Hit the Mute Button

It is all just too noisy out there. Sure, I know I can turn the sound down -- and I do. But sometimes I simply want to cover my ears and close my eyes and make it all go away.

What's that? Why, the world of course. The world on my screen.

See, now that I have so few concrete responsibilities, I can spend entirely too much time flitting around the internet or listening to NPR --- or both at the same time. I get bombarded with videos and outrage and injustice and conspiracies and every single day, THE SKY IS FALLING!

Tonight, once again, I want to run away. We can sell the house and move someplace out of the US where people aren't armed to the teeth, trying to turn the country into a theocracy, letting children fall through the wide cracks in the educational and social foundations. You know, someplace serene and beautiful, like Camelot or Shangri-La or . . .  now where would that be again?

I know that "news" is really theater. That "current events" are SSDD. That human dramas have played out along similar lines throughout history. I know that. But sometimes I let it get to me.

So I believe I need a break. If I turn my attention to what is right in front of me, things are pretty good. Very good, in fact. If I saw roaming hordes of demons outside and flung the door open and invited them in for tea, it would be no different than what I've been doing online. So STOP already!

Curiosity, some sage once said, killed the cat. It's time to divert my curiosity into more productive channels and get back down to writing. New research materials are on the way in the form of actual, hold them in your hand books. I can read. I can hang out with Jill and the dogs and friends. I can soak up the sun on the back deck. And I can use my computer to do what I love, create stories, instead of scaring myself to death every day. It's all a matter of choice.

Haunted by the past

                           

  Haints in the Side Yard

I just birthed another book. It's an odd feeling. Even though I've written all my life, ever since I learned how to form sentences in first grade, I never expected to have actual books out in the world. Now there are seven.

I wrote, as a child, because I could. I knew how to transfer words in my mind to paper. I could save them up ---- and I have. I could go back and read them later, and recreate the experience all over again. That seemed like magic. It still does.

Fifty-three years worth of journals repose in the blue bookcase in my upstairs room. Everything up there is dusty. I don't go upstairs often, though it's a cozy space. But my writing desk and now-stationary laptop are downstairs, and steps can seem daunting. Plus it's Buddy the Doggy's favorite place, his man cave. He can keep an eye on the neighborhood from up there.

The other day, I mentioned a long-ago incident from when my son was five years old. I became curious; memory is a tricky beast. One of the reasons I write things down is to keep myself from making things up. So I trotted upstairs and pulled that volume from the shelf, blew off the dust, pounded the couch pillow (cough, cough) and sat down to find the magic of the written word.

Life goes by day to day. In the morning, we never know what's going to happen. Something life-changing can occur at any moment. The thing is, often we don't even recognize it when it does. I was 29 years old in February of 1980. Andrew was still in his Superman phase. He spent two years in full regalia most of the time. I was feeling my oats as well --- living with my folks for free in the Azores, a fulltime Portugese grandmother to take care of Andrew by day and plenty of childcare at night as well. Single, ripe, and fancy free on an Air Force base is the stuff lurid lit is made of, and I was trying my best to live up to the genre.

What I remembered so vividly was the decision to send Andrew to live with his father in the States. In hindsight, 35 years later and 33 years sober, it was pivotal. It was the beginning of the end of my drinking. It was the realization that I was hurting my child and he needed a "normal" life. It was fear that I couldn't control myself and might actually harm him sometime. So I sent him away, rather than change myself. That, right there, that's addiction.

In my journal from February 1980, it rates a small paragraph, spliced in between accounts of cast parties, flirtations, speculation and drunkalogue. I have no way of knowing what would have happened if I had not sent him home. I'm dead sure it was the right thing to do, though once it happened, a few months later, I was bereft, and spent several pages lamenting the loss and wondering whether I would ever get him back. I did, but it took three years and getting sober before it happened.

I still keep a journal. It's sporadic. I'll write intensely when my mind is crammed and my life is feeling out of control. Then I'll go a month or two without writing at all. But I never quit. Every so often I go back and check myself like this, check in on my old self. There's a lot I don't remember. Things that seemed catastrophic at the time, have disappeared entirely from my memory. People, too. I'm surprised at how memory works, and doesn't work.

When I face a perplexing decision or emotionally-charged situation, I try to project ahead to the end of my life and look back on the present. It usually helps to change my perspective that way. Puts things in focus. In the meantime, while regular, sweet, boring life unfolds, I do what I can to stay awake to what's in front of me and, when inspired, write it down in my journal.

The new book is  called Haints in the Sideyard, a sequel to Way Out in Dog Heaven. Do you know what a haint is?

