Happy New Year -- and more Woe Is Me Juggling and Complaining

Years ago, in a very fem-friendly high school English class, I read (and then re-read on my own about a zillion times) Charlotte Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper." From what I remember -- and I remember it pretty clearly, I think -- it's a story about a woman who has been sent to bed for your garden variety turn of the century (1892) female hysteria. She sits up in her room, completely divorced from the goings on of her own life, denied all entertainment / distraction, including even a pen and paper, and becomes obsessed with the patterns she sees in the yellow wallpaper on her walls, because what else is there? Eventually she sees people in the patterns, and as she grows quietly more and more and more insane, she believes she is one of them and climbs on in.

That story is the scariest story I have ever read -- and in context, I probably read this around the same time as Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," and I still vote "The Yellow Wallpaper" a million times scarier -- basically because I relate to it so strongly. I mean, she wasn't even allowed a pen and paper ... I, too, would go incredibly and irredeemably nuts.

Here's how I know:

I take one week off writing-writing -- the real writing, the work -- and I become a total bitch. Even if it was my choice to stop writing -- even if I decided to pack, or clean, or be Volunteer of the Year at my kids' school.

I take two weeks off writing-writing -- and I descend into a self-worth-questioning morass of chocolate-consuming, late-night weepies.

I take three weeks off ... the shit hits the fan. That's basically where I am now. Consider this:

6 weeks ago I finished the first draft of the screenplay for / with Mr. Lovely and Hilarious. I also started packing up the house for our move into the Dream House.

A week later, I started the second draft. And I ramped up the packing. Mr. Lovely and Hilarious and I started sending pages back and forth, which was a pretty decent system, until The Move began to consume me ... at which point my writing slowed, his sped up, and he decided he might as well write Draft 2 "on his lonely," as we say around here.

That sounded good at the time. I had to pack. I had to move. I had to incubate twin boys and care for toddler girls and hold it together somehow. And I had a lot of apartmenttherapy.com to catch up on.

But here's the rub:

We moved into the Dream House three weeks ago -- and I promptly went on bedrest. It's hard to really complain about bedrest when you have a nanny and husband who works at home and can basically sit on your ass and make them do all the diaper changing and grocery shopping and errand running and meal providing while you, well, sit on your ass.

HOWEVER -- sitting on your ass in the middle of your household is no way to get any writing-writing done, especially when your actual active PROJECT is being done by Mr. Lovely and Hilarious and you're just waiting around on it (not that I could concentrate on it if the situation were reversed, I mean, I'm sitting here in the middle of my loud friggin' household where there is no way I could get anything done ... especially as I stew over the fact that no one is doing anything the way I would do it myself if I weren't on fucking bedrest, but that's a subject for another day). Regardless ... I am not writing-writing. And I am going a little insane.

I was doing okay, really I was, until my husband walked in last night and said he'd finished unpacking his office. That was sort of the last straw. See, the whole point of the Dream House, for me, was a pantry, a laundry room, a guest room, and my own "DO NOT DISTURB" office space. I have spent the last six years thinking about that office space. I have designed every spare inch of my smaller-than-9x9 refuge -- I have done drawing after drawing of the furniture plans, I have gone over and over the cabinetry, I have surfed the internet for file cabinets for hours at a time, I have sat on dozens of sofas smaller than 51 inches long. But my office remains a mess of boxes because I am on fucking bedrest. My files are not in those file cabinets, because I have to depend on the kindness and priorities of other people to take my file cabinets to the body shop to be painted before I can file my papers. I still don't have a desk. I still don't have the couch. I still don't have my fucking OFFICE.

This is a dumb thing to complain about, it really is. I mean, even if I had my office, I couldn't hang out in it, I'm on bedrest, cooking the twins, and that is literally the most important thing I need to be doing right now. But the problem with bedrest is that I am never alone. It doesn't matter if the door is closed, people are in and out all day. My kids are the loudest tiny people on earth, apparently, and my husband likes to sing to himself. All. Day. Long. And make calls on speaker. Which apparently he believes doesn't work unless you are SHOUTING into the phone. And I am stuck here, in the middle of it, with nowhere to be alone.

Which is not, it turns out, really just a "Yellow Wallpaper" problem. I mean, I have TV, I have internet, I have the Huffington Post and the pre-eclampsia boards, where I am killing ridiculous amounts of time. And I have the constant, whether-I-want-it-or-not, human-interaction.

