New Year and Resolutions

The New Year and resolutions can’t be far behind. As always, there are those to lose weight and get more exercise. Work on health issues. I’m all over that, of course. It’s a daily, weekly, yearly battle or goal, depending on the successes.

Something else has come to my attention, though. Something that’s been nagging at me for some time. I neglected so much while I was sick. Nothing was filed, read or scanned. We kept the office clean and tidy, but when I got back to writing, that’s what I concentrated on. Organization suffered. Truth is it got out of hand and I’ve never dealt with it since. With good reason and decision, too, but now…Now, it’s time.

I’m like every writer I know, collecting articles and information, ideas and tickler snippets. I’m actually pretty good at filing all this mess of paper, but I’m in need of serious help now. The room is spilling out of its boundaries. I can’t always find what I’m looking for, which wastes too much time. I’m a tiny bit obsessive-compulsive, too, so the chaos shatters my concentration if I dwell too often or too much on all the things I haven’t done.

There’s no way around it. I need to do some sorting, organizing and eliminating. I’m smart enough to know it will be long-term work. Something that, a little at a time, will take many, many hours. There are writing books I’ve read I need to send to used books stores and magazines to toss. There are tokens and gifts and little things I’ve picked up to store. There are articles to scan, label and file for research.

Mostly, it’s time. That thing I never have enough of. I’ve begun this week between Christmas and New Years with the hope it will kick start the habit. The sad thing is I need to do the same in each room of the house and I plan to. I’ve come to realize it is a constant job—the sorting, storing, culling. Questions—Is this relevant in my life today and still? Do I still need or want this? Will I write about that? Do I need that nugget of information still? Have I used it and no longer need it?

Nothing earth shattering as far as resolutions go, but each little space I accomplish this with will pay me back and ease my mind.

And I begin today.

Opportunity

I’ve been working hard on editing “Ellie and the Tie-down Man.” The work has been, for the most part, going very well. As I said before, I could clearly see where I stopped when I was hit with MPGN, surrendered to fighting that. That brought forward many memories. Of hopelessness and fear. And worse, the question, would I ever write again?

Sometimes, surrender is the only thing you have control of. So, you do it. It kind of goes against my nature. As I’ve said before, it broke my heart. At the time, it felt like failure. It wasn’t. I was choosing to concentrate on what needed doing.

That was a lesson, I needed to learn and it’s served me well, too. I’ve been plugging away at this novel. Improving, tightening the novel, enjoying the work, thrilled with getting back into the story. I’m just four chapters from the finish. I’m ready to celebrate when this nagging thought keeps wiggling in the back of my mind. Word count. Word count? Word count.

What was the word count? What would it be if I kept going on as I had been? What is the word count for Historical Romance? Now, today? Not when I put it away. Not with the rough edges. But now.

I did some research. I added up my word count. I’m thousands of words over, if I leave everything as it is, but I’m just four chapters from the finish line. I feel as if I’ve been on a marathon and I have to go back and start over.

I’ve been on a four-day funk, too. Thoughts of banging my head against my desk sound helpful. Giving up this book, sound reasonable. I’m not even sure the book has anything to recommend it. There are other things: other novels, poetry, memoirs clamoring to be told. I’m not getting any younger. My time is limited. I’ve wasted enough time. I lost so much time and I have to be reasonable. Blah, blah, blah and yada, yada, yada….

Well, la, la, la, la, la, with fingers in my ears. It came to me. This isn’t about Ellie and the Tie-down Man. It’s about me learning something. It isn’t about getting published. It’s about lessons in learning to do this thing I was born to do. It’s opportunity.

It’s the opportunity to get this book right. Right now. It’s about pulling up my big girl pants, getting busy, and cutting a whole bunch of my carefully written words. And that’s what I’m going to do.


Happy Holidays

Poetry, Gardens and Reflections

I’m finally reading “The Wild Braid: A poet reflects on a century in the garden, by Stanley Kunitz. I was introduced to Kunitz through a poem by Mary Oliver about Kunitz in the last workshop I took. Oliver called Kunitz her Merlin. My instructor Melanie Faith mentioned The Wild Braid. The book is a wonderful mix of poetry and conversations about Kunitz gardens.

As you can see, I’ve come to Kunitz’ work by a braid of introductions. Kunitz, talks of the many forms of communications, aside and beyond words. This last week has brought this home to me through more than one source. Sometimes, the universe is determined to show us something it feels we need to know, isn’t it?

