wicked wanda and bad ischl

Wanda didn't know about this, apparently

Lesson of the day: just because you punch the name of a town into your high-tech, German-engineered GPS system, doesn’t mean you can relax and follow directions and expect to get there.

Our plan was to leave Partenkirchen first thing after our morning muesli, and head to the fairy-tale castles by 8:50 to get our reserved tickets. The hostess of the Fraundorfer assured us that no matter which way we went, we’d end up at Neuschwanstein in an hour and five minutes.

Two hours later, we were hopelessly lost somewhere Southeast of Munich, three maps and a Rick Steves book all unfolded and bookmarked and crumpled on my lap, while Kirk, whose scratchy throat has turned into a full-blown cold, was nervously negotiating the single lanes through black forest and green glen.

At one point, after our GPS Lady (Wicked Wanda, we’ve decided to call her) commanded us to make a U-Turn, leading us the wrong way down a one-way street the width of dental floss, we frantically punched in some alternate towns—getting us even more lost. Here’s something we learned: “fastest” and “shortest” are very different options. Here's what we also learned: do your homework the night before. Foreign travel by the seat of the pants is stupid, risky, and likely to bring out Mrs. Crabby Seat-of-the-Pants.

Of course we missed our ticket time, and with a three-hour drive ahead of us into Austria, southeast of Salzburg, we scrapped our castle plans in favor of the Autobahn. Wicked Wanda recalculating our route periodically so we could avoid “traffic hazards” that magically cropped up every twenty kilometers or so, sending us off the A-route and onto various B-routes. Her circuitous plans for us took us through some incredible scenery as well as a few less stellar burgs whose prominent features included abandoned overhead electric lines.

Our trip continued to Bad Ischl, the Imperial mountain burg where the fated Franz Joseph-Sisi engagement took place. I'd booked us a cheap room in a pension on the far end of town, and Googled up some directions before leaving the States. Stupidly, though, instead of following my printed directions, I convinced Kirk to give Wanda one more shot, and when she ordered us off the main road, and onto an assortment of charming goat paths, there I was, like the girlfriend of a notorious womanizer, believing the curt, no-nonsense voice as she weaved us along precarious roads, around haystacks, and down more skinny lanes. She promised that our "destination will be on the right," but all that was on the right, before the road block, was a rusty fence, where we parked, got out, and wandered around heavy machinery for the next hour, hoping that our Pimsleur German and frantically waving map-wielding hands would lead us to a person who'd point to our destination.

Meanwhile, Wanda was back in the car, telling all her GPS robot buddies what a pair of idiots we were.

Eventually, we found our digs, retraced our steps and negotiated the rental Ford "Kuga" around several detours, narrowly missing a tour bus and a Mercedes cement truck going about 60.

I’m also happy to report that Kirk and I have not quite killed each other yet, though testier words between us have never been sprechen. 

I promise to post some pretty pictures soon--and report on the more lush, lavish and lovely aspects of this spa town that has haunted me since I started my Empress Elisabeth obsession. First, though, I have to convince my travel partner to get back on that horse. So to speak.

how not to get killed by a bicycle in Munich

One of the mighty demon-fighting cherubs in Marienplatz  

We're on day two of our European Adventure, and I'm pleased to report that we're still alive, in spite of several stupid mistakes.

For instance, who knew that the smooth sidewalk-looking ribbons of asphalt that skirt the streets of Munich are bike lanes? Not us! The first rule of walking in Munich, it turns out, is sticking to the cobblestone sections of thoroughfare. The second rule is: when crossing at intersections, stay in the fatter of two crosswalks or you'll get mowed down by a cruiser. The third rule is, this is Germany--so you'd better pay attention!

But seriously, we're having a blast. Last night, whilst negotiating the traffic and trying to get our bearings (both Kirk and I are maptards with crappy senses of direction, so it took three times as long to figure out where we were and which way to turn next as it would have taken if we weren't so stoopid), we stumbled into the infamous Hofbrauhaus for a meal (though I think it was breakfast time by our jet-lagged internal clocks). Amid the oompah and dirndls and the lederhosen and the huge liter pitcher-steins of beer, we hungrily slurped onion soup and inhaled dumplings. Not to mention a dunkle and a Radler--which led to a hunt for WC on the circuitous route back to the hotel.

Today's journeys included a walking tour of Marienplatz and the Residenz, the latter taking most of the morning since the Wittelsbach's Bavarian family palace is featured prominently in the Empress Chronicles.  Those Bavarian royals liked their rococo!

