Surprise and Delight

My son, Max, and I volunteer every Saturday with the Escondido Humane Society (EHS), where we take care of the rabbits the EHS has placed in local Petco stores as part of an adoption outreach program. Our duties, begun two years ago, include cleaning cages, replenishing hay, kibble, and water, bringing the animals fresh greens, exercising them in an x-pen setup, grooming and interacting with them, and providing information to store visitors interested in adopting.

What began as a volunteer activity to help my son with college applications has become a labor of love for both of us. During the past two years, we’ve cared for over forty rabbits and have seen many of them get adopted. Even though we’re happy when they find forever homes, it’s hard to watch the rabbits go; after weeks of working with them, they inevitably burrow their way into our hearts. But our volunteering has been a wonderful bonding activity for my son and me and has allowed us to give back in a way that sustains our mutual love for animals.

Max and I have developed a rhythm to our volunteer routine; since he’s good with animals, he does most of the bunny handling and grooming. Since I’m more into organizing and chatting, I take care of the trays, hay boxes, and water bowls, and answer potential adopters’ questions.

On a recent volunteer day, I was busy cleaning one of the rabbits’ trays when a mouse scurried out from under a display rack and skittered across the floor in front of me. The sight of the tiny critter motoring so quickly across the linoleum made me laugh out loud. After months of the same routine every Saturday, this little interlude made my day in a fresh and surprising way.

The runaway mouse also got me thinking about the importance of surprise in our writing. An unexpected element, especially one that makes us smile, can infuse new life into a story that has been rolling along on cruise control. This concept is especially true for those of us mired in the middle of novels, where we’ve become bogged down by static plot lines and characters. An unusual event, an atypical action by a character, or even a surprising bit of dialogue, can give us fresh perspective on a storyline and lend renewed interest and enthusiasm to authors and readers alike.

As an author, I love when the characters in a book I’m writing suddenly do or say things that surprise me. This usually occurs when I’m not sure exactly what will happen next in a scene – suddenly, a character will behave in an unexpected way, and it’s so refreshing and unusual that it peaks my interest. Soon, I’m off writing the next few lines, eager to see where the new direction will lead.

I believe that readers, like authors (and volunteers), also love it when we surprise them. So, if you’ve been slogging through the middle of your latest novel, try letting your characters do something unexpected. The unusual twist may be exactly what you need to give yourself – and your readers – a reason to smile.

Finding Opportunity in a Teacup

I recently read Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin's Three Cups of Tea, the fascinating non-fiction account of how Mortenson, a mountain climber and American nurse, came to build fifty-five schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In one of my favorite parts of the book, Mortenson describes a 1998 talk he gave in a sports shop in Apple Valley, Minnesota, where the store staff was so busy he had to set up the seating -- over a hundred folding chairs -- himself. After weeks of publicity, including posters at a local college, an AM radio morning show interview, and segments in the local papers, he faced an audience of only three people: two store employees and a single customer, who hovered at the back of the room. Though he was dejected at the small showing and exhausted by his continual efforts at fundraising, Mortenson decided to give his talk anyway and began showing slides of K2's infamous summit and the eighteen schools he’d built so far in Pakistan’s remote and impoverished countryside. As he spoke, Mortenson felt a renewed enthusiasm for his work and his devotion to the Pakistani people and gave his all to the presentation, even though his audience was small.

When he finished, the lone customer disappeared, but the two employees approached him. One gave him ten dollars, while the other offered to volunteer his construction skills in Asia. Mortenson thanked them and then, as he picked up the brochures he'd set out on the chairs, he noticed an envelope on the last chair in the last row, where the customer had been sitting. In the envelope, Mortenson found a personal check, made out to his foundation, for twenty thousand dollars.

There is an important lesson here for all authors who initially see very little return on investment for the hours and dollars they spend promoting their books. Although a few lucky ones experience instant success when their books are published, the majority do not. Most writers, especially those who are publishing a book for the first time, can expect months and even years of effort, including building websites, posting on blogsites, giving interviews, sending out contest applications, presenting at speaking engagements, and hosting blog and book tours that don’t pan out to much in sales. And in our recently diminished economy, where consumers are pulling back on their expenditures, the return on an author’s promotional investment is lower than ever.

