seven year itch

June 3

That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? . . . Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Identify one of your biggest challenges at the moment (ie I don’t feel passionate about my work) and turn it into a question (ie How can I do work I’m passionate about?) Write it on a post-it and put it up on your bathroom mirror or the back of your front door. After 48-hours, journal what answers came up for you and be sure to evaluate them.

Bonus: tweet or blog a photo of your post-it.

Start To Finish

The folder sits on my desktop on the bottom right corner. Its name: Cloo's Club Complete. A misnomer, because complete it is not. Inside, some 65,000 words of a novel that I have been working on off and on for seven years. Seven. 47 dog years. the time it takes for a child to grow from birth to second grade. from undergraduate to PhD. the itch.

The last time I even opened the file before today was October 30 of last year. Last year.

I began writing it one sultry June night after whining to my mother on the phone that I had no place to put my writing. A short gig as a newspaper essayist had ended, and it seemed as if nobody wanted to hear what I had to say. (and lord, do i need attention.) My children were grown, and though I had a reasonable part time freelance business, I felt stuck, my file drawers full of wannabees. 

"You need to write yourself a trashy novel," she said. I swear. Now my mother, a pearl wearing devout Episcopalian who has never said so much as Damn, unless quoting someone else, does not read such trash. She didn't even watch soap operas when I was growing up, not even when she ironed. And I grew up watching the Guiding Light (for like 30 years), dreaming of writing for it. (What the Reva and Josh story could have been in my hands.)

I can't even imagine what my mother might think of as "trash," that she would know how to define it except maybe Tess of the D'urbervilles. (Which is sort of trash, but quite literary, of course.) Certainly she didn't read Sweet Savage Love like my sister and I did in high school. Oh, be still my beating heart! (or is it bleeding heart.. I never know.)

But somewhere in the caverns of this brain of mine rests the edict: Do what your mother says do. As in the whole underwear thing, the church thing, the cab cash thing (not "Cash Cab" — and never mind that we didn't have cabs in my home town), because you just... never ... know... and then there was the "don't do anything I wouldn't do, because I am always looking in the window. that kind of thing. (Lord.)

So I did what I was raised to do. I started the trashy novel with my mother's mantra the boot in my back. My friends in Cloo's Club, whom I meet for lunch on many a Friday at a hot dog place called Cloo's, had been after me too. Could it be that hard, to use the words "burgeoning"  and "buxom" and "flummoxed" in the same sentence, then rinse and repeat?

My friends had even gone so far as to ask to be in the book, at least in spirit, giving me clues to nuances of character and who they wanted to play themselves in the movie. (for me, only Meryl Streep.)  At night I sent them chapters, took my words to Friday lunch and to the beach, reading them aloud — and we howled until we just about wet our pants, imagining ourselves in the situations I had created practically out of thin air. The (grammatical) jewels were burgeoning close to ecstasy, or so it felt.

A few months into my little project, I dared share it with my critique group — tough ladies I was sure would laugh me away from the literary table, saying: when are you going to get serious about your craft?

And yet, they didn't. They took each line, each character, each plot point and treated it as seriously as if I were Thomas Hardy — not once thinking: how does she know this stuff? Has she done this before? I mean, how does she know this stuff? (well, at least they never told me if they thought it.) 

And then, after those burgeoning 65,000 words, I  became quite flummoxed, thinking my grammar too feeble, my plot not virile enough to survive.

And so, the excuses. No time. A regular job working for my church is counter intuitive to writing such vim and vinegar, especially because said novel is about women who are members of a certain denomination I know all too well. (They serve on the altar guild for heaven's sake.)

I've been through the stages. Loved it, laughed with it... at first, hated it for awhile. (for the record, the term "burgeoning" is used only twice, and not until page 57.) mourned it. gotten angry at it.

I even took an online class with a woman who was an 'agent' looking for new talent, just so I could finish. (That was two years ago.) She liked it, laughed out loud in many places, but in the end, it felt to me like when I edited based on her suggestions, I also took out the soul of it. And so I hated it again, felt I could never really pull the whole novel thing off. What was I thinking? That I was that good? PA-LEESE.

