Plans, Goals and Motivations. Oh, My!

I feel somewhat at a loss, aimless and foolishly sentimental, and disconnected, when I’ve finished one work and haven’t yet become absorbed in another. —Marianne Moore, poet

The end of this year, the beginning of a new year is coming—faster than I’d like. The most labor-intensive holiday is finished and cleaned up. Every other Thanksgiving my family comes home for a home cooked Thanksgiving and I go all out, reproducing, as close as possible, the Thanksgivings we had when the boys were small. I made the memories and now, I want to pluck at them. Maybe, it’s just for me and my memories, but I hope it’s for them and theirs, also.

And now the Christmas season is in full bloom, but I’ve got most of the shopping done—only odds and ends to still pick up and Christmas dinner is simpler, more buffet, less sit down dinner. I don’t do as much homemade, going with deli salads, veg. and fruit trays with only a rib roast to rotisserie. My husband handles that, so I can enjoy the company a little more.

With most of December opened to some well-deserved fun and plenty of writing, with Ella and the Tie-down Man finished again, I’m ready to work. As I said before here, I pulled back on submissions after some critiques pointed out a few things that would make the reading flow better and did a quick edit for the problem. The book is done and ready for submission. That’s the plan.

The goal is to work on something else, right? I have mixed feelings about what. I have a series ready for submission mostly. I say mostly because there are four books in the series, two complete except for a final edit. The third book is roughly two-thirds done and the fourth kind of dead in the water. I worked on the three books over several years, but that fourth book has eluded me, for some reason. I, also, have two stand-alone books, each more than half-finished. I have a chapbook of poetry I’ve been working on for some time, but I really need a few more poems to complete it. Of course, there are always new story ideas nibbling at my mind, too.

The editing for Ella and the Tie-down Man was arduous, mostly because of the illness that sidetracked me and slowed me down even once I got back on track. I had so many starts and stops, frustrations and disappointments. It’s made me a bit gun shy to tackle editing again and yet, that’s what seems to float to the top of my what-to-do-next list.

And there’s motivation. You’re better off going with the thing that excites you, right? So, last week before I buried myself in stuffing, candied yams and pies, I dug out my old series (It took both me and my husband to excavate the file box. The research files, the printed up copies ready for the last edits, all put away when western historicals fell out of favor were too heavy for me), brushed off the dust and opened the lid.

I was a little afraid to look inside, fearful it would be too much like the last time I opened a file box. There was such a sorrow, of sorts, of a work interrupted. Not this time, thank goodness. This time felt less like being lost and coming back to a place I didn’t remember and more like coming home. Proof of how sick I was, testament to my complete recovery. (Yes!)

I made the right choice to start editing my Teardrop Ranch series. Wish me luck.

What Has Music Got To Do With It

For me, the act of writing is oftentimes more juggling family needs with my writing, then anything. It is a marathon of interruptions of other obligations and necessary chores, but a writer observes and records life’s little vignettes and stories and writer mind never really quits. That can be bane or boon. Necessary , but often, in the midst of the good and bad of life, there is this removed part of your mind, analyzing, sorting, observing a ‘story.’

Often I’ve wished I could silent it because it interrupts much like a neighbor calling just as your writing starts to flow. It distracts from both crises and joys, taking away a part, somehow. It seems I’m always either in the middle of writing a scene, writing wildly, afraid to lose the words, the momentum, that joy of flow when the phone rings, my mother needs something, or the toilet overflows and silently screaming, “no, no, I’ll lose this. I’ll lose the words, the scene…” Or I’m enjoying time with my husband, in the garden and the perfect word, scene or story pops into my mind…the one I’d been trying to find all morning, but now, now I’m busy with not writing and…

It is so much of the time an uncomfortable existence, being not fully…any one, anywhere. So in the midst of helping my son, during a sale at his music store http://musicvillageusa.com, dozens of vignette’s played across my writer’s mind: The little girl going out the door with her new purple and pink paisley ukulele, the young mother with her teenage son, looking at electric guitars, then guitar straps with skeletons marching across the black leather (was she praying this was not a mistake?), the teenage girl telling her mom: ‘this was my best day ever. I’ve got to update my facebook’, the jumble of music notes-my dog has fleas, or the first notes of The House of The Rising Sun all jumbled up together. That softly spoken, thank you, dad, from a young teen boy, that brought tears in my eyes, for some reason.

The little germs of stories bombarded me all day and I had not one minute to write them down. All I can hope is the cream rises to the top and and have faith that my mind would remember those that connect with something in me that could use it.

And isn’t that the blessing of changing up your normal routine once in a while. Do something different. A story is sure to follow.

Mourning Loss

No damage to the house, no one got hurt, but my heart is so heavy and achy. More than once I thought how loved it was this summer, how grateful I was. I’m trying to remember how nice it was, not that it’s gone.

The early winter storm had us worried, but even when I saw the few broken branches I thought we’d weathered the storm well. I trudged out to the little Japanese maples and shook the icey snow from their branches, but could do nothing for the locust. It wasn’t until we started cleaning up and cutting the broken branches from the roof we saw the real damage. Fractures ran through most of the main limbs and ultimately we had to cut the branches off. Even at the last, we hoped to save it, but the wood was too brittle and the main limbs fractured deep into the trunk.

Years ago, we had a large sycamore tree in that spot. Our backyard was shady and cool all summer, but the leaves and balls were a nightmare to clean up and eventually, the tree grew too big for our tiny yard. After we removed the tree and bored out the stump, we planted a linden tree.

Two trees and three years later we still didn’t have a living tree in that spot and no shade in the future. So we changed our choice of tree and bought a locust. From the start, I loved that tree. It had such a Zen way of growing, not symmetrical, but graceful and pleasing. I talked to it as I gardened beneath it, planting hostas and daylilies, spring bulbs and Japanese Irises.

Then when I got sick, we took the garden out. I talked to the tree of my trouble and plans as we planted grass and the tree took command of the back yard. We put in a small piece of cement and a glider to while away a summer afternoon on. We sat there many an evening, relaxing and talking.

As we cleaned up and loaded the truck, I felt physically sick and sad. We are of the age we will likely never see the benefit of a new tree. We wondered if we should even replant. Anything we plant could just as easily be taken out after we no longer own the house. Was it worth the cost, the trouble, the time? We know our time in this house is short. Too many stairs for us to think we can stay here as we get older.

As we discussed all this, I thought of those similar thoughts I’ve had about this writing journey I’ve been on. Why still struggle and try? Am I wasting time better spent elsewhere? By the time I finally get a book published, if ever, I’ll be ?? years old. I’ll never have time to get all I want to write done. Any older writer out there likely thinks this, I imagine. Likely those thoughts are not so different for that new mom, or busy lawyer or whoever. Is there time? How can I write as long each day as a published writer needs to with all my other responsibilities?

But this rebellious, audacious voice comes to me, then and now. Why not? Who knows how it will turn out? Maybe, you will have only one book published, maybe you’ll never get everything you want to write written, maybe that tree will never be big enough for you to enjoy its shade. But maybe, you will. If you do what you can now.

In any case, you’ll be there as it grows, you’ll have some small little part in what it gives to the world through its life time. You might write something that touches just one person’s heart. You’ll write through your journey and maybe, that’s all. But that’s more than if you never tried.

I think…I know I’d rather my life end with me trying, looking and stepping forward. It’s enough.