The joys of summer

The last summer I experienced was in 2009. No, really. 2010 and 2011 were spent in Hawaii. I know what you are thinking...poor thing no summer because of Hawaii no summer in Hawaii...wait there's no summer in Hawaii?

Some would argue that there is, but it's different. Oh, it's gorgeous (soft sand, warm turquoise water, deep blue sky with big white puffy clouds, palm trees blowing in the breeze, the scent of plumeria in the air, and my personal favorite = the gecko's mating calls). Yes, it's gorgeous, but it isn't summer. Not really. I'm a mainlander at heart.

This summer involved a very large pot of sangria...

And a family trip to Yosemite...

And darn good strawberry cupcakes...

 I finally got to see Ani DiFranco live. (I only cried through three songs!)

 We did a little boating, crawdad-catching and paddle-boarding.

We got scolded by a topless hippie for swimming at our favorite hole.

 The little cuts from picking five pounds of blackberries healed quickly.

The resulting tart was very exciting.

This water was really freaking cold.

And this water was a little creepy.

Classic NorCal summer. Exactly what I needed! Thanks to the family and friends that took me and hubby on such fun adventures. The whole unemployment thing is tough stuff, and job-searching kind of sucks, but evenings and weekends have been really superb. Whilst lamenting the state of our finances, we've had a really good time. So thanks.


All that said, I'm not gonna pretend that I don't miss the geckos.

p.s. I do not think the images appear in the email version, so click through to the link. love!

Are self-doubt and great artistry directly correlated?

"The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize."
--Robert Hughes

I'm currently revising, and I keep saying to myself, I don't know what I'm doing with this. Am I making a mistake? Am I screwing this up?

Doubt. Doubt. Doubt.

So, I'm not sure if I agree with the above quote, but given the doubt I've been feeling, it is at least encouraging. Actually, no I don't agree with it. I can't. There are moments of both reflections. This quote is talking about visual arts I do believe, as Robert Hughes is an art historian. But I assume that just like writing, there are moments.

Self doubt in the rough draft process can be frightening, but helpful. Self doubt when revising can get you to really step back and figure your ish out (thanks Alpha Reader #1 for getting me to take out all mention of trolls in a contemporary novel --duh!). But self doubt while copy editing just down right sucks.

At those end stages, when you're ready to put the work out there into the world, you need some confidence, perhaps even perfect confidence. Or else that manuscript might go back on the shelf. (Nope, not happening.)

You know you're a writer when...

You flip to the back of the book to see if there is an acknowledgements page...

...and if there is one, you recognize some names.

You find stuff on Pinterest that your characters would like.

Your birth date is an illiteration.

Writing from afar

Just finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett and absolutely loved it. At the end, she includes a personal story and says, "I wrote The Help while living in New York, which I think was easier than writing it in Mississippi, staring in the face of it all. The distance added perspective. In the middle of a whirring, fast city, it was a relief to let my thoughts turn slow and remember for a while."

I have written a short story set in Santa Cruz while I lived there. I am now writing a novel set in Nevada City while I am in Honolulu. For me, I like both ways. Writing from up close can feel pleasantly like an exercise. You can go to the location and describe what you see. Inspiration can flow a little easier.

Being farther away, I set the scene using what stands out the most to me and what seems most important, through the lens of memory. I'm nomadic, so I'm sure in my life, I'll write about where I am and sometimes about where I've been.

Where it's all going down!

So this is (me and) the journal I found to write my research notes and actual scenes in (yes, I'm working on paper again, I just can't help myself!)....

The pink camouflage is actually perfect for the subject of my book, which I will share at some point in the future....

So that's all! Just a pointless post to show you my pink journal. How obsessed am I? Well, now I'm off to the library downtown to work on a scene with 8 new characters! Eek! Major challenge!

Happy Hump Day and Pi Day!

