My Authentic Path

A portrait of an artist as a middle aged woman

I'm obsessed these days with how hard it is to make a living when you have a passion and talent in one of the arts.  I have a mother that is a painter, a brother that is a musician and I began adulthood as an actress.  Now I'm a writer.  I'm not particularly good at math but I can tell you that between the three of us we haven't a nickel to rub together from our artistic pursuits.  

We've all made a living other ways of course.  I spent a long time on the corporate track, neglecting my art all the while.  But recently I took two years to write a novel because the desire was so strong in me that I had to answer it.  And it hasn't worked out.  My novel (that feels like my third child) has been rejected by the people who count in the book business; i.e. people who know how to market and sell books.  Mine isn't good enough it seems for anyone to take a chance on it.  And that hurts.

Some of the rejections were encouraging.  Some of the feedback was so harsh it made a little part of me collapse into a ball of empty space.  But I learned a lot.  

So I keep writing.  I write even when it doesn't make sense.  I write, clinging to the kernels of encouragement that have come from my group of trusted readers and even from some of the experts.  I write.  I rewrite.  I have the first draft of a new novel almost finished.

And there is something beautiful in the journey.  There is meaning in the doing of something just because you love it. There is a perfectness in not giving into the critic inside your head that tells you on a daily basis to give up.  Because deep inside, if you listen really really hard you will hear a voice that tells you not to give in or give up because there is something unique about you, something suprememly special about the way God made you.  It matters that you answer the call of your soul.

Even when you're broke.  Or broken.   

A Room of my own

Yesterday was a big day for me.  For the first time in my adult life I have an office space in my home all to myself. I'm hitting a milestone birthday in several weeks (40) and I thought it was about time I gave myself a little gift.  A talented friend helped me turn our former guestroom into a beautiful, creative, soothing space for $100.  She's clever at the discount stores - Ross anyone?

My office has walls the color of unripe green pears, white floaty silk curtains that cascade around my window desk, two armchairs, their past's hidden under slipcovers and decorative pillows.  My books are displayed, my children's artwork is tacked on a bulletin board, along with the plot for my second novel.  There is a vase of fake bright pink peonies that look remarkably real, and my Muse, a tiny ceramic sparrow given to me by my poet friend, Ann, sitting atop my Oxford American Dictionary on the left hand side of my Cherry desk.  It is perfect.

Before yesterday, I had a corner of my bedroom allocated for my desk.  That corner has served me well.  I've run a successful coaching business (www.myauthenticpath.com) and written a 100,000 word novel from that tight corner.  But, at the end of the day, when I poured my exhausted self into bed, my work was still there, lurking in the corner, calling at me, stressing me with its presence.  They say the bedroom should be a sanctuary.  Not quite.

But, the real question is why did it take me so long?  I can tell you.  I thought it was more important that we have a guest room for our parents that come several times a year, than it was for me to have my own space.  I thought it was more important that my daughter's have a playroom and a bedroom to share between them.  I'm not saying these things shouldn't be our family's priorities, but for better or worse, I've decided to make myself a priority, on the eve of my 40th birthday.  I hope it doesn't make me a bad daughter, or mother.  I hope it doesn't mean I'm selfish.  Because guess what?  I really don't care.  Maybe that's what happens when you turn 40. 

Let it Snow, Let it Flow

It has snowed and snowed here in my small part of world.  That means no school for the kids and a messy, chaotic house with little time to work or think. 

In the middle of all this, I've stolen some time to work and have rewritten the first third of my novel.  After giving it to several readers I trust, the feedback came in that the first third of the book was too fast and needed more information about the characters.  So, for two weeks I was in fury writer mode, staying up late and getting up early to pour the story onto the page.  I got the advice from one of my readers to let it flow and I have!  The story is richer, deeper and more powerful.

For me, sometimes, I have a crisis of confidence.  A sudden feeling that what I have to say is not worthy of someone actually taking the time out of their busy life to read what I put on the page.  I take passages out that I worry are too detailed, too long, too emotional, instead of realizing that the magic of my writing is in those spaces.  And that lack of confidence hurt the beginning of my novel.  I was worried to keep the reader's attention and made it so plot driven that the essence and passion for the characters were lost.  Fortunately, I have several friends who could articulate what was wrong and encouraged me that, indeed, my unique point of view is interesting and to let it flow, sister!

As I write, my two small daughters are watching television - The Grinch Who Stole Christmas - and I'm filled with mother guilt.  But, that's another blog for another day.  Happy Holidays, dear reader.  May your days be filled with joy and void of mess!

