Gardening and Writing

It's looking like the best year ever for lupines in my garden; don't ask me why. They are a persnickety plant for sure: resisting transplanting but then growing in wild abundance in the most unlikely, inhospitable soil. Who can predict a lupine's mood? Or why it prefers roadside, salt-soaked dirt, instead of the rich compost I bestow on it?

I know you can find lupines in plenty of places outside of Maine ... I've seen riotous fields of lupines in Iceland, and gorgeous specimens in my cousin's garden in Ireland ... but ever since I read Barbara Cooney's Miss Rumphius to my children I think of them as a uniquely Maine flower. I know it's not fair to claim them, but, there you have it.

I love this time in the garden. Blue and purple predominate; the colors are still cool. The fire and heat of red bee balm, golden coreopsis and yellow daylilies is for July, when summer is ripe.

I love gardening as much as I love writing stories, and for me the process is similar. It's about completing the big picture one small step and one mundane task at a time. Head bent, hands dirty, back sore, you yank one weed then another and then another ... and when you come up for air, and step back it's ... lovely. That's how I craft a paragraph. Scratching, slow going, dead-heading and picking out the bad stuff, until I can step back, read it out loud and ... yes. It sings.

This takes a long time. And I can't let myself think about that, because in spite of my chosen avocation and beloved hobby I'm a fairly impatient person. Writing and gardening is not for people in a hurry. There's a reason why a garden is filled with slugs and snails.

Of course, in all fairness, there are also some pretty zippy creatures. Butterflies. Bees. And I've been spotting quite a few hummingbirds in this patch of Soloman's Seal. I thought they were drawn predominately to red, but the nectar in these bell-shaped buds must be pretty sweet.

I'm far from alone in drawing this comparison between gardening and writing. I know it's "been done," and done better than me, but that's not stopping me these days. I wouldn't write a word or plant a single flower if I worried about who's doing it better. I'm at the stage where all I can do is yield to my own story and admire what others create, no worry allowed.

If you're also looking to admire: a friend recently gave me The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden by Stanley Kunitz. It's absolutely lovely.

Much of my garden is in shade, and I've let Sweet Woodruff carpet the edges and creep beneath the rhododendrons. Hostas, ajuga, and a few random lily of the valley mix in. I like the intentional wildness of this patch. Stanley Kunitz writes:

"Almost anything you do in the garden, for example, weeding, is an effort to create some sort of order out of nature's tendency to run wild. ... The danger is that you can so tame your garden that it becomes a thing. It becomes landscaping.

"In a poem, the danger is obvious; there is natural idiom and then there is domesticated language. ... Once the poem starts flowing, the poet must not try to dictate every syllable."

I'm not sure how that translates to writing fiction, but I'm inspired to try.

The First Time

I recently joined a Facebook group called Children’s Authors and Illustrators, and they’ve started a discussion where folks can share their first-time publication stories.

They run the gamut. From the self-published to “A miracle occurred and they found my manuscript in the slush pile” to “My agent did it all!” There seems to be no single road to the Land of Publication, although one consistent point emerged: to fuel this journey, you’ve gotta work hard.

There is no getting around the work. Not simply the pages and pages of rewrites: we all know about revision. Not simply the emotional work of dealing with rejection and forging ahead anyway: we all know about the piles of rejection letters before the book finally sells. But the real work no one tells you about.

Years … no, decades of apprenticeship where you write fairly horrible, unreadable stuff that you file in boxes in your basement. Years when you spend most of the day at a “paying” job, only to squeeze the writing time in the slim spaces between sleep and commuting. Months you spend on the first 150 pages of a novel that seems to just write itself … only to hear from your most trusted critique partner that the concept is completely undoable and would you abandon it now, please?