Shhhhhhhh.....I'm thinking

 It's a beautiful day in central North Carolina, one of those sweet, late August days when bright skies and a cool breeze are harbingers of Autumn. It's a good day to work outdoors. I was just reading a piece from the New York Times that dovetails what I was already thinking.(http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/opinion/sunday/im-thinking-please-be-quiet.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&smid=fb-share)

Before I gathered up my coffee and computer to move to the deck, I was reflecting on how peaceful it was in the house. The TV is not turned on, there is no music playing. Jill is in her studio drawing, the dogs are napping on the couch. The kitties are curled in their favorite chairs. Even the parakeet seems to be enjoying the peace of Sunday morning, without chirping his opinion.

I moved outside because I wanted to increase my sensual engagement with the day. Out here, I can smell the earth, the grass, the clover. The wind is brisk and the wind chimes are dancing, belting out an orchestral arrangement for the day. As I listened more deeply, I realized that there is a mower running somewhere, a faint car alarm in the distance, cicadas buzzing, traffic running by. The neighbor's makeshift plastic greenhouse fills and collapses with the wind, like a choir of plastic grocery bags in full voice. Leaves rustle, breeze whistles, birds chirp, chitter, and audibly flap their wings as they pass through the yard. I thought it was quiet out here, but I was wrong.

The part of this article that caught my attention was the physiological response to sound, and especially its effect on sleep. Of course you can become accustomed to sleeping through familiar noises, even trains or planes. We have striking clocks in our house. Depending on how diligent I've been at keeping them wound, anywhere from 2 to 4 antique clocks strike out the hour and half-hour, 24 hours a day. One hangs on the wall a few feet from the head of the bed. I rarely am aware of either the hollow tick-tock of the pendulum or the periodic chimes. Do they rouse my resting nervous system all night long, shortening both my attention span and my life? I find them comforting, reassuring when I wake in the dark and listen for the regular tick, as if for my own heartbeat.

In utero, they tell us, the fetus is awash in sound ---- the internal, organic noises produced by mother's bodily functions, as well as the environmental noise of engines, voices, footsteps, work. I remember, years ago, taking my three-month-old son to a bluegrass bar in Nashville. We sat down front in the small venue, and placed his baby carrier beside the stage, where he slept soundly through the entire set. Shhhhh . . . the baby is sleeping?

I find I need varying levels and types of sound when I write. Like many authors, I frequently listen to music while writing, but I carefully choose what kind. It has to either match the time period and personality of the piece, or it has to be my go-to writing music, the all-purpose album whose first notes set off a Pavlovian writing response in my brain. Headphones allow me to co-exist with my better half while the muse is in gear; Jill can watch a movie or listen to music without distracting me or drawing me in.

On my bucket list, is participation in a silent retreat. I've never done that, but I will. I seek silence, crave cessation of ambient noise, even though it's actually impossible. I walk on the greenways and bring my consciousness into the present moment as nearly as I can. I sit upstairs in my reading nook, as far away from the household as possible, so I can concentrate. I read in bed with my head wrapped in my favorite feather pillow to block out distracting noises. Quiet time is as necessary to me as any other basic need.

It took me a long time to acknowledge this, and honor it. My life is richer for the time I spend in silence.

Writing fun

Here's how writing and exercise are alike: I love how they feel when I do them, but procrastinate like the devil before I get to it. What is that about?

During the month of November, I wrote nearly every day. I had the challenge of doing NaNoWriMo and wanted to succeed at writing 50,000 words on a new novel during the 30 days of November. I did it, as I have done for several years now. The unfinished novels are beginning to pile up, but they've also been the seed for publishing the books I have now on Amazon.

This past November I returned to my favorite genre, historical lesbian fiction.  It weds my favorite subjects and gives me the chance to stretch by doing research and NOT falling into the trap of formulaic writing. (At least I hope I don't fall down that hole!) So I was a happy little clam getting ready to write and having the story take shape day by day. I only missed one or two days of writing in November. When I reached the 50,000 mark, the book wasn't finished, but it was maybe 2/3 done. And I haven't looked at it since.

When I'm under the time crunch of Nano, I am just piling up words, not looking for deathless prose. The point is to put so many words into it that I won't just abandon the effort later. There are predictable stages, including the 30,000 word slump when the whole thing seems not just impossible but a stupid idea in the first place. By then, I'm usually floundering around with too many characters running off in all directions, too many storylines to keep track of, and no clear idea how to bring it all together. And really, that's the way it stays all the way till 50,000. What keeps me going is the word-o-meter.

So this week, I pull up the file for the first time since Nov. 30, convinced that I'm going to be reading a pile of jumbled up trash that may not even be salvageable. And what do I find? It's a story I want to read. I can't remember what all I've written, since I've never read it over. It's like a new book, and it keeps pulling me forward. The story is better than I thought it would be, the characters are developing well, and there are some really good individual sentences ----- I love a good sentence!

It's not perfect, of course. It's a first draft of a Nano book. I'm excising, rearranging, editing, expanding. But that's fun, too. What is so exciting for me is that, contrary to what I've been telling myself for the last 6 weeks, I actually DO have a viable book here. I'll be able to finish it and send it on it's way to join its sisters in the wider world. I'll watch it bob around in that big sea of books and know from experience that it's going to wash up on shores farther away than I'll ever see.

