Well, THAT happened.

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Started on Day 10; finished on Day 26. In spite of oh so many things. 

I'm going to wallow in a confetti state of mind, and then, yep, make a pumpkin pie for tomorrow. Do a bit of dancing, have a day of gratitude tomorrow, and then... 

And then get to work on the next 50,000, eh? Because this novel's only half-way written, if you want the truth. And I want it done by the end of the year... oooooh, this trilogy is almost there, I can taste it!! But it is lovely to have half of the marathon over, and that with much rejoicing.

... Pfffft, what am I even SAYING??? Don't listen, I'm delusional. A crazy writing working lady just took over my brain for a second. 

I'm taking a break. I'll pretend that I'm going to write a bit for the next two weeks, but in all honesty, I'll be playing with my nieces and nephew, making up songs to sing, doing silly dances, cooking with my sisters, and generally just being family. Sure, I might nudge my writing along, a page a day, just to remember what's happening in this story, but mostly?

Mostly I'll be living.

It's good for writers to remember: we get to be humans too. We don't just write about them.

Right then. Priorities straightened out.

A merry Thanksgiving, one and all.

(I heard what you said.)

/

They were around the corner, talking at normal level as I sat there.

And then he came back and said, "I know you're a nice person. So you didn't eavesdrop."

I gave a panicked grin.

Because while I'm a nice(ish) person, I am trying to be an excellent writer.

So I absolutely eavesdropped.

(They were only talking about giving up cheese, anyway.)

Jiggety jig. (Home again.)

/

I handed my passport and declaration form to the U.S. Customs officer, and he asked me, "So how do you make a living?"

Which is my favorite question, especially from scary-faced men in super official uniforms. 

I said in a rush, "Well, it's not actually a living, I'm a writer, writing novels, but, yeah, I'm not paid for it or anything. Not published. Still learning. Kind of." 

At which point he scanned my passport and said, "It'll pay off."

He gave my passport back and I took it and sort of floated down the corridor.

It will pay off. The scary man said so. Which is SUPER news since I'm starting a new book on Monday, right? Right.

I met that Customs official on the way back from Bermuda. I spent a week and a half on that tiny island with pink beaches and sharp sunlight and mopeds zipping about and playing card games at night with the doors open so we could hear the waves. 

So good to be away for a while, good to let that to do list shrink and atrophy a bit, right? 

This is the between week: post-vacation, and pre-drafting. Full of unpacking and laundry and returning emails. All that good catch-up stuff.

But I have to admit, I also envisioned a kind of super-charged version of me, running around on all that vacation energy and mid-Atlantic sunshine, getting some long-neglected projects taken care of before the new project starts...

Instead I'm fighting off the cold that the guy sitting in 11B gave me. (Thanks for that, mister. Three hours of being coughed on? I finally succumbed.)

Spent today in pajamas and my favorite pair of socks (they are ten years old, don't tell anyone), pottering around the house and sneezing. Ruffled my notes for the draft, looked over all those paragraphs hopefully. 

Not so much ultra-productive super-charge super-anything. 

Maybe that's okay. 

I always feel like I should have everything just so before starting a draft. That I should be ready for it, whatever ready means. I'm building an imaginative universe out of my brain on Monday morning at 10 a.m. ... how can anyone be ready enough for that?

Maybe it's better to just drink hot toddies and nap. Because the beauty of the novel and the crazy roller-coaster thrill of writing a new draft... it doesn't come from my having every thing perfectly in place.

It comes from the wildness of inventing something new, day after day after day.

So it's probably fine that I didn't deep clean the closet, clear the junk out of that one corner, or scrub down the bathroom. And whoops about that shopping and errand running I was going to do. 

This baby novel doesn't really depend on the rest of my life running perfectly.

All I actually need is a stack of blank notebooks and a very deep, persistent desire to tell myself a new story. 

And of those two, it's the desire that's more important.

Be tenacious. | lucyflint.com

Does that quote give you chills? It does for me. (Or maybe that's being sick. No, no, I think it's the quote.) Tenacity. Even the word sounds tough, full of muscle. 

I have the notebooks. A fresh crop of new pens. And I'm starting to hear my characters around every corner. 

Paper, pens, ideas, and tenacity.

So I guess I'm ready? 

Yeah. Totally. I'm ready.

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity. -- Louis Pasteur

You had me at September.

/

Oh my gosh. It's finally September.

