A Pain in the Neck, Creativity and No Plans

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I am at the edge of an ocean of time: a week off from work with no plans! Yet, since joyfully levitating out of the store, I’ve already kayaked every day  (R was my Prince waiting with water-borne chariot on Friday) done Yoga on the beach, washed fresh oysters down with good beer while listening to live Jazz in the breezes off Norwalk Harbor. I’ve baked an apricot tart, concocted a potato salad with olives and shallots, and a lentil salad with red peppers, mango and the tiniest bits of kale so maybe Molly won’t notice. Plus R and I finally moved the messy piles of branches punctuating our lawn since the tree came down over a month ago. Fun, delicious and productive and my week has only just begun!

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I love not having to go to work. Of course these days to myself are precious because I work full time but a few friends have recently retired and are coping just fine with their new time-wealth. I would too, but retirement thoughts are with my lottery winning fantasies: firing up every time I buy a ticket while keenly aware of the lousy odds.

Even with a dream job like mine, pausing to restore some life balance is crucial. A stiff neck has plagued me for weeks. No amount of rubbing or heat or yoga has eased it. I began researching acupuncturists and massage therapists but on Saturday, floating on the glasslike Long Island Sound, paddling to nowhere, I felt my shoulder and neck begin to unlock. Ah!

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While gazing at the islands, I remembered a time when my neck was so bad, I could not even turn my head: Bosnia. For months I’d put in 10 hours, 7 days a week. Work was simultaneously compelling, frustrating and sad. I was part of a peacekeeping operation with no effective mandate; essentially we were sticking our skinny fingers in a big dike. As happens ‘on mission’ or ‘in the field’ in the lingo of that business, work was my life and down-time meant drinking too much with the same people I’d just spent all day with. I never unwound – thus my neck muscles became so tight, aptly, I could not look around.

I’m no longer in a war zone so why is this happening to me again? I’m surrounded by books, regularly meeting people with common interests and I’m not usually stuck behind a desk. Most days fly by. Still, as is true for everyone I speak with these days, there is a lot to do and less time to do it in.  Friends employed in education, medicine, business and of course, self-employed authors and artists, are all working harder than ever for results rarely what they once were and certainly not as easily achieved. And thus we are stressed. Aren’t you?

I know there’s a problem brewing when I wake up on a Sunday morning worrying about something that is job related: what school order is due? will I have enough books for an author event? I’m afraid I’m a “good girl” making me a great employee and it’s challenging to have ME be the most important boss, to be the ‘customer’ that matters most. It doesn’t matter how great or exciting the job is (I have had both) my subconscious is best fueled by creative, not task-driven juices. To get there, I need a daily routine, a time set aside to pay attention. Only when I do this can I sustain a rich interior self throughout the day, no matter what I do.

I want my first thought on waking to be about whatever I’m writing, not job issues.  In the past, I obsessed over my painting or sculpture but the form of art is irrelevant.  My stiff neck has alerted me to the importance of nurturing, sourcing and keeping alive and well, the sorcery of where art comes from. I need to look and really see the world around me while also digging down deep inside. There in that gazing within/without, lays the magic and the bliss. That’s what I’m after this week – to get back to that daily practice of being.

Yesterday, I was gabbing with my beloved and brilliant sister and she reminded me of Walter Mosley’s slim little book, This is the Year You Write Your Novel. He recounted how he always got up early to write before going to his bill-paying computer programming job, thus ensuring he gave his best to himself. The old, pay-yourself-first wisdom taken to another level. I credit Mosley’s book for inspiring me to diligently do the same, and I did, getting up every morning to write my memoir – yes, in a year.

I have no plans this week but hope to wake to no one’s story but my own.  I may also get a massage.

Out of the Box (and a Plug for Subscribing to The New York Times)

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I love the New York Times. Saturday and Sunday delivery suits both my financial and my time budget. Reading just two days of paper absorbs hours of my weekend and sometimes I don’t even finish it. I make my way through every section except Auto and Sports. During the week I can read it digitally although I usually just glance at the headlines. Do you have a subscription? Subscribing to a newspaper helps keep it going and I feel strongly about the print version of this newspaper. I’d hate to see it disappear. The writers are fantastic, the journalism and photography and breadth of coverage is the best around. During my years of living overseas, The New York Times was one of the things I missed most. Now, with digital publishing, I could live in Japan again and still have at least digital access to my favorite newspaper.

