For me, writing a novel is like having a dream.
Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I’m still awake.
I can continue yesterday’s dream today,
something you can’t normally do in everyday life.
~ Haruki Murakami
Writing a novel is a pretty cool gig, all right. Except for when the process turns nightmarish. Other than that, though, it’s a dream. Really.
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My 20-year-old son (known here as Zebu), is studying in Sweden this year. He’s been there since the middle of August and has found much to like and admire about that country and other places he’s visited in Europe.
Today we had a lengthy text exchange. My opening message was to ask if he’d already found a Swedish girl to marry so he could remain there rather than coming home to Agent Orange (aka Trump).
Here’s his reply:
Many people have asked if I’m just gonna stay in Europe, admittedly they ask jokingly, but I really thought about that. I feel like it’s almost a requirement that not only I come back but I spend a lot of time fighting back and doing real work. As a white male, my life changes very little. But a lot of people just had their agency put in danger. That’s bullshit for me to leave at this time and allow a steamroll of those who don’t have a soapbox.
I’m not surprised by his attitude. I am, however, very proud to be his mother.
The ever-thinking Zebu playing chess. June 2016
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* and no, I didn’t drink all that last night. I’m no Lucille Bluth. C’mon!
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I think that the thing that we learned,
back in the day of the civil rights movement,
is that you do have to keep on keeping on.
~ Charlayne Hunter-Gault
Beauty blooming in the swamp at Kapok Park.
No matter what the outcome today,
gotta keep moving forward.
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Not me. I’d be perfectly satisfied sitting on top of a tree, oblivious to all the stupid and ugly churning down below.
It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.
~ George Washington
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I don’t think the goal is, ‘How big a star did you ever become?’
I think the goal is, ‘Were you able to express yourself?’
And if you’re able to say yes, in any field, you’ve won.
If you paint, write, do mosaics, knit –
if it’s solving that part of your brain saying,
‘I need to do this,’ you’ve won.
~ Albert Brooks
Guess what? Today was a win!
To be clear: I didn’t get an Emmy. I just like the look.
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There’s a real feeling when you know you’re getting it right. It’s a physical feeling.
~ Robert Caro
Yeah, but what about when you’re not getting it right? Huh? What’s that physical feeling called, Mister I’ve-won-multiple-Pulitzer-Prizes-and-National-Book-Awards??
Around these parts it’s starting to feel an awful lot like baldness.
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Took a cue from Marcel, and spent the day reading and revising in our patch of sunshine.
Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.
~ Walt Whitman
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I’ve made huge progress on my middle-grade revisions, and am ahead of schedule. Woot! My plan was to have the revision finished before leaving to visit my mother at the end of the month and, because I’ve kept to my pages-per-day commitment, I will succeed. And that feels very good.
However, I can’t help thinking about how much revision has gone into this particular project. Oy. It’s been a long, long haul.
But a wise children’s writer with WAY more experience than me once said:
Revision is the heart of writing.
Every page I do is done over seven or eight times.
~ Patricia Reilly Giff
It’s nice to know I’m not alone.
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This is what I saw out the window this morning, a bunny at rest. A symbol of calm in the universe.
And then as the bunny hopped to another position, I noticed this:
I guess that’s to be expected.
Because nobody goes through life without a scar.
Carol Burnett
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I was up all night and so am extremely tired today. Just woke from my nap in a patch of sunshine to find Marcel napping like this:
The nose is a little large for Marcel’s face, but I’m glad to see he’s embraced Frank’s advice.
Dare to wear the foolish clown face.
~ Frank Sinatra
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I’m an old dog; I don’t get too excited.
I don’t get caught up in all the mass hysteria.
Tim Howard
This sweet old dog photo courtesy of Morguefile.
I literally made myself ill in 2004 working against a second G.W. Bush/Cheney term, and today saw a photo of the radiant Michelle Obama embracing the loathsome Bush who created the cyle of death and destruction that continues today. Seeing them together like that was a kick to the gut.