I belong to that group that counts autumn as their favorite season. I always wish that it were one of the longer seasons... instead of a little blip between sweating and shivering. But I'll celebrate every day of it as soon as it's here!

To be honest, September usually runs pretty warm: we're basically in the upper 70s til October. Seriously. That should not be. 

Summer just hangs on around here. I start getting that itchy feeling you get when you're trapped in a corner talking to someone that mayyyyybe you're ready to be done talking to? That anxious sort of uh-huh-uh-huh-I-really-need-to-move-on-now head nod and wincing grin? 

Yeah, summer. That's what I'm doing. Time to move on.

I'm edging toward fall, as best I can. It's still gonna be awhile before I can get away with wearing an alpaca scarf (rats!), but until then, here's a not-at-all complete list of everything I'll be embracing this autumn:

  1. apple cider

  2. sweaters!

  3. and, of course, scarves, alpaca or otherwise

  4. rainy days

  5. knitting!! okay, crocheting, you too. Let's get granny-squaring.

  6. curling up with an Agatha Christie mystery

  7. (or really, any mystery at all)

  8. watching college football with the fam... yelling at the TV has its therapeutic effect.

  9. long walks in our neighborhood with cooler weather... no more sweating!

  10. frost

  11. watching our sweet gum turn every possible color... 

  12. bringing out all the wintery afghans

  13. that long-division, back-to-school feel in the air makes me feel vicariously industrious

  14. have I mentioned knitting??

  15. pumpkin EVERYTHING... doughnuts, bread, cookies, pie, mashed potatoes (really!), and of course,

  16. the fall coffee drinks. YES. Yes I would like extra cinnamon on top, thank you.

  17. also? MAPLE. 

  18. the sounds of leaves crunching underfoot

  19. boots!!

  20. kettle corn

  21. visiting the local apple orchards... the dizzying scent of sun on ripe apples, mmmmmm...

  22. all those fall pies, baby. Pear-Fig-Hazelnut, Cranberry-Pear, Caramel-Apple, Pecan...

  23. did I mention rainy days?? My heart lifts off every time it rains. 

  24. the sounds of our high school marching band, practicing across town... so many memories!

  25. sitting around a bonfire with friends, under a cool night sky

  26. and oh, it's comfort food season again! (Basically everything that happens in an autumn kitchen: I adore.)

  27. time to rewatch Anne of Green Gables, am I right?

  28. and a host of other fall movies... Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom come to mind. Oh! And the spooky Tim Burton flicks. (Corpse Bride, anyone?) 

  29. the sound of the wind in the pine trees by my window... oh, the blustery days of autumn!

  30. caramel apples?? Caramel apples. 

  31. and time to start scheming for Christmas! (Did I actually say that.)

... Well that was stupid. Now I'm practically hyperventilating, and it's still suffocating summer-mode outside. 

Sigh.

Help me wait by sharing some autumn love! What are you excited about?? Tell me what's on your list in the comments.

Blowing out candles, making wishes.

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Blowing out candles, making wishes.

So... tomorrow morning, I turn thirty. WHAT IS THAT ABOUT.

This isn't just a run-of-the-mill, another year of twentysomethingness kind of birthday. This is a milestone. A new number in my tens column! Kind of a big deal.

I'm probably going to lose my mind somewhat tomorrow. In spite of my best intentions. It's gonna be a life planning frenzy.

For past birthdays, I always wanted to rehash what it was I wanted to do. Habits to introduce, ways to mold my days into a better shape. I work from home, for myself, and so I'm my own boss as well. Which means: all the cards go on the table. What do I want to do as a writer, an artist, a friend, a crafty person, a musician, a learner, an explorer, a sister, an aunt, a daughter, a citizen?? 

I make big lists, y'all. And then changes happen. Usually subtle ones. I've learned (the hard way) that aiming for gradual change is best. Small corrections add up. Little adjustments actually do change your overall course.

For turning thirty, though, I have a slightly different focus. 

Instead of adding new habits and goals and hopes, I'm a lot more interested in stripping away. Detox the habits. Purge the schedule. 

I want to get down to the essential me. To what I know I've been designed to do. To throw out the time wasting habits that I'm not really proud of, to dump the clutter that's collected in the corners of my writing process and office space.

What do I want to bring into this new decade? What do I want to stop doing and thinking?

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The seclusion illusion.

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The seclusion illusion.

My life is full of so many lovely people, so many good relationships. And I couldn't survive without them. But sometimes... 