So into the drawer it went.

Last fall my critique group took a retreat, and before we left, I asked these marvelous ladies to read the whole manuscript as it stood. They did, spending a whole evening with me talking once again about characters and plot points and pacing and all of that, attending to it like I was writing the next great, bourgeoning thing. Oh, how I thank them.

I read the manuscript myself, sitting in an Adirondack chair at the water's edge, wondering if I would ever let my mother read it, published or not. (No. She's 83, and it might give her a stroke.)

My friend since 8th grade has herself a friend who writes erotica. EROTICA. ABSU sent me a couple of short stories and OMG I blushed reading it. Blushed. Flashed. Fanned myself.  How does she know such things? Does she write from her own experience? And then I found out her parents are her early critiquers. Never happen to this former debutante. I'm just sayin'.

My friends at Cloo's Club think I have abandoned it, have discarded these wonderful, quirky women because I can't bear for it not to be a good book. That's partly the case. It's also that what if, like a gazillion other writers out there, I do finish it and then nothing happens. no agent, no publisher, nada. and of course, what if something does happen, and my mother, my children, all those sweet old ladies at church who love me read it, raise their eyebrows and say hummmm...

But there it is, the folder staring me in the face every day.

A few weeks ago, my book club met, and after reading a wonderful winter novel, they asked for a trashy, sexy beach read. When I threw the question of what title to my writer friends, dear Jane said: Cloo's Club. Finish it! Ha.

I must say that I thought about going on Lulu and putting it together under a nom de plum with a buxom heroine on a burgeoning cover, just to see what they might say. only what if they hated it? what if they thought I had done those things I write about, that they thought I was writing about me? and of course there are all the typos to contend with...

So. To the question at hand: what stops me from finishing? It's probably not my mother, nor my daughter (who said one night some years ago that she had found a draft in my closet and read a few chapters.) not those wonderful old ladies at church. and at this point, not my book club. well, not really.

I am afraid of me.

Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

Though I do believe I have a gift, I guess I didn't bargain that God would want me to write a trashy novel. Maybe he meant "literary trash," but so far I've not found an agent who represents just that genre.

So what's my biggest challenge?

Me. Clear and simple. Burgeoning, buxom and flummoxed. Me.

So. How do I overcome me, say to hell with it and dive in — ever blushing, until this too is done?

11 Things, Mind Body & Soul

12/11 Reverb10: What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life? (Author: Sam Davidson)


1) 11 pounds (at least) 
2) failure to launch
3) clutter: mind AND matter
4) dreams about not making it to class
5) dreams about making it to class but w/o my homework
6) one more thingamagig that comes with an online user guide
7) two few completed sentences
8) my muffin top
9) a beachless summer
10) a day without exercise
11) being late


How will I go about ridding my life of these things? 
eat less, move more, rise early, set out, read more, write more, clear out, slow down, catch up, clean up, breathe in (and out), twist/shout, smell the sea, kick the sand, let go, let God. And pray He catches me, when I attempt that launch.


12/ 12 – Body Integration. This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present? (Author: Patrick Reynolds)


Cohesive me? Now THAT'S funny. Maybe every time I enjoyed that first catchup-dipped fry from Cloos'? You have got to be kidding, right? Maybe next year I'll take a shot at it though. I probably just misunderstood the question.  Oh, and by the way, shouldn't it be "a moment when?" (a place where) — or was I just late to class that day and didn't do my homework? 
sbr

Community

Reverb10: Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

Work — My office walls are a pale lavender — a color my office-mate and I chose a couple of years ago thinking it soothing, particularly in summer. Though we weren't thinking of it as a liturgical color (purple is Advent and Lent,) it seemed the pale hint of purple seemed to fit with our liturgical jobs. With this soft hue surrounding us, we have shared our stories, our ideas and our work space. Parishioners stop in to visit — and occasionally to share a pastoral need — and if it's their first visit, they look around at the walls and say, are these walls purple? Yes, we say, and we invite them in to experience what purple can do for the soul.

