The Character Made Me Do It

This photo is from about a month ago. Snow, mountains... Mt. Baker even had an Easter egg hunt on the ski slopes. I was there to write in the lodge and look at peaks that are the setting for novel #3.

Nope. The main character of novel #2 kept yelling for attention. It was his turn. "Look at me! Look at me!" So I looked. So I polished the draft I thought was resting for a while.


Now I plan to focus on querying novel #2, LUCKY, instead of #1. Unexpected. But it feels right. Lucky, the the eponymous main character, usually gets his way.

Huh? Do your characters sometimes call the shots?

(in answer to The Happy Whisk, the  photo is from my iPhone)

In Honor of a Friend

The Reverend Peter J. Gomes was a friend. He was my partner's academic adviser at Harvard Divinity School, then his mentor, and finally a friend to both of us. He not only preached at our wedding, he offered his house for the reception. Peter published many collections of sermons and wrote best-selling books about the Bible, including The Good Book: Reading the Bible with mind and heart, which informed the nonprofit I founded, Our Spirit, to help gay/lesbian youth feel good about themselves despite religious fundamentalists.

Monday February 28th, two hours after Peter died of complications from a stroke, I got the news while in line at a cafe. In honor of Peter I ordered their hardiest red wine. Kent and I went straight to our seats and didn't talk much. Peter was unabashedly himself. So, with the wine and my laptop, I unabashedly - finally after several months - contacted a published author who said she'd help with my agent search when the time was right. My friends had been urging me to hurry up and query. Peter had urged me to get on with it. So, finally, I did.

Thank you, Peter, for friendship. For laughter and cigars on your porch. Thank you for being unabashedly yourself and for helping the rest of us move in that direction.

Photo: Peter toasting Kent (far right) and me at our wedding reception.

More about Peter:  60 Minutes, New Yorker, New York Times

Geese Got It

On Presidents' Day, we went south in search of Snow Geese. And there they were. An enormous flock of geese from Siberia who've wintered on this Washington farmland as long as anyone can remember. We were riveted. So many geese. Amazing flight patterns. A shift on the left rippling as thousands of birds changed direction. Hypnotic. Made me think of writing. Not writing about geese. I was thinking about words. As if each of those geese were one word. A massive flock of birds, of words, making a novel. How sometimes the words are in sync, electric in the air. Sometimes the flock is at rest, and five geese, five words, shoot up and you wait for the mass to follow and they don't and you think those five renegades are doing the wrong thing until you realize that their slight variation is actually the best. And then the entire flock ups and double-backs. I could have watched the geese for hours.

I celebrate each and every one of those geese as I celebrate all of our words. The words that go together and the words that stick out. The words that rise up from the field and fill the universe with black and white electricity.

Writers... how cool to watch the flock. How cool to create.

For all of us, may this be a week of creation.

(another photo from Lee Mann, amazing photographer of the Pacific Northwest)

Donut Power

My last post made it seem like I do all my writing at home. True, I try not to spend everything on earning rights to a cafe table. But, I'm quite a public writer. In college I spent more time in cafes than the library; that's where all my S.A.T. teaching money went. Where we live has tons of cafes, several a short walk away.

But here's a new thing - doughnuts.

There's a place in town called Rocket Donuts. The owner loves donuts and 1950's sci-fi movies. Wacky black & white oldies play non-stop on several screens, and there's a life-sized rocket with flashing lights outside. How amazing to combine passions into work.

I've finished two YA novels and am returning a middle grade novel that has an element of travel between worlds. Where better to launch my return to the project than Rocket Donuts. I got sugared up, rocked out to Beach Boys and cool cowboy oldies that I vaguely recognized, and wrote. One of my nephews is into all things outer space, so I got him a Rocket Donut t-shirt last summer. Maybe I should get a t-shirt for myself for my new writing-wear.

Three cheers for donuts and whatever propels our intergalactic writing travel.

What propels you?

(Thank you to the Sweet Travel blog for the Rocket Donuts photos and cool pastry posts.)

Where We Do It

What do we need in order to write? A desk, tea, quiet? A table, coffee, the distraction of a cafe? For some of us, it might not matter. For me, all I need is my laptop. Place is not important. Nor is peace of mind. Writing gives me focus, gives me peace. The more I write, the better I feel.

February 2010 in my very second post I showed my study – an old wooden door turned desktop and shelves filled with boxes for my projects. Now at a different apartment, my study has become more of a storeroom where I go to print or get a book. Instead of at my desk, I sit at the table where I can look out at a working harbor.

Last year on a cliff at the edge of town I liked watching the bald eagles soar every morning, kite surfers levitate, and the train pass hourly. I couldn't imagine a better place to write.

Now when I look up from work I see boats: the Alaska ferry once a week, the scuttering patrol boats, the schooners. I like the traffic beneath the window, the people waiting for the bus. I like being surrounded by lives I know nothing about. And I can walk to cafes. I can't imagine a better place to write.

What's the perfect atmosphere in which to write? I'm realizing that, for some of us, there is none. We just write. And it feels right.

What about you? Is location important to help you write?

Anniversary Party

My first blog post was exactly a year ago. So I'd planned a where-are-we-now, what's-happened-in-a-year  post for today. On Wednesday I worked five hours in a favorite cafe. It started with a meeting with a writing friend/crit partner, and then on my own I delved into Our Spirit. I saw another friend walk by and she joined me for a couple of hours. At one point in our conversation, she told me she'd been thinking about me, specifically about the blog – how flattering that someone was thinking about my blog – and more specifically that she was concerned that Going with the Flow was exactly the wrong message.

I talked about how a few years ago I was in a filmmaking group in NYC with the name Making It Happen. During my time with the group I turned a screenplay into a novel and had so much fun with the novel that I did more and more prose writing until most of my time was writing and not filmmaking. I still produce short films for Our Spirit... but my passionest passion is prose. I was no longer interested in making a film career happen. I celebrated the flow that got me to novels.

My friend talked about the power of making a decision. Paraphrasing... of just doing it.

Okay. I get it.

I'm not here by accident. The flow didn't just splash me up on a rock. Goals and decisions have power.

I'm making the decision to move on querying novel #1. I'm picturing exactly what I want - representation for a novel about a romantic tangle of three high school guys.

What about my other projects – editing novel #2, first draft of novel #3, a new website, Our Spirit? I trust the flow.

And you guys? Is there tension between going with the flow and setting goals?

(I Googled "huh?" and found this image from Dangerous With A Pen, the blog of writer Lindsey Brooks. Now I'm a follower.)

Journey with a Little Swiss Cheese

I've hardly blogged since November... Why? In the spirit of Nanowrimo, I dedicated November to a new project. I started and finished the writing part of it. Then it morphed into something that involved a video and a new website. I'd hoped to launch it all in January. It's taking longer... But in this new era of kinda going with the flow, I'm not sweating the delay.

The writing is done, and I've got meetings next week for the video and the website. Yup, the flow... going with the flow... I'll get there... the project will launch... In the meantime I'm enjoying the trip.

That's a photo of Boca Raton, FL where I spent last week. I love those wooden paths through the mangroves and the palm trees beside the beach. A path. A journey. Just like I love the journey of writing. I might think I know where it's going, but the view is never 100% the same.

During the new project, I also completed a first draft of novel #2 and, thanks to the Swiss Cheese method of writing in the small holes of time, then I did a complete edit of that draft.

Later I'll announce more specifics about the new project. In the meantime, thank you for coming back after my long absence.

And three cheers for all the sights and detours of our writing.