How Not to Lose

Last week, as I faced off against my ever cocky teenaged fencing opponent, it occurred to me: I was going to lose.

Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve been graced with this epiphany. I have never been the speediest turtle, nor the most coordinated.  Because I am old and crafty and gifted with decent stamina and taller than everybody under the age of 10 in class, I’ve been able to hold my own for the first few months.  But now, the little ones are improving and gunning for me.  The older teens, the ones who have the agility of Spiderman and the reflexes of Flash, have been killing me since day one.  And the middle group, the ones who make me work for my wins, are catching up.  Last week, I got skewered badly enough that my husband, who after seeing me kicked across the barn by my temperamental TB tends to be pretty blase about my daily injuries, actually noticed the bruise.

So, as I stood there staring across the blade of Mr. Teenaged Superhero, I realized I needed a new strategy, one which, even if I couldn’t win, would allow me not to lose. Preferably a strategy that did not involve being shish-kabobbed.   So no more mad dashes forward.  No more desperate attempts to land a hit. No more leaving my vulnerable side exposed as I charged across the floor.

And you know what?  It mostly kind of worked.  I emerged unscathed from my first match, and got hit only once during my second. (Granted, these were short practice sessions, not full-on matches, but I was pretty happy.) Of course, I didn’t score any points, and not getting hit sometimes involved throwing myself backward in a distinctly ungraceful way as opposed to the fluid footwork my instructor prefers, but hey, you can’t have everything.

Writing is a little bit like fencing a superhero.  It’s a business which, if we’re not careful, will stab us in the heart every time we let it.  We get a form rejection from our dream agent. The editor who bought our best friend’s book won’t even glance at ours. Our contract is for a miniscule amount, not the six-figure check we’d hoped for.  We sell a single book, not the three title series we’ve worked on for years.

If we see each setback as failure, there’s no reason to keep at it.  Instead, we need to change how we see the game.  The form rejection is a chance to hone our query until an agent can’t refuse us.  The editor who turns down our novel is telling us the writing’s just not ready and giving us a chance to improve. The small advance gives us room to grow. The single title takes the pressure off during the writing process.  If nothing else, we can focus on one chapter, one page, one sentence, on making those words as perfect as we can, one word at a time.

I don’t fence because I expect to be in the Olympics.  I do it because, even when I’m losing, it’s fun.  Or it’s supposed to be, anyhow.  It’s only when I lose sight of my goals, when I focus too much on winning, that it becomes unpleasant.  And, ironically, the more I try to win the more I leave myself open to mistakes.  So if I can just focus on enjoying the game, and on not losing, I come out ahead.  It’s the same with writing.

At the heart of things, writing is supposed to be enjoyable, and it’s far too easy to lose sight of that fact.

I’m a Penguins fan (the cartoon, not the hockey team).  And as Skipper says, “That’s not failure.  That’s redefined mission objectives.”

Happy writing.

Snark, Deleted

Apparently I need this t-shirt!

This was originally a snarky post to the driver who almost sent me into a ditch when I was out jogging this weekend, but cooler heads have prevailed. (Lady in the tan SUV, you can thank my husband. In the meantime, back away from the accelerator!)  While I calm down, I’m sending you over to Vaughn Roycroft’s blog (Did you know Roycroft means Royal Craftsman?  Neither did I, but he’s certainly well-named) for a post that compares house building to writing.

And when you get back, I am sending you right back out to buy Last Will, by Bryn Greenwood.  I have quietly stalked Bryn’s blog for years, and whenever she posts a bit of what she’s working on, I can’t get it out of my mind.  So when I had a chance to win this book, I couldn’t resist.  And I won!  And now I can’t put it down.  It’s quirky and odd and funny and not like anything else I’ve read lately. So go buy her book, darn it.  Particularly if you are a woman who drives a tan SUV.  Because lady, after what my husband made me pull off this blog, you owe me.

Wild Things

When my babies were little, they loved Where The Wild Things Are.  On rainy days like today, we’d sometimes turn the living room into a forest, with topsy-turvy chairs and blankets to hide beneath, and stage our own Wild Rumpus.  Max was baaaad, they said, and delighted in his misbehavior, and in the fact that when he came home, some one loved him enough to have a dinner waiting that was still hot.  And included cake.

Rest in peace on this rainy Tuesday, Mr. Maurice Sendak. And I hope, when you get where you are going, there is a joyous wild rumpus, and that someone has remembered the cake.