Losing frenzy, gaining trust

I have completed the research for my 2nd book (subject to be announced at a later date) and am 42 pages into my rough draft. As I work, I am struck by the gifts my journey of the last year has given me.

The franticness and frenzy is gone. I don't feverishly write down ideas at 2 a.m. Instead I ponder them for a moment, and let them go, knowing that if they are good ideas they will come back to me in the morning, probably with a new spin or quality enhanced by the nature of my dreams.

I trust myself a lot more. Knowing what I do now about the editing process (how anything can be rewritten, overhauled, moved or re-imagined), I have taken a lot of pressure off the rough draft stage. Instead of worrying about how I will perform in a certain scene, I trust that good dialogue or descriptions will come to me, or I trust in my ability to get down a rough sketch of the scene and then to fill it in when I edit.

Overall, the effect is that I am still excited, still passionate, but just a little more experienced, calmer, and less nervous. My personal growth has enhanced my writing process--just one of the ways that I celebrate the interconnectedness of life.

One year since the loony bin

My husband turned into Santa Claus. My sister turned into an angel. I thought Oprah was building an underwater city and that my landlord was one of the engineers. It was 2012 and the world was ending and Mayans were talking to me. I had an idea for a non profit website called literaryresolution.org. I thought I would be a paid idea editor with my own company, Day By Day Productions. I told one of my best friends to quit her job because I would employ her.

Now, I also told her Mayans were talking to me, so of course she did not fulfill my demands.

We were flying from Honolulu to Nevada City to visit family, and I had already gone four nights without sleep. My husband managed to control me enough so that I did not get arrested. It truly is a miracle I am safe (my psychiatrist later told me about a man with bipolar who said he had a bomb in an airport and was gunned down). I ran screaming through the airport because I thought I was on a TV show, I thought every camera was watching me. On the flight, a flight attendant asked me if I needed anything and I replied "Your babies."

I thought the cookies they gave us on the flight were my idea. I thought I was on a mission to sell these cookies and that if I could sell enough they would let me live in the underwater world that would protect humankind from destruction.

My brother-in-law picked us up from the airport and I told him all about those cookies that would change the world. And something about reading out loud to children. My husband and I drove up to Nevada City. We made it.

My in laws tried to give me sleeping pills. I thought they were trying to kill me. I thought my husband and I were soul mates that would meet again in the afterworld.

36 hours later (I thought Michael Jackson was going to invite me to his house, I thought my friend was turning into Beyonce, I thought I was part jaguar) they took me to the hospital.

I thought I was at a Disney hospital and that they were going to turn my eyes blue and turn me into a Dalmatian and that I would have to search for the blue eyes of my husband because I would be a dog and wouldn't remember anything but his eyes. I thought my aunt was Mother Mary. I thought that I was being punished for the actual experiments that my great grandfather did on salamanders.

I was experiencing stigmata.

The only person I trusted in the hospital was a gay guy in purple scrubs. He looked like a fish to me. He calmed me down.

In the hour long ambulance ride down to the loony bin I thought I was going to Hogwarts. The EMT asked me who wrote the lime in the coconut song and I replied "Harry Nilson." I was smiling and laughing the whole ride. The frowny faces on the laminated paper that have a rank of frowns from 1-10 (levels of pain) kept smiling at me and turning into cyclopses.

Then things got scary. People turned into spiders. I thought I was in a church that was judging people and I thought I was going to hell.

I stayed in the loony bin for five days. I made enemies. I made friends. I refused to eat certain things and had the rest of the people in there offering me the things I liked as if I were their queen.

That was almost a year ago. I'm about a week away from the anniversary. And I feel really effing good. I'm grateful for the people who have kept me safe, who have helped me pay attention to the cracked eggshell pieces as much as the beautiful baby bird.

I know how to deal. Before the big breakthrough, I spent months having minor episodes: not being able to sleep, being out of touch with reality, being super inspired and talking to my muses. I don't have inspiration like that anymore. I am like a mule now: slow and steady. But I have something so much more important:

My health.