My plug for one of the last bastions of fine journalism – is inspired by this article on today’s front page. Where else are you going to read about a new funeral option: get yourself set up in a life-like pose in the setting of your choice. Mourners can then pay their last respects in the way they remember you — at least the way you want them to remember you.

Even before reading this crazy headline (one I’m sure The New York Post envied) “Rite of the Sitting Dead: Funeral Poses Mimic Life”, I thought something was a tad off about the woman in sunglasses sitting with cigarette in one hand, a glass in the other and a Busch beer by her side. Turns out — she’s dead! This picture was taken at her wake. Weird, right? This and the other images in the article (you have to look!) got me thinking about the question of ‘what do you want on your gravestone?’ to the ‘nth’ degree. How can you not start imagining what you’d like the last visual of you to be?

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I don’t mean to be blithe about death but as someone with a few terrible last visuals of loved ones, I appreciate this somewhat macabre idea of creating a desirable last image of someone. Why not? Bizarre but with a touch of whimsy — even humor. And even if you’d never (and I’d never) consider actually doing such a thing, the exercise of coming up with a scene that best captures who you are, fascinates me.

What vignette would you choose as your swan-song? Writing at your desk perhaps? Eating a fine meal? Gardening? Reading? (that might be mine) Fishing? Watching football in front of the TV? The possibilities are apparently endless. And why not take it a step further and include in your diorama, previously (I hope!) deceased pets who you’ve had the foresight to taxidermy? Why not? In case you’re interested in that service, here’s another NYT’s article on that subject and a photo from the same article.

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According to an intern funeral director quoted in today’s article, these kind of services don’t need to cost much more than a regular funeral. And in case you don’t know how much a funeral runs these days, here’s another NYT’s article from 2011 on that very subject.

Like I said, I really love The New York Times — so maybe I should be buried with it after being posed at my wake reading it in front of the fireplace or outside on my wicker chaise, depending upon the season. Hey, It’s never too early to start planning our grand exit into eternity – and why not be well informed and entertained to boot?

An Unexpected Expat Birth

UNICEF’s mission is to protect children and their mothers so when bombs began falling on Zagreb in May 1995, my employers insisted I take an early maternity leave from my job as a Program Officer. I gladly exited the bitter Balkan war zone where I’d spent almost 4 years and joined my husband in Italy. He’d left a month earlier for a new job, renting an extravagant villa in the picturesque town of Ostuni – about 40 minutes away from his office in Brindisi.

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Behind the villa, a narrow staircase led to a hidden lemon and lime grove. Cherry trees full of ripe fruit and a magnificent rose garden filled the grounds. I would while away the hot June days in this fantasy location before traveling to Oxford England where my friend Chloe, a breastfeeding specialist and midwife I’d worked with at UNICEF, would deliver our baby girl who was due August 1. That was our plan.

I spent my days waddling across the cool tile floors, napping in various rooms in the too-big house, picking fruit and deadheading flowers in the garden, reading Willa Cather, cooking delicious dinners — imagining that some how, all of this was practice for my imminent new life as mother. Those pregnant, sweaty days, strangely alone in Southern Italy, far from friends and family, I washed and folded the soft, tiny baby gear and imagined my baby, trying out different names aloud to no one but the cats.

On the roof, I wrestled our sheets over the laundry line where they dried within minutes in the hot wind whipping up the coast. Beyond the golden fields of sunflowers stretching out towards the horizon, shimmered a sliver of the Adriatic. Just across the sea from my little paradise, war still raged and I felt guilty about my own escape. Meanwhile my baby elbowed, shoved and squirmed within me, insisting I pay attention to her.

My maternal hankerings had survived 4 years of life in a war zone, even as I witnessed the worst in humans. There was nothing I wanted more than this baby although I had no idea how to care for an infant. Far from friends and my own mother, whose advice I might have disdained anyway, there were no baby showers, no chance for baby tips from my peers. I looked forward to traveling to England at the end of June where I could easily make friends in my own language with other new mothers-to-be in a birthing class I’d sign up for.

Instead, just after siesta time on June 13th, in a frantic fifteen minutes, my baby girl was delivered in a tiny hospital in Ostuni almost 2 months early. From there, they whisked her away by ambulance to Brindisi Hospital’s neonatology unit.