But, as Mortenson's story reminds us, opportunities exist (and sometimes abound) in every venture we undertake, and bad economy or no, there is always the possibility that a single investment of time and effort will somehow result in some good. Even a book signing with only one or two attendees can turn out to be worthwhile, especially if one of the two people there happens to be one of Oprah's producers, say, or a movie studio executive looking for a new idea for a script. We never know who will see our ads, read about us in a local newspaper article, stumble across our blog, or sit at the back of empty rows of chairs at a bookstore or university talk.

As another famous impoverished author, Henry David Thoreau, once said, "In the long run, we only hit what we aim at." Although the results we seek may not always come as quickly as we'd like, with persistence, patience, and good promotional guidance and execution, they eventually appear – sometimes when we least expect them.

Aim often and high.

Learning to Be Like Water

As the end of the year approaches, it’s time to take a personal inventory of what the year was like – what went well and what didn’t, where we succeeded and where we failed, what brought joy and what brought sorrow, and what we learned from it all. For me, this year was a tumultuous one, filled with highs and lows. The low points had to do with a lot of dental work; the highs revolved around work, writing, and relationships.

The constant joy in my life is my family, and that held true for 2008. My husband and my two children are a never-ending source of love, happiness, and inspiration. At the end of each year with them, I can’t help feeling truly blessed for their presence in my life.

As for my business, I also couldn’t be more blessed. I had the honor of working for some truly great clients this year and am looking forward to continuing my work with many of them – along with some new voices - in 2009.

My writing has also been a source of joy and learning. I am privileged to be part of a creative and talented weekly writing group, and this year I had the honor of meeting some truly amazing writers during an artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center. I discovered the joy of blogging, sold a few articles, and reached the halfway point on my second novel. While I may not have completed as much as I would have liked, the first ten pages won an Editor’s Choice Award at the 2008 SDSU Writers’ Conference, and the remaining pages are shaping up into a presentable first draft.

In 2008, I went back to community college teaching after a ten-year hiatus. Surprisingly, I discovered how much I missed it and was lucky to have a group of students who were a pleasure to work with and taught me more than they’ll ever know.

And on November 4th, I felt tremendous pride in the American people for the ground-breaking change they brought to pass with the election of our first African-American president.

In all, it was a solid year, filled with achievement and wonder.

And now it’s time to look forward to 2009. I’m not big on resolutions, but I do believe in setting goals, even if they’re more generally focused on attitude and direction. For the coming year, I’ve decided to take a lesson from the Tao Te Ching by paying more attention to what is present in my life and learning to practice simplicity, patience, and compassion.

As Lao Tze says in Chapter 8 of the Tao, the roadmap for contentment lies in being like water, which nourishes without trying and is “content with the low places that most people disdain.” Lao Tze also gives some wonderful basic guidelines for daily life:

In dwelling, live close to the ground.

In thinking, keep to the simple.

In conflict, be fair and generous.

In governing, don't try to control.

In work, do what you enjoy.

In family life, be completely present.

When you are content to be simply yourself

and don't compare or compete,

everybody will respect you.

Some wise words to live by in 2009.

Happy New Year!

Beginnings and Endings

Some experts would argue that the most important part of a book is the first sentence. Without a good opening, or hook, as we call it, we authors risk losing our readers right off the bat. But how many books have any of us read where we actually remember the opening line? Or even how the story begins?

For myself, I love a book beginning. When I’m in a bookstore or at the library, I don’t waste time reading the jacket copy on the back of a book. Instead, I toss open the cover and go straight for the first line. If it grabs me, I’ll pick up the book to bring home. But if that first line doesn’t stop me dead in my tracks right there, the book doesn’t stand a chance.

Usually the first line is a precursor to what’s to come in a novel. There is a certain tone to the writing, or the main character speaks with a voice so unique and compelling that we have to turn the page. These are the books that become our favorites, the ones that stay with us through our lifetime as key markers along the paths of our personal development.

We all have a few favorite opening lines. One of mine is the beginning of Barbara Kingsolver’s haunting novel, The Poisonwood Bible, which tells the story of an American preacher, who leads his family to tragedy and death as he descends into madness in the jungles of Africa. The first sentence prophetically reads “Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened.”