And THAT'S the problem -- I'm really climbing the walls because I have a "Room of One's Own" problem. I am never alone. Pre-Dream House, I had no private space either, but I could escape a few hours a day and go write in a coffee shop. And that was fine. But that's all gone now, and I am losing it.

I am fairly certain that the number one reason I am a writer is that I am, by temperament, someone who craves being alone. I don't get lonely when I spend a few hours writing-writing -- I get jazzed. I get re-charged. I don't feel cut off from other people, I feel more connected to them, when I spend a few hours alone. I like to eat alone. I love to go to movies alone. I just like to be alone.

And I am getting desperate. I literally broke down CRYING when my husband walked in here a minute ago to ask me what I want for lunch. I almost killed the nanny for coming in to get the laundry this morning. If I don't get some space soon, I don't know what I'm gonna do.

Which is fucking hilarious, considering as of a few weeks from now I am going to have FOUR KIDS. FOUR KIDS. Which makes it incredibly unlikely I will ever be alone again.

Not until they're all in school, at least -- which, and yes, I've done the math, is the fall of 2013.

Here's hoping I get my office unpacked before then.

Kids Ain't All Bad (No, Really!)

Ian Frazier is hilarious – way back in September he wrote a piece for The New Yorker called “Easy Cocktails from the Cursing Mommy,” which is one of the absolute funniest things I have ever read.

I can relate – when Baby Gaga was born, Husband and I started a regular cocktail hour in our home that has led to Husband’s buying our booze at Costco. In bulk.

Husband (returning from Costco): You know you have a problem when you’re standing in Costco wondering why the gin doesn’t come in something bigger than a 750 ml.”

This is all a back-assed way of saying that I love to read and talk about mothering – and not good-mothering so much as low-bar, try-not-to-kill-the-baby-mothering, and really not that so much as what mothering does to working / career / ambition / dreams / every wasted cent of that over-priced degree (or series of degrees) that we mother-types once thought would make some sort of difference in our lives.

This obsession of mine led me to obsessively read Helen Simpson stories (a collection of hers that was published around then was called "I Don't Know How She Does It") after the birth of Small Child. It led me to rail endlessly at a Writer Friend who, in the wake of his first daughter’s birth, was still somehow managing to FINISH A NOVEL. (Men. Enough said.) It led to me to killing a wonderful sixty minutes at the Farmer’s Market a few months ago, talking to a Writer Friend-of-a-Friend who is bemoaning her own wasted dreams, which have been interrupted by her own kids. It led me to give up on one novel and axe a bunch of short stories, too.

Someone has to change the diapers / buy the diapers / schedule the doctor’s appts / drive to the doctor’s appts / set the bedtime routines / make the meals / buy the groceries / organize the birthday parties / drive the children everywhere / install the carseats over and over again / join the fucking PTA … etc.

And that someone always ends up being Mom. Mom is not allowed to go lock herself away from the kids for weeks at a time, or insist on complete quiet all day, or skip dinner-time to work or drink herself slowly to death (especially if she’s nursing – that’s a crime in some states). Mom can’t be the artist-at-the-expense-of-the-children. That just makes Mom a bitch.

Some women cope by putting the work on hold until the kids are old enough to go to school all day, freeing up hours for writing. (Mine are WAY too young for me to even imagine that real possibility.) Some cope by putting the work on hold forever, and trying not to think too much about it by burying themselves in other people’s art and movies and music.

Some kill themselves.

Me, I thought about just giving up a few times this year. I sold a story, but that magazine appears to be going defunct. I finished what I consider the absolute best story I have ever written, but no one wants it. So I thought about starting over on the career track. Maybe get a PhD, or do some interior design. Ten years ago, my grandmother told me to stop writing and go do something "you'd be good at." Maybe my grandmother had been right all along ...

Grandmother (78): Why not get into real estate? Or be a psychologist? You’d be good at that.

Me (24): Psychology? They’re not even real doctors! At least suggest I be a shrink!

And this exchange was years and years before the Small Child and Baby Gaga came along and tossed their toys and dirty laundry all over my dreams.

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to consuming myself in the care of my 2-under-3.

Last year, in a last-ditch effort to cling to my Writerly Identity, I co-wrote a TV pilot while pregnant with Baby Gaga.

Meanwhile, in the run-up to Small Child’s pre-school enrollment, I made a Dear Mom Friend at the school.

Dear Mom Friend is married to Big Shot Manager.

Husband strong-armed Big Shot Manager into reading my pilot, while they were both standing in a ball-pit at Small Child’s birthday party. (I would NEVER have asked Big Shot Manager to read my script – I like Dear Mom Friend too much.)

