Just Breathe

What is it about breathing that is so amazing? It's the kind of thing that we tend to take for granted until we have a stuffy nose or an anxiety attack or maybe even emphysema. But try it now. Just take a deep breath. (For my yogi friends, admit it, you took a deep cleansing breath.) Feels good, eh? To really, truly breathe, you need room to breathe, space to breathe, a pause of some kind. It doesn't always come naturally to take a deep breath, but it always feels good. (okay, unless you have broken ribs or are 9+ months pregnant with a stint in your bladder, but those situations are extreme) I had a wonderful (albeit itchy) week-end in Asheville this week-end. Our family enjoyed our stay with dear, special friends, and I experienced the amazing, brilliant Cheryl Klein, Senior Editor at Arthur A. Levine. (I confess, I hadn't been giving the "A" in Arthur A. Levine its proper due until this week-end, so I'll try to do better with that) If you are a novelist and you never take another course, take this one. If you are a novelist and you plan to take every course you can, you should still take this one! It was, perhaps, the most valuable 7-8 hours I have ever spent learning about writing. So after a long drive home yesterday with four darling children and going over taxes with my darling husband, I had suitcases to unpack, laundry to start, a shower curtain to hang (long story), dogs to feed, cat to console, mail to open, etc. But my mind felt like it was on overload. I'd had scenes from my book running through my head since the meeting on Saturday and lots of thoughts on revisions, not to mention a million other plates spinning in my world. So for whatever insane reason, last night around 8 or so, I began to clean out my pantry. Those of you who know me and my pantry are already laughing. Yes, it is not a project you begin at 8 at night. Truly, it's a project better left for the next occupant of the house, but it had to be done. For lots of reasons. But the weird thing was last night, I WANTED to do it. It was the perfect accompanying activity to my whirring brain. I could type all day about the interesting and fascinating metaphors of cleaning out my pantry (and granted, I will comment on a few...) Now that I am about 30% of the way through the pantry project (hold me accountable, people! Make me finish!), I have learned a lot. First of all, I've learned that giving everything a place is not all there is to a pantry. Everything needs room to breathe, too, so you can see what's there! I discovered a number of things in cleaning out my pantry (remember, I'm only about 1/3 finished!) that were hidden because there was no room to breathe. I'm going to share with you a few of my findings. *I had FOUR large boxes of trash bags. Yes, enough trash bags to take out one bag of trash a day for the rest of this year and well into next year. And here's the best part, I also had TRASH BAGS on my grocery list for this week! Why? Because I couldn't see them. They were smushed behind something else, in an unfamiliar box (when I bought a different brand) and in four different places in the pantry. And I buy those HUGE boxes, so they were taking up a LOT of space that is wasteful of time, space, and money. *I recovered (at only 1/3 of the way through, mind you) some 1200 plastic utensils. 90% of them were knives. So if for some crazy reason, I made meals that ONLY required the use of a plastic knife, I could use them every day for MORE THAN TWO YEARS before I had to buy more. Do I really need to have all those plastic knives? REALLY? What a waste of space and breathing room. If any has a great craft idea or something using plastic knives, let me know. But let's be honest, we ALL hate plastic knives. I shouldn't even keep ONE of them! Plastic utensils are not for food that requires cutting. Plastic utensils are for pasta salad on the porch on Saturday afternoon or birthday cake when there are 24 kids running around---and neither situation calls for KNIVES! *I found eleven (yes, 11) unopened bottles of salad dressing. So anyone in my neck of the woods, when you run out of salad dressing, don't run to the store, run to my pantry. *I found a jar of Retinol cream that just expired. For those of you who don't age, Retinol cream is excellent (and often expensive) anti-aging cream. Just IMAGINE, how much better and younger I would look today if ONLY I had used this anti-aging cream rather than let it expire beside the peanut butter. (I know! Why was it in the pantry in the first place???) I decided to name a couple of superlatives for my finds. MOST EMBARRASSING FINDS IN PANTRY -Wedding present for a friend who now has two children. We had to miss the wedding at the last minute due to chicken pox or something equally intriguing, and the gift box was large and too awkward to mail(beautiful platter if I remember correctly). Wonder what Miss Manners would say about THAT? -A can of Similac. Yes, my youngest child is 9, I breastfed all my kids. A can of Similac? In my defense, it appeared to be the free can they give you at the hospital (as if that is any defense at all). -A TEN year expired jar of jelly. (yes, 2002) THINGS I LEAST NEED TO HAVE IN MY PANTRY (that I had) -Ice cream starter (what is that?) -Yogurt starter (??) Both expired. Here's the thing, people. I need FINISHERS, not starters!! I don't need to START one more thing! (much less yogurt and ice cream--you can get that at the store now, you know, and it's pretty good!) And lastly, THINGS IN MY PANTRY THAT I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO WITH (or what they are) -Rock hard water putty While it sounds a little sexy and the muscle man on the can is kind of retro and cute, I have no idea what the hell anyone would do with Rock Hard Water Putty, but clearly is must be better than the limp and soft water putty. -Wall repair fabric (??? Does that repair fabric or a wall?) -Super Tech 10W-30 (no idea but looks like oil or something--again, why is it in my pantry?) -Patching plaster caulk (It seems to me that if you have a crack in your plaster so big and deep and long that you would use this giant caulking gun thing to fill it, maybe you just need to replaster the whole wall, but maybe that's just me.) So now that many of these useless (and bulky and superfluous and strange) items are out of my pantry, the world feels bigger, calmer, more room for breathing. I know that if a nuclear war broke out today, we have enough rice and salad dressing (and possibly even coffee and Jello) to sustain us for a year, and trash bags to clean up the mess. We could possibly even repair our house from post-war damage with Rock hard water putty, wall repair fabric, and patching plaster caulk, although I'm honestly not sure. The super tech 10W-30 might even keep our generator running. The plastic knives could arm our entire neighborhood if we had to fight and protect other tribes from taking our supplies (um, like salad dressing and rock hard water putty), and the Retinol cream, though expired, might protect my skin from the harsh aging of nuclear fall out. Truly, I slept well last night. Lots of nice deep breaths. I can't wait to see what I'll find in the next 70% of this pantry project. For now, I'm off to write and begin to remove the stale jelly, expired Similac, and rock hard water putty-like items from my manuscript. I KNOW there are things like this in my manuscript, things that weigh it down, keep the reader from breathing. I know there are things in there that a reader might say, "What the hell is that and why is it there?" and maybe even "What IS that, anyway?" If I get all this garbage out, the true and necessary items will shine. I can SEE what's there, and maybe even organize it a little better. So hopefully today, my writing will fuel my pantry project and vice versa. Take a deep breath. Nice, eh? I am inspired and ready to purge them both because now I know how good it feels to breathe.

