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When my husband called on September 11, 2001 and told me a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I didn’t picture jets, fires, crumbling. I pictured some idiot in a little plane, losing his way, crashing.

 

But in a sense, that’s what metaphorically happened. Far before September 11, 2001, we somehow lost our way. And September 11 was like the definitive wrong turn, enabling us to further divide the world into good and evil, terrorist and freedom-lover, left wing and right wing, Republican and Democrat, Christian and atheist, the dichotomies giving us carte blanche to strip each other of our humanity.

 

I saw this at play in President Obama’s speech about health care a couple of nights ago—the shots of Republican Senators smirking, the cat calls. Tragic, when whatever one might think of Obama’s policies, one thing continues to stand out that has earned my utmost respect. He is a uniter, rather than a divider. Continually, he rises above these arbitrary dichotomies, trying to find common ground. It’s admirable, and it’s where we need to go as global society if we want to have any hope of saving the planet, if we want to find our way home.

 

My daughter is taking a class in conflict resolution and peace studies. She told me last night that the reading has been focusing on whether violence is innate or learned. “It doesn’t matter,” she claims, because there have been studies that show that people can resist these urges toward violence, the urges to make someone or something “other.” This is what we need to do, to stop thinking of those who are different, or who believe different things as other, to find the common threads that link us, even if they are as simple as the need for food and water, for love and for a healthy body. We need to stop thinking of ourselves as competitors and start thinking of ourselves as collaborators. It’s the only way we’re going to survive.

 

This is not what I intended to write about today. I intended to shamelessly promote my 9/11-themed children’s book, Playing Dad’s Song, about a boy in Brooklyn who lost his dad on 9/11 and how learning music helped him heal from his grief. I wanted to write about my trip to New York, my childhood home, shortly after 9/11. My friend, Greg, and I walked through the streets of Brooklyn and saw posters of the  missing, “altars” dedicated to heroes at the local police and fire stations, and Greg recounted story after story of people helping each other, bonding together;  yet, I could tell he was suffering from a malaise that seemed to hang over the entire psyche of the city, thick as the soot that rained down after the towers crumbled.

 

I wanted to write about these things, because, as I said on my Facebook status today, New York is the home of my bones. My friend Lew, a fellow New Yorker transplanted like me to western Massachusetts, corroborated that feeling with the words “deep home.” If the lessons of the decade have taught us anything, it is that need to find depth in a culture that shuns it. And in that depth we need to find home, the home of humanity, of bonding together. It’s why I write and read fiction. I’m searching for depth, for the connections that bind us together, rather than the dichotomies that force us apart.

 

 

  

After the rush of finishing a first draft, it’s so tempting to rush back in and tie up the loose threads, but I’ve learned from experience that I have to let things simmer. What does this mean for me? No writing!

At least, no writing on the WIP for at least a week—two or three is probably better, in order to really get some distance to see both the flaws in what I currently have and the opportunities to make it better. Sometimes this is a welcome relief, as pulling the book in first draft stage feels about as satisfying as pulling out my own teeth. But this book seemed to just fly. Not that it was effortless, but I found that when I could get into the characters’ heads, it felt almost like channeling.

 

All the more reason to wait—to bring my reasoned, critical voice **after** the elation has subsided, to transform that giddy, falling-in-love feeling into a more mature long-lasting love, which is what I need for my long-term relationship with the book, and what the book needs to develop a long-term relationship with its readers.

 

But, I am impatient and will need to distract myself with other tasks—hopefully more productive than my latest time wasting addiction—4 X 4 Sudoku. At least it’s another beautiful day in Massachusetts, a day for harvesting and bicycling, and a couple more marketing tasks, and who knows, maybe I’ll even get back into blogging!

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I don't exactly have first draft blues, but I do have first draft purples. What does this mean? It means I can keep slogging, even though I can't seem to do what my critique group is telling me to do--give one of my two main characters a more distinct voice that conveys her quirkiness. I want to just insist that my critique group is wrong. I hear the nuances in my character's voice. I know where she comes from. But if they don't get it, that means that readers won't get it either. It's still in the shadow stage, and I need to sharpen those edges. I'm beginning to see a few glimmers of them in the last couple of days--it gives me the kind of hope I feel this time of the year where time is more expansive and the sun shines late into the evening.