Big Shot Manager liked it! He got us meetings! Co-writer and I went to production companies and studio lots and had strangers tell us we were smart and talented! (Woo-hoo!) I stopped thinking about stopping writing!

So, score one for Children, Husband, and Family. Who knew all the cleaning and washing and feeding would get me, somehow, a few steps closer to a career?

Nesting again ...

The biological urge to nest is um ... well. Of all distractions a writing mother could face, the last months before arrival of a new baby are the worst. All I can / want to think about are:

-- new blinds for the room First Child will be sharing with Two-ie
-- slipcover for the upholstered glider
-- building Two-ie's crib
-- hanging art to reflect the new addition, including getting mats cut to match the existing art that will then be set into photo frames where I want pictures of First and Two-ie to go
-- hanging First Child and Two-ie fabric letters to spell their names across the window
-- going through First's clothes to get things ready for Two-ie, clearing space in the the closet, and the changer
-- getting a new, double unit expandable monitor
-- a toddler table for First Child, and getting her art supplies
-- a new rug for the play room / my office
-- a new, fancy schmancy diaper bag for me ;)

Yeah, I'm obsessed. Getting myself to actually WORK is getting pretty tough around here -- especially since the nesting isn't just in my head, but about to actualize itself in an 18 month reno of our house, and a new deck for the house we own (and are living in) next door to our house ...

That said, I am still managing to get things done, just more slowly.

For instance:

-- NOVEL -- I am halfway through Ch 9. I would really really like to think I can power through a full second draft of the book by DUE day ... but it will be a real push (no pun intended) and is getting less likely every day, honestly.

-- SPEC PILOT -- took my pass at the First Draft today, and think this is in pretty near ready-to-show-trusted-reader shape. Meeting with Writing Partner Monday night to discuss and um, come up with a title ;)

-- BOOK PROPOSAL FOR CLIENT -- finished a Rough First Draft a few weeks ago, and reading it yesterday am actually pretty pleased about the shape it's in. Just a few more hours on that and I think it's good to go ... which then, of course, sets me up to bid and write the SAMPLE CHAPTER ... jeesh.

And of course, if that weren't enough on the plate, what I really want to be working on is my short story collection ;)

But that's for another post.

Famous Last Words

See last post, dated 2007.

This is, obviously, the first post I've made here in over a year. This is not to say I've been completely UN-productive on the writing front -- I am five chapters into the second draft of the novel.

That said, I'm also 16.5 months in mothering Child #1: 17 weeks into growing Child #2; 10 months into running new business with husband; and a couple weeks shy of moving house to prepare for 18 month renovation of original home (not to mention the fact that I spent most of last year renovating the house we're moving into). So it's been a busy year -- but that said, words need to keep hitting the page and I'm hoping, still, against all hope, to finish the second draft of the novel before Child #2 arrives in November. That'll be a push, of course, but hell, if I can deliver a baby in under three hours, I can finish 2/3 of a manuscript in five months, yeah?

(Closing eyes and moving forward with the same blind optimism that led us to think having another baby right away was such a grand idea :))

Ironically, demands of mothering INCREASE productivity!

I have returned to work. Small Child is now 3 months and ten days old, and I have been back at my desk for a few weeks now, having discovered yet another amazing talent Small Child possesses: she is about A THOUSAND ZILLION times more effective at rousing me from my warm bed than an alarm clock.

So for the last few weeks, I've been getting up to feed her around 4:30 am AND THEN GOING UPSTAIRS to the kitchen table to write until she wakes up for the day around 7:45. It's been an amazingly productive period, since none of the demands of Small Child, Husband, nor Things That Have to Happen Between 9 and 5 can claim me. In the last three weeks since I started doing this, I've made notes on my long story, "James Dean My Love My Copyboy"; read the first draft of my novel; and drafted the 30+ page notes memo for the novel, too.

I've loved working in the wee hours -- I've loved working! But a troubling thing has happened in the last couple of days ... Small Child has slept until 6. Which cuts my work time down by several hours, as that means I'm only alone at the kitchen table for about an hour before the household stirs around me ... Small Child is, of course, a rockstar for sleeping so well, and this of course makes me the one and only Mama on the planet who wishes her daughter would sleep LESS so Mama could be awake and working MORE ...

