Hopeful

Lately, it has felt like there hasn't been a whole lot to say and so I've kept quiet around these parts. Life has been full of distractions, some interesting, others not. The weather has thrown some lovely days our way and it's been nice to take some time to enjoy it, even if it's only a few minutes here, a walk to the store there.

If nothing else, I have, in fact, been doing a lot of walking.

I've found it's a good way to clear my head from many of the stresses it has been obsessing over.

I find the fresh air feels good in my lungs.

I like the time to think about things like story and character. Last night I was out walking alone, without company and without music, and I was thinking about this novel I've been working on for so long and then a mother yelled out my character's name at her son, and I had to do a double take because it's not a name you hear everyday and I needed to check and make sure it was real, that it wasn't all in my head. What magic it would be to manifest your characters into physical form!

Walking is also a good way to catch up with my husband after a day spent independently. It's a way to talk and to listen.

It's a time to feel sunshine on your face, or the bite that often accompanies a cloudless night.

It's an excuse to see a college jazz band and have a hand-crafted cocktail on a Thursday night.

It's a lovely way to take in the rapid rate of spring's constant changes.

It's a way to take in the world at a pace you can reckon with and lately that's been exactly what I've needed.

I have yet to determine what this particular day will bring me, but I have a few hopes. The sun is already bright in the sky. I have some ideas for how to make my novel stronger. I have a cup of coffee and a few pages left of an amazing book.* I have the whole day to spend as I choose, balancing the  obligations and the dreams.

I find myself feeling, if nothing else, hopeful.



*The book I'm talking about is by Leslye Walton and is titled The Strange & Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender and it is so very lovely...magical realism set in Seattle about three generations of women, their lives, their loves, their sorrows...it has hints of Isabel Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I HIGHLY recommend.

Cathedral Park, beneath the St. John's Bridge. One of my favorite walking destinations.

Another Place, Another Time

I recently finished reading Rainbow Rowell's forthcoming (July 8th) book, Landline. It is about a TV comedy writer, Georgie, and the strained relationship with her husband, Neal. They had plans to go to visit his mom for Christmas in Omaha when Georgie chooses to stay behind to prepare for an important meeting to pitch the TV show she and her partner have been working on since they were in college. In the book, Georgie goes to her mom's house and uses an old rotary landline to call Neal. The catch? This phone doesn't reach present day Neal, but rather the Neal from Christmas 1998, during the week they nearly broke up forever.

The book got me thinking about time and relationships. What would it be like for present day me to pick up a phone and find the person on the other end not just in another place, but in another time?

Who would I want to talk to? If I could be present day me and they would be historical them? I think of those people in my life I've loved and lost and can't help but imagine what it would be like to go back and say some of the things I always wished I could have said, to ask some of the questions whose answers have long eluded me. Would I do it? Would it help?

Maybe that's why I like writing fiction. Nothing I write is really autobiographical, though I can see glimpses of myself in my work. The words come from my brain, my perspective, my experiences, my thoughts. In writing I can explore those kinds of questions about relationships, about ideas. I may not have a magical phone that will let me call up someone fifteen years ago, but I have an imagination that will let me pose questions and speculate answers.

But if I had a magic phone that could call the past? Would I use it?

Yes. If the person on the other end didn't know I was calling from the future, I really think I would.

Would it be wise?

I guess that depends on who I called.

Teenage Daydream

I went for a long walk last night, hours after the sun had set. I put on some headphones, selected a playlist I'd made over a year ago and put one foot in front of the other. I walked past a high school and saw some boys hanging out on a picnic table, listening to music of their own. Out of the blue I was overwhelmed with a memory from my own time in high school. It was a night that felt quite similar, the air was cold, the sky open. I was walking alone. I had gone to see the school play. I can't even tell you which one it was. It's funny the kinds of things our brains hold onto and the kinds of things it lets go. The memory that hit me so hard, so fast, was one in which I ran into the boy I had an epic crush on at a time when I was least expecting to. I came around a corner and there he was, right after I'd been thinking about him. It felt like magic, like it was meant to. We talked. And like always, he left me wanting for more than our few words. I went home, wrote about it in my journal, and fell asleep dreaming of him.

For the rest of my walk it was hard to escape my teenage self. Further along I could hear laughter over the sounds of my music and I looked to see where it was coming from and saw a bunch of kids out in the front yard of a house, running around and goofing off. It made me smile and drew me to other memories and other emotions.

I've been thinking a lot about books, about why I'm drawn to the kinds of books I'm drawn to, why I read (and write) so much YA. I recently read Jojo Moyes new book One Plus One (which sadly for you, doesn't come out until July) and while it didn't affect me in the same way as Me Before You) it was still emotionally resonant even though I have very little in common, at least on the surface) with any of the characters. I'm currently reading a MG (Middle Grade) novel (which is a genre I read maybe 1-3 books a year). This book is hitting a very different emotional nerve that links back to a much earlier part of my childhood than I usually think about.

The truth is, I like all kinds of books about all kinds of different things. But the books that pull me in again and again and again are the ones with compelling characters who have interesting stories to tell.