Another one of my favorites is the opening line to Sena Jeter Naslund’s novel Abundance, which tells the story of Marie Antoinette in the doomed queen’s own voice. “Like everyone, I am born naked,” she states. How can any of us put down a book that begins this way?

And who can forget “Call me Ishmael,” Herman Melville’s famous opening to Moby Dick? Or Humbert Humbert’s painfully obsessed beginning words in Nabokov’s Lolita: “Lolita, love of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.”

Likewise, I am fascinated by the last lines of certain books, especially those that have kept me spellbound for hours and made me loathe to have them end. One of my favorite endings appears in the title piece of Flannery O’Connor’s short story collection, A Good Man is Hard to Find. After brutally murdering all but one member of a Southern family stranded on a country road, a psychopathic killer called The Misfit shoots the opinionated grandmother who, in a moment of redemption, has reached out and touched him after recognizing him as one of her own.

“She would have been a good woman,” The Misfit says to his accomplice, Bobby Lee, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”
“Some fun!” Bobby Lee replies.
“Shut up,” The Misfit says, “It’s no real pleasure in life.”

Another favorite ending of mine (this one a bit more lyrical), lies in the final paragraphs of Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It. They read:

Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.

Recently, I had the pleasure of reading Gil Adamson’s marvelous debut novel, The Outlander. Everything about this book is wonderful, including the suspenseful plot and the unforgettable characters. Most memorable is Mary Boulton, the young widow at the heart of the story. But it’s the novel’s ending that nailed me to my chair (even though I suspected what was coming). Turn away now if you plan to read the book. If not, enjoy the delightful and chilling last words Mary leaves in a note for the lover she’s finally located after a desperate and eerie journey through the woods of Montana:

“Find me.”

Rituals

When my friend, Pam, called to cancel on our movie date tonight, I was glad. Not because I didn’t want to go out with Pam – I relish our nights out, partly because I enjoy her company and partly because we share a love of indie films (something our husbands don’t have much interest in). But tonight I was glad we weren’t getting together because the unexpected block of time became an opportunity to bake holiday cookies with my son, Max.

Baking cookies may not seem like a big deal to some, but to me, it is. That’s because Max is sixteen years old now and between his interests - the homework, driving lessons, basketball and volleyball practices, and flag football games – and my own, there isn’t always a lot of time left for us to spend together.

We had made the dough last night, at Max’s urging. To be honest, with all I have going on with my publicity work and fiction writing, I could skip the whole Christmas-cookie-baking gig. I could skip the tree and the lights and the presents, too. But my kids, who are now fourteen and sixteen-years-old and straddling that gap between adulthood and childhood, won’t let that happen. So, with Max pestering me to pull out the New York Times Cookbook (we love the gingerbread recipe) and even reminding me to let the butter soften before he left for school in the morning (how many teenage boys do that?), the dough was ready to go.

After I hung up the phone with Pam, I called Max into the kitchen and said, “Let’s hit it.” My daughter, Sasha, and husband, Dan, made us promise that they could help decorate when they returned from softball practice, so Max and I were on our own to bake. We put some mood music on the CD player (A Charlie Brown Christmas, one of my all-time favorites), sprinkled the table with flour, pulled the cold dough out of the fridge, and selected Christmas and Hanukkah (for Dan, who is Jewish) cookie cutters from the drawer that only gets opened once every year in December. There were the old favorites – the rusty gingerbread man, the plastic Christmas tree, the rocking horse, the teddy bear, the holiday wreath, the Santa, the dreidel, and the six-pointed Star of David – along with some new ones: a Texas longhorn and a cactus shape that Dan had brought back from a business trip to Dallas this year.

And we baked. I rolled out the dough, and Max positioned the cutters and pressed them down, then peeled the excess dough away and transported the newly cut cookies (the longhorns gave us some trouble) to the new baking sheets the kids gave me for my birthday this year. Max and I shoved the filled trays into the oven and loaded up empty ones, working together in a rhythm based on years of doing the same sprinkling, rolling, and cutting Christmas ritual, on the same kitchen table, since he was a toddler.

We didn’t say much, Max and I, but as we worked together, gathering the loose scraps of dough to press into a ball and roll out again, I held my breath. I know that there won’t be too many more of these times. In two years, my son will be off to college, studying, working, falling in love and, some day, developing his own holiday traditions. But for now, I’ll treasure these stolen moments in the kitchen with flour on our hands, the scent of warm gingerbread in the air, and the fullness of this comforting winter ritual in our hearts.