Workshop with Cheryl Klein this week-end in Asheville

I am very excited about a workshop in Asheville this week-end led by Cheryl Klein. Anyone who ever talks publishing with me knows I LOVE Cheryl Klein. I love her blog, Brooklyn Arden. I love her books (check out the new one, GIRLS OF NO RETURN by Erin Saldin and another one I always plug, OPERATION YES by Sara Lewis Holmes). In 2008 Cheryl Klein first wrote me the kindest, most encouraging rejection letter I've ever received. Now, you might think a kind rejection letter is an oxymoron, but it's not AT ALL. Especially when you are first starting out. Most rejection letters are form letters at first. I did eventually get to the point where most of mine were personal letters, but still, early on, a personal letter is like a teeny tiny light in a big, foggy darkness. Somehow, if you have even that tiny light to focus on, you can navigate the fog and the darkness and at least be sure you are headed in the right direction. So anyway, I wrote her a note telling her that I was looking forward to the workshop, etc., and in retrospect I sound a little bit like a stalker. So I hope she won't take it that way. Anyone who knows me can vouch that I don't have that kind of time. Being a stalker is a big job, from what I understand.

In preparation for this course, Cheryl Klein sent out a pretty detailed structure for editing our novel. It was very interesting and somewhat different from my usual process. I am interested to see how it all shakes out. So far, I think I would do this technique again even though it involves going scene by scene through the entire book and answering about eight questions per scene. It definitely helps you see the threads and character arcs. I much prefer all the structure in the editing process to structure in the prewriting process. I have been to many workshops (including Alan Gratz who gave an excellent workshop on outlining before you write your novel), and they offer persuasive arguments. However, I have found that my story takes on a life of its own once I begin to write and my characters come to life and do things I never dreamed, often things way better than I could have planned, and they figure their way out of dark places on their own. Somehow, my stories are more character driven when I just write. Of course, I sometimes have a general idea of where the story is going, but not much more than that. On a couple of novels, I did this in-depth 'snowflake method' (google it) of outlining the novel. It took me through every twist and turn of my story and forced me to figure it out in advance. It was very cool at the time, but then when I'd finished I had no motivation to write it! I knew what was going to happen. EXACTLY. So where was the fun in that? And I genuinely think that if something isn't fun to write, it isn't fun to read!

All that said, I'm a structure girl. I do like to see structure and bones and tight arcs and character development and the rise and fall of action and comic relief, etc. I have found that the more I write, the more those kinds of things appear in the correct places and with good balance. I think that's where reading comes in. The more you read, the more your brain absorbs the structure of books, so when you write, the story naturally takes that form. Which is an argument for reading GOOD books.

But that's the method for my madness. I know that everyone has different methods--vastly different methods---that work equally well. A few years ago, I went to the Highlights writing workshop at Chautauqua (life changing, amazing, loved it). It was in July, and the follow August, my youngest child was going to start kindergarten. I was going to have more time to write than ever before. I would continue to do school visits and writing workshops, but for the most part, I would have a daily ROUTINE for my writing. I was so excited, so at Chautauqua, I picked everyone's brains. What is your routine? How do you write? What is your schedule every day? HOw long do you actually sit there and write? How much time do you spend on other writing-related activities? How do you set your goals? And so on...

Everyone had a different answer. Literally. Yet most of the people I asked were working writers, so I learned that I had to figure out my own routine. Now, four years later, I have a very specific routine. A good routine. It look me a little (and moving my office to the old shed in my yard) to get it down pat.

It also took me getting an accountability partner, whom you've heard me talk about tons of times. We email each other daily goals and then accountability. We set yearly and monthly goals, and check up on those, too. That helps a LOT.

So go forth and write, and stay tuned. I promise words of wisdom and inspiration from Cheryl Klein's class this week-end. In the meantime, check out her blog, Brooklyn Arden. It is FULL of writerly wisdom. Oh, and so is her new book. I also recommend that. Have a great day.