A Week of Dreams Coming True

The past few days have reduced me to tears of joy a number of times. The good karma shared by this online community of writers is spilling over onto everything and fills me with hope and optimism.

Among the pieces of great news I’ve been honored to share in this week:

Amy McKinnon, dear friend and inspirational blogger from The Writers Group has a book deal for her first novel, Tethered. Amy’s posts and her gentle support and encouragement have helped sustain me since my first day of blogging. This is wonderful news for a woman who has worked so hard, dreamed so big and been so generous with her fellow writers.

Carleen Brice at The Pajama Gardener, new terrific friend and fellow Denverite has just been informed that her upcoming debut novel, Orange Mint and Honey will also be released as an audio book. Orange Mint and Honey will be released in February. Congratulations and I’ll be imagining Angela Bassett or (dare I say it) Maya Angelou reading your words.

Therese Fowler at Making it Up, author of Souvenir, also debuting in the US in February and already available in the UK, has just sold rights to her book in the 10^th foreign country! I’m imagining what Souvenir will look like printed in Japanese. Congratulations Therese!

And my latest bit of vicarious happiness was delivered by our neighbor, Marti Reid this morning. Marti is a jewelry designer who has recently rented studio space in one of the Denver arts areas. The studio is a cooperative gallery and this weekend the foot traffic from Denver Arts Week has been phenomenal for the Grace Gallery.

Marti stopped by this morning to invite Scott and me to see the gallery and to share a story. The gallery is adjacent to a small courtyard and one of the people working with Marti and her partners this weekend also does volunteer work with homeless youth in Denver. The man asked if he could borrow an easel to set up in the courtyard to display the pencil drawings of one of the young men he’s worked with. Marti began to help him set up in the courtyard and realized that the pencil drawings would blow away outdoors and offered to hang them on some open wall space inside.

Later on, David, a young man who’d been homeless and on the streets at fourteen came inside. Marti thinks David is probably in his early twenties now, and he’s found a place to live and has a steady job. David was stunned to see that Marti had hung his work inside the gallery. A while later, David stopped in again. Tears filled his eyes when he saw a “sold” sign next to one of his three drawings. Later still, he cried again when he saw that another of the three pieces had also sold. He looked Marti in the eyes and told her that after this weekend, he knows what he wants to do with his life.

There was not a dry eye in our kitchen.

Dreams come in all shapes and sizes. What a privilege it is for me to share in so many.

A Book Meme and Some Thoughts on What I've Been Reading Lately

Liz Fenwick tagged me for this meme on books and it presented me with some revelations about my recent habits. I swear, the meme is here somewhere, so just skip to the end of this blathering if you want to get to it faster.

I consider reading to be just as important to my writing as the actual writing and so the books I read tend to be selected for specific reasons. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a book to read, just because I thought it would be fun or entertaining. This surprised me. The good side of this coin is that because I’ve been reading books to gain insight into how they were written, it makes me realize that I have begun to look at writing (and the associated reading) in the same way I view learning a profession.

That can’t be all bad.

The other side of the coin is that reading has always been a happy diversion for me and I’ve been depriving myself of that pure escapism. Those books I picked up to read for the pure pleasure and entertainment of it all keep slipping to the bottom of the pile.

I can track this back to the weeklong retreat I attended with Lighthouse Writers Workshop in July. I knew some of the instructors were published authors and I wanted to read their books before I went. It would be just plain rude not to, right? There were also four books that would be discussed (the discussions were optional, but I’m an overachiever, so that was a no-brainer – of course I was going to read them all). I managed to slip in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse as a challenge to myself and then I read Tobias Wolff’s Old School because he was coming to Denver and I was planning to attend three events where he’d be presenting or teaching or reading.

In October, I’ll be attending a class called Experimental Structures in the Novel. We’ll meet every other Thursday for eight weeks and we’ll discuss four novels that take unique approaches to story structure, so I’ve got quite a bit of my future reading mapped out. We’ll read The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (ha, finally ahead of the curve), If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino and The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald. How could I pass up the opportunity to try out books like this with some actual adult supervision?