Resistance Resolved

I returned to the novel a few months ago, surprised to find that I had a lot less to accomplish in order to finish this draft than I believed. I quickly wrote Chapters 12, 13, 14, and 15 in less than a month, and assumed I'd motor write through Chapter 16 -- the final chapter -- in a similar fashion.

And then I stopped.

I finished Chapter 15 on a Thursday morning, so I took Friday off (I try to take a day off when I finish a chapter or story, a recommendation I picked up from Dorothea Brande's fabulous book Becoming a Writer). That evening, Husband and I headed off for a weekend getaway to Berkeley, our last shot at some vacation time before the two of us become three.

Monday I returned exhausted, so I took another day off. Normally I might have pushed on through, but again, "woman's work" intruded--the exhaustion attendant to the growing of Number Three won out over my work ethic, and even dulled the guilt a little bit b/c it's not just me I'm thinking about when I sleep most of the day now.

Tuesday, I forced myself back to my favorite table at my favorite cafe--and discovered another problem related to Number Three: I'm no longer comfortable for long periods of time in the cafe chairs, so after several hours of producing NOTHING I gave up and went home. I spent most of the afternoon working on transforming our office to Three's room.

Wednesday I woke up determined to work at home, in my far more supportive chairs. We all know how it ends when I try to work at home. More energy pumped into Three's room.

Thursday and Friday I decided that as long as I was resisting work, I might as well give myself REAL permission to do so--and so I poured myself into Three-related projects, with no thought to the novel at all. The only condition: Monday I would return to work.

And I did! Yesterday I made notes for what will be the last chapter of the first draft of this book, and today I wrote the first 500 words of it!

Despite the "lost week," I don't feel as badly as I usually do about walking away from my writing. Part of that has to do with listening to the David Allen podcasts at www.43folders.com. One, in particular, is about procrastination, and ways around it/through it.

Regarding working THROUGH procrastination, it was suggested that often the problem has to do with the task at hand not having been broken down to the most basic WIDGET property of itself. In the case of Chapter 16, then, I set myself the MOST BASIC WIDGET STEP of reading the notes I'd been gathering for the last several years regarding the ending of this book.

But easy as that should have been to do--the notes are very neatly collected in a binder that is tabulated into three acts, and the acts themselves are separated into chapter groupings--I still didn't wanna. Part of that, obviously, is my general weirdness about finishing things--I get a little wonky when the end is near. I know that about myself, which I why I am a hugely happy follower of the WIDGET approach--tiny little baby steps distract me from the finish line. I'm not COMPLETING THE FINAL PAGES OF MY NOVEL. I'm "preparing the chain of events" for the chapter; I'm "writing 500 words"; I'm "writing 500 words"; I'm "writing 500 words"; and somehow, 500 words from 500 words from 500 words from 500 words from now, I'll surprise myself by making it to the finish line.

Which is how, of course, I got back to work yesterday.

But last week, I resisted the WIDGET approach, and still, I got a lot done. I moved Husband's clothes in the master closet, and turned what had been his closet into Three's domain. I sorted all the baby clothes my mother had saved for 30+ years into bins by size, and laundered the clothes appropriate for Three's early months. I sorted through 6--count 'em, 6 banker's boxes of Husband's unfiled papers, and filed them. And I started selling books we don't want, to make room for Three's first library and storage system. I didn't write--but I did something important, and pressing, and this is also GTD-appropriate. Like Allen said in the podcast, if you're procrastinating one thing, then you better have a lot of other things you're doing until the resistance passes--and I did!

That said, by week's end I was near my usual "I haven't written in a week and I'm falling mentally to pieces" point--I do get crazed when I stop work. That was sort of a relief, actually--I'd been worrying that maybe I'd be okay, not writing, just doing house stuff ... and I'm pleased to report, I'm not. I can do it about three days before I start to ache for my writing. By a week, the ache is a full-blown "get thee to a word processor!" scream in my head.

I'm guessing the moodiness isn't easy on Husband. But he did get a fully organized, color-coded wall of the master closet in return for my week at home. And I got reassurance that despite the unbelievable amount of time and attention I devote to Three's impending arrival, I haven't yet completely lost myself.

So I'm happily back to regular programming.

Losing the Thread -- Writer Seeks Seams!

Daily word count becomes ever more difficult in face of impending Maui-trip (tomorrow!) and only half-set up office. Plus pressure to produce new story by 2/15 or so for Group on 2/20 makes me feel completely panicked that I've forgotten how to knit a story together. I have characters, ideas, ending, but I worry that I lack plot, so rather than write and write and write my way through it until plot emerged (the only solution, of course) I spent the day obsessively checking my email and arranging office items to satisfy requirements of feng-shui. I now have manifestation boards in my career, love, helpful people, and creativity centers. Desk arrangements reflect same. How LA-lame is that?