After the Residenz, we hopped on the U briefly, popping up after a couple of stops to stroll through the English Garden (another stop on the Sisi trail for me). I am pleased to report that the Garden in my mind (and on the page) is eerily close in landscape to actual "Central Park" of Munich. Here, Kirk and I had a "when in Munich" afternoon and gulped down an ein Mass in the centrally located Chinese Tower Beer Garden (while watching a 10-year-old girl at the picnic table next to us do the same) before stumbling out of the way of more zooming bikes.

Tomorrow we'll tour the Nymphenburg with its Gallery of Beauties, before heading off to Garmiche mountains and points South.

Heaven help us, the Autobahn awaits!

take off

kirk. after 2.5 hours of sleep.

We're leaving. On a jet plane. And we're missing SO MUCH SOCCER! Can goals be scored if we're not there in the cheering squad? I guess we'll soon find out.

It's a little surreal, all the things we had to do in the last week. I'm frankly shocked that we've kept track of passports and documents and phones and what not. Last night, after two FC tourney matches and nursing Carson's sore quad, we had to move all our living/dining room furniture to the various outposts in preparation for the remodel. It was a Grinch night--getting every last fucking plastic cup out of the soon-to-be-demolished cupboards and unearthing relics for the Goodwill pile (who knew we had 3 hideous candy dishes. Who actually uses candy dishes?)

It took hours.

After the last crumbs even too small for a Who-Mouse were scraped up, last thing we did before turning in was to sit in our shell of a dining room, butts against the wall, legs splayed out. We stared at the drab green walls and swigged from a Gatorade bottle of Scotch. (Whisky doesn't taste so great when it sits in a plastic sports bottle for a few weeks.) Fist bumps were executed. We crawled to bed. Tried to sleep. Got up, got Carson ready for his match, picked up Kirk's son, dropped Carson off at the field, and here we are. At PDX. Hub of all fun adventures.

First stop: Chicago--where we'll be dashing madly for our connecting flight to Munich, Ambien in hand.

See you in Deutschland!

once. again.

June. Memory Lane month. The month of my birth. The month I'm most likely to move. And I mean "move" in the metaphoric sense--capital M.

I'm here at the hot springs on my birthday weekend sucking up the sun, the music, the mineral water (and yes, the wi-fi), and all around me is the three-d version of the ghost of birthdays past. Once upon a time I owned this place with my then-husband. We were mostly living in Portland, operating "the springs" from afar, and trying to navigate a tense marriage. Raise a few kids. You know the story.

One of the stressors in our marriage involved a disparate relationship with stuff. My ex is a man whose affinity for space and form boarders on the sacred. Well, no, not boarders, actually. Is. Me? Stuff is stuff. The objects in my life I consider sacred can be counted on one hand. My relationships to things are aesthetic nods. I love beauty and form, but after I've registered this allegiance, I happily move on to what I really love. Psychological puzzles. The stories behind the stuff.

The marriage though. Alas, his vision and his ability to concretize vision within the financial, temporal and cultural constraints of reality were at odds. Abjectly, at odds. And me? I grew bitter and impatient. I was on a hag trajectory. Another few years riding shotgun to the effluence and detritus that tailed out of his love for possibility never-quite manifest, and the ridges in my downturned mouth and the slump in my shoulders and the martyry resignation in my brow would have brewed a fullon Queen Hag.

And being here this weekend, walking into and around the objects that were once an everyday part of my life, invites a new understanding of the hows and whys of the way people connect and disconnect from one another.

A little horse abstracted from its carousel. A plywood cutout of a genderless deity once lifted from the maw of a dumpster. The propeller that once sat sentinel in my driveway. A taxidermied nun. A rusty red wagon decorated with a South of the Border bumpersticker procured on a drive from Virginia to Florida. A weary appliance dolly once employed for moving the Wedgewood stove I cooked our wedding soup upon. All these objects. All this time.

Seeing all of this, you'd think I'd be sad. Wistful. Why didn't I just buck up and choose to grow old with that rusty red wagon (in which my daughter once tipped, splitting her head open on another relic--some bisected metal boiler which, one day, could have made an excellent planter)?

Enough time (six years) has elapsed. Whereas earlier I may have been melancholy and regretful visiting the springs, seeing all the new iterations of my former life, now its a somewhat elegiac experience. I'm separate but equal, let's say. Live and let live. Appreciative and grateful.