Multi tasking

I began writing a new novel this week and sometimes I wonder if it is true that all women are good multi-taskers.  I vowed to write a blog post each weekday, but I began the new novel on Monday and have been consumed all week with building another group of fictional characters and have neglected my blogging.  Perhaps it's all the rest of my life that gets in the way, you know, kids, groceries, worrying about the economy.  I'm sure you know of what I speak.

It struck me on Monday, as I began sketching out the my new cast of characters, how important it is to work on something you love.  My grandfather used to say his secret to a long and healthy life was to 'do something, it doesn't matter what, but do something'.  I agree, and would like to add, do something you love and not only will you live a long time but life will be rich and joyous.

Is there something you love that you've been putting off because you're too busy, or worry you can't multi-task?  Just start.  Today.  You might surprise yourself.  I know I did.

 

My lopsided table

We have a house full of family this week for Thanksgiving - my parents, my mother-in-law, my stepson and of course, my two girls.  It's a good life to have a house full of people sharing good food around my lopsided dining room table.  I bought the table at a consignment shop, made by a local designer, but unfortunately, the chairs are all different heights and the table is slightly lopsided.  When I picked it out at the showroom it seemed majestic and elegant.  When I got it home I realized it had a few flaws.

That table is a good metaphor for my life.  See, when I was a little girl I dreamt of someday being a wife and mother (along with an actress and novelist).  I named all my dolls and pretended they were my children and I used to wonder what my husband's name would be - I thought Greg for some reason but that's neither here nor there.  And, in these daydreams I imagined myself the perfect wife and mother - my children were beautiful and well-behaved, my husband handsome and funny.  I never lost my temper, always had some kind of life lesson dripping from my lipsticked mouth each time these imagined children encountered difficulties.  I think I saw my future self looking like the wife on Mad Men and having the demeanor of Ma from Little House on the Prairie. 

My daydreams have all come true.  Only, just a little tilted and unexpected, like my table.  I married a man named Dave, not Greg, and he is handsome and extra smart and he thinks he's funny.  I constantly have to remind him that I'm the funny one in the relationship but I can tell he doesn't believe me.  He came with a son from another marriage.  I never imagined I'd be a stepmother and it's stretched me in remarkable and positive ways, but sometimes it's been really, really hard. 

My children are beautiful and most of the time well-behaved, but I had no idea how them they would be.  Or, how my heart would be ripped from my chest, pumped full of something unnamed so that it quadrupled in size, and put back in my body the minute I held them in my arms.  My oldest is fierce in every way, artistic, high strung - she lives life out loud, so to speak.  Just like me.  But, she's a math wiz like her dad.  My little one is stoic, and funny, she laughs all the time and constantly amuses herself and is crazy for books.  Just like me.  She can take something apart and put it back together at two and a half, just like her dad.  And, all those qualities combined makes them, them. And, to me, them is perfect.

I don't look like the wife on Mad Man - not even close.  And, I don't have Ma's patience and wisdom - not even close.  Sometimes I yell at the kids, or don't listen as carefully as I should when they tell me their ideas, or count the mintues until they go to bed so I can fall exhausted on my bed to watch something beneath my intelligence on television.  Sometimes I'm downright critical when I accuse my husband of leaving every pair of shoes he owns on the living room floor instead of the closet.

But, sometimes I'm brilliant.  I say just the right thing to keep my husband from despair when he lost a business deal, or connect with my crying dramatic daughter by telling her a story from my own childhood, or let my youngest 'help' me make dinner and don't even stress when she spills tomato sauce all down the side of the counter.

Maybe some brilliance every now and then is the best we can hope for.  The rest of the time we can be thankful, in the words of Scarlet O'Hara, that tomorrow is another day.

Beatrice Louise Law

Saturday, November 22 was my grandmother's birthday.  Beatrice Louise Law (Rains) would have been 89.  Unfortunately, after ten years of debilitating Dementia and Alzheimer’s, she passed away in late September. She was an important person in my life and I loved her. 

When I was a child, my grandparents came to visit us in Southern Oregon from their home in San Diego every several years.  They arrived, usually in mid-summer because my grandmother was a kindergarten teacher and had summers off, in their four-door Mercury. I don't know the exact year of the car, I’m sure my brother would, but it was probably a 1976.  It smelled of new car and my grandmother’s peppermint gum and I thought it was the most beautiful car ever made. The Mercury (that’s how my grandmother always referred to it) was blue on the inside with automatic windows and, a luxury in my world, air-conditioning.  My grandmother turned the power on in the car and my brothers and I sat inside and pushed the little silver automatic window buttons over and over again, fascinated, until our mother said the battery would die and made us get out.   