And then I'll go back and finish Nano 2010, a baby I've been shaping and polishing for a year and a half and still haven't found the ending.

Why in the world would I procrastinate about doing something that is this much fun?

Silly Writer.

Real life, indeed

Right now, my "real world" is not as in control as I'm used to, which makes the world in my imagination even more important. I've been thinking that doing NaNoWriMo right now, trying to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November, is a silly undertaking with Mom just having moved in. On the other hand, it's a saving grace in much the same way that breastfeeding a young baby was when my first husband and I were in the process of splitting up. Every few hours, I had to sit down and put my feet up and relax so I could properly feed the baby, which helped me keep my perspective.

Writing for at least an hour and a half a day, in the midst of all this change, serves the same purpose. I can't control Alzheimer's Disease. I can't wave a wand and make my mother happy when she's crying, or help her remember where she is and why. I have to be available and alert all the time --- help her find the bathroom, reassure her that she's where she belongs, give her activities to occupy her. With Mom, and everything else that's going on, I can only control so much, mainly my own actions and reactions.

But in Buxton ----- ahhhhh, there, I am God. I decree everything from the weather to who falls in love. I put my characters in sticky situations and either help them get out or watch them squirm. I get to live through their sorrows and their exquisite joys. Last night I put the two main characters, Vanetta and Lou, into their first intimate situation. I'm at the kitchen table with my laptop, headphones drowning me in my Ella Fitzgerald channel on Pandora, while Mom, Jack and Jill were watching a movie in the living room. Little did they know what was transpiring in Vanetta's chamber by kerosene lamp, the night her husband was arrested and hauled off to jail and the children stayed with the neighbors. It reminded me of writing a similar scene for another book while sitting in the rather busy teacher's lounge of some elementary school back when I was doing Travels through Time. There I was in my demure 19th Century clothing, writing a scene that was scorching the  pen and paper, while the teachers around me ate their apples and salads and complained about the school food.

It is always this way, I guess, when I'm in the thick of a book. I straddle two worlds, and the one I made up often seems more real for awhile.  There's an old song that starts out "Imagination is funny, it makes a cloudy day sunny..." That's what I get to experience whenever I'm writing. Regardless of what's happening in "real life", I get to have something else.

Now, is today the day that Elmer has to die? Or is it too soon? Or will he somehow be spared and mend his ways? Imaginative minds want to know.

Frosting on the cake

I just opened my email and found that I've been paid my first royalty check, which is actually a direct deposit.  I'm in almost as much wonder and shock as I was when I first saw my book published on Kindle.

Today has been largely about tidying up loose ends: filling out forms, checking in with the Queen of Paperwork at school (who set me on the right track!) and generally taking care of business.  I don't like doing things like that, so I tend to procrastinate.  Today I wouldn't let myself get on the computer until I had taken care of everything else.  When I did ---- BINGO!  I'm a paid, published author!

Last November 30, up against the NaNoWriMo midnight deadline, I fell when I came out of school.  I was carrying a basket of my children's NaNo books and going home to write the last 3,000 or so words of my own.  When I fell, I hurt my right hand, especially my thumb.  Since I couldn't find an open urgent care and I really wanted to finish the 50,000 word novel for NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth before midnight, I simply gritted my teeth, slapped on the ice pack, took ibuprofen and set to work.  I reached my goal and uploaded it before midnight to collect my third NaNoWriMo completion.  The next morning I went to the doctor and found out that my thumb was fractured and my shoulder was hurt as well.  I spent the next six weeks in a splint and had 6 weeks of PT after that.

And the point is?

When I look back, I can see that fall as being a pivotal event, though I didn't know it at the time.  It triggered a slide into feeling more frustrated, unable to do all my normal activities, worried about aging because it was not the first bad fall I've had, getting behind in work and using up all my sick leave on appointments.  Ultimately, it led me into the deep depression which finally resulted in retirment from my teaching job this month.  It wasn't possible to connect those dots during the time it unfolded. 

It is a truism that good can come from bad.  That fall I took set off a cascade of events that brought me to doing what I've always wanted to do ---- to write.  It was never a serious possibility for me before.  Once I started to slow down, listen to my inner self, operate more from could and less from should, and open my heart and mind to possibility, it no longer seemed like a pipe dream to be a writer, a novelist.  The New Women has readers, even people I don't know!  The next one is nearly ready to go up on Kindle.  I'm determined to put them in print form, too.  I see my stories go out into the world and I don't know where they'll land, but I'm so happy to launch them.

Getting a royalty payment is another affirmation that I am taking a chance on my dream, and it's working out.  Today is the only day I have, that any of us has.  Today I write and publish novels.  And wonder of wonders, I even get a little money in the bargain.  Mmmmmmm, love that frosting.