But then, lightening strikes. You find your story. It’s not easy to write, but it feels good, so you go with it. Next thing you know, you’re typing “The End,” (which, by the way, is a tremendous, awesome rush) and photocopying it for readers, who tell you they love it, but …. So you fix the “buts” and send it to an agent (that’s the other thing that emerged from the Facebook discussion: nowadays you need an agent.) who loves it, but …. So you fix more “buts” and the agent sends your baby out into the wilds of first-round submissions to publishing houses and … kaboom. Someone likes it. Loves it, actually, and believes in it, and you, and is going to send you money and bind your baby with a cover and slap an ISBN number on it just to make the Library of Congress happy and Life is Good. And it seems, in that moment, that this just happened … but it didn’t. It took years, and lots and lots of hard work.

So it was with particular joy that I attended a book signing this past Saturday at the Gulf of Maine Bookstore in Brunswick, Maine, to hear my friend, Paul Doiron, read from his debut novel The Poacher’s Son. Paul is the editor in chief of Down East magazine as well as a registered Maine Guide and outdoorsman, and has written a literary detective novel set in the North Woods. It was sold as a three-book deal, has received more starred reviews than I can recount here, was reviewed in the NYTimes book review and reportedly (although Paul won’t swear to this) had an initial print run of 100,000. Now that’s a lightening strike.

Here are Paul and I at his signing at Gulf of Maine Bookstore.

But here’s the fact of the matter: even if that book had nary a starred review, a meager print run and no advance, it’s a thrill. There’s nothing quite like seeing the UPS guy pull into your driveway with that carton from your publisher. Nothing quite like ripping it open and … there it is. Your story, all dressed up like a real book.

And a signing, with an audience filled with friends, is such a gift. Gary Lawless, a poet and proprietor at Gulf of Maine, embodies the Independent Bookstore Owner Platonic Ideal. His well-stocked shelves are packed with great reads you’d never find at a chain store, and Gary and his partner, Beth, always seem to have all day to chat and share stories.

This is Gary Lawless of Gulf of Maine Bookstore.

They also know how to throw a terrific book signing! I hurried home with my copies of The Poacher’s Son and stayed up late reading about Game Warden Mike Bowditch …

Perils of Skype

I recently dipped a toe into the world of Skype Author visits … with mixed results.

For those who are even less tech-savvy than I (and few are, I suspect): Skype is free software you can download onto your computer which enables you to video-teleconference using a webcam. It’s like turning your laptop into a two-way, interactive television.

Anyway, here’s the scene: I had brilliantly scheduled a Skype meeting with an after-school book group in rural Maine for the 30-minutes before I needed to drive my daughter to her lacrosse practice. My son was supposed to be at a tennis match, and I had set up my laptop in our sunny, open-concept dining room instead of my dark, basement office. The house was quiet, the dog was outside, and I was chatting calmly into my webcam with a group of girls who had just read Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress. Then, the front door slammed open.

Oh no, I’m thinking, as I’m trying to listen to the shy girl on the screen ask a question. The match must’ve been rained out. Please don’t shout “I’m home!!” like you usually do when you open the mudroom door …

Luckily, he didn’t. He strode into the dining room, weighed down by an enormous backpack, his tennis bag, plus the mail he’d just collected, and stared curiously at me while I spoke to my laptop. He’s a fairly intelligent lad, and figured out what I was doing … so instead of speaking, he waved. He started to use sign language/charades of sorts to indicate that he was indeed home (like I didn’t know that?) and that his tennis match was cancelled. He pulled up a chair alongside me, unfolded the newspaper, and started to read the sports section.

Really? I’m thinking. This dude is really going to rattle the newspaper while I Skype? Off-camera, I made a chopping motion to him with one hand, then pointed to the other end of the house. As far as I was concerned, the meaning was clear: beat it.

The dude shrugged. He got up. He sauntered into the kitchen, which is essentially an extension of the dining room. He swung open the fridge door and began rummaging.

Yogurt, I’m thinking. Grapes. A glass of milk. Choose a silent snack. Please, no potato chips. As if he read my mind, he slammed the fridge shut. He turned and zeroed in on the new bag of Cape Cod 40-percent-lower-fat chips.