I woke from my drug induced sleep, in a dark hospital room that felt like a 1930’s movie set.  Other new mothers slept in the other 7 old fashioned, heavy metal framed beds.  A full moon shone in warped rays through the glass of the casement window, a weird spotlight on only my bed. I clutched the hospital gown closed behind me, while dodging balloons bobbing from the other beds, celebrating the babies safely swaddled just down the hall. Where was my baby? Hobbling barefoot past the life-size statue of Virgin Mary whose lightbulb halo lit the hall, my physical pain was indistinguishable from the psychic pain tearing through me. Was my daughter alive? With remembered prayers from my Catholic upbringing, I begged Mary for her intervention and continued down the hall where I was met by a nurse.

With a smattering of Italian words, I begged the sleepy woman to help me call my husband or the hospital to find out news of my baby. I knew no phone numbers, there were no cell phones. The nurse insisted everyone was asleep and I would need to wait until morning. She steered me back to the maternity ward where I sunk into my still moonlit mattress and wept.

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When morning finally arrived, my husband came barreling into an impossibly bright room, he was grinning. She was alive! He rushed to my bedside and told me his story of the day before: how he sped after the ambulance, about the sweet care and expertise of the doctors, of their assurance our baby would be fine, how he tried to call to tell me but the hospital insisted I was sleeping and was it okay that he had gone ahead and named our daughter, choosing our current favorite womb-name because they wanted a name at the hospital. Yes, yes, I said while trying, through tears to see my daughter in the photograph he’d brought. It was another 2 days until the hospital released me to go to her, and during that time I joyfully clutched that sad little image of my baby poked full of tubes, tiny limbs akimbo, and thought: she is perfect.

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The BEA, and the Crapshoot of Event Audiences

Last week’s Book Expo America at the Javits Center in NYC was like a gathering of a huge clan.  I felt almost a familial recognition as I moved with the mobs traipsing through the convention center. These were my people – book people. For four days, publishers, distributors, and authors welcomed passionate booksellers, librarians and on Saturday, the public, to peruse new and upcoming books, schmooze, meet their favorite authors and score signed books and Advanced Reader Copies.

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It was my first time at #BEA and I went alone. Unsure what my stamina or crowd-tolerance might be, I wanted to be free to linger or leave. In fact, I wandered the exhibits for hours chatting with publishers, reveling in the pleasure of being a ‘customer’, diving into book displays, taking only what I absolutely couldn’t resist since my shelves are already sagging. I did not bring any bags with me (never mind a shopping cart like some) but when I spotted this tote slung over a few shoulders, I just had to have one.

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The long lines to meet authors did not tempt me. Having hosted author events for so many years, any thrill in a signature I ever might have had is gone. What I could not do is pass by an author alone behind their stack of books, or ignore someone’s call to me, ‘would you like an autographed book?’ — what could I say? No? Of course not. I chatted and gratefully accepted signed copies, increasing my weight-bearing workout as the day progressed. Somehow, I can’t help feeling responsible for the struggling author.

I did consider waiting for David Mitchell who was signing at 2:00 PM but instead happened by the delightful and entertaining “Women of Contemporary Fiction” panel featuring bestselling novelists Liane Moriarty, Amy Bloom, Randy Susan Meyers, Susan Jane Gilman, moderated by Elin Hilderbrand. Elin asked the hysterically funny, self-deprecating and whip-smart authors on the panel to share their career low-point. Amy Bloom began and the others followed with tales of poorly attended book signings — audiences composed only of the local homeless guy and their parents.

It struck me that these established authors value their events to the extent that a bad one might qualify as a career low-point. Conversely, huge crowds were not anyone’s measure of a high-point. Instead, their highs were more intimate like Susan Jane Gilman calling her inspiring high school English teacher (who happened to be Frank McCourt!) to tell him she was on the NYT’s Bestseller list. I suspect half the audience was in tears with Susan, still mourning this beloved man and writer. I was.

Of course a writer emerges from solitude with high hopes, excited to present their art to the world – so a poor showing can feel like a gut punch. Every author accumulates these ‘war stories’ like a rite of passage, but hearing them makes me squirm. As an event coordinator, empty chairs are at least partly my fault and I berate myself that I should have done a better job of beating-the-bushes, distributing more flyers, etc. Although there have been times, even recently, that I screamed an event from the rooftops and still only 3 people showed up. What to do?