It's been a fun weekend. The playa is kicking up now, though, which happens, out here. Thirty-mile-an-hour winds are gusting, and it's time, once again, to move on. With love.

And you? Any peace with the past moments you'd like to share?

writers and relocation

When I was thirteen, my parents moved us from San Diego to a small town in New York State. Gone were the canyons, sea water, static sun and lemon trees. Instead, rumbling thunderstorms, leafy elms and hungry mosquitoes set up shop in my psyche. Dusty lanes and horse farms. Air so humid wood floors buckled. Sure, there were cultural shifts. Different kids. Accents. But my particular brand of shock was more rooted in the aesthetic whiplash of the move than social displacement. I'm an outlier that way. (Or, it seems so, when I observe my own kids and their hyper-social orientation.)

I'm really curious about the chicken-egg relationship here. Are writers wired for environmental sensitivity, or does the act of writing (which I engaged in constantly as a kid), nurture a tendency toward place-alignment over people?

What's your experience?

who do you love

Okay folks, summer reading list time. Top five? Shout them out.


Here's mine:
MAINE by J. Courtney Sullivan
LITTLE CHILDREN by Tom Perrotta
THE TEN-YEAR NAP by Meg Wolitzer
WINTERGIRLS by Laurie Halse Anderson
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott WhatsHisFace 


runner up:
THE MARRIAGE PLOT by Jeffrey Eugenides

give me a cigarette. right now.

I'm exhausted. Shouldn't I be cheering? I just finished writing a book called RAISING CHEER! For fuck's sake. The initial draft blasted out of me. And I got immediate feedback from five trusted readers, including my agent, Melissa. I consolidated the notes, burrowed back in, and rewrote the 250ish pages. Then, printed them out and reread, and reworkshopped and, again, rewrote. All in less than two weeks.

Who knew I would fuck up "towards" and "toward" repeatedly? Write numerals instead of spelling out the numbers? Rename minor characters mid-manuscript. I think rereading a zipped out draft can be among the most humbling of all activities. Ugh.

And now all I want to do is sleep.

Funnily enough, I just read a similar blog entry over in Averilville.

And, copycat that I am, I'm gonna ask the same question of you all. How are you after being rode hard and put away wet? Exhilarated? Exhausted? Horny? Sad?

on rating ya books for mature content

Now that Carson's 13, I can officially claim to be raising my second batch of teenager(s), and, consequently, I'm feeling a little cocky and veteran-like. On the soccer sidelines, when moms going through it the first time wring their hands about homework and curfew and first-person-shooter games, I'm the old hag, er, sage, wistfully gazing off in the middle distance before spouting off my advice.

And now that I seem to be writing for teenagers as well as raising them, my opinions are not merely confined to the sidelines. Especially when it comes to articles like this one, in US News, regarding rating YA books for mature content.

Yep, a rant is coming.

We love numbers in this country. Love them. Scales, rankings, acronyms, all these shortcuts that are supposed to seamlessly quantify our potential experience. Whether it's the level of spice in our salsa or the amount of lycra in our Spandex, we want to have some third party to translate our expectations before we fork over the dough.

But here's the thing. Saucy, juicy edgy young adult books are largely passed from kid to kid via word of mouth. It's always been that way. When I was in 7th grade, Judy Blume's Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret was the cutting edge adult subject matter book that made the underground circuit. And, it was at the center of controversy -- yanked off shelves and banned from schools. But still, all the twelve and thirteen-year-old girls I knew found a way to read it. Putting a number that connotes "mature content" on a young adult book will be like locking a hungry bear in a room with a platter of salmon. So, there's that.

The other thing, the more egregious piece of this cloaked move towards censorship, is that it's one more feather in the cap of the freaked out helicopter parent brigade who believe that the secret to keeping their children pure and sweet is to erect barriers to their curiosity rather than meeting it.

I'm not advocating taking your grade-schooler to a sexy, violent R-rated film, but I am all for encouraging conversation surrounding adult themes when it's clear that your child's radar is tuned to them. If I thought slapping a number on a young adult book would encourage a proactive approach to those parent-child conversations, I would be for it. Clearly, though, this is about categorizing books in terms of the number of "fucks" or "blowjobs" that appear on the page, and will amount to the usual parental avoidance regarding uncomfortable subject matter--and, worse yet, will be one more invitation to publishers to make editorial suggestions based upon abstract marketing decisions.

Any thoughts?

cheering by the numbers

RAISING CHEER, draft one. Check.

Here it is, folks. The quantitative breakdown of the past two months.