My sister, Christine Bolzan, who is something of a social media expert in the Boston area and has coached me on Skyping, says it’s very important to keep your gaze focused on the green, pinpoint light of the webcam as you speak. Otherwise, the folks on the other end see you looking into your lap, or staring off into space. Concentrate on keeping your head still; smile pleasantly, she said.

It occurred to me that I’d never asked her what the folks on the other end see if you pick up the laptop and hurl it across the room at your son. Was it Dave Letterman who pioneered MonkeyCam? I was on the verge of pioneering crazed-mother-skyping-author-cam.

“Where do you get your ideas?” one student asked as The Dude, crunching, moved on to the utensils drawer.

I hate my life I hate my life, I’m thinking, as I replied to the green light, “Well, my children have provided a lot of inspiration.” I tried not to watch, but The Dude had found a piece of blank paper and scribbled on it. He approached. He stood before me, waiting, holding his paper.

Why won’t he go away why did I ever have these children, I’m thinking, as the teacher at the school 300 miles away motioned another student up to the camera for a new question. My son, sensing a break in the action, held up his paper. A note.

“I’m going out to get something to eat. Be back soon,” it read.

YOU CAN’T TAKE THE CAR I NEED TO DRIVE YOUR SISTER TO LACROSSE PRACTICE!!! I screamed. In my head. My still head. As I smiled pleasantly at the nice students on my laptop. As I put up my off-camera hand in a “Halt!” sign, eliciting a confused, disgruntled frown from The Dude.

That’s when the Gods of Skype smiled upon me: we lost the connection. The video froze and I heard the teacher at the other end saying, “Maria, we can’t hear you. Are you there? Are you there? Well, we’re going to try to call again. Hold on everyone.”

In the 20 seconds it took to reconnect I managed to communicate with my son not only my extreme irritation at his distracting me during a Skype author visit, but the imperative that he not take the car in his search for bigger and better snacks unless he also planned to drop his sister off at lax practice. Which he did. Semi-quietly. If the folks at the other end heard any commotion, they were too polite to comment.

Author/teacher Kate Messner wrote a wonderful article about Skype Author Visits for School Library journal which I heartily recommend: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6673572.html You will feel empowered when you read it. You’ll think, “I can do that! How fun! How easy!”

It is, actually. But … beware.

Distractions

So what do these lovely bleeding hearts in my garden have to do with writing?



Answer: absolutely nothing. That's the problem.

Spring has sprung in Maine and the siren song of birds, peepers, and yes, the very sound of crocuses hoisting themselves from the earth is calling me outside, away from my office. My writing "breaks" (usually nothing more than a stretch every thirty minutes or so) have turned into quick forays into the garden to see what's blooming. Which turns into yanking a weed or two. Which feels so incredibly good. Especially when one prolongs the weed pulling and focuses on the wild strawberries encroaching on the front beds. Unlike so much of what I do, I see immediate, remarkable results of my labor.

Oh, sure, writing is immediate. Drag a pen across a blank page or tap out a little staccato on the keyboard and words appear. But most days it isn't very good and there's a pretty good chance I won't keep it. Some days, the story doesn't draw me in the way I need it to, and distractions take hold.

Springtime in the garden is a pretty good one. So's Twitter. Facebook. Checking email. Reading the NY Times online, scanning my favorite author blogs, and logging onto the announcements page at my kids' school to make sure there isn't something vitally important to their educations which they have failed to share with me. The Information Superhighway draws me in ... no, sucks me in ... and overwhelms, and I'm down to a productivity level of about 25-percent. Damn you, Al Gore, for inventing the Internet.

Of all the distractions in my life, surfing the net is the biggest black hole. It eats up so much precious writing time that I think I would accomplish much more if I hurled my laptop out the window and wrote longhand, or even resorted to a quill and parchment. It's not that I don't want to work on my book: I love to write. It's never difficult to sit down in the morning and settle into work. But I'm weak. I'm no better than other people who can't stop checking their "Crackberries." Thank goodness I don't text, because I'd definitely be one of those hapless souls tripping over sidewalks or rearending other drivers.