Disappointments are rarer now that I am straight with authors in telling them friends and family are their best support so they better ask them to come. The public won’t just show up because you finished your book — unless you’re a ‘name’. Even then, celebrities, movie moguls and famous musicians live in the town where I work and rarely get a second glance, so even if you’re famous, don’t expect the line to be out the door. Everything is relative, of course. If your beloved Aunt lives in town and promised to bring all her friends, 15 filled chairs are just dandy. If you have your own radio show, or are a 1960’s folk icon and there are 20 people there, it feels like a dud.  Chances are you’ll be disappointed, maybe miffed, or like the 60’s icon, surly and irritated because his adoring crowd was only about that many. (Well sorrr-ry no one remembers or cares. Can you tell that he pissed me off?)

Us event-folks know what a crapshoot these things can be. We struggle with how many books to order because no one likes returns. While it’s tempting to ask a bookseller to take their name tag off and pretend to be a devoted fan, I’ve never done it. (they have work to do!) It’s the suburbs so we can’t drag people in off the street like in a city where you could cajole with some coffee. We feel badly when things go badly. But there are definitely things that can be done by both of us – and don’t underestimate the power of your dear Aunt Edith or better yet, your mother!

The key is team-work. Here’s the team: you and if you have one, certainly your publicist, the store’s event coordinator, your friends and family, your writers’ group, your neighbors… you get the idea. In the old days it helped to get a feature article in one of the local newspapers and it still doesn’t hurt so you might try and connect with a local book reviewer. You should do this. I can try but I’m also very busy trying to score thousands of dollars worth of corporate and school sales and besides, if I ask journalists to write up every author that came through, well, it’s like the story of the ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf’ and they’re not going to listen to me. Better if you knock on that door.

Kid’s author events are even tougher than adult ones – at least in this community where many schools pay for very big name authors to come to them. After school, they are scheduled to the hilt so competition for these budding over-achievers is tough — no matter how adorable your book is. See if you can set up school visits before the evening store event with pre-sales. Do your best to mesmerize the kids and create a spectacular buzz inspiring kids to come see you at the store later. That’s what New York Times Bestselling Children’s author Sarah Mylinowski recently did when she spent a marathon day with me, cheerfully trooping around to elementary schools, charming everyone she met. And at 7:00 PM at the store, her event was standing room only.

Here’s what your event will look like when the day comes. I will set you up in a visible spot far enough away from the grinding espresso machine and whirring blender. You’ll have a mic and a healthy stack of books and a few backlist titles if available. I’ll have Sharpies and a ballpoint in case you prefer that. Want a coffee or water? I’ll do a short and sweet introduction for you based on any information you sent me weaving in some great review soundbites. You’ll have your talk ready having thought about it carefully. (here’s what I suggest.) The team will have done the work so the chairs will be full. At least 15 of them.

Of course there are benefits to an in-store event beyond the event itself. Free publicity and in-store real estate for a week or more. Bookstores may Tweet and/or share it on their Facebook page. You should do the same. Did you write a book on gardening? Contact all the local gardening groups and ask them to join you at the store — what a great opportunity for them to also network with other gardeners not in their group. You get the idea. Tap into existing groups and present your an event as an opportunity for them to spread the word about what you all care about. This is still not any guarantee of a crowd though so try not to get delusional. Think of every event like your party — because it is! Invite your friends and let’s sell some books.

 

Book-love: A Chronic Condition

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It’s getting worse. Piles everywhere.  I may gaze with lust at pictures of gorgeous and clever bookshelves but in my house, books live in chaos. Paperbacks, hardcovers are not organized by subject, nor author, nor color (egads) or most recently acquired.  Advanced Readers Copies are piled in with purchased titles. Anywhere I sit in the house there is a book within grabbing distance. Teetering on the table beside my corner of the couch (next to the reading light, of course) is a stack of mostly memoirs. Sometimes I’ll pull a title off a shelf because I forgot I owned it and have yet to read it.  For that same reason, I also have multiples of the same title like Truth and Beauty that I own both in paperback and hardcover. (how have I not read this yet?) Thus grows another pile – as if by cluttering up a table with them increases the odds I’ll read them sooner.

