranged as fascinating as I did.  My friend Robin was a bit perplexed at my fascination, too.

But that's what writers do, isn't it? Become fascinated by things.  Obsessed.  Ray Bradbury spoke on writing from his loves, how his loves had informed his writing.  Carolyn See urged us to make a list of things we know about.  In my classes, we do lists of twenty five things we love.   

This morning, I'm on the between week--last week conference in Santa Barbara, next week conference in Dallas, this week finishing a novella for a Mother's Day anthology. I was invited to participate in the collection, and in that instance, there's a usually a fair strong idea of what the editors are looking for.  We talked about possibilities and I chose the thread of an "older" mother and her newborn daughter.   That's as much direction as you get, usually--and I honestly do love coming up with themed novellas.  It's a great length for me, a pacing period I instinctively understand (unlike, say, a short story, which usually defeats me, though I can easily write articles or essays the same length with no trouble), and there's just enough room to paint a lovely picture, play with something and then set it free.

Harkening back to the Hemingway discussion, I found myself noticing how I'm using my loves in this piece.  It's commercial and written to a specific idea (Mother's Day), but that doesn't mean it has to be cool or distant or shallow or not real in some way.  I'm using my love of yoga, in that the heroine runs a yoga studio in Denver (which is called Yogariffic--I was so pleased with myself for coming up with that name!). She's questioning her motives and examining place where commerce and yoga and sustainable living meet.  And while I don't think about commerce and yoga so much, I am often concerned about the meeting place between the comfortable easy American lifestyle to which most of us (er...me) have become accustomed, and the idea of sustainable lifestyles. 

Without revealing too much and spoiling your pleasure in the eventual story, she's an older mom, 38, who falls in love with a Welshman.  There is an infant girl, and that's where another of my loves came in--oh, it is so much fun to write about this mother getting to know her baby! That tininess.  The pearl-like fingers and toes.  The earthy noises babies make and the funny, surprising heft of their bodies.   

And layered in are the mornings I walked on the beach, alone in the low gray mornings, with the waves and the seagulls.

Sometimes beginning writers are afraid to pour all their love into their stories.  They want to be more sophisticated than that, or more "interesting".   Just do it, pour it all in.  Let it shine.