NUMBER OF DAYS PUSHING THIS BABY THROUGH        70

NUMBER OF WORDS IN THIS DRAFT                     58,022

NUMBER OF PAGES IN THIS DRAFT                           236

POUNDS OF CHOCOLATE CONSUMED                         10

GALLONS OF COFFEE DRUNK                                    20

MILES OF HILLS WALKED WHILE RUMINATING              56

DOLLARS OF COPYWRITING WORK FORGONE         2,000

HOURS OF WRITING/RESEARCH/THINKING/DELETING 350

And, because I'm such a hopeless nerd, I had to "Wordle" my manuscript!

step it up

Alright you guys. I'm on the home stretch. The plot-board driven YA experiment with the working title RAISING CHEER is about 30 pages from finished. Draft one, anyway. How do I know this? Because of the plot board! It's all mathematical and exact, like a science lab. I have five small scenes and a grand finale to left to write. I can see that yellow tape and I'm gonna throw my hands up and break it with my belly when I barge through.

What's with the exercise metaphor? Well, I'll tell you. As a nice Mother's Day gift, my husband dragged me to an 8:30 aerobics class at the gym today. Something called Sweat Like a Pig Plus Abs. Or maybe it was Simulate Labor and Delivery Plus Abs. Anyway, the Mother's Day correlative was apt--the lunges and the quad stuff in particular resembled that 8-centimeters dilated portion of labor. Transition, I think it's called. When you call your husband a lot of really mean names and he disappears out of the labor room under the pretense of having to go to the bathroom? Girls, you know what I'm talking about, right?

I guess I'm sort of at the transition stage of RAISING CHEER, too. Rising action, shit hitting the fan, and one last BIG EVENT before all is mostly well, and my beloved characters are out of danger. The proverbial infant safely delivered and suckling at the breast.

And speaking of breasts, got any good sports bra recommendations?

breaking bad(ish)

There's this speed trap nearby. One of those places where, on a four-lane road with the suffix "Highway,"  the posted speed abruptly changes from 40 to 30. Over the past six months the photo radar folk have sporadically set up shop, and issued, what I think of as, "pussy tickets" -- because they arrive by mail a week or so later. An envelope with a low-rez picture of the driver looking very deer-in-the-headlights as the flash of the camera catches them in a sort of Cops rendition of their malfeasance.

How do I know this?

Don't be coy. You know I got one of these fuckers. $168 for going 41 mph in a 30.

I'm no anarchist. Yes, I was traveling at the upper end of the continuum for "appropriate" - Yes, I disobeyed the law. Guilty. And pissed off--more because I was "called out" than for the actual penalty. I scribbled off a "but...but..." sort of letter, shoved my check in an envelope, and, as they are wont to do when a driver pleads for mercy, the ODOT folk reduced my fine and sent half my money back to me.

Where am I going with this? Yep, this is a correlative for the plot board post, and my personal relationship with rules. Particularly rules I set up for myself. So. Update. I'm about two-thirds through the first draft of my excellent new adventure, and the sticky notes, try as they might, are getting dissed left and right. I'm peeling them off like scabs, and slapping new ones down in their place. I'll write up to a plot point, all good intentions (seatbelt fastened, not on my cell phone), and then the character will say something that's not on the map. And, I have to say, my reaction to this is, well, nothing short of joy.

Of course, this makes things complicated.

There's a bit of undo-undo-undo that ensues. And some replotting moving forward. Which leads to further replotting. All because my antagonist decides to give the middle finger to God. And by God, I mean me.

That old saw about the headlights and driving only as far as they illuminate the path ahead, but making the whole trip that way? All my fancy GPS equipment is recalculating. It's terrifying, really, but so much fun. Foot on the pedal and all that.

What rules do you like breaking most?

a pantser turns plotter?

Preamble: First, I'm posting this while watching Austin Powers with the family (remember that flick? still uncomfortably funny after all these years), so imagine the title of this post posed in a Dr. Evil voice.

Second, yeah, playing around with the new Blogger templates again. Like? Hate? Feedback appreciated.

Okay, so the science fair-looking set up to your left is my very first ever plot board for a new WIP. Understand, I have never been a fan of the outline. As I explained to a writer friend the other day, the 3-Act structure feels very contrived to me. The literary equivalent of a Spanx garment--you know, squeezing the goodies into a shape deemed commercially viable? And, you know, having spent the last 22 years in Portland, I'm a free-flowing type. A wither-thou-goest with the goodies.