Sometimes there are so many voices, so many conversations, and so much activity that my solitude-craving inner introvert just flips out a little. And I start to crave a getaway.

Right now, I deeply desire a bit of isolation.

Now honestly, this doesn't work so well in practice. I spent most of two weeks on my own once, and ended up crying into the carpet. I need people. 

So I cultivate the idea of isolation instead. I snoop through photos that conjure up a mood of loneliness, that feeling of a big fat moat between me and the noisy world. And if I borrow enough austerity, maybe it will bring my mind back to a clear, calm, focused place.

I did some online exploring and rounded up seven places where I can imagine myself into a solitary writing getaway... Which one tempts you the most?

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Quincy

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Last week was a week of words.

A lot. A lot of words. 

And last night, I crossed the finish line on Draft Two of my work-in-progress. Woo hoo!! I didn't have any balloons to blow up, or champagne... but I danced around a lot and laughed giddily.

So today I don't have many words left: I think I spent them all.

Last Sunday I went on a mini road trip with my family--celebrating my mom's birthday by exploring Quincy, Illinois: a historic city up on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River.

Just three hours in a car on a foggy, cloudy day; talking with family; wandering the historical district; taking silly pictures with my older sister; listening to old songs in the car and proving that we still knew the words after all these years. 

It was a day for the low-key, for the what are you in the mood for, for being open to detours, for no expectations. 

Sometimes I need to remember that most scenes happen in real life, in three dimensions, in real time. That settings are bricks and cobblestones and hundred-year-old trees before they ever become words on a page. 

Good to live in the body, and not just in the brain. 

Beating the writer's paradox.

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Beating the writer's paradox.

This is one of those quotes that's both comforting and infuriating.

Comforting, because it totally tallies with my own experience. And I tend to assume that I'm crazy, or doing things wrong, and this was a big vote for You're-normal-like-other-writers-are-normal. 

But infuriating too. Because it keeps coming true, and I don't want it to come true. 

Frankly, I'd like to have a big splashy full life (think long dinner table outside surrounded by family and friends and huuuuge platters of food, Italian style), and a big splashy full writing career (a lot of published novels on the shelf, a lot).

I'm the kid at the candy counter saying, "I want two of each!! With extra chocolate!!"

I read writing memoirs and interviews with writers, trying to figure out how they do it, if they do it. 

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So speak up.

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Here's another reason to write, from Annie Dillard. Because she knows about these things.

Give voice to your astonishment. Write what makes you passionate. Speak up. | lucyflint.com

Astonishment.

It's like a big bag of caffeine for the heart. 

Dillard's quote here gives me permission to be more aware of it, to track it, to sniff it out. 

What astonishes you? What dazzles and dizzies you? 

I tend to feel it in an instant, a little flash-fire of brilliance in a moment of beauty. This quote makes me want to throw a spotlight on it, and then step into that light. 

I'm new to Instagram, so I've been prowling around among all the photos, all the galleries and feeds. It's like a catalogue of wonder. I'm amazed by the landscapes, the food, art, and people. The perfect summer tomatoes, the mountains reflected on the lake, the kids throwing sand, the dog's patient expression, the frog wide-eyed on a child's palm. 

All the sweet astonishingness of ordinary (and extraordinary) days. 

We all need to be astonished, to move toward it.

And then this: We are meant to give voice to that.

To take the photos, write the poems, spin the stories, and capture the moment in one way or another. All of us, all us makers: that's our job. 

And it is needed. 

You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment. -- Annie Dillard

So what amazes you? What spins your heart around? And how are you giving voice to it? Let me know in the comments.

The truth about those interruptions.

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The truth about those interruptions.

This is one of those wisdoms I pray for. Because it's a hard thing, discerning what exactly is pulling me away from the desk. 

I have been the smarmy, glowering girl, bringing her notebook everywhere, insisting to everyone that she isn't going to stop her work, thanks very much. I'm embarrassed to say, I've been overly defensive of my time when I didn't need to be. I've kept working when I should have stopped.

Other times I do stop. Because it's truly needed. (This past year and a half have been record-breaking in that respect.) Sometimes I really do need to get up, shelve the book for the day, and permit the interruption.  

And then I've also been too delighted to step away. I would much rather participate in that movie marathon, thanks so much! Why yes, I will run errands instead of writing. I wanted to make the four-hour dinner. 

When are those breaks feeding the work?

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