 

They arrived to our house with the back of that Mercury stuffed with presents for us.  Their suitcases were in the trunk, but the entire backseat area was overloaded from the floor to ceiling with toys and clothes for the three of us children.  I remember a vague disapproval from my mother as they drove up to the house, and we spotted all those gifts practically spilling out of the car, but I couldn’t fathom why.  How might we be hurt by a small spoiling, once a year by our grandmother?

 

On the top of the pile were mounds of blank pads of paper, perched haphazardly like an afterthought.   Honestly, and I hate to say it for fear my dear grandmother appear a thief, but she may have confiscated them from her kindergarten supplies stash.  The color of oatmeal, they smelled of new, cheap paper and had the consistency somewhere between toilet paper and newspaper.  To me, there was nothing better than pads and pads of blank paper in which to put words, in rows and rows, until it turned into a letter or a story. 

 

The other prized gift the summer I was eight, was a peach, long-sleeved, lace party dress, with ruffles like a layer cake all down the front.  We were to go out to dinner that night to the Chuck Wagon Buffet and I wanted to wear it.  My mother, practical and sensible, (and also hot all the time, I might add – she wore shorts in the winter just as an example) couldn’t understand why I would want to wear such a hot dress to dinner when it was 95 degrees outside and the middle of July.  But, my grandmother took my side, understanding that something so beautiful could not be put away until the winter when it screamed out to be worn now.  My mother relented, saying we would have to take the Mercury, and I would have to ride in the front so the air conditioner could blow on me, so I didn’t faint from heat, but I probably would anyway.

 

I didn’t faint that evening, but I was a little hot, sitting pristinely between my grandparents on the bump in the middle of the long seat.  But, I didn’t care.  I got to wear my new dress and sit next to my beloved grandmother who smelled faintly of face cream and peppermint gum, and who smiled at me with her signature red lipstick on her wide mouth, showing the gab between her two front teeth.  I thought I was the luckiest girl in the whole world to have that dress, to ride in such a fancy car, to go to dinner at a restaurant.  I imagined, as we drove the twenty minutes into ‘town’ that everyone at the Chuck Wagon would marvel silently how grown up and sophisticated I was in my new dress.  Life was perfect in that moment. 

And, later, at the Chuck Wagon, I didn’t even spill any of the soft serve ice-cream from the machine on my new dress.  And, my brother went back to the buffet line three times.  But, that’s another story.

A new hairstyle?

When I was younger, before I was rescued from ill-fated romance by my husband of eight years, I changed my hair after every break-up.  I don't know what it is exactly that makes a woman want to do it.  Perhaps it's the symbolic idea of cutting off part of you that grew while you were with the person. Or, maybe it's the hope that a new hairstyle will instantly turn you hot and if you happen to run into said former boyfriend, he'll want to gnaw off his left arm in remorse. 

I have an appointment with my hair stylist this afternoon and all afternoon I've been toying with the idea of doing something drastic.  I suspect this has something to do with finishing my novel.  It feels a bit like I'm going through a break-up.  I've been wandering aimlessly around my house, staring at the stack of laundry that needs folding and a dozen other household and mommy duties that wait for my attention.  Instead of attending to these things, I'm dreaming about a new love - a new book with fictional characters who want their story told, while mourning for my old love (Falling Star, in case you want to know the title) at the same time.

When you write fiction, particularly long works, you start to think your characters are real.  After writing thousands of words about them, you feel like they stand across the room, dictating their story to you.  I miss them now that they're all tucked into their proverbial beds within the pages of my novel, or their novel, I should say.

Sort of like a break-up.

I feel a little guilty to say this but I especially miss my heroine's romantic interest.  Tommy's a sensitive musician with a "lean, hairless stomach," and dear reader, he'll never let us down.  For one thing, I left out all the parts where he leaves his socks on the floor, or the toilet seat up, or forgets a birthday. Some famous writer once said that fiction is like life only with the boring parts left out. I can't remember who said it, and if he or she is still living, my sincerest apologies.

Our sexy hot blooded hero, he's madly in love with my lead and it makes him crazy and sad because circumstances keep their future uncertain, but he fights for her and takes a stand for love. 

Just like the men in our lives do when they take the kids to the park on Saturday morning so we can sleep in, or put in a load of laundry without asking, or leave a note on the kitchen table that says simply, "I'm picking up take-out so you won't have to cook."  Only in my novel, the stand is super sized because otherwise, it wouldn't be as interesting.  You'll have to wait for the book to come out to find out the details.

Eighteen months later...

My novel, Falling Star, is finished and ready to be sent off to agents.  It took me eighteen months to write it, whi is the same amount of time it took to create both my children.  I can't decide which was harder. 

