Did you ever have one of those days where you feel like you stood on your head all day? That was my day. The brilliant (ahem) post that I intended to write flew south with all my other plans for today. I spent the first half of the day driving back and forth across town and dealing with people face to face … so you know that was stressful.

Then it took me two hours to decompress from that, while fielding phone calls and emails. What I planned to write, I didn’t. And what I didn’t plan to write, I did. And even what I had hoped to clean is still a mess.

So, maybe you could just look at the cow picture and laugh. Forget I was even here.

In my earliest memory, I am lying on my stomach in the kitchen looking through the square holes in the heat register. I am eighteen months old. My parents and I live in the upstairs apartment of an old house converted into a duplex. Our kitchen lies above the kitchen of the downstairs apartment. Our only heat source is radiant, meaning the heat from downstairs rises into our apartment through open grates in our floor. My mother warns me not to drop anything through the holes, but that was never my intention. The family who lives downstairs is eating dinner, their table is directly below the grate, and I am watching them and listening to their conversation. That’s the extent of that memory, but I now see it as an early indication of my interest in observing people, what they do, what they say, how they act and react.

Yesterday, I followed a link to a video interview with John Irving. In one segment¹, he mentioned an early indication he knew he could be a writer: he desired and needed a lot of alone time. Aha!, I thought. Sometimes, when I look back on my childhood, it seems sort of like those Charlie Brown cartoons where adults are unseen and their voices are muted. I had parents, two sisters, and a fair amount of friends, but I preferred to spend a lot of time alone with my imagination.

At this point, I can’t say if that choice was strictly my nature or if it had been enhanced by circumstance. I was labeled early in my school career as one of the “smart kids.” That designation sets you apart in ways both good and bad. You may be given free time while other students work on a subject that you breezed through. You may also be assigned extra work. In both cases, you’re alone.

If you’re a writer, then you are a reader. And I presume, like me, as a child you gobbled up books like candy. I don’t know about you, but reading time was alone time for me. And then, inspired by what I read, I wanted to act out my own stories in the backyard with my baby dolls in my “covered wagon” or behind the living room sofa where I sat up an “apartment” for my Barbies. Alone. Whole conversations carried on in my head.

Of course, I played games with other children, but I preferred make believe to sports or most physical activity. I would try to act out some of my stories with friends, but it was frustrating for us all. I always wanted to be the star and director—“now you say this and then you do that and then I say …” It was just easier to play alone.

When I got a little older, the ultimate isolator struck—illness. I spent only nine months of my seventh, eighth, and ninth grades actually in school. The rest of that time I was either bedridden, in the hospital, or recovering from surgery. Except for three months with a visiting teacher, I taught myself and took tests by phone. Needless to say, the social skills usually developed during this period of life—didn’t fare well in me. But I can remember only a few times feeling lonely. And never was I bored. I had my imagination.

In light of all this, do I mind that writing requires me to spend a lot of time alone? Of course not. I think I was destined for this life. Only now, I don’t lay on my stomach. I just close my eyes to watch and listen for the story to unfold.

¹ The whole interview is here: http://bigthink.com/johnirving  If you want to hear just the portion I referenced, click the segment titled: How to Tell if You’re a Writer

I followed a link posted on Twitter today by agent Janet Reid. She linked to a post by Holly Root, another agent, on the Waxman Literary Agency blog. I read the post and breathed a sigh.

Last week, I decided that I needed to chill. So wrapped up in trying to write The Perfect Query Letter, I lost sight of the importance of simply telling the agent about my book. And now, I can relax a little more.

Of course, you want your description to excite and entice the agent. You want your letter to be concise and reflect the quality of your writing. But if you’ve followed read an abundance of agents’ blogs or tweets, you might have read some statements that nearly paralyzed you with fear that you’d make a typo, put your word count in the wrong spot, or use the wrong salutation and thereby earn an instant rejection.

If so, go read this post and then BREATHE …

I’m in a comtemplative mood today. While I did my NaHo cleaning today, I listened to Cat Stevens. What can I say? The T-Mobile commercials got to me. I had quite a crush on Cat in the 70’s. (And for those of you who’ve read Brevity visualize that era Cat Stevens as Renee’s Demetrios, and a good bit of Jalal too.) But back to contemplation.

When I listen to any music that I love (and I have quite a range of faves) it’s like a B-12 shot for my creative soul. I suppose that’s how we choose our favorites songs and artists, eh? So my Cat Stevens compilation DVD was set on repeat and my mind drifted along as I listened and worked. And then, suddenly I tuned back in. “Sitting” is a song I’ve heard countless times, including three times today before it got my attention, but something about it slapped me the fourth time. To be exact it was this part of the lyric:

Now I’m not making love to anyone’s wishes,
Only for that light I see
‘Cause when I’m dead and lowered low in my grave,
That’s gonna be the only thing that’s left of me

I don’t know what Cat meant when he wrote those words. I only know what I felt when I heard them. Sometimes I forget why I write. Sometimes I get so focused on publication that I feel desperate. Sometimes I lose sight of the true goal. The written word is a means of communication. Plain and simple.