Routine Matters

My son, Max, attends a local Sunday morning basketball clinic put on by Jim Brogan, a former NBA player and current coach/motivational speaker. Those who are familiar with Jim know already that he has an unorthodox and eclectic style. He pushes the kids – literally and figuratively – to be leaders as well as good athletes. And he does it with a mix of interactive coaching, conventional shooting and ball-handling drills, and bold “in-your-face” challenges and questions. At the end of each Sunday workout, the kids cluster on the gym bleachers, all sweaty and sucking on their water bottles, to listen to Jim’s “Thought for the Week,” which he prints out on colored paper and distributes after his talk. These talks are the best part of Jim’s Sunday sessions because that’s where he draws on his celebrity status as an NBA player, along with his fiery and determined personality, to drive home important truths about basketball and life.

Jim has been a fantastic source of inspiration and learning not just for Max and his fellow athletes, but for me and all the other parents who huddle close to the kids at the end of the Sunday workouts to hear the weekly thought. Of course, Jim doesn’t just aim his talks at the kids – he focuses on the parents, as well, and there are some weeks when his words are meant more for us than for our offspring.

Today’s talk was one of those “Parents, listen up,” lessons. Jim spoke about a former student who had stopped by and confessed that he was failing his freshman classes at UC Berkeley. The former student told Jim that he was partying until three in the morning every day and had lost his motivation and his ability to stay on top of sports and classes. Jim pointed out the obvious lesson for the kids – that we all have choices to make about how we behave and what we do with our time – but he also mentioned something that made me sit up and listen a little closer.

And that was the concept of having a routine. As Jim told the kids, any of us can go out every night and party and hope we get by on talent and luck. But, he asked, wouldn’t it be better to commit to a routine that’s good for you? He made some suggestions (ones that he’s mentioned before) about good habits for basketball players, including coming to the gym every morning before school and shooting one hundred free throws. But, he also pointed out that having a routine is an important part of life. Even more important, he said, was to use our routines to build up our lives. When life gets boring, or throws us a tough curve ball, Jim suggested that the best way to adapt and adjust is to add a new routine to our repertoire.

This idea hit home with me, especially after a holiday week, when a lot of my normal routines were disrupted. My husband was out of town, the kids were home instead of being in school, and my writing group, which normally meets on Thursdays, had to skip because of Thanksgiving. Even worse, I was involved in some pretty hairy dental work, which left me with a misaligned bite and a lot of soreness. All of this put me off my usual routine of making calls for clients every morning, working on my novel, meeting with other writers, and spending time with my family. I hadn’t realized how much I treasured those daily rituals until they were disrupted this past week.

But most striking to me is the idea that when things get tough, and the going gets boring, one option for getting over the hump is adding a new routine to our repertoire. Who among us writers hasn’t hit the proverbial wall when working on a book? And how many times have many of us, especially after a rough critique or another rejection, considered giving up all together? Jim’s solution, which can keep us in the writing game, is to add another routine. Stuck in the middle of that nonfiction draft? Add a routine of writing an essay or a blog entry on a similar topic every week. Can’t come up with a subplot for that historical novel? Consider adding a daily research or reading timeslot that might provide some answers. Run out of images for that new short story? Why not spend fifteen minutes every day reading a poem by your favorite poet. Creating new routines, I’ve realized, is just as important as having some in the first place.

We writers have all heard about the importance of writing every day as a means of becoming better at our craft. Even those of us who can’t, or don’t care to, write daily usually have some kind of ritual and/or routine that keeps us on our game. A weekly free-writing session, a meeting with a group of writers, an annual retreat or residency – there is typically something we do regularly that keeps us in touch with ourselves and gives us the momentum to keep moving forward with our work. I hadn’t realized how crucial my own routines were until this week, when they were disrupted. Thanks to Jim Brogan, I’m reminded of the value of the every day routines in my life, and how much we all stand to gain by doing those same things – as long as they’re things that are good for us – over and over. Even more important, I’m now going to consider adding new ones when the old routines wear out.

What Makes Writing Worth Doing?