Lee and I, and my other friend who inhabit the office wing of our parish, usually share lunch on Tuesdays. In the last year, this ritual has become much more important to me than just food for the body. Those who tag along each week might be different, but as we commune over soup or burgers or the special of the day, as trite as it sounds, we fill ourselves with soul food. Over lunch we've solved creative quandaries, built each other up, laughed and cried, encouraged and consoled, returning to our purple room quenched and ready to start again.

I worship where I work, and when I come into the church on Sundays, kneeling as I come into the pew, I look up, then around at those entering the church. The first time I came to my church, I honestly prayed: God, is this the right one? So hungry I was, new in what had been my college town, seeking community somewhere. (I have written about this before.) When I rose from the pew that day 21 years ago, the first person I saw was a woman I had known from my childhood, the older sister of my brother's best friend. My past community, reaching out to this new one, and I stayed. I raised my family here.

Writing — Nothing fuels my work more than sitting down with other writers to gnaw a little while on words and ideas. Dawn and Jane and Elaine, Candy and Diane, Miriam and Lynne and Melanie are just a few of the folks that spark my writing energy. Years ago, I had no sense of community in my writing, simply toiled away alone at my bedroom table, hoping one day somebody would know me. I first met Dawn after answering a notice in the NC Writer's Network Newsletter for people who wanted to join a writer's group. (Who knew there was an entire COMMUNITY, just for writer's in our state?) 

Dawn and I have been critique partners for about 15 years now, both of us working as professional communicators during our days, our nights and weekends spent noveling, when we can. Though that original group no longer exists, writers come and go, depending upon their place in the writer's journey. We met Jane at an NC State workshop. She writes wonderful stories, and in a lot of them people are driving places. It seems to be a metaphor for Jane, who is going places as a craftsman of words. Elaine is new to our group, young and committed to this thing that for all of us has pulled since we were small. My other writing friends, CDM&L, meet semi-regularly for supper and support, and when we met last week, we laughed at the fact that when we first began these suppers, we spend all of our synergy talking about our craft. Now, some 10 years later, we talk about our hearing loss, our cancer, our grandchildren and those we hope for. But we always leave our discussions filled with a new power.

Melanie has not yet owned the fact that she is a writer, not yet. But she will. The mother of three young girls, she is a keen observer of what living a life of faith and raising children in it is all about, and she is just trying to get it write.(yes, I did mean it two ways.) She casts daily life in lyrical phrases, tossing them like softly spun silk against the wind for others to catch and twist around their fingers for a little while. Her stories inhabit you, they are that good. You can read her latest piece here. (click on December, and read page 8). 

Living within this writerly community keeps me whole, even if I can't manage to write so much as a grocery list, I know they believe in me, even when I don't.

Cloos' Club — I can't complete this post without writing about the folks at Cloos', a place on the other side of town where some of my friends and I gather on Fridays to commune over the most awesome French fries in these here parts. We've been gathering for about 10 years I guess, crunching on those fries and giggling, mostly, about friendship, husbands, church and sex (yes, at Cloos' Club we can mention that in the same phrase). I've been writing a novel based (loosely) on our Friday experiences for what seems like a lot of years... I so close to finishing it's scary.

Cloos' Club all dressed up!

I might not be a part of this group if it weren't for Sandy, (shown above with the fabulous Charlotte) — the most inclusive person I know. She invited me to lunch some years ago to meet her friend Greer, because we both like books, and when our venue was torn down, we moved to Cloos'. Along came Trina and her sister Anna, then Sidney and Walker joined us later on. Sandy has a song for every moment, and she can play a mean nose guitar, even when she isn't asked. Cloos' is the kind of place where if they really do know your name when you walk in, and often your favorite thing to order. It's a real community, the people who come to Cloos', and it is not just about the food. When I turned 50, the entire place sang Happy Birthday. What a wonderful moment that was.

The community I'd like to connect with more deeply next year? Family.