However, in the last draft of this entry, which I somehow managed to erase, I decided to stop trying to write/avoid the story and attack it in smaller pieces -- to wit:

WRITE ABOUT WILL'S ROUTINE (b/c falling in love with Mei Feng needs to disrupt it, and I can't exactly have her disrupt a routine I haven't figured out, can I?)

Also, I realized in a far more eloquent way than I'm about to re-express (damn stupid fucking wireless "connection") that it's not because of Benji that Will decides to give up Mei -- it's not Benji who is so desperate for routine, but Will, it turns out -- he's the one who is scared of what the future holds, he's the one who worries that big changes augur big ills. Benji's just his excuse.

I will stitch this together if it kills me, and fast, dammit!

Must re-post this right away before connexion craps out again.

Then may abandon office and go home and start packing, and try to come up with 500 words on Will's routine at home tonight.

Bon voyage to me!

Saturday Progress Report

Feeling good-and-focused enough that I dragged my ass to the office on Saturday, though that's not my usual plan. However, 2005 GOALS require I complete drafts of 1 chapter (2N) and 1 story (collection) each month, and while I think the chapter completion likelihood is mostly sewn-up, until this morning, I hadn't started doing the actual writing-writing of my story.

So I struggled for the last 3 hours with "Endurance" and came up with the first 500 words plus a semi-structure, but man o' man was it tough. I'd hoped to be out of here by 1 pm so I could spend some time on the treadmill, but it's almost 2 now, so time has run too short (aren't I so punny we could all die). Must go forage for nourishment then pretty myself up for multiple cocktail parties this evening beginning just after 4. Oh the life.

Plans for Sunday work session are slightly up in the air. I can't let another week happen in which I don't grocery shop and cook for my husband; the guilt as well as the discomfort not knowing how/what we're going to eat turns out to be too much for both of us. So tomorrow I have to plan our menus, get to the store, and then make something like soup I can freeze for quick dinner. Hopefully I can also get 500 words in, but I'm not going to beat myself up forever if it doesn't happen. I need some down-time, after all, and the real plan is only to write-write 5 days/week anyway.

Happy 6 Month Anniversary, Mr Husband!

611 words on 2N today, but it was a pulling-teeth coupla hours (3, to be exact). I had meant to do a little work on my new short story, "SIN," but scenes have yet to present themselves in my brain, despite all the notes I've been making for it, and my battle with 2N has me pretty mind-numbed ... so instead I'm going to go spend 45 minutes on the treadmill.

BTW: Starbucks is now putting little literary quotes on their cardboard cups.

Through Wind and Snow ...

Ok, so it's not snowing in SoCal, but last night's thunderstorms were close enough. House leaking, AGAIN -- it wasn't enough I was up at 2 scrounging for cold meds, clearly Husband and I needed that 4 am rush to plug leaky windows with spare towels and packing tape. Plus the mysterous, constant ringing of the fax line, and the crashing about of trees overhead ... Suffice it to say, best intentions to be out the door at 6:30 am scuttled. I didn't make it out of the house until nearly 11 am, and didn't get to the office until 1. But I am giving myself full-credit for a 4-hour work-session, despite only putting in 2.5 hours, because of head cold, lack of sleep, and also:

I did good work.

Worked on SECOND NOVEL (hereafter "2N") outline, and researched Hodgkins disease, which afflicts one of my central characters. Have developed a table to track "normal" Hodgkins-treatment timelines against the timeline of 2N, so I have a sort of sense of what happens when, cancer-wise and plot-wise.

Tomorrow I do the same for wedding planning, which afflicts another of my central characters.

Thursday, I continue to fluff out outline, and then Friday morning I put together the quick, key-word table that tracks various plot lines against each other for easy comprehension for one who, mid-process, is usually very confused.

All this as an attempt to put together the master 2N Bible, a project I'm going to attempt to pull together even as I'm in Colorado next week.

Surfacing ...

6 weeks and 4 days later, I'm back in the office, renewed by all sorts of New Year's vigor post the election/birthday blues. I don't ever want to be turning 29 again, it was HORRIFIC, and thanks to rules of mortality and calendars, luckily I don't ever have to.