This past February I noticed (yes, via the Internet) that several writers I admire had taken a month long No Technology pledge of sorts. Several stopped blogging and tweeting while others just reduced the amount of time they spent blogging and tweeting and social-networking in general. At the time, I didn't give their experiment much thought, and I don't really know how it turned out for them, although I do notice they've all "returned" online. Still, I'm wondering if I could use a dose of that discipline. Especially since the bleeding hearts have been piling on lately.

So, here it is, my personal No Distractions goal for at least one week: only 30 minutes, in total, devoted each day to Social Networking, ie. Facebook and Twitter and Blog Following. Answering emails won't have a time limit, but I will only check at set times each day: say morning, midday and evening. Then let's see, after one week, how much actual writing I'll get done.

Oh, and as for weeding: no limits there. Dandelions beware.

Librarians Rock

Without question, my mother is responsible for my love of reading. She was one of those moms who was pretty strict about not over-indulging us with material things, like useless plastic toys, but when it came to books there were no limits.

This could have gotten out of hand, especially because I was a book junkie. The sort of kid who would disappear so deeply into a story that people would stand right in front of me and speak, loudly, and I wouldn’t hear them. I would come home from school with the Scholastic and Arrow book order sheets, and just check off one after another after another, and mom would let me buy them all. When the orders arrived, she’d have to pick me up after school that day to help me carry the stack home.

Then of course, there was the library. Free books. Imagine! We spent countless days in our town library; lost, lovely afternoons curled up in comfy chairs with a smorgasbord of books at our disposal. Imagine a chocoholic let loose in the Ghirardelli factory: that was me in the library.

By middle school I was a confirmed Bookworm, and opted to spend recess volunteering in the library instead of enduring the adolescent tortures of the playground. There, I met the second person most responsible for my passion for reading: Miss Fiore.

I never knew her first name. I never knew anything about her, except that she was one of those anomalies of the suburbs: an unmarried woman. All the women I knew … literally, all of them … were either married or too-young-to-be-married. The latter, we all assumed, certainly wanted to be married, and eventually would be.

Not Miss Fiore. To my adolescent eyes, she was too busy reading. I would sit behind the checkout desk, meticulously stamping return dates inside covers and filing cards scrawled with the names of the kids who had borrowed the books, when Miss Fiore would burst from her narrow, glass-enclosed office, a volume clutched to her chest.

“Oh my goodness! I was up all night with this one. I couldn’t put it down. It’s about a swan! Named Louis! Who plays the trumpet!” She looked a little wild-eyed as she held the just-arrived copy of E.B. White’s Trumpet of the Swan out to me … yes, that was one of the perks of working with Miss Fiore: first dibs on the new books … and how could I refuse? I took it, and stayed up most of the night reading, in order to enthuse with her about it the next day.

I met Anne Frank that way. Edgar Allen Poe. Johnny Tremain. She shared them with me as if she were introducing members of her own family, and I suppose, in a way, they were. Most importantly, she showed me how reading wasn’t a solitary occupation at all. It was a way into a new world, a way out of yourself, and, when shared, a unique connection with others.

To this day, librarians are among my favorite people. Granted, I’m the type who thinks “Read any good books lately?” is a gripping question and I truly want to know the answer. But have you ever partied with librarians? Try it; they are a hoot. Attend a “literary” gathering of any sort and the writers will inevitably talk about themselves and their “works,” while the librarians will talk about … well, the whole wide world. Just about anything that can be contained within the covers of a book. And not only is that fascinating and entertaining but it is incredibly generous.

I was a fortunate child to have crossed paths with such a generous soul. She influenced the direction my life would take.