Well, friends, I'm trying something new. I'm taking my high concept YA idea and plotting the fuck out of it. Every chapter, every scene, in service to rising action and carefully constructed reveal. Those hearts, the pink ones? That would be some sort of crucial interaction between the two main characters. The white hearts are crucial interaction between secondary characters. The stars? Reveals. The main plot point of the chapter. And the sticky notes indicate chapter synopses.

So I'm 100 pages in, which translates to the end of that left-most column under ACT II, and I have to say, I'm not hating it. In fact, I'm sort of like a newly reformed meat-eater with my "I've seen the light and I'm never going back to eating flesh" sort of sanctimonious superiority. Why? Well, to start, there are infinitely less choices, and so the writing goes faster. I'm moving toward something as I tap tap tap my sentences, one following the other in service of the next big thing. As opposed to my usual discovery process, where I wander down the dark hallways of my mind, a blind girl being led by the hand to ... what? A vampire? A witch? An evil stepmother?

It's like having GPS, you know? Those little stars and hearts (I had, in my hand at the store, pony-head post-its, but I put them back. I mean, I had to draw the line somewhere). There's less going on in my head: less chaos, less confusion. Which leads, I hope, to deeper focus in the scene itself.

But I admit, my loving this plot board method could be totally premature. Tap me on the shoulder a month from now, when I'm rereading these crafty passages. I might very well be in self-loathingville. I admit to often being prematurely zealous about this and that. But meanwhile, I've got the Nikes on. I'm just doing it. Fake 'til I make it. Running up that hill. You? Plotters? Pantsers? What say ye? (If you can figure out the comment functionality on this new Blogger template).

P.S. Austin Powers is over, and now it's Hangover on the TV. Disturbingly, my 13-yr-old knows it by heart because he's watched it eight times.

the metrics

My piles of tax detritus are spread out on the carpet downstairs. Our kitchen is in that temporary state while we work out post-disaster-possible-remodeling scenarios. Soccer tryouts loom, and that's always fun for a soccer mom. And by fun, I mean, bring on the Xanax.

And then there's the writing. I really should banish any activity until I work through this first draft of my new project. The momentum and enthusiasm is there. I'm officially in love with my narrator. I have an outline. I know where I'm going. Plot points, rising action, compelling romance with twists. But I need to figure out a pacing strategy. Not the pacing on the page, but the pacing on my ass. I'm good for 45 minutes at a crack. Just about enough time to render a scene. Then, I have to skedaddle. Get up and throw a load of laundry in the wash. Return emails. Go for a walk. Collect the eggs. Take out the trash. Go to a Pilates class. Re-microwave my mug of coffee. Oh yeah, and, then there's the paid work I need to do each day.

Do I sound like I'm whining? I am. But this is my blog, after all.

I'd like to figure out how to write 3,000 words a day. That's four or five hours of concentrated writing time. How best to break that up? I really want help here, guys... Any strategies, time-management techniques, ideas? Let's discuss.

spring cleaning

My kitchen on life support.    

Still in the green room with my manuscript (THE EMPRESS CHRONICLES) patiently waiting on editor response, and sinking my teeth into my next project because, that's what you have to do, right? And because I truly want to approach the Empress freshly when next I pop in (hopefully after an editor has fallen in love enough to bite, and sends me editorial notes OR, less hopefully, if the editors pass and I go back in for major overhaul), this new project is quite different than the fantastical historical retelling I've been writing over the past year-and-a-half. I shall leave it at that, for the moment, but suffice it to say, I'm quite engaged with a couple of new characters and am venturing into the world of, dare I say it, High Concept.

A novel that can be boiled down to a compelling sentence. A potboiler, if you will.

In concert with my new project enthusiasm is emergency kitchen surgery. We had a slowly leaking dishwasher which quietly squirted water under the floor which, over time, resulted in a swollen mess. My kitchen has spent the last two days in ICU, and this morning was prepped for asbestos abatement. The floor is being wrenched from the house as I type, and placed in a tube, piece by piece, by a brave crew bedecked in Hazmat couture.

The patient is ready...

If you feel a metaphor coming, you're ding, ding, ding, right! Like my kitchen, I'm aesthetically between one state and another. Ridding myself of vintage bits, in preparation for the latest in market appeal. Think of my next project in terms of sustainable. LEED-cert, even. Travertine tile, bamboo cabinets. Energy wise appliances. New and spare and exciting.