Now since my Lighthouse Writers Workshop instructor for the course is also a published novelist and short story writer, and he's had a story published in The New Yorker (yes) I’ve just started his book, Articles of War, which was listed by Esquire Magazine as one of the best books of the year. Nick Arvin’s book has also been named 2007’s One Book, One Denver selection! – More on that next week.

Prior to any of this, I signed up for the Writers Revealed Virtual Book Club and Away, by Amy Bloom is sitting quietly, waiting for me to pick it up so that I can participate in the discussion with the author on October 28^th.

In the meantime, I have books by other bloggers sitting in piles unread -- including at least one blogger who I've tagged today! The exception of course is that I dropped everything to read the UK edition of Therese Fowler’s Souvenir that Larramie was so wonderful to send me in July – how could I not?! Everything else I have in that pile (and I promise you there are about a dozen) I really do want to read and I have not had time to open. I’m also a big fan of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series and the latest release has been collecting dust for weeks.

I'm not even going to mention all of the books on writing and craft I've bought and read over the last year or so -- see my list of books I've read this year on the sidebar to get an idea about those. Yikes.

Is this a bad thing?

Is all of my “serious” reading making me a dull person? Seriously, I am NOT a great big poser trying to read all these smarty-mcsmart-smart books just to look smart. I do have a big sense of having missed out on taking literature classes in college because – oh yeah, I didn’t exactly go to college, so I feel like I’m making up for lost time.

Am I depriving myself of some good old-fashioned fun, or am I doing what I need to?

OK – on to the meme:

Total number of books?

I’m not sure if this means the total number I have now or the total number I’ve had in my life – hmm. I feel like I’m constantly purging the collection because books take over the houses where I live all the time. Looks like the average number of books on each bookshelf is 30 X 20 shelves = 600, oh my God, plus the piles of unshelved books on top of tables, on top of shelved books, stuck in cabinets, in boxes in the garage – Is there a 12-step program or rehab facility for this kind of obsession!? Do I need an intervention?

Last Book read?

I’m happy to report that earlier tonight I finished The Children’s Hospital, by Chris Adrian. I hope to post a review at The Book Book within the next few days.

Last Book Bought?

That could be the last one delivered or the last one ordered – yes, I buy way too many one-click selections from Amazon! I bought three at once (listed above) for the class on experimental fiction. Yesterday, Amazon delivered Look Me in the Eye, by John Elder Robison. It had been on pre-order with Amazon for quite a while.

Five meaningful Books?

So hard to say and I know I am forgetting so many books that touched me, but here goes. Books that really made me want to write and that were meaningful to me at different times in my life include: A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle, The Other by Thomas Tryon, The Dogs of March by Ernest Hebert, Sophie’s Choice by William Styron, and The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice.

Five People to Tag – Hmmmm – How About:

Karen at Beyond Understanding

Larramie at Seize a Daisy

Kristen at From Here to There and Back

Patti at the Patti-O

Carleen at The Pajama Gardener

Now I figure I'm one of the few people I've run across on these blogs who's attempting a "Back to School" type of experience -- just like Rodney Dangerfield, only please God, I hope I don't really look like Rodney Dangerfield!

How often do you pick up a book in order to study it, rather than purely for the enjoyment of reading it?

Nuts or Normal?

Before I share my existential angst for the day, I need to categorically state: I am not fishing for reassurance or sympathy. If I get that in response to this post it will be confirmation that I’m unable to express ideas through the use the written language and I will go out into the back yard in my purple pajamas, dig a deep hole and pull the dirt in on top of myself.

It’s a niggling, hollow, anxious feeling of self doubt I’m having today. Just when the rhythm of writing, the study of craft, the balance of creativity and process seemed to be coming together, a chasm of uncertainty opened up beneath my feet.

Does this happen? Is this normal? Do “real” writers ever get part way through a draft and suddenly wonder if it’s all a big pile of crap?