I’m half tempted here to do a call-out to all the amazing librarians I see today, inspiring our children and sharing their passion for reading, but the list would be too long. Anyhow, you know who you are, Kelley, and Melissa, and Peg, and Merry … you rock.

Having Fun With Writers

Writers spend so much time alone that any opportunity to reach out and connect with other writers is a welcome treat! This past Saturday, April 10, I joined authors, poets and illustrators from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance for a book signing event at the University of Southern Maine. It was all part of the Maine Festival of the Book, an annual event that celebrates books as well as readers and writers.

I was signing copies of my novel, "Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress," and was lucky enough to be assigned a seat next to author Cindy Lord, from Brunswick, who was signing copies of her Newbery-award-winning novel, "Rules," as well as her brand new picture book, "Hot Rod Hamster." It was a great opportunity to catch up as well as snag a Cindy autograph on a copy of "Hamster" for my goddaughter. BTW, "Hamster" comes with some really cool stickers ... kids will love it! In August Cindy's next novel, "Touch Blue," will be released and I'll just say here that I'm very jealous of anyone who already has an advanced copy. I hear it's wonderful!




A little further down the long table was a quartet of fab Maine authors. From left to right: Susan Shetterly ("Settled in the Wild: Notes From the Edge of Town") Hannah Holmes ("The Well-Dressed Ape") Monica Wood ("Any Bitter Thing" to name one of my faves) and Amy Macdonald ("Rachel Fister's Blister" is my favorite.)



I've been laughing out loud at Elizabeth Peavey's essays for years now, so I was thrilled to finally meet her! Among her essay collections she had copies of "Outta My Way: An Odd Life Lived Loudly." To Elizabeth's right in this picture is my dear friend, Charlotte Agell, who was signing copies of her picture books as well as her young adult novel "Shift." But Charlotte's most exciting ... and most "handled" book that day ... was the not-for-sale-advanced-reader-copy of her new book "The Accidental Adventures of India McAllister." This middle grade novel will launch this summer and it's filled with Charlotte's wonderful, whimsical illustrations and features a very special new character: India. Who, incidently, has her own blog, which is up and running and quite delightful. Check it out: http://indiasink.wordpress.com/


Signing books and chatting with the other writers is fun, but the best part of an event like this is meeting READERS! You can tell Cindy enjoys it ...

I loved these great smiles from Charlotte and Cindy ... plus I couldn't help but give you a peek of "India McAllister's" cover!

Days like this one made me feel so lucky to be a MAINE writer!

Writing ... Or Not ... With Children

Warning: This is a longer-than-usual post. Busy readers with limited time beware.

I recently read a blog post by Marie Mutsuki Mockett about writing with a new baby, and it reminded me of my own days struggling to carve out a little creative time while nursing, changing diapers, etc. Today, that baby of mine is getting ready to head to college, and I have enough time to write novels!

The following post is something I wrote when I was in the "thick" of it:

I had an idea for an essay the other day. It came to me in the usual way: while I was vacuuming.

In the vacuum world mine would be an “antique” Hoover. It first belonged to Lucile Cade Watterson, went to graduate school with her son (my then-boyfriend-future-spouse), assumed a position of prominence in our newlywed apartment, and currently skirts Legos, marbles and pennies in our childrens’ bedrooms. When my mother-in-law bought the Hoover it was the latest thing: one of those circular models, yellow-ochre-hued, requiring size H replacement bags which nowadays are difficult to find. It scarcely works anymore: you have to go over a scrap of yarn or pencil shaving several times before the vacuum eats it. But for invoking the muse, there’s nothing like it.

Because this baby can roar. It transcends mere “white noise,” creating a din which blocks out any competing sound, from the telephone, to a crying child to an air raid siren. It belches burnt dust mites as its aluminum maw sucks viciously at pine needles, playmobiles, and curtains. My children run when I wheel it from the hallway closet; my husband leaves the house. And as long as I vacuum, no one, absolutely no one, disturbs my train of thought.