And then I realized I shouldn’t be at all surprised.
Michelle’s husband expanded many of the immoral programs Bush put in place (drone program, for example), giving those Republican programs a bipartisan blessing that effectively cemented them as permanent U.S. policies. Now we’re about to have Round Two of a Clinton presidency, and the power structure keeps rolling along.
An oligarchy runs this country and exploits the rest of the planet, and while it infuriates me, I refuse to make myself sick over it.
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If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
I put three hours into my garden today and it still looks like Flora Run Amok. Right about now I’d welcome a garden abduction.
Asters take up a lot of garden real estate and don’t bloom for a very long time, but when they do, they are lovely. (I can admit that. I’m not a monster.)
Now off to read a book from the library . . .
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If freedom makes social progress possible,
so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom.
~ Robert Kennedy
Colin Kaepernick and Arian Foster take a knee during national anthem. GRANT HALVERSON/GETTY IMAGES
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Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful;
they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.
~Luther Burbank
You’re welcome.
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And this, our life, exempt from public haunt,
finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
sermons in stones, and good in everything.
~ William Shakespeare
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So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds,
but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it.
Lord, let your laughter ring forth.
Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats,
rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce.
~ Molly Ivins (1944 – 2007)
Just really missing ol’ Molly today. She’d show us the way through all the dumb and ugly raining down on us. She knew the cost of fear.
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Too tired to go into all the details, but will say that I truly do appreciate the employees at my local post office. It’s a whole new experience trying to mail something to another country. Throughout the lengthy transaction (itemized Customs Form, I’m looking at you!), the postal employee was patient. I messed up a number of things and she set everything right.
I’ve long been a fan of the people doing that vital work and today want to publicly salute everyone at the United States Postal Service. Thank you for your service.
There are major efforts being made to dismantle Social Security, the public schools, the post office – anything that benefits the population has to be dismantled. Efforts against the U.S. Postal Service are particularly surreal.
~ Noam Chomsky
I’m with you, Noam.
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I must dig deep to find the essence I’ve overlooked, hoping that as I revise I don’t trample the delicate structure already in place.
Gotta float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
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Happiness is your dentist telling you it won’t hurt
and then having him catch his hand in the drill.
~ Johnny Carson
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Once you sign on to be a mother, 24/7 is the only shift they offer.
~ Jodi Picoult
image from Morguefile
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Just finished a Skype session with Zebu who is in Sweden. He’s been there about ten days now and feeling more settled, especially after getting this issue resolved. I carried the laptop around the house so he could see the dogs and cats in their various poses of slumber and he told us of his many adventures.
The son who demanded I hold him for the first year of his life now eats breakfast paste from a tube and purposely gets lost in an unfamiliar city.
Who knew?
Marcel curled up next to my weight bench that’s covered with the T-shirt Zebu designed for his 6th birthday.
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
~ T. S. Eliot
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Last night I found out I wasn’t selected as a Pitch Wars mentee and I admit to feeling down. I went to bed thinking I was a loserhead. Then I woke up this morning and reread feedback I’d received from one mentoring team last night, and the wheels began turning. When another mentor sent feedback, one of her comments dovetailing nicely with a bit from the earlier critique, the wheels in my head started cranking in earnest.
Did I agree with everything written? Nope.
Did I have AHA moments as I read their comments? Yep.
Can I quit this manuscript when it’s within my power to strengthen it? Nope.
So does this mean I’m embarking on yet another round of revisions? Yep.
The season’s last clematis bloom.
I exchanged emails with a writer friend about all this and he was a bit horrified that I’m revisiting this manuscript for the umpteenth time. His exact words: I think you’re the type of person who puts a band-aid on just to rip it off!
But that’s the writing life: patches of blue poking through the clouds, an occasional burst of sunshine, and a steady stream of self-inflicted pain.
So it goes.
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All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.
~ Toni Morrison
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“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
~ Arundhati Roy
Our blue flax has bloomed again. Rebirth is possible.
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Tracy Abell 