Quick updates from the depths of the last depressive month-plus:

Hart is dead. Long live Hart.
Have retired proverbial "first novel." I have done this before of course, but this time I think I'm really letting go of it--subject matter in that format is no longer of interest to me, so many years and drafts on. I have, of course, learned all matter of things about character, plotting, endurance, discipline, and of course, prose. My writing has come about a million miles from where I started on this project, back in the spring on '98. So all's not lost, really.

As for the "long live" part...
I've got a ton of story ideas set in and around The Hart School that continue to flood this consciousness, so I am working on a collection of those, instead of torturing myself with "first novel."

Meanwhile, I am moving on to what I will now refer to as Second Novel. It has a title, and a very good one at that, but I'm not sharing yet. (The story collection is also fabulously monikered, but like I said, there's a time for sharing, and that time ain't now.) Second Novel is much much more interesting to me, anyway, and has been for some time, so today I dove right in to the outline again, building building building. Plan for this week is to fluff outline until I feel okay to dive in to writing chapter one, which is plan for January.

Also in the cards for January is a "complete" story for the collection.

Have totally re-jiggered work schedule so that domesticity be damned. It's now 1 pm, I have been at the office since 9 am (following 7:30 walk, 8 coffee/journaling), and have accomplished great work on Second Novel outline and good work on Dirty Darlene story.

So there you go. Bravo to me. And with a head cold, to boot!

I Am Finally Back

Work took a tumble when state of union seemed perilously close to disaster. Disaster not quite averted but it has been survived, so I am back at the office today with renewed vigor and focus and all those other wonderful things, which, in my case, are the product of a brand new candle burning on my desk, and a clearer sense of "office schedule":

90 minutes on the novel, in hopes of reaching min. 300 words ...
30 minutes lunch and surf internet and answer emails
90 minutes back to the novel, or onto poems, stories, or notes for novel #2
30 minutes blog and administer writing life (read for group, or read for other friends)
10 minutes clean up office and back up work on disc and paper

That schedule instituted with the help of a timer today, I have written 1400 words on Chapter 4! Yippee!

So Many Projects, So Little Time ...

Have actually written a bit today -- opened Chapter 4, and moved plot points around a bit on the ol' bullletin board. Am not going to beat myself up about not doing enough -- until the New Year, I've decided ANY PROGRESS MADE on any given day is completely self-esteem-worthy, considering how much other "real/non-writer" life must be squeezed into the schedule in the next few months:

One week from now: Halloween -- requires costume (mostly taken care of) and cookies to bring to Halloween party (recipe chosen, but must buy ingredients and bake)

10 days from now: Election Night -- requires constant vigilance of electoral polls, voting, shopping for party, and baking.

1 month from now: Thanksgiving -- requires traveling east, fitting in Levy and Friedman family appearances, and assembling appropriate Thanksgiving Day outfit. Also requires dropping 5 of the 8 pounds gained since wedding before going home to family who would no doubt gloat at any widening in evidence. This clearly requires ceasing with candy and ice cream (sad), and ramping up dreaded treadmill time (sadder).

6 weeks from now: My birthday. Day to be marked, as in all birthdays past, by deep depression about life intruding upon work, and thus work being undone, and thus me being pathetic excuse for person who is just getting older and older with nothing to show for it. However, at least I get to go see "Caroline or Change" that night.

2 months from now: Christmas/Chanukah -- requires HOLIDAY CARDS designed, ordered, addressed, stamped, sent. Requires presents planned and bought and wrapped and shipped. Requires enormous amounts of baking. Also requires COMPLETION of wedding photo albums to give as gifts to relatives.

2+ months from now: New Year's -- requires leaving LA for parts not yet known. This requires choosing said part and getting there. Also I would really like to have chosen an architect by then so we can start the house project moving forward. This, obviously, requires calling and interviewing architects.

But damn it, if it kills me, I will get to the office every day, and I will accomplish SOMETHING novel/story-minded.

So, I repeat: I opened Chapter 4 today. I will settle for that.

Off to the treadmill.

Politics and Art

I am finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on my work in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. So many polls, so little time. If I'm not here I'm here or here or here. So many polls, so little time. It's enough to make you throw your hands up and go clean out the garage until the smoke clears.

Which, if 2000 was any indication, may be sometime MONTHS from now. But at least my garage would be clean. I read somewhere that Anne Patchett declutters for months, mulling over her books and not writing a word. Then, the closets spotless and cabinets sorted, she sits down at the keyboard and the first draft spills out.