Uninterrupted, logically sequenced thought has been, for me, a casualty of parenthood. As a writer I absolutely require, even crave, retreat to that quiet place in my head where I record and reexperience the world in words. As a parent, finding that space has proved a creative challenge in itself. My children have a way of insinuating their needs and their presence into my quiet thoughts. Never mind the requests for snacks, the shrieks and wails and the bathroom debacles when we’re together; even in their absence I fall prey to interruption, as I suddenly remember the overdue library book, the holiday cookie party, the field trip permission slip.

This dilemma - of how to balance real life with The Writing Life - is not uniquely mine, or unique to writers. I see parents all around me struggling to balance the demands of their jobs with the needs of their children, their professional ambitions with their relationships. But for a writer the challenge gets to something fundamental, and a little scary. Writing isn't simply what I do: it's who I am.

When my children were babies, those dark days of sleep deprivation and diapers, I looked to other mother-writers for inspiration and advice, with mixed results. Louise Erdrich, who managed mothering five as well as composing wonderful novels, was nonetheless a true friend. I thought she was reading my mind when she wrote in The Blue Jay’s Dance, “Until I’ve satisfied our baby’s need, my brain is a white blur, I lose track of what I’ve been doing, who I am.” And later: “Our baby hates the playpen. She hates her car seat. Help. Help. Help.”

Toni Morrison, on the other hand, was no friend. I’ve heard it said that the meanest thing mothers do is clean up before other mothers arrive, and I suspect that a visit to Morrison’s kitchen would reveal sparkling counters and a freshly scoured sink. When she described in an interview how she composed Nobel-prize winning novels while her children played at her feet, I was sick at heart. How could anyone create the language of Beloved and Sula amidst appeals for juice and the insistent demands of a ripe diaper? It also begged a larger question: who would want to?

Three months into my first pregnancy I was waiting tables as part of a scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. The writer Nancy Willard had been assigned to review my manuscript, and I was thrilled. Not only was she one of my favorite essayists, but she was a mother. Her accomplishments included a faculty position teaching creative writing, a host of childrens’ books, novels, essays, and a grown son. I was dying to ask her how she pulled it off. As I refilled her coffee cup at breakfast one morning I slid into the chair next to hers and asked, point blank, how she balanced the demands of writing with parenting. I cozily shared with her my own impending motherhood, then settled back for some heartfelt advice.

She stared at me, aghast. Whether it was the question itself, or my bumptious interruption of her breakfast, clearly she was at a loss for words. Finally, she replied.

“In life, you make time for what’s important to you.” That was it. She bent her head over the bowl and tucked into her oatmeal, ending the audience.

It took me a few years to get over being dissed and dismissed by Nancy Willard, but following the births of my two children I realized that her advice, albeit abrupt, was right on. The trick has been forgiving myself for the long periods I go without writing.

Because life happens. Friends get sick and need casseroles, brothers become new fathers and hold christenings in Connecticut, Halloween costumes must be sewn and two-year-olds must spend every possible moment of their summers combing the beaches for sandollars. Children, if nothing else, are life at its most insistent and ephemeral. And I find that time and again it's more important for me to roll in the autumn leaves with them, than pay a babysitter so I can spend hours at my computer reworking the syntax of falling leaves for a magazine article.

Parenting young children has forced me to make cuts, to decide what's important right now and what can wait. And while writing is very important to me, my children can't wait. My creative time is brief, compartmentalized literally and imaginatively from the daily hurricane. When I do write I have to be efficient and the finished products are short: essays for radio, bits and pieces for the paper, pithy journal entries. For now, this is o.k.

I figure I play tennis and I play the piano: but never simultaneously. I'm a mother and a writer but I don't -- and I can't -- parent and write at the same time. One occupation has to yield to the other, each alternately insistent and "important." Depending on who's sick, or breastfeeding, or occupied elsewhere for a few hours, each day offers up a different range of the possible. And I simply take what's given, no angst allowed.

For the present, however, we're still Hoovering.