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And when I’ve finished a book I’ve loved I still need to keep it around me at least a little longer, my new friend. I can’t simply shelve it – how inhospitable that would feel! Coincidentally, one recent ‘friend’ hanging around is by a friend: Nina Sankovitch‘s new memoir Signed, Sealed, Delivered was inspired by letters she found years ago in a rotting trunk in her backyard in NYC. Nina’s engaging voice and smart storytelling is a delight even if she’s not your buddy and of course after you’ve read it she will be your bud because – that’s what happens. And like her last book Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, you’ll finish with an appetite to read the same books and letters she writes of so compellingly.  Another recent favorite is The Steady Running, Justin Go‘s beautifully wrought novel of love, adventure, obsession, told through time and across the globe. (I do want to discuss the ending with someone else who read it – let me know when you have.)

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Bed-side, of course I have more books. These are what I am reading now and what I intend to read next before sleeping. My stack includes collected essays providing me with inspiration as I find my own writerly way. Currently in that camp are Ann Patchett‘s This is the Story of a Happy Marriage and Dani Shapiro‘s Still Writing – both warm and encouraging writers who reach out across the pages to say it is possible, be brave.

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Not even my kitchen is a book-free zone. Of course, I love cookbooks. While the lesser-used ones have been relegated to a cupboard with some pots and pans, the shelf holding the tomes with my go-to recipes threatens to collapse. My favorite continues to be Super Natural Everyday by Heidi Swanson whose food blog, 101 Cookbooks I suggest you subscribe to.

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Even at work, where reading consists of stolen minutes while eating lunch, I keep a pile of appealing ARCs I’ve snagged under my desk. Peter Heller‘s The Painter is what’s on the menu these days, pages getting dappled with salad dressing daily.

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Last week’s great treat was attending a presentation of new books by Independent Publishers organized by B&N and the Association of American Publishers. It was intoxicating to listen to these publishers and bask in their obvious passion and love for the new titles they described so eloquently. How can I not love my job, this crazy business of books? As I harbor publishing hopes of my own, what an inspiring peek into the kitchen where the cooking gets done. These professionals with their smarts, passion are one of the major of a myriad of reasons I will not self-publish. I want some of that love! So yes, there were freebies. Yet, when it was time for a break and 100 plus of my fellow booksellers lined up to grab them, I went for a cup of tea. I hate lines and didn’t fancy shlepping books through the streets of Manhattan back to Connecticut. And as you can see from these photos, I have enough to read. I was very proud of my self-control.

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But then the last publisher took the mic.

Publisher Judith Gurewich, introduced 2 new titles her press, Other Press will be releasing: I’ll Be Right There by Kyung Sook Shin who also wrote Please Look after Mom and The Goddess of Small Victories by Yannick Grannec. Her description of both of these books was so enthralling and passionate, I beat 100 booksellers out of the room and cornered Judith to tell her so. She insisted on giving me her last ARCs. I’ll be reading them.

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My book lust feels almost greedy, my cravings never sated. Am I being a hoarder, nervously anticipating that day when I can no longer main-line books before they’ve even hit the shelves? My question to myself and anyone else who’d care to answer, am I becoming a bit of a crazy person? Do I have a problem?

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The book I’m reading before I fall asleep each night is An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine. Even more book-mad than me, Nina Sankovitch knew I’d love this book and of course, she is right. A brilliant, aging woman in Beirut lives contentedly, alone with her books. Her apartment is crammed with them. Reading this beautiful portrait of this literature lover makes me feel a little less wacko. Or at least that I’m in good company.

P.S. I also own a NOOK. It’s somewhere… probably under a pile of books.

Forgiving Flaws on Mother’s Day

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Mother’s Day. I’m not a fan of these Hallmark Holidays. (well, I admit to liking Valentine’s Day.) I agree with  this piece by Annie Lamott. Becoming a mother was the best thing I ever did – but as Annie says, it’s not for everyone and not everyone is good at it. And those of us with either dead mothers or fraught relationships must grapple with our grief and complex emotions amidst this jolly day of bon-bons and brunches.

The distance I felt with my mother was made more comfortable by actual distance – so for much of my adult life I lived either across or out of the country – far from her. It was only after I moved back to the United States with my 1 year old daughter that I felt a shift, the possibility for real connection. A year later, she died.