It's a tempting thought, but in moments like these it is important to remember that for me, at least, any day without a bit of word-to-paper in it is a day I'm more likely to show the world the SKL who is an all-out raving, completely frustrated bitch.

On a slightly brighter note, I did finish a new draft of "Dirty Diane" in the last few days and have submitted it to Writing Group 2 for discussion Sunday.

But today, despite three hours in front of this computer, novel progress was a truly pathetic 3 sentences -- 193 words.

The #1 Reason I Got Married

Husband claims all is NOT crap. Am feeling slightly better. Will go forward tomorrow NO MATTER WHAT.

Then I'll come home and make Shepherd's Pie from our leftovers.

Sunday Wifely Sunday / OUTSIDE VALENTINE by Liza Ward

I may have hit the pinacle of housewife. Yesterday I cleaned up after the cats, changed, laundered, and folded the sheets, made the shopping list and weekly menus, SHOPPPED both at Trader Joe's AND the Mayfair to fulfill needs of said list, worked on wedding photo albums, and still found the time to make my own power bars.

In between all this I read the Sunday Times (new NYTBR: BLAH AND OVERBLOWN IN EVERY WAY ... how did they possibly make it LESS interesting/insightful?) and got through the underwhelming OUTSIDE VALENTINE by Liza Ward.

OUTSIDE VALENTINE is another entry in the pile of books/movies/albums about the Starkweater murders. (By the way, I can make this segue to my impressions of the book because much of the time I found myself quietly chastising the housekeeping skills of various fictional characters from my real-live couch while I waited for my home-made power bars to finish baking. Seriously. How sad is that?)

Anyway, the "hook" of this novel is that Liza Ward "lucked" into being the daughter of a Starkweather survivor (her father's parents were killed by the crazy teenagers), which meant she could easily get enough publicity to make most people blind to the problems with this book. Reviews were so glowing I bought into the hype, which is not a common thing for me, and may account for my disappontment, but there you go.

First, a quick plot check. OUTSIDE VALENTINE tells three stories: that of the middle-aged Lowell Bowman (the survivor in question, 1991); Susan Hurst, a girl who lives a few streets down from the Bowmans and will someday marry Low Bowman (told from her POV in 1962); and Caril Ann Fugate, Charlie Starkweather's girlfriend, who narrates the killing spree (told from her POV, 1957). Ward is pretty good at writing the girls -- she writes vivid scenes, and the teenagers are fully drawn and completely believable. The problem is when she tries to write the Lowell Bowman, whose adult life in 1991 is meant to anchor the narratives of the past.

I have two issues with Lowell Bowman. First, Ward presents him as terribly damaged and emotionally remote because of the tragedy he's experienced -- however, she never succeeds in bringing him to life, perhaps because he's so remote to her she can't feel him, either. (If indeed she started this project as a way to get closer to her father or understand him further, as far as I can tell she hasn't succeeded).

But worse, I thought, was the way she used Lowell to function in the plot. Because we see the girls as teens, and we experience the events that shape them, they are completely alive to us. However, Lowell is absent for the central event of his teenage years -- the murders -- so Ward chooses only to show him as a grown-up, having lived with that absence for decades. So she has to invent a "today" life for him that will drive and anchor the more vivid "past" parts of the narrative, but the life she chooses for Low is wish-washy and unbelievable. He's a failing art dealer in New York who has grown cold to his wife and distant from his children for reasons that are never explored (I'm sorry, but "30 years ago my parents were murdered" is not a good enough reason if you've been functioning just fine until now). Worse, the 1991 plot development that drives the descent into the 1957 and 1962 narratives is Lowell's adult wife Susan asking Low what's in a safe deposit box that they've been billed $3000 for: and he CLAIMS NOT TO KNOW.

Ok, I'm sort-of-in-a-fiction-sort-of-way okay with forgetting what's in a safe deposit box. HOWEVER, if you don't know what's in it, then why the hell do you refuse to go deal with it? Shouldn't you be curious, especially if there's a $3000 rental fee hanging over your head?

Totally annoying. If I had been the editors of this book, and my writer told me she needed a safe deposit box because the contents of said box were going to be the link to Susan's 1962 narrative sections and Caril Ann's 1957 narrative sections, then I would have had him OPEN THE BOX at the start of the novel, b/c this move of having Low avoid it and avoid it for 300 pages is completely stupid. It just makes him annoying, and more over, it tries to turn the contents of the box into A HUGE SURPRISE, which, of course, it's not. It's a really lame trick. REALLY REALLY LAME.