But, unlike my kitchen, I'm not tossing my last project into a toxic waste dumpster. Far from it. No, if anything, when next I return to the Empress, she will be upcycled and glorious. Destined for new life. And I'll be re-engaging with her sitting at a granite counter top, gazing out at the late spring flowers, through tempered accordion glass.

kirk and suzy's excellent adventure continues

Welcome to Schweitzer

One thing I'm really working on with my writing is the whole upping the tension thing. You know what I'm talking about, right? Where you keep flinging your hero into ever-escalating mayhem? I prefer, however, to keep that paradigm on the page. In real life, I'm not a fan of snake pits and the edges of cliffs.

That's why I was thrilled when our windshield wiper debacle concluded this morning thanks to my husband's mad auto mechanic skills. Ye olde auto parts store and a ten buck relay was all it took, and we were back in business ready for a day on the hill above Sandpoint.

That thing on Kirk's head? Worth every penny.

Our own hill tends towards ice, rain and slime this time of year, so the powder that greeted us on Schweitzer was worthy of five star smiles all around. Exploring new pistes and taking in spectacular vistas -- all good. Right before lunch, we decided to pop up the Lakeview Triple lift. That's where our hero, Kirk Soule, fixer of all minor car malfunctions, mistimed his leap from the lift and sent his dear wife ass over teakettle before getting slammed in the noggin by the next chair bar. It was poiseless and embarrassing, but, thank God, not fatal -- though it took longer than it should for the stoner lift attendent to stop the presses so Kirk could get untangled from the lift stile.

Take away of the day? Helmets. Always. No exception.

Tune in tomorrow when Kirk, Carson and Suzy return for day two of their excellent Idaho adventure.

road trip

 It's spring break and here we are in Sandpoint, Idaho visiting my husband's brother Michael and getting ready to ski. Hopefully. So far it's been a little bit Chevy Chase-ish. Halfway through our road trip we took a wrong turn and ended up meandering through the Palouse amid the hundreds of ghostly wind turbines and their sleek arms churning the air to pieces.

At one point, caught behind an bulldozer-carting oversized truck and its "long load" bodyguards, we peeled off the road to touch one of these beasts behind its barbed wire enclosure.  If we were in a movie, this is where some alien or posse of meth dealers or flock of mad scientists would seize our trespassing selves and take us down to a secret tunnel under the dry land wheat fields and waterboard us.

That didn't happen, and we were free to make our way north and east to our destination.

Then, the rain started. A cold, wet downpour pelted our minivan windshield as we wound up the highway toward our destination, and, all of the sudden, our wipers froze.

By this time it was night, and we were still 20 or so miles shy of target. We had that long bridge into Sandpoint still to cross. I don't care what anyone says, driving post a couple of martinis would have been far easier. It was like seeing the world from inside a van Gogh, this mottled version of the landscape. The rain continued to fall on my head, which was hanging out the passenger window guiding my husband's journey with such specific instructions as, "You're veering a wee bit too close to the guardrail." And, "Okay, looks like we're about to lose our lane."

Somehow we made it, and met Michael in town, then followed his lead car to his house in the hills. Now I know what it's like to be the driver of an oversized vehicle everyone curses when they get stuck behind.

We slept. We got up, and Kirk's now out in Sandpoint looking for a mechanic who might fix the wiper debacle, but we're told the sun will be out all morning. So that's good.  I'm thinking we should harness the power of one of those massive turbines -- maybe even invent a tiny wind-generated set of windshield wipers -- for the trip home later this week? It's always sobering to realize how at the mercy of civilization's milestones we really are.

Rocking the Elliptical

It's been raining here a lot lately. Okay, it's the Pacific Northwest, and it's March, so, duh! But I'm not talking the gentle, constant mist punctuated with the occasional showery downpour. No. it's been gale-force knocking-power-out winds, sheets of deluge, cold to the point of ice pellets. It's so soggy outside my chickens are screaming for little umbrellas. The cat has given me the middle claw repeatedly when I've suggested she pop outside and kill a sparrow or two, just to get her out of her funk.

And, as you all know, I'm a soccer mom, so that means hypothermic toes and fingers on the sidelines.

It also means that my quest for balance, healthy exercise, the eating of salads and so forth? In the toilet. Except for that heart rate-boosting 45 minutes a day at the gym where I don my ridiculously over sized purple Plattan headphones, and take my Spotify-fueled iPhone to the Elliptical. (Okay, I just realized that there are four words in that last sentence that didn't exist 10 years ago. Scary.)