I believe my mother did the best she could.  She once told a friend that were she do do it all over again she would not have had kids. For a time, I thought that a terrible thing to say but I realize now this was not because she didn’t love her kids.  Rather, she thought she would have preferred pursuing other things that, having 4 children with barely a year between them and teaching high school, precluded. She was smart as a whip and passionate about social injustice and would have been a great lefty- lawyer or maybe a politician. Who knows. She was launched almost obliviously into motherhood the way many Irish Catholic women in the fifties were.  It was all she could do to keep herself and the rest of us afloat. So we floated.

Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu have written a book about Forgiveness and are promoting it with a lovely online, month long “Forgiveness Challenge”. I signed up because I love Bishop Tutu and because I want to stay forgiveness-fit. I believe and history has shown us, that this is the only way to thrive after injury. Each day there are short readings, sometimes with a video or audio, a poem or interviews on forgiveness. One of the first forgiveness-excercises in the Challenge is to decided who you want to forgive.  My mother is on my list just as I suspect I would be on my daughter’s. We are not perfect, us mothers.

Today, I forgive my mother for never telling me how incredible being a mother can be. Did she not think so? For me, every stage of nurturing and loving my kid through life has been precious. From the moment I saw my daughter, then held her, I was a goner.  I’d been in love before, but nothing compared to the space this infant created in my heart.

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I watch my daughter as she ventures into adulthood and remember my own first steps – really more of a leap to claim (save?) my life. My daughter is now concocting dreams, considering the possibilities for her future. I remember myself in my 20s as completely narcissistic, thinking only about what I wanted to do next, what would bring me satisfaction, or better, joy. What a luxury! My mother was too busy juggling diapers and bottles. On the other hand, as I neared 30, I started to get a little sick of myself – this perpetual focus on my needs, my desires. I began to get an inkling of the appeal of being needed. A brush with mortality clinched my determination to be a mother and to this day, I consider it a revelation. It is where I found joy.

My mother did not come to motherhood out of longing as I did. I think even becoming a grandmother surprised her. But I bet she would have been good at it – and had we the chance, we would have shared our joy and perhaps, discovered each other.

The Grace of Ten Years

The calendars of our lives become checkered over time, marked by anniversaries of wonderful joys or terrible sorrows. A certain day, once just another measure of 24-hours is ever-after associated with the thing that happened. May 1st is such a day for me. It was ten years ago on a cloudless, strangely bright morning, that I found my husband dead. This year, May 1st was shrouded in fog and I was glad for one less trigger.

Grieving after suicide is complex. Rarely do people kill themselves completely out of the blue. Addiction and depression lived with us in our little house for years. After his death, mixed in with my shock, anger and anguish was also profound relief. “It’s over.” I said to myself even as I doubled-over in sobs as the policeman confirmed what I knew – that he was gone.

My daughter and I were recently discussing the awkwardness of telling people what happened, how we feel we must reassure them after they say, “Oh, I’m so sorry” with dismay, maybe a little horror. Sorry to have upset them we answer, “No, it’s okay, really!” And of course, that’s a weird thing to say – it’s not okay and it was terrible, and it’s still sad. But we remember how frightened we were as addiction swallowed him. Our day-to-day lives were so unstable and his behavior so erratic, that we could not help but feel released from a terrible insanity. We have made our peace and now, we remember mostly the good. Ten years of healthy love and a peaceful home have given us that grace.

The anger gripping me for years has been replaced by forgiveness and a desire to understand what damaged him. His military experience – about which he was uncharacteristically mum? Surely almost 20 years of cocaine use destroyed much of his brain, but I am certain he was self-medicating – for what? Every mental health professional he encountered failed him – and us. Even as the years pass, I want to understand what destroyed this good man.

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As I look at photos, I remember the early days when I first met him in that crazy war zone. There he is standing amidst the ruins in Bosnia, making children laugh. Wasn’t he handsome?  His personality filled the room, always the center of attention, he made sure of that with well-told (if rude) jokes and crazy antics. What amends was he making, what demons were kept at bay as he helped to save rather than to kill people in a terrible war? Being in this role in the center of constant crisis worked like a fix for him for awhile. He thrived on what traumatized me, seizing every opportunity to save someone – and in doing so, for those years, he saved himself. He was at his best there.

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I am glad for the grace of ten years – to feel a simple sadness, for the chance to remember him so, on a date I can never forget.