That said, Liza Ward is not a terrible writer. She was totally convincing with the female characters in this book, and had she written a novel entirely about Caril Ann or even Susan I would probably have loved it. But she didn't. Ah well.

However, today I get my copy of The Plot Against America, so onto better pastures tonight.

Dinner for Friends is the New Yoga / Writing Practice

Since getting married, I have ramped up the domestic duties a zillion-fold. Daily laundry is actually daily at this point, sheet-changes actually weekly, and I do make weekly menus and grocery lists and SHOP ACCORDINGLY. This may seem a form of complete subordination of every feminist bone in body, but (and this is hardly an original thought, I'm just repeating it b/c I think it bears repetition):

Household drudgery really seems to be freeing up my writing mind and making me a better (if better=more sociable) person.

For instance, preparing three-course meals every night, I'm getting very zen about chopping and sauteeing and table-setting. Shitty day at the office? Go make raspberry fools for four! Seriously. I am a decent cook. Those who don't know better think I'm even good. But never before have I been an almost-every-night-of-the-week feast-preparer. I used to think I didn't have the time (I mean, I'm spending three to four hours a night cooking, dining, and then cleaning up afterwards, and we're eating so well regularly that I'm even suggesting we have friends in more often than not). But post-nuptials, Making Dinner just seemed to be Something Wives Do (my mother did), so I starting Doing It, and damn if I'm not actually SLEEPING AT NIGHT. Gone are evenings spent freaking out over the crap I produced at the office ... a few hours peeling and slicing and sauteeing, and not only have I let go of the frustration, I may even have WORKED THROUGH IT.

And even more interesting:

I'm even a decent conversation partner if I've cooked. Pre-cooking: Pre-occupied and snappish. Post-cooking: Kinda laid back, or at least, closer to that than this neurotic Jewish ex-NYer writer tends to be the rest of the time. Not only did we have a friend in for dinner last night (a Monday night!) but we had another friend in for coffee afterwards! Amazing.

Plus afterwards I SLEPT (almost) THROUGH THE NIGHT without having nightmares about the plot difficulties of my mss. Really. Even with my 6 am wake-ups, I am refreshed and ready to go.

So go cook, really. Sure, the repetitive motions of folding laundry can be relaxing, but cooking may be the magic pills writers trying to balance work with life have been searching for: it's creative, it produces yummy and often colorful meals, and by feeding people you actually get to connect to them DESPITE YOUR WRITERLY ANGSTY SELF.

No kidding. Go cook.

Next stop: Finding Time For Yoga.

I think there may be a cookbook in all this ...

300 Words Daily

Today was a pulling teeth day, the sort of day one congratulates oneself for creating the "300 Words A Day" rule so one doesn't have to go home and beat oneself up all night. In point of fact, I wrote probably about 1000 words today, trying to find my scene, and once the scene was found (in which Anna discovers Charlie is dead), I had a strong-ish 344. Which I will be bringing home to my husband, so he can stroke me for a job well-ish done.

Speaking of husbands, he did the unthinkable and SHOWED UP AT THE OFFICE TODAY. And I was weak, so I went to lunch with him. (Hard to say no to a man who says, "I just figured I had a little free time, so I should go lunch with my wife.") That said, I was strong and put in an additional hour at the office past my normal writing time to make up for it. I am TRYING, really.

Oh and by the way ...

So what that we forgot the whole "threshold" part ...

I'm Baaaaack ...

Two months later. Married (woohoo), honeymooned (woohoohoo), and finally home. Spent a week playing housewife, unpacking boxes, but now I am back at the office and definitely getting back to speed. Wrote 713 words on ITS CLINGING HABIT today, in what is ostensibly to be Chapter 4. Also read throught pre-wedding work on RENOVATIONS, and there is definitely something there, so I have ping-ponging projects to keep me busy. (Of course, this requires buying more bulletin boards).

Have also joined a SECOND writer's group, so that should keep me focused focused focused.

Ah, the perils of being a woman writer: Today I received an email from a Columbia MFA friend of mine, congratulating me on getting my thank-you notes out within 6 weeks of said wedding, and with photos in them, no less. He, on the other hand, has been spending the 6 months since HIS nuptials writing and completing the mss of his second novel. Which is great, he's a fabulous writer. But why isn't he slowed and pulled from his writer-time by thoughts of renovating, cleaning, decluttering, in his free time?

Because he's a HE, that's why.

One more hour in the office. Gonna push farther now, see how far I can really really go.