I don’t mean that all written word should be life-changing, of course. My novel The Brevity of Roses, is just a story I want to share. The story won’t solve any of the world’s problems. It most likely won’t solve any of your personal problems. But it might take you away to a lovely place for a while.

And that’s the light I see. That’s why I write.

D'oh!

Not so long ago, I confessed that I’d rushed and ended my novel before it was finished. Then I went back to work and filled in the missing pieces. And yet … I later commented that I had a nagging feeling that something I’d written did not ring true for one of my characters. Finally—two weeks after I’d submitted the revision to my once-a-month critique group—I realized where I’d gone off-track.

Yesterday, the group met and, of course, they called me on it. They were very nice. No one said, “What were you thinking?” Then we brainstormed a solution. Renee’s a fighter, she wouldn’t do this. What if she did that? What if this happened? And then Jalal would do this. Oh, and then …

I loved it. And—most importantly—I did not panic. I did not see this scrapping of this long scene as a tragedy or the rewriting as a huge undertaking. That I had written this nicely crafted, but wholly inappropriate scene was not evidence that I’m a bad writer.

So, as soon as I could, I sat down and started the revision. It’s going well. The new scene will sustain the tension between Jalal and Renee. It will stay true to Renee’s character. It will make sense.

Now, please tell me you’ve all had this “what was I thinking” experience in your writing, so I won’t feel alone.

I had a dream about my first critique group, it was weird as dreams are, and I woke up with words on my mind. I listened. They had no obvious connection to the dream; they were just the beginning of the following poem. So, I wrote them down and, after a moment, the rest followed. When the thought was complete, the connection became clear to me. That’s not important to you, but maybe you’ll get something from the poem anyway.

Now, but oh …

There is frost on the pumpkin now,
but oh …
I remember summer.

Pink gold dawns
of dewy silence,
sigh and stretch and linger.

White bright noon
with chattering girls,
hopes and fears and laughter.

Dark hot nights
under dreamy boy,
lips and tongues and splendor.

There is frost on the pumpkin now,
but oh …
I remember summer.

Copyright © 2009 Linda Cassidy Lewis

In my last post, about National Novel Writing Month, I said I have no problem writing every day, or almost every day. My problem is the opposite. I can’t make myself quit writing long enough to do the house cleaning I should do. My friend Kasie suggested a better goal for us would be to have a National House Cleaning Month (NaHoCleMo) and Tricia said count her in, so—you  guessed it—we’re doing it!

I’ve set my goal for 5,000 minutes of house cleaning for the month of November. If you’re a clean freak—or maybe just normal—you probably fainted at the idea that should have to be a goal. (I’ll bet you’re signed up for NaNoWriMo.) In any case, that’s a true goal for me. Feel free to set a goal that’s a challenge, but in line with your own situation. The point is to pry our fingers off these keyboards and get us clearing out the clutter and grime that in our non-fiction worlds. You know it nags you!

Through the month of November, you’ll see my little progress meter to the right, tracking my progress. To get your meter widget, just click here.

So, if you’re obsessed with writing to the point that your dust bunnies look more like dust hippos—join us!

NaHoCleMo rules:

Every minute of cleaning counts towards your goal of 5,000 for the month. In addition to the usual things like dusting, vacuuming, toilet and shower scrubbing, you may also count:

You may not include in total minutes:

Eating (though you can count the time it takes to clean the food off your keyboard )

If you’re in, let me know!

I do feel left out of the rising excitement for the start of NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month) but I’ll have to pass. I confess, I’ve never tried it, and maybe I’m missing out on the true benefit, but I think the intent is to encourage you to write every day, without editing.

First, I don’t need encouragement to write every day. I need encouragement to step away from this keyboard and clean my house.

Second, if your goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days, that’s 1,666 words per day. Ignoring the fact that some might say the 666 in there means this is a diabolical plot, why does that mean I can’t edit? I write my allotted words and then stay up well past my bedtime to edit. I mean, how could I sleep knowing I might have a misplaced modifier, or pronoun confusion, or passive phrasing?

Seriously, you can do that?!

I think maybe I’m too competitive for NaNo. I’d see your meters rise and I’d be obsessed with making mine rise faster. You can write 50,000? Then, I’d have to shoot for 60,000. And if you made your goal and I didn’t … well, I’d just have to Tweet nasty things about you. So, it’s just better for all that I sit this one out.

Seriously, really, for those of you participating, may your words flow like the Mississippi.

The novel will cease to exist as more than a “cultic” literary form in less than 25 years! Or so says author Philip Roth. The cause of its demise? A multitude of screens.

The movie screen dealt the first blow to the novel. The second blow came from television, with the computer screen following.

Roth says the kind of concentration, focus, and attentiveness required for novel reading is too hard to come by nowadays. I can see his point. We’ve become used to speed. Remember when the microwave seemed miraculously fast? And now, do you ever find yourself wishing it would hurry up?

There’s another screen—the eReader. But though that might challenge the existence of the ink and paper novel, Roth says it won’t save the novel form because it requires the same skills as reading an ink and paper book.

So dear novel lovers, you may find yourself the member of a “cult” sometime in the next two decades. Hmmm. Blue Oyster Novel Readers? The Secret Order of the Novel? Sisterhood of the Novel? What shall we call ourselves?