In one of my favorite Woody Allen movies, Manhattan, there's a wonderful scene at the end of the film where the main character, Isaac, a neurotic, divorced television writer, finds himself alone at home on the couch, holding a tape recorder. His teenaged girlfriend, Tracy, has left him, he’s blown a relationship with a woman his own age, he’s lost his job and his apartment, and has discovered that fears about his health were unfounded. In that final scene, alone and hopeless, he turns on the tape recorder and asks himself, "What makes life worth living?" He then answers the question, mumbling into the microphone in his hand: Groucho Marx, Willie Mays, the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, Louis Armstrong's recording of Potato Head Blues, Swedish movies, Sentimental Education by Flaubert, Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, the incredible apples and pears by Cezanne, the crabs at Sam Wo's, and, finally, he adds, "Tracy's face." These last words hit him in a way the others don't; he gets up and, in true Woody Allen fashion, runs through the streets of Manhattan to find Tracy before she leaves for college in England.

I won't tell you what happens at the very end (I’ll save that for those who haven't seen the movie), but I love the fact that the final realization in this film comes because of an image. The picture of a young girl's face in a man's mind summarizes her whole being for him: her sweetness, her radiance, her intelligence. It reveals these characteristics in a way that is so monumental that Isaac has to act. And off he goes, to whatever resolution the story has in store for him.

We writers deal in images. And like Isaac, we often find ourselves at a point in our writing lives where we’re on the couch, alone and hopeless, wondering if we can continue to pour our hearts out on the page year after year.

Most of us have been in the situation where something that was at one time important to us - our job, our marriage, a sport, a hobby - changes, and we suddenly find ourselves asking, Why am I doing this? What’s in it for me? In many marriages, this moment tends to occur after some years together (we’ve all heard the warnings about the seven year itch). We reach a point where we ask ourselves why we married our spouse, why we chose to have kids. We imagine what our lives would be like if we hadn’t gone down the marriage path. Or maybe we meet someone who seems like a true soul mate and wonder "what if?"

Writers often experience a similar pattern. We take some classes, win a few awards, find a good writing group, maybe even land an agent. But our first and perhaps even our second book doesn’t sell, so we doggedly write another one. And halfway through that next one, after maybe five or six or seven years of writing and going to classes and conferences and meetings with other writers, we ask ourselves, why are we doing this? Why spend so many hours away from our spouses, children, and friends, to slave over pages of words? Is it worth it?

And this is where our inspiration falters. Some writers stop writing. They begin to doubt themselves, they become more critical and anxious at their group meetings, or they don’t come at all - spending their creativity on inventing excuses: "I had too much work this week," "I’m not feeling well," "I have to go to an event with the kids," "I can’t find the inspiration/motivation/courage,"etc. Even published writers go through times of doubt, wondering why a book hasn't sold despite good publicity, successful book tours, and decent reviews. Why do any more book signings, they ask? Why write the next book? What makes writing worth the effort?

As in a marriage, when a writer's relationship with his/her work starts to falter, it might be time to examine the situation and get some counseling. A good conference or class can be the answer for some, providing a new way of looking at our writing, or offering new grounds for inspiration and camaraderie. Perhaps a stint at a writing residency might do the trick, providing some needed time for soul-searching and reconnecting with our creative selves.

Or maybe it's time to talk with a spouse, trusted friend, writing expert, agent, even a publicist. Anyone who’s a good listener can act as a sounding board. Have that person ask (or just ask yourself), "What makes writing worth doing?"

If you're honest, your answers might surprise you: maybe it's worth it because you love creating a world all your own from your own imagination; maybe it's the exhilaration you feel when you find that perfect word that illustrates exactly what you’re trying to say; maybe it's the admiration you receive from your friends, your family, your readers; maybe it's the friendships you've formed with other writers like yourself; maybe it's the voices of the characters you hear in your head, begging you to bring them to life on the page; maybe it’s an image of a young girl's face. You don’t know what that image means, but you feel driven to write about it, to find out why it haunts you, to discover what impact understanding it might have on your life.

Listen carefully to your answers. If you’re lucky, you just might discover an idea, a thought or, possibly, an image so powerful that it gets you up off the couch and running to create your next scene.

Oh, and for Isaac, I would have added one more thing that makes life worth living: writing.