I feel a bit as if I should come up with a host of “dog-ate-my-homework” excuses around not blogging for four months. Though all I’m going to offer is that I’d rather be writing and blogging, and time being what it has been with my teaching job at the university this semester, it’s been all I can do to keep working on my fiction.

 

Still, I’d love to hear from others on what you get out of blogging. I’ve been advised that it’s one of those necessary activities authors need to do to fulfill the requirements of that nasty “M” word—Marketing. I’m married to someone who does marketing for a living. He likes to blog. It gives him a forum to share his political views and promote his thinking about business and ethics and how it relates to his vision for a better world.

 

I think that as a fiction writer, my vision is more metaphorical, or, at least, I’m more comfortable expressing it that way.  I am one of those writers who don’t keep a journal—oh, occasionally I scribble some words to work out a feeling, or explore an issue through poetry, but I have no great need to create a chronicle of my mundane thoughts and activities. And not surprisingly, when we travel, it is my husband who takes all the pictures. I’m happy to have them, but don’t feel the need for something that tangible, preferring instead to remember the fragments as they reappear in my brain from time to time, often transformed into something I can use in my fiction.

 

However, one of the things I have liked about blogging is the community—the people I’ve met through LJ and Facebook, MyNESCBWI and other sites. And I’ve missed that, so rather than kvetching, I’m going to try blogging one more time. And I’d like to intersperse my own musings with interviews of other YA and middle grade authors, particularly if you have a book coming out—so please do contact me. 

So many lovely things about the KidsHeartAuthors day:

First, there was the warm welcome from Rebecca, the children's book manager at the Odyssey Bookshop. Second, I got to hang out with a wealth of friendly, talented and interesting authors. I met author/illustrator Diane de Groat for the first time. I’ve admired her work for years, since first reading Lois Lowry’s Anastasia and Sam books to my kids when they were little. I also enjoyed meeting and chatting with Crissa-Jean Chappell, who made the trip all the way from Miami, combining an author event with the opportunity to visit her extended family in New England. Then there was Rich Michelson, whose warmth, generosity, and wit have always impressed me, and who connects me back to my New York Jewish roots whenever I hear him speak. And finally, I got to spend time with my dear friend, Jeannine Atkins, member of my writing group extraordinaire, without whose eighteen years of gentle but on-the-mark criticism, I would have never found myself at this place at this time.

 

At ten o’clock, as we were happily ensconced at the signing table—in alphabetical order, nonetheless, the children began to come in. Not a mob, but a good handful. But they were young. Really young. Pre-schoolers, mostly. Maybe a few in the K-2 range.  Great for Diane deGroat, whose Valentine’s Day book, Roses are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink was the perfect match for the day and the audience. Jeannine read next from her award-winning  picture book, Aani and the Tree Huggers about a community in India who saves the trees in their village from developers. It’s a wonderful book to inspire budding environmentalists—get them while they’re young. Much as I loved the event and loved the Odyssey, at this point, I did begin to wonder what I could offer these children who had trekked out in the cold. Playing Dad’s Song the “younger” of my two books, is really for ages eight and up, ten being about right. But serendipitously, my 16-year old, Raf, just happened to be home that Saturday—he’s usually taking music classes at New England Conservatory, and even more miraculously, happened to be awake. A quick call on my cell phone, and he was there, pulling off a short performance scene in my book, where my protagonist, Gus, plays the oboe with a blanket over his head because he’s too scared to speak in front of the class. By this time, the crowd had dwindled to just a few kids, but quality made up for quantity, as I (really Raf) had them entranced as he played the oboe, Jeannine’s sari, substituting as a blanket.

We wrapped up the event with Rich entertaining us with a delightful set of poems from Animals Anonymous, set to music composed and performed by his daughter, Marissa. Rich recently won the Sidney Taylor Gold Medal for As Good As Anybody: Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom. Wow! Crissa, whose book Total Constant Order was aimed at even older kids, chose not to read, but I bought a copy of her book for Raf who’s already reading it and says it’s awesome. He’s supposed to be reading The Dispossessed  for school this week, but oh well.

I'm delighted to be participating in Kids Heart Authors. On Saturday, from 10-12 (Valentine's Day) I'll be at the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA along with Rich Michelson, Jeannine Atkins, Crissa-Jean Chapell, Ellen Wittlinger, and Diane deGroat. Mitali Perkins has done a great job organizing over 150 authors and illustrators to appear at independent bookstores throughout New England. You can get more information at www.kidsheartauthors.com. and find events in your area. Please spread the word--especially if you are in western Massachusetts :). It will be a fun day of readings and book signings--great for people of all ages.

We have a tradition on Chanukah to put menorahs in windows on all sides of the house, and then get out and walk around the house, singing and looking at the lights from outside. Since we started doing this, around eight years ago, we have gone out in all types of weather--knee-deep snow, sheets of ice (a bit of a challenge since there's a hill involved), mud, rain, sleet, blizzards, and clear starry nights. But it is never disappointing, especially with my kids' exuberant energy; their enthusiasm rears at the bit, even though they've reached the attitude-driven teen and post-teen years. And at least that means they're old enough to make the latkes, and I don't have to, any more.

It's been fun having both kids home for the five nights of Chanukah so far, though today they took off for New York. So it will be just my husband me trouncing around the house in a little while. I wonder if it will feel silly, as I don't think we've ever done it without at least our son being there. Our daughter has missed a bunch of Chanukahs, since the holiday's been earlier the last two years and she was in college, though last year we Skyped her so she could participate virtually. Amazing--the power of technology.

A Chanukah tradition we started this year each night as we opened our presents, was Tzedakah, which means giving to charity. Each night we pick an organization to give money to, and we all contribute. So far, we've picked refugee relief in Darfur, Heifer International, a local shelter, an organization where Veterans go into schools to talk about the horrors of war, and Neve Shalom, an organization that brings Jewish and Arab kids and teenagers together for peace programs. We'll pick the other three when the kids get back on Monday. It will be the end of Chanukah, but there will probably also be a stray present or two to open. I'm delighted with my lined mittens and silk underwear and warm socks--as well as opportunities to connect back with my own teenage years with a DVD of Get Smart and a CD of Cat Stevens--now Yusuf. I wonder if they'll pack the same umph. I wonder what tradition-laden things my kids will want to remember when they're my age. I'm hoping that at least one night per year, they'll circle the house with us, so we can all look at the light.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Like most people, I have a love/hate relationship with the snow, yet I am grateful for the reflected light, especially in these dark pre-solstice dates. I am loving the view from my window, the remnants of the storm, the snowflakes that now look like harmless loafers without purpose, falling on my neighbor's white New England farmhouse. It continues to snow without accumulation, and I feel like these loafer snowflakes--continuing to write without really producing much to talk about or be proud of.

With snow, however, comes ice. Glossy, crisp, and flat. I like to think of ice as the stuff bad writing is made of, though who am I to decide what writing is good and what is bad.?I will therefore revise that statement. I like to think of ice as the stuff my bad writing is made of, a substance intensely beautiful but with no permanence. A substance that depends on surfaces. I have been struggling with this surface idea of writing, struggling with plummeting depths, worried that the constant call of my life's other surfaces, the teacher, mom, house caretaker surfaces will make it impossible to get through that ice.

So, I am going to go back to journaling, to sitting quietly, to worrying less about projects and more about process. I am going to be a loafer snowflake for a while, and I am going to relegate my "ice-life" to afternoons and evenings, claiming the mornings to take that brave plunge into the depths of white out. I am hoping that something will germinate out of this process, though the scariest thing is that it may not. Still, if I learn a tiny bit of patience, it will be well worth it.

Okay, here are my ten questions. I'll tag anyone who hasn't done this yet.

1.    How old were you when the craft of writing called you to perform?
Probably around 8—when I realized it was unlikely I was ever going to be an actress in a Broadway musical, which was my first ambition.

2. What's your favorite writing outfit?
I’ll wear anything, but the more comfy the better. Lately I’ve been enjoying my sweatpants and my gray hoodie.

3. What computer program do you use for your writing?
Microsoft Word

4. What's the name of your most difficult character to write?
All of them are difficult until I get to know them.

5. When is your favorite time of day to write?
In the morning, but not too early, since I’m not an early riser. Usually around 9 until around eleven or noon, before my brain clogs with the detritus of the rest of the day.

6. What's your favorite genre?
Realistic contemporary or historical fiction for children and/or adults with strong characters and which also tackles societal issues.

7. What writers have inspired you the most in your career and why?
My fabulous writing group for the past 18 years—Jeannine Atkins, Lisa Kleinholz, and Bruce Carson. Also my former teacher/mentor, Pat Schneider of Amherst Writers & Artists.

8. Do you think you're smarter than a fifth grader?
That seems like a loaded question. I believe I have more adult wisdom, but probably lack some of the spark of the young and curious.

9. What's your favorite thing to do when you're stuck on a scene?
Walk my dog in the woods, get another cup of tea, or lie on my bed and write a lot of “what if” notes.

10. If you could give one piece of advice to your fellow writers, what would it be?
Believe in yourself and hold true to the vision of what you want your work to be, but at the same time, be willing to let go of an attachment to anything that doesn’t work, no matter how much you love it.

One of the skeletons in my closet is my extreme lack of organization of anything tangible. I'm fine with ideas, but give me one more physical thing to find a place for and I melt down. Paper is the worst, and the older I get, the more it seems, I have. It shouldn't be so difficult to put things in file folders neatly labeled by category. I get a bit flummoxed, however, when it comes to deciding how to categorize things, or when I keep making the same lists over and over--places to submit my books, places to contact about promoting my published books, press clippings, reviews, old rejection letters. In the best of all possible scenarios, they just might be in the folders or boxes I've designated, if I have a clue about where to find those. In the worst case, they're stacked randomly on the "Shelves from Hell. " And this doesn't even compare in size to the volumes of manuscripts: novels, short stories, plays, poems, journal entries, and countless snippets of something or nothing I've generated in the last twenty plus years (scribbled down to "work on later") , also randomly arranged, all 26 drafts of them, in whatever space might have been available at the time.  

Yesterday, when I sat down determined to tackle a new round of submissions, I melted. I couldn't find the lists of top people to send to, which I'd researched at least three times. So today, a day off, I decided that if I accomplished one thing, I was going to go through every sheet of paper in my office and reorganize my entire filing system. I made sure to start this project early in the morning, before I got distracted and then told myself I was too tired. And I made sure to approach it with a good attitude by holding steadfast to a vision of bare space. Of course, the mid-process was worse than the beginning. Stacks scattered all over the floor, and the dog snoozing in the middle of them (butt on contracts, head on marketing ideas). But by 4 pm, I had really done it!

Two wonderful things: I got rid of A LOT of paper I didn't need--filled a recycling bucket, in fact. As a Buddhist living among packrats--this shedding felt great. As a matter of fact, whenever I felt stuck, all I had to do was take a pile of trash downstairs and then admire the bare spot on the floor where it had once been. And even better, I came across all those wonderful old treasures--reviews, letters from children, even the rejection letters made me feel good; so many of them said nice things about my writing, and how they'd like to see more work. So now, I have an even longer list of people to try--and I did find my old list, too--all five copies of it.

 

Thanks to Debbie Michiko Florence for the inspiration in these gloomy times. Here are five things I've savored as a published author.

1. Getting back in touch with old friends when I notified them about the book, and through that process rekindling and growing relationships.
2. Seeing sweet reviews on Amazon--some from people I didn't even know.
3. Being invited to and included in author events--it feels a little bit like finally being accepted into that sorority that only allowed the popular people.
4. Having school kids ask the most intelligent and thoughtful questions, and seeing that they read even more things into my books than I'd intended.
5. Learning to be just a tad more aggressive about publicizing myself, whipping out those postcards when strangers asked me what I did for a living, and most importantly, saying I AM A WRITER and believing it.

I don't think I will get any writing done today. I am absolutely giddy. All day yesterday, I felt so nervous, even though for the last week, I've checked the yahoo map compulsively, counting up the blue states, trying to convince myself that there couldn't be cheating in Ohio and Florida and Pennsylvania, and where ever else that would need to happen to keep Obama from reaching 270, and  that as bad as those allegations were in 2000 and 2004, there was still an element of doubt. The country was polarized enough that it was practically split down the middle, and neither the Democrats or Republicans were offering a candidate that truly inspired people to get out and give their all.

If there are cheating allegations this time, I kept telling myself and anyone who happen to cross my path, there should be people in the streets--massive protests. Because this time cheating would really go against the will of a clear majority of the people. Everytime I heard about the latest dirty trick--the flyer in Virginia that said Democrats vote on November 5, the robocalls in Pennsylvania saying Obama would cause a second Holocaust, I felt sick, angry. This stuff should be illegal, and campaigns that engage in it should be fined heavily, or even disqualified. This is beyond negative campaigning; it's cheating, and it's slander. It wouldn't be tolerated in sports, which has a far less  important outcome than the leadership of the country.

But I am so thrilled that democracy has prevailed. That people's votes can actually count.

My students at the university where I teach were all excited yesterday, so many of them voting in their first presidential election. Several were absent, but with good cause, needing to drive two hours or more to their polling places in their home towns. I've been teaching there for eight years and I've never seen this before--the intensity of their interest was stunning and inspiring.

And I'm proud of daughter for getting up early on a Saturday morning to cast her vote a few weeks ago in Ohio, where she re-registered once she started college in order to vote in a swing state. She called right after they announced the winner. "Is it really true?" she asked, and I realized how much she'd been imbued with her parents' cynicism about stolen elections and power interests dictating American politics rather than the people's will. And I'm proud of my son's friends in high school, who spent their study hall time calling voters in Pennyslvania on their cell phones. After all the rhetoric about "The Me Generation" our hope rests with these young voters and soon -to-be voters who are actively participating in building a better world.

While I may have political differences with Obama, (I often vote for Green Party candidates or independents) I was proud to cast my vote for him, because over and over during the course of the campaign, he impressed me with his leadership, pragmatism, and most importantly his message of unity.  I believe his willingness to listen, collaborate and engage in meaningful dialogue with those who agree with his positions and those who don't will make him a profound leader who has the ability to change the face of the country and the face of the world. And I was also impressed with McCain's concession speech as reflective of the "real maverick" McCain we knew in 2000. I may disagree with his approach, but I believe that before his campaign spun out of control, the policies he offered were sincerely based on his beliefs and values.

Obama's got a hard job ahead of him, perhaps an impossible job, but I hope that now that the election is over we can put differences aside and work together toward our common goals. Viva America!

In the past couple of weeks, I've gotten myself back on the writing track. I've certainly needed to give myself a couple of good kicks in the derriere, but I've written more days than not--many more days that not, basically all days except my full-time teaching days. This is the rhythm I need to keep myself going.

Here are some things I've learned about myself in the process.

(1) Part of the reason I wasn't writing, was that everything I'd thought about writing felt like the same 'old stuff. There was no compelling theme or story I wanted to explore.  I'm not sure yet whether the plot/theme/characters of the project I'm working on are compelling enough at the moment, but what is getting me to keep coming back to it has been setting myself challenges as a writer. For the first time in years, I am writing in third person, rather than first. I'm also giving myself a goal of going slowly. Painstakingly slowly, adding in more detail than I usually do, challenging myself to stretch out nuances of each moment of story, each character, even if I cut them all later as extraneous. This is going against my general style of writing spare and filling in key details later, but it's teaching me something about myself as a writer, and that is what is keeping me at it. And eventually, as I explore those nuances, I'll get more interested in what the project is really about--as I discover it.

(2) Also, I need to write in the mornings, after I've had my breakfast and tea, but before I've gotten involved with anything else and told myself I'm too busy, too swamped, too depressed, too happy, or too whatever to write. If I write in the morning as routine, I find myself sitting at the computer before I'm aware of it and then once I'm there, I feel too guilty to leave. When I put writing off until later in the day, I either never get to it, or when I do, I'm too tired or too buried into the rest of my brain's daily detritus.

(3) It's not important how much I write, just that I keep at it. Some days 500 words is enough. Some days 200. Some days I'm blessed to write 1000 words or more. In the same way, finishing is not important--it's just keeping going, like the tortoise and the hare, or like that old 12-step adage, one day at a time.

(4) I've done this for over thirty years. If it's bad, I have the ability to fix it--if not at the moment, I will have the ability to fix it. I've always been able to fix things, somehow.

(5) In the meantime, I'll take solace the small things that jazz me: the golden October light outside my window. the happy noises of a group of teens downstairs cooking a sumptuous feast for my son's "Savory 16" party, a good book,  a hot cup of tea, a bike ride, a walk in the woods.

Today is the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Yesterday, I went with my family on our ritual New Year’s hike along one of the less-used trails on the Mt. Holyoke Range in western Massachusetts. The mosquitoes were out full-force, but we managed to find a quiet few minutes to sit by our favorite stream and meditate on the year that passed, and the year to come.

Even for a day, it’s hard to break with routine, and the pressing feeling of all the goals I should be accomplishing: writing, marketing my work, preparing my classes, grading my papers, dealing with the messy house. It’s hard not to turn on the computer and let myself be lulled by the distractions of e-mail, and blogs, and spider solitaire. But I didn’t turn on the computer yesterday, and my goal was to make myself not work, not even think about work.

It was hard. I am addicted to work. In any 15-minute block that looms before me, I think, “what can I accomplish?” Can I make headway with the junk mail on this messy table? Start another batch of pesto from the forest of basil that sits on the counter? Dice up more of the tomato harvest for salsa or sauce? Check my e-mail one more time, in hopes that there might be a message that isn’t a joke, a you-tube link, or political junk mail? Sweep  dog hair off the floor?

What is it with Americans and our addiction to productivity?

Today, even though I’d intended another computer-free day, since it is the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I succumbed when my husband said he was going to try to whittle down his e-mail box. But I tried to do it mindfully. I read blogs from my live-journal children’s lit friends, and thought about how so many of us are in similar positions: super-mom writers with outside jobs, always beating ourselves up for not writing, always setting the next set of goals.

But I’m going to turn off the computer now, and walk in the woods with my dog. And later, I’m going to go bicycling with friends. Because personally, I am never going to get out of this current phase of writers’ block if I keep thinking of my next book as one more piece of work to accomplish. I’ve got to get to the point where it’s as appealing as the fall light.

I loved the post by Jennifer Lynn Barnes<lj user="jenlyn-b"> on how to keep finding the love of writing after being published. It has taken two years post publication to assimilate some of the following painful truths.

(1) My name, or the names of my books are not household names, even though my books did decently.
(2) The books I've written since then have not been grabbed up and fought over by editors.
(3) My fifteen minutes of fame are over for now, perhaps forever.

The reality is this: publishing is a business. Art is art. Sometimes they mix. Sometimes they don't. You get to a point in your writing life where you have the craft, you know what makes a novel work (not that it's ever easy but after a zillion revisions, you can get there) but you still haven't figured out the handle of what makes a book "sellable" in today's YA or middle grade market. Yet, the last thing I want to do as a writer is to slip into some formulaic process to write the book that will be bought. If I want to write for money, I'll write business reports. Otherwise, like Jennifer, I'll be thankful for my day job. The challenge in these days of first draft doldrums is to find the hook that keeps me alive, energized, and willing to keep struggling.

In the last few months—actually years—I have spent most of my creative time revising and re-revising several works in progress. Now I’ve finished all those, and it’s time to write something new.

Help!

I heard Andrea Barrett say that her cat wrote better first drafts than she did. I think that the tick I’m about to detach from my dog could write a better first draft than I could right now, because I am not attached to a dog, or anything. To write well, you need to be attached to at least the glimmer of an idea, otherwise it feels like I'm spewing a lot of empty dribble.

First drafts, for me, are the absolute scariest things, because I don’t outline, or plan. I simply improvise until I find a theme that calls to me. I eventually get to a good place, but it’s a bit like trying to find your way to a small house on a dirt road three hundred miles away without a map, directions, or a GPS.

 Needless to say, I do a lot of extra driving.

 I had to drive home from Boston yesterday—two hours in the torrential rain. My son has finally talked me into letting him do music at the New England Conservatory Preparatory Program. For years, I’ve said, “Over my dead body.” This year, I finally agreed, provided he was willing to take the bus, if we couldn’t find a large carpool. But yesterday was registration day, so I had to go in person. It certainly reinforced my reluctance about the whole idea, but I plunked down the money, so somehow, we’ve got to figure out a way to get him there every week.

 At least we have directions.  

In the last 24 hours my 15-year old son, Rafael,  has given me two unsolicited gifts. Yesterday, he said out of the blue that he thought one of the manuscripts I am currently circulating and trying to sell, 26 North, would be a great book for high school  curriculum. Today he is reading my current revision of another manuscript, Leah in Lights, which I'm hoping to finish and start circulating next month, and said that it was a much better book than one of the ones I've published.

Yes, he is biased because he is my son, but we all need fans in whatever ways we can get them. And he is a typical picky teenager, and not the type of kid who would say he liked something if he didn't. I've been dissed by him big time for my lousy piano sight reading, and when I can't hold a harmony without going flat.

When I wrote Playing Dad's Song, I fixed Raf in my mind as my audience. He wasn't, as many people thought, a model for Gus, even though he played the oboe. But he was the kid I was trying to please with a story that I hoped would make him laugh and hold his interest enough to turn the pages. In fact, he was one of my first guinea pigs for that book