I tried writing several other novels, writing pages, a few chapters. I even finished one manuscript. But it wasn't until I started writing about high school that I started to truly feel like I had something I wanted to say, something that I needed to say. I still feel that way.

I read two books in the last week in exchange for sleeping.

Sometimes Life Doesn't Give You Mashed Potatoes.

Holy {bleep}! Wow, I knew that it had been a long time since I had written a blog, I just didn't realize it had been quite that long. The path from January 7th until today, February 10th has been a long and not exactly pleasant one. I survived the holidays and made it to my "Christmas" holiday and had an absolutely amazing time visiting with friends, eating amazing food, and walking miles and miles and miles along the Oregon Coast. And then pretty much upon returning home and feasting upon Thanksgiving in January (though it was with a definite LACK of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE: MASHED POTATOES), I fell ill.

Really ill. So ill that I went to the doctor (gasp!). It took two weeks for me to begin to feel like a human being. And now, another week later, I'm not quite myself, but I'm much better. That little Winter Blast the last few days, transforming Portlandia into Icelandia, didn't do me any favors.

But I'm here now. And I've found myself with an hour to spare and a cup of coffee. It feels right.

I've had so many thoughts, so many ideas about what I want to do in my writing and in my life.

And now, on this gray, desperate, February day, I am committed to making time to transform those thoughts and ideas into action.

Wish me luck.

I am tired of using this amazing laptop for work work. I want to use it as a tool in full support of my imagination.

And I'd still really like some amazing mashed potatoes. With homemade gravy. I guess I'll have to work on that too. 

I've been obsessed with my new favorite app that transforms photos into watercolors.

Writing home

For more than a year I have been searching for a new place to write near home. One within walking distance. A place with good light and nice people. It had to have comfortable chairs and enough tables that I didn't have to worry about fighting for a place. The coffee/espresso had to be of a certain quality. And there had to be options for real food, not simply a pastry. It had to be clean. This proved to be a bigger challenge than I ever anticipated in a town like Portland and a neighborhood like mine.

Around a month ago a new place opened up across the street from Starbucks. This would the 4th coffee place to open up within the distance of a single city block. (I had been able to find faults in the other three). It is, rather fittingly called the fourth estate coffeehouse. From the first time I walked through their door, I felt like this could be the place for me, the place where I could sit and write and think while drinking (and occasionally eating) delicious things. There is bright light from windows. There aren't any fluorescent lights. In fact, there is a skylight above my table that balances the light just right.
In short, I think I'm falling in love.

I am able to write at home and I have a great space in which to do that. But writing is so often a solitary pursuit and so it's nice to get out into the world where unpredictable things happen, where you can watch two people navigate the waters of a first date, where you can watch the newspaper reading habits of someone else. You can observe the gentleman who always holds the door open for others. You can wonder what that other laptop people are working on. Is it Facebook or a brilliant novel?

Over the past week, I have been slowly reclaiming my life from the grips of the retail holiday season. I have slept, I have read, I have cooked and eaten good food. I have watched movies and gone for long walks. And now, I dive back into writing to see what is worth pursuing from November.

I didn't talk a lot about what I did for NaNoWriMo, but I will tell you that if I can do it right, it's going to be a tough and beautiful story. A story of friendship and a story of family...in all the forms it takes. For the first time in my life, I wrote a scene that made me cry as I wrote it. I've heard other writers talk about this, but I'd never before experienced it. It was, at once, both awesome and terrifying.

I'll confess I am a little nervous to see what I wrote, but I finally feel ready. I feel the time is now.

My fourth estate Stumptown latte.

Starting the New Year Right

I've heard it said that you should start the new year doing the things you'd like to do all year. So far, I feel like I'm off to a great start.

I've slept in, read, made coffee, tried a new recipe for breakfast, and am sitting down at my computer to write the first words of 2014. I also have some lovely things lined up for the rest of the day. And I get to spend the entire day with my favorite person.

So far 2014, I'm a big fan.

2013? You brought some good times and some heartache. Overall, I'm grateful for the time we had together. You taught me some important life lessons, reminded me how important it is to have fun and to take the time to do the things that make your heart sing. I'm lucky to have had the time we had together.

Writing/Time

I can't remember the last time I sat down with my laptop for the express purpose of writing. But this morning is free, this morning is mine. I have no place calling my name until the afternoon and there is nothing I'd rather be doing.

I've missed this time.
I've needed this time.

November feels like a dream. I can only remember glimpses and moments. I remember those days at the beach as if they were a fantasy my mind created. Those memories feel like a fog, thick and present and impossible to hold onto, so easily carried away by the breeze.

Now, somehow, it's the 18th of December. We are a week away from Christmas and time like this, time to sit and think, write and sip my coffee while listening to music, time like this feels like the greatest luxury. It is a gift greater than money, greater than jewels, greater than any item on my wish list.

There hasn't been much of an opportunity to look back at those 50,000+ words I wrote last month. But I've been missing Violet, her story, her world. I'm glad to have some time to spend with her, even if it's only an hour or two.