Here's the problem though. I listen to the same damn music all the time and I'm getting really bored. I'm reaching out, guys. I need a new playlist! Can y'all give me your top workout songs? Extra credit if you have like max heart rate ones AND mellow cool down ones. I know, I'm asking a lot...

AWP Redux

My last visit to the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference was in 2007. Nobody was talking about YA. Blogs were an outlier. Facebook was for college kids. Twitter didn't exist. Don't even get me started on the absence of the "word" ebook. Amazon? Nobody was threatened by them then; Barnes & Noble were still referred to as Big & Nasty by the Indies.

Seems a fantastic futuristic pitch back then would have been a Sci/Fi set in 2012.

Of course, some of the same old, same old seminars were prevalent. Truth in memoir, POV, building a strong writing program, the connection between creative nonfiction and poetry, etcetera. The book fair was a vast and curious place that had to be experienced in increments lest participants (particularly middle aged female participants) fell prey to lethal hot flashes.

Chicago was its windy, flat early March self, ranging from 50 degree tolerable to flurries and bone chill. The Palmer House's Sistine Chapelesque lobby turned out to be my favorite place to hang out and visit with writing chums.

I finally met a group of women I've been buddies with online this last year--which was, I think, worth the price of admission. I also ran into old friends from grad school, and a woman I met back in 19fucking95 at the Prague Summer Writers' Workshop. Which really brought home the sense that the conference was replete with teenagers. Smart teenagers, but teenagers never-the-less.

The thing about this huge event that I both love and loathe, is the finding the gem in the chaos of an untended treasure chest syndrome. Seriously, my jewelry dish, with its knot of baubles, is an apt metaphor for my particular experience. Where are my favorite earrings? What ever happened to my strand of pearls? It was as though I were moving through my bling with fingerless hands--I felt slow, behind, quick-sanded. I felt anxious after settling onto a patch of floor behind a pillar once I finally decided on a particular seminar--wondering what I was missing in the Hilton down the street. Ill-prepared note-taking-wise, I ended up scribbling upon scraps of paper I'd found in my room, and on the backs of handouts from the yoga teacher in the hotel gym. It didn't help, I guess, that I sort of had this virusy, fluish thing going on the whole time.

Overall, it was like my trip last year to Disneyworld. I had four days and too many options. I was torn between trying to fill every minute with adventure and experience, and selecting a few peak options, and percolating my way through them. In the end, I did it both ways.

How about you folks? Do you like big, ambitious metropolitan conferences, or are you more of a cabin-in-the-woods with a book type?

Likeability and the Downton Daughters

Okay Downton Abbey fans, which daughter are you? Or, writers, which Grantham daughter are you most likely to build a narrative upon?

Sure, we all wish to have a little "icily beautiful" Mary running through our veins--the quintessential eldest child: giving off a cocky self-assurance -- but, what a price to pay with all of that moral turbulence and disappointment festering beneath the surface.

And, wouldn't we all love to be Lady Sybil, the young upstart who marches to her own beat with courage and tenacity? Ah--the blessings for the family baby. So much easier to sneak about when one's parents are utterly burned out with exhaustion.

But, alas, there is a bit of Edith in all of us, is there not? The passed-over middle child. The wallflower. The simpering, late bloomer.

If you have not yet seen this Downton Abbey likeability scale, get in step posthaste! It changes from week to week, though many characters seem to retain their degree of likeability across the board.

Likeability is one of those Achilles heels for yours truly. I tend to hear the voices of characters who tug on my heart strings. Like the unfortunate Edith, my narrators are often the unattractive underdog. They're my shadow figures, I suppose. Characters with cautionary tales and circumstances. They are quiet and fly-on-the-wallish rather than dynamic and vivacious.

These final drafts of my novels, if I had to isolate one big change, it was to turn my Ediths into Marys and Sybils. The process was a bit like being sober at a cocktail party full of drunks. Audacity and outrageousness are not second nature to my writing sensibilities, but, as witnessed by the Downton Abbey character scale, nobody wants to spend time with a sad sac. A breathtakingly gorgeous drama queen, yes. A Violet-type Dowager, absolutely! And look at the popularity of Anna the housemaid! The willful-yet-virtuous head maid has all but stolen the main storyline.

I won't say that I've completely succeeded in creating the ultimate likeable, memorable character, but I've learned how to push my Edith out into the crowd, force her to peel a canape off a tray without soiling her gown, and even capture the eye of leading man or two.