I'm one of those women who hated pregnancy.  I did not glow.  I did not look adorable with my beach ball stomach in trendy little maternity jeans and sweaters like the women on the cover of those annoying pregnancy health magazines, which I believe are the seeds of mommy guilt.  Oh yes, ladies, they get us early with the guilt that we're not eating right, or exercising enough or denying the idea of an epidural.  But, I digress.

I had all day sickness for the first four months with both my pregnancies. I still don't understand how a person can be starving and nauseous at the same time, but that's what it was.  The only thing that sounded good to eat the first four months were those chicken strips and jo-jo potatoes from the supermarket, which I only indulged in once when my husband was gone on a boyscout weekend trip and I was alone with my all day sickness and my three year old.  I remember sitting on the living room floor next to my jo-jos and my three year old (she had mac & cheese) thinking there was no way I would get through the entire weekend without backup.  The chicken strips might have been the only thing that got me through that weekend.  Oh, and bean dip with pretzels.  I almost forgot to mention that. 

So, with the novel, I don't have fifteen pounds to lose after the birth.  And, I don't have to get up six times in the night to feed it. 

After such a long journey of intense work, I have to say I feel odd and a little lost now it's finished.  There's still a lot of work to do - writing a synopsis, coming up with a pitch, and praying someone thinks it's worthy of publication.  I wish I didn't have to spend time on all of the 'business' part of the writer life because I've already got an idea germinating for my next novel and I'm itching to get started.

Maybe the business side of all this is like getting up six times in the night with your newborn.  At the end of those twelve or sixteen weeks, you have a perfect little angel that sleeps through the night and smiles at you.

I'm hoping this baby smiles at me from the display window at Barnes and Noble.

Putting it all out there

I finished the fourth rewrite on my novel, Falling Star, last week.  I gave copies to three friends, well, two technically, since one was my husband.  I gave it to my friend DJ on Friday night and immediately found  what felt like a thousand typos, missing works etc.  I awakened in the middle of the night, sweating and wondering why I ever thought it was ready for human eyes.

He's still reading it.  Read in between the lines, I'm still sweating.

On Wednesday, I gave it to Katherine at lunch.  I drove home thinking, why did I give it to her, someone who's opinion I trust so much, someone who is my exact target audience, someone who collects books for Pete's sake - a reader. 

Fortunately for me, Katherine didn't make me sweat in the middle of the night.  She finished the book by the time she went to bed that night and emailed me right away. For fear of sounding a braggart, (a huge no no in my family) I won't tell you every comment she made, but suffice it to say, she loved it.  My favorite comment,  "If I had picked this up at the bookstore, I would be looking on the web to see what else you had written so I could buy it." 

Thank God.  Because I really didn't know what I was going to do if she hated it.  I know she would have said something constructive and kind, but I would have been able to tell.  And, it would have crushed me.

Putting yourself out there like this - whether it's art, or a business idea or asking someone to dinner - it's all the stuff that exposes you to a huge letdown or a huge high, depending on the answer.  And, it's hard.  It's hard to try for things you want with every fiber of your being.  That's how it is for me, this dream of being a published novelist and boy, am I vulnerable.  It's harder than the workouts at Gravity Janes and that's saying something.  www.gravityjanes.com.

Now, I need to buck up and send it to someone who might be able to send it to someone who could make the decision to publish it.  Those people are called agents.  From what I hear, they take a long time to either accept or reject you.  It could be months without hearing a thing.  I started sweating just typing this.

I may not sleep for six months.  I should start drinking more water to make up for all the loss of fluids.

The good news - I feel more alive than ever.  That's got to be worth something.

Voting for America

Every day feels good to be an American, but I especially feel it today on this historic Election Day.  Regardless of who you're voting for, it is phenomenal that we have an African American and a woman on each of the tickets.  As a mother of two young girls, my heart swells – we can honestly tell our children that anyone can be President.  

 

On Mondays, I teach acting exercises to Ella’s kindergarten class and I opened yesterday’s session by telling them I chose to study the craft of acting when I went to college.  I told them when it came time for them to go to college they could choose to study whatever they wanted, just as I did.  I didn’t add because this is America and in America, we are allowed the freedom to choose everything – from what we eat for dinner to what we say in our blogs and, of course, who we vote for.  I mean, these little guys are 5 and wanted to do the "mirror exercise", not hear a speech about the constitution with a version of "God Bless America" in the background.   I'll save that for third grade.

 

Regardless of the outcome of today’s election, I am grateful to live in this fine country, even with all our problems and worries and polarization.  I love that I can write what I want and that you, dear reader, can choose to read me or not.

 

May God bless America.   

 

Oh, I’m grateful for mail-in ballots too.  The weather’s terrible in Seattle today!