I learned at an early age that grief can be beyond words, beyond tears, but I never really thought too much about other emotions.

I listened to my son play an arrangement of Silent Night and O’Holy Night yesterday on the guitar. No words, no singing voice could have conveyed the love and sincere faith in the same way each tenderly plucked note did. A heart can break and heal hearing that.

And then, Kunitz reflections about walking through his garden, brushing his flowers to release their perfume touched me. I do the same thing. I’ve always called it my morning benediction, but I see now, it was a way I need to communicate beyond the human way of conversation and words.

You see, I am a gardener and poet, too, and reading this book was like meeting a friend who knew exactly what I feel as I work my garden, make a poem, write a novel. Poetry is cultivating words and composting them down to their most rich order and form. It is moving words around, taking out words, working the poem, sometimes for years. It is also, finding the silence, that thing beyond words, beyond years, beyond happy. It is listening, quietly, to unspoken whispers. To music and scents, textures and sounds. To nature and nurture. It is allowing yourself to crack open. Be vulnerable.

To garden, to write poetry, to write a novel is to live cracked open. (And yes, I know some will say—just cracked. I ignore them, with a smile. I am living a distilled life. I don’t think those who laugh know what they are missing.)

Listen.

Western Value

I’ll admit it; I’m a sucker for a good Western—movie or book. I was raised on Westerns. Good old Westerns were the staple for movies. Every year I could expect a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood movie (and they were good) and new Western Historical Romances came out at least once a month. TV was dotted with Western series—Big Valley, Gunsmoke, Alias Smith and Jones, even Kung Fu.

There’s not near enough of them anymore. I guess we’ve moved past them. The world is too fast, too connected, too far past those days, those old-fashioned values. I, for one, miss the Western and all it brought.

Even the music has changed. I’m a big fan of the new country music, but I do enjoy going back to its roots, now and again.

It comes down to what’s so often missing in the world today. There is less silence and while we’re more connected, that connection is so much less personal. Business is more about bottom line and less about customer satisfaction. How productive you are is more important than how well you do your job. How fast and cheap something can be made is more important than quality. The profit margin more important than the true value.

A writer’s platform is much more publishable than the writer’s writing. So many books are published, anymore, because of the author’s name and notoriety, instead of writing skills.

There’s not a lot we can do about all this. I’m afraid the change is permanent. Those growing up now, don’t know. They have no reason to mourn, but I keep searching for Western values, movies and books.

I’m hearing wonderful things about the remake of True Grit, this time with Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn. Though it’s hard to imagine anyone doing justice to Wayne’s Cogburn, if anyone can do it Bridges can.

Well, as John Wayne said in The Cowboys: “We’re burning daylight.” And, I figure if I can’t find it, I’ll write it myself. And that’s the best a writer can do, write the book she wants to read and hope someone else will love it.

Shop the Bookstores

RWA is encouraging its’ members to support the bookstores in their communities this holiday season. I’m all for that. It’s broken my heart to watch the small bookstores around here struggle and go under. I see the chain stores struggle (Barnes and Nobles, for goodness sakes) and wonder what shopping for a book will be like in a few years.

For a lover of books in every form and condition, it breaks my heart at the prospect. No more quaint little stores with bells on the door, worn carpets and cubbies with chairs. The best books I’ve ever found, I wasn’t looking specifically for. I was book browsing, thumbing through pages and book covers hoping to find something that sparked my interest. I found Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton, that way. I’ve found new authors I might never have tried wondering the isles with nothing more on my mind than a good read. You don’t get that serendipity with the internet.

And it’s my belief you need a little of that once in a while. Serendipity brings joy, broadens your interests and mind, and keeps you from the same old, same old.

Now, I know the internet bookstores offer amazing benefits, benefits I’ve taken advantage of. I was able to find a set of The Junior Classics (copyright, 1912) and replace the set I grew up with that had gone to my sister. I tried for thirty years before using the internet and I’m tickled that I did. It is my childhood in a set of ten books and gosh, all lightening, I’m not sorry I have them.

Yes, I’m well aware of the advantages of online shopping, but I also think there is room for both kinds of stores and we need to support both. So while you’re out doing your Holiday shopping remember what a wonderful gift a book is and buy just one for someone on your list from a local bookstore. Buy one book for your granddaughter, or your mother, or sister. Just one.

You can never be too thin, too rich, or have too many books. —Carter Burden