So, Dear Readers, where are you in the Grantham-Crawley character sphere? And writers, any of you willing to share your own trials, tribulations and character travails in pursuit of fiction worthy of dinner at the Grantham table?

on intimacy

My work-in-progress has this necessary, troublesome scene. A scene that Tom Spanbauer once taught me to see as the "horizontal" aspect of narrative. In my particular case, there are a bunch of characters having a formal dinner. Aside from marching the reader through a cumbersome occasion, the scene needs to convey multiple character interactions, introduce an important setting (the dining room) that will be revisited several times during the novel, and develop a few key relationships. There's also a chunk of backstory--which, as we all know, is like clamping a ball-and-chain to forward momentum.

My first pass at this scene left a residue of self-loathing so thick, it made me wish for a special sort of soap for writers. One that would cleanse the disgust from their self-concepts after they reread their shitty first draft pages. Lye would be a main component of the soap--and some sort of anti-fungus ingredient.

I'm always preaching to students and clients about cozying up to their characters, unpacking small moments. That old saw about God and the details. It always takes a while for me to follow my own advice.Typically, when I'm first looking at a scene where a lot of things are happening, I become a brain-on-the-wall. I think the scene through, filtering observation through intellect and distance. I am an anthropologist, observing and noting generalities in my moleskin. And then I become a psychotherapist, analyzing the reasons for behavior. Ergo, pages of expository blather.

I submit exhibit A (though, believe me, this is painful):

We had to earn a place at the dining table.  That came with age, decorum, and a willingness to be utterly silent, unless called upon.  I know that’s the cliché, the being-seen-and-not-heard part, but in our family, it was a game. 

Aunt Beatrice was the “server” on this occasion—the chore was split between the daughters, as the cook was busy with the children.  Ursula and I stood behind our chairs, as we’d been taught, waiting for Grandmother, my mother and Ursula’s mother, Candace, to sit down.  Aunt Beatrice placed the platters on the table, poured the wine, and then nodded for us to take our seats.

 That's the very opening of the chapter in an early draft. Starts out with an explanatory thesis sentence, and then goes on to explain who does what. There is reference to at least seven characters in these two paragraphs. The whole fucking thing reads like stage direction (get me that soap!). If you were my student and you gave me this paragraph, I'd be tracking "unpack" and "get closer to a particular action" all over it.

I've drafted this novel several times, and I'm pleased with many of its chapters, but this particular chapter continues to plague me with its formal language and circumstance. But. I'm getting closer. Now when I read the chapter, I am urged to reach only for the ginger-infused phosphate-free dish soap. Here's exhibit B:

The back of the dining chair cut into my sternum, but this was on purpose. I couldn’t shake the image of the Victorian anatomy model Grandmother had on display in the curio cabinet in the parlor. It had been a gift given to her father, and this summer Grandmother had decided the life-sized wax model with the bisected abdomen and long, braided hair should be visible to all as they sipped their toddies. The waxy woman was propped freakishly up by a rod in her back, her neck bent backwards, her eyes simulating recent death, and a section of her organs exposed. I pushed the rounded wood of the top of the chair back into me, imagining my own liver. Visualizing my very own dogcrap-brown organ, its rich, veiny lobes pulsing blood around, filtering out poisons. Meanwhile, Auntie Bea placed the platters on the table, poured the wine, and then nodded for us to take our seats, which we did, through the steam of the platters.

What I mean by "unpack" and "go smaller" is to find an action that illustrates a particular and unique aspect of the character. In this case, my main character--the one telling the story--is going inward while navigating the reader through the set up of the scene.Sure, it's a little shocking and grotesque (we are sitting down to dinner, after all!), but in evoking the Victorian anatomy model and the main character's liver, I hope to, literally and figuratively, expose her to the reader, and set up an intimacy with the reader that the other characters in the scene are not privy to. (That she's thinking about her liver is a secret between character and reader--nobody at the table knows this---yet.)

This intimacy is what Tom Spanbauer calls "the vertical" of the story. It's a plunge down and in, where the magic of the writer:reader relationship happens.We need a balance of horizontal and vertical to move through a book. The choreography is like dancing along a tightrope holding one of those ten foot poles. You want the audience to be holding its breath, not looking away, scared for you and for themselves. Disgusted and mesmerized and compelled to turn the page, but wanting to savor a passage. That's the ideal.

So, baby steps, yes? If you're so compelled, reach into your drafted work-in-progress, find an expository paragraph--one that begins with a topic sentence, and re-begin it. Use an action verb in the first sentence, rather than a concept or a declaration. See what happens.

This is fun, right?