I wonder if it’s like that phenomenon that used to happen back in the seventies, when experimentation with mind altering substances was a great way to spend a Saturday night. We’d stay up all hours of the night, chain smoking Marlboros, getting all excited about our radical new ideas and philosophies and by morning, the genius had all left the room and we found ourselves wondering what the hell we could have been thinking?

Is it because I turned in the first excerpt to my workshop instructor last night for critique and all the way home I couldn’t help but pick my own work apart? That before even getting the feedback, I know some of the problems already?

Is it that I’m thinking maybe this whole time, without getting any authoritative feedback on what I’m doing, I’ve been living in that shadow world of 1977 in that ratty apartment in a New England mill town, incense burning, pupils dilated until the irises are disappeared, cross legged on the floor with two or three other psilocybin deluded nutcases under the spell of imaginary promise?

Or is it just the opposite?

Would it be more deluded to press on with confidence, never experiencing moments of gripping self doubt? Typing and editing away without a doubt in the world that the end result will be a fine read? Or that maybe it will be good and published and people might like it? Do we need to build up the illusion of confidence in order to keep doing what we do, knowing that we can't stop, but that the reality is the vast majority of us will fail?

I know this will pass, probably by the end of the day, but it was a surprise that it hit so hard and so unexpectedly.

Do you ever have moments of intense self doubt? When? Why? What triggers it?

Post Script: In case you doubt the veracity of my comment about jumping into a hole wearing purple pajamas, go here to see my first online photo debut. I am a contest winner and will receive a signed copy of Carleen Brice's new novel , Orange Mint and Honey which will be released by Ballantine in February -- same time as Therese Fowler's US debut for Souvenir. Carleen has also written three non-fiction books and the one I think I need most right now, Age ain't Nothing but a Number is on it's way to my house right now. Carleen is the original Pajama Gardener! It is a testament to serendipity that although Carleen and I both live in the Metro Denver area and Carleen has been a long time member of my new home away from home, Lighthouse Writers Workshop that we met through Olufunke at her delightful blog about writing, iyan and egusi soup.

Great Interview With Therese Fowler, Author of Souvenir

Women on Writing has a great interview with Therese Fowler, the author of Souvenir. Therese answers twenty questions that provide invaluable insight and advice to the aspiring novelist. I may have to print the interview and hang it next to my Kurt Vonnegut tips. Check it out!

Finished

I've just read the last page of the story, read the acknowledgments, the conversation with Therese Fowler and the book discussion questions. Souvenir was beautifully written, full of surprises and it made me cry. I wanted post as soon as I'd finished and now I have to go sit on the porch by myself and think for a while.

It's what I always do when I finish a great book.

Entr'acte: Reading Souvenir

Before posting more thoughts about the retreat, I'm taking an intermission, or entr'acte, if you will.

I started Therese Fowler's Souvenir last night and finally had to give in the sleep on page 126. I could not help reading like a writer when I started, but despite my best intentions I was soon taken in by the story and the desire to see what happens next.

From a strictly "crafty" perspective, Therese starts us out with the prologue that you can read on her web site. She creates a compelling lead character, drops us right in the middle of the action and a highly charged emotional situation and leaves us with many, many questions. It's the perfect hook that makes us keep on reading.

In the chapters that follow, Therese skillfully introduces more characters, more detail, steadily mounting tension and poses more questions that compel us to read on. I've been highlighting many of her elegant, precise and beautiful descriptions. She a strong, unique voice that's very genuine and puts me very squarely in the American southeast among the citrus growers of that region. I'll be stealing away on my lunch break to jump back into Souvenir.

So far -- a great read, but I knew it would be!

I was fortunate enough to get my UK edition of Souvenir from the most generous Larramie at Seize a Daisy, but my US hardcover edition of Souvenir is still on preorder at Amazon.com and I am looking forward to holding it in my hands this February.

In the meantime, for anyone with a lot of curiosity and even more free time, I've included a link to a slideshow and a LOT of pictures that one of my fellow writers on the retreat has posted.

I'll resume posting about my retreat experiences soon -- but not until I find out what happens next!