 

Staring at the Sun

A writing board I am on is asking tough questions these days. Questions like ‘Why do you write?’ and ‘Will you stop writing if you don’t get published?’ (Usually the questions are more like ‘Does anybody want to meet for drinks on Friday?’ and ‘Who is hotter, James McAvoy or Daniel Craig?”) A few of the writers on the board have their work out on submission to agents and editors, so the questions have a renewed sense of urgency.

I write because I am an extremely internal person, and writing things down helps me to process them. It’s a way for me to work things out. I tend to have the self-awareness of a starfish, and oftentimes I don’t realize a problem is bothering me until it shows up on the page.  And then I’m all “Hey, I wrote about X today.  I wonder why that came up?” And my husband just shakes his head.

I write because I am a storyteller at heart, and I always have been. As a child, I told my sister sweeping sagas about a little girl who looked just like us but lived on the moon.  I tell those same stories to my children now. I kept journals for years, well before I’d earned a byline. And when I have been too busy or too tired to write or make up stories, I’ve retold classics like The Wizard of Oz, adding elaborate embellishments.

I would write and tell stories even if I was never published, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be.  But for me, writing a whole novel with the single goal of being published is off-putting.  It’s too big of a journey, with too large of a disappointment at the end if it doesn’t work out. I can only write the way I write, one page at a time, with the goal of a cohesive whole at the end.

Looking at publication directly is too blinding, like staring at the sun. I can only look at it with soft eyes, at the peripherals that surround it: Crafting a readable story with a viable plot and characters that hold my heart. If I do that, if my work is the best it can be, I’ve done everything I can do.  Anything else is beyond my control.

Why do you write?

Spring Has Sprung

It is spring, and the bloody bluebird, instead of laying eggs, is sitting on my bird feeder, gobbling up the grubs and then flying his fuzzy blue you-know-what off to someone else’s nesting box.  (To be fair, the bluebirds DID begin a nest, but their nest has disappeared and a chickadee is happily building there instead. Digression: Did you know that bluebirds and chickadees use totally different material for their nests?  Bluebirds use primarily pine needles, and chickadees use moss.  These are the things you learn when you have a bluebird competitor who is willing to share information right down the street).  The crows are having a fine time scooping up the leftovers, and it is darn cold out.

BUT — on the bright side, the asparagus is poking green shoots up.  We had some last night for dinner.  The radishes and lettuce seeds are in the ground. It is bound to get warmer soon.  And I’m writing as much as I can, storing up words and chapters for my next novel before school lets out in a few short weeks and these hours are no longer my own.

I hope spring is treating you well, wherever you are.

This is Microsoft's asparagus. Ours is pencil-thin and delicious.

Inside Out

When my daughter was born, I promised myself that I’d stand firm against the sea of plastic I saw other kids playing in.  I wanted only handmade, beautiful toys for her, in the Waldorf tradition, made by elves who only ate organic food, drank milk from virgin yaks,  and shunned sugar.   We even went to a Waldorf play group for two years, until I had my second child and the 45 minute drive became too crazy.

And then, somewhere along the way, I found myself drowning in the same sea of plastic and more.  There’s an air hockey table in the basement, along with a full-sized basketball arcade game, from the same godparents who are just dying to buy a pony.  There’s a scooter that was supposed to be an outdoor toy, but that my kids prefer to use for runs to the bathroom or to the kitchen.  There are enough stuffed animals to set up a toy store. And while I stood firm against Bratz dolls and violent action figures, I did get sucked into American Girl Dolls and Thomas the Train. (Curse you, Mattel!)

But despite the concessions, I have managed to keep one small Waldorf-esque tradition — the nature table.  Each season, we deck it with natural (or natural looking, since I’m a sellout these days) materials that represent what is happening outside.  I’ve done it in different places in the house, but it seems to work best on our dining room table.  It’s such a part of our lives that I don’t even notice it most of the time.

The other day we had a loud, rowdy play date that seemed to involve almost all of the toys in the house.  (And to complete my fall from grace, lots of processed sugar, too.) And then I was passing by the dining room and I heard one of the visitors say “You know what I like most about your house? It always has something from nature in it.”

Even when you think they’re not paying attention, apparently they are.

At least one of these things is from nature, right?

Best

Today, if you are lucky, you may meet the person who completely changes your life.  That’s what happened to me, twenty-five years ago. Happy Anniversary, sweetheart.

Young and happy. (Still happy, at least, today!)