Don’t Quit Your Day Job

Have you noticed how much harder we work these days? Whether you’re grinding away at a company, school system, government, non-profit, retail, construction, I bet you’re working harder than ever. Regardless of reports from the financial experts about the economy being in recovery, we are all working our asses off.  The accepted mantra is still: “I’m lucky to have a job” code for: “shut-up, don’t complain”.

Authors are not immune. I know very few who can live solely off book sales. Even when the economy was booming, making a life in any of the arts was challenging whether an artist, musician, actor or writer. But publishing has been particularly crazy these last years. With self-publishing, e-books, and the internet – the playing field for writers has been completely transformed. (Journalist? What’s that?)

Mid-list authors (in other words, most authors) have always complained that publishers were not doing enough to promote their book – even when  times were flush and publishers were helping- at least more than now. In the late 90s, I hosted a few local author mingling events and they all bitched about a perceived lack of support from their publishers. But times have changed. These days most authors are footing the bill themselves when it comes to hawking their books and not blaming their publishers as much. They’ve witnessed the bloodletting, the shrinking and disappearances of publishing houses – it’s understood that the industry is tough, that the book world has turned into the wild-west so they better just saddle up and get on with it.

From my front row seat, I’ve vicariously experienced the journeys of many author friends as they’ve launched their books. From the thrilling first days when the book hits the shelves, watching sales (hopefully) skyrocket, holding events, getting reviewed. (who knew how hard that is!) For perhaps a year or so, (if you’re lucky) the excitement continues. Okay, I’m exaggerating – maybe not a year. Sadly, their baby may well be stacked in the remainders section by then.  The harsh news is that rarely does life change much when your book is published. Not from what I’ve seen. Think – buying a lottery ticket.

I’ve internalized all of this over the years, yet still plug away at my own book simply because I can’t help it. Of course I will work my ass off to make my book successful but I also know the odds. My expectations are tempered by years on the other side of the desk/counter. I won’t expect to buy a bigger house, or even to pay off my (used) car. I expect I’ll still be getting up at 5:30 in the morning to write before going off to my job.

Many years ago, author Robert Stone came to the store to promote Damascus Gate (great book) and a young man asked for some words of wisdom because he wanted to be a writer. “Don’t quit your day job!” Stone answered. I never forgot that. And I won’t. At least not until the movie rights sell. Or I win the lottery.

What about you? How’s work?

Making Space for Light

2014-04-12 13.30.43Yesterday we chopped a tree down. There were 5 Maple trees all growing out of one small spot – so we took this one out to give the rest a better chance to thrive. Plus, our vegetable garden will get more sun. And we’ll have firewood for next season. And R will build a charming little reading nook nestled into the other trunks.  Okay, it’s this that really sold me on taking it down – imagining this sweet place to read.

Still, it took some time for me to agree, to let go, to get ready to – well… grieve a little. I’ve lived in this house for 17 years so of course there are memories attached to everything.

2014-04-12 14.20.11

I held a rope taut ready to guide the wood away from the hedge and road as R cut a wedge of trunk first on one side, then the other. With a huge crack, the tree fell to the lawn as if it was shot. Prone, it appeared more massive, a daunting crush of wood.  We spent most of the day cutting branches and logs, turning our tree into pieces. “We need to have a ritual bonfire.” I said. We cannot simply trash these twigs, bundle them off to the town brush dump. We’ll burn them in our fire-pit, perhaps with neighbors or just the two of us will raise a glass and stare into the flames recalling years of shade, the different voices of wind and rain channeled through foliage and fractals. These branches were visible from our bedroom window – a best seat to watch squirrels scramble between limbs, Woodpeckers banging, Chickadees tweeting. We need to herald this wood off with a blessing.

2014-04-12 13.30.50Now a weird emptiness lingers in that space. Perhaps it’s like Phantom Leaf Effect – when a part of a leaf is cut off, it is still visible using a special photo technique that captures energy. Amputees experience this too, feeling sensation and even pain long after losing their limb. So the energy remains, some essence invisible to the naked eye. I’m anxious for the remaining trees to leaf, perhaps easing this sense of nakedness in our garden. How can I not be mourning a little, the absence of this tree. Or to think about death?

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I cannot avoid it, especially in Spring even as everything around us promises new life. For me, the sweet scents, the vivid morning light, remind me of a terrible morning on May 1st. This year is the 10th anniversary of my husband’s suicide. Enough time has passed that I mostly remember the man I loved, my daughter’s father, rather than the often frightening shell he’d become at the end. The mourning of possibility never goes away when someone dies too young – like a phantom limb, sometimes, inexplicably calling to us.  Grief brings such darkness in the early days of loss, yet I’ve heard from others and experienced myself, there comes a light like we’ve never seen before, made all the brighter by the shadows.

Cleaning up this downed tree on an impossibly brilliant Spring day, I honor darkness and make space for light.

Revelations from My Stat-High

For the past year or so, the record number of views of my blog stood at 176.  Watching the climbing digits that day was thrilling. And from all over the world! The little flag icons on my stats page looked like 1st Avenue outside the United Nations and included unlikely spots like Turkey, Romania, Saudi Arabia. Initially I was thrilled since my usual readership is an average of 20 or so devoted friends. Alas! These global citizens had only stumbled upon my blog in pursuit of a scantily clad gal by the name of Tierney who is identified as one of the ‘Suicide Girls’.  I wrote about it here, but in short, if you search ‘Tierney’ and ‘suicide’, you also find me because I sometimes write about my husband’s suicide. I suspect none of those 176 visitors stuck around for very long.

So imagine my delight last week when that mockery, that in-search-of-nudie-shot number disappeared into my blogging history. On Sunday night, the hits climbed to over 200 and they were legit. But where were all my new readers coming from? Had my just posted Author Events:  been “Freshly Pressed” – a coveted and seemingly unattainable shout-out from Word Press editors? Nope. This is how it happened: readers shared. The first share came from a Tweet by cyber friend and fellow book fanatic on the West Coast, the lovely and obviously well connected Diane Prokop. Soon other bookish-readers Tweeted. Thus, by the time I went to sleep with a smile here on the East Coast, my numbers had climbed to well over 200 and I was satisfied.

The next morning as I rolled out of bed to get ready for work, I checked again — over a  THOUSAND hits! Cheryl Strayed had shared my post saying she agreed with everything I said! (pinch me still) And later, more hits came in thanks to a share by Nathan Bransford, author and blogger full of wise and generous advice for writers. For 3 days my stats climbed.

Then, a weird thing happened. As the numbers got higher on my stat bar-chart, my perception of success changed. What, only 2,000 hits today? I thought. The baseline shifts, the bar gets raised higher. When does that stop? What number will be enough? Insert many words before ‘what is enough’ – starting with money. Examples of disasters caused by that kind of thinking abound. Of course with writing, as in any of the arts, the bar should be raised higher and higher still. But not as measured by ‘stats’ on a blog or Amazon (ugh) sales of my (future) book, but rather, internally. Over the course of those days of watching the increasing readership, I was beside myself with excitement. But aside from the comments, a real connection with so many great writers and people, it all became a little unreal. I learned to, at least (a little bit) to let go of those numbers. And to appreciate the thrill of a single reader.

I write out of a longing to connect not only with readers but to some kind of magic, bigger than but within myself – a quest I discovered and honed first as an art student. “Great things have no monetary value” my guru-type sculpture teacher once told me. Substitute ‘numerical’ for monetary in this case. Better I check my work against an internal compass and remain in pursuit of that unnameable something that makes a painting, a book, an essay – sing. Numbers can be very distracting.

Another insight I garnered from all this blog-excitement, is to be confident. I hesitated to write my first sentence of last week’s post that says “… I can claim to be an expert…” How dare I?  I suspect many women can relate to this. Journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman have written a soon-to-be-released book The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance addressing just this phenomenon. Why don’t we believe in ourselves?  I regularly downplay my skills and expertise both professionally and personally. But last week my timid declaration was affirmed by so many, including publishing professionals and authors like Masha Hamilton, Kristin Ohlson and of course my new BFF, Cheryl Strayed that I could not help but feel and believe, I am an expert. And I’ll be reading Katty Kay and Claire Shipman’s book for answers and encouragement on this front.

I loved last week’s ride. Writing is a solitary pursuit but an amazing and accessible community of support exists. And I while I know I just wrote about writing-to-write, art and all that – and do believe it all – ultimately: who doesn’t want readers? Otherwise, what’s the point?  I want my writing to move and inspire and perhaps, to comfort. My recent glimpse of reaching a larger audience, was amazing. Thank you to all my new cyber-friends who helped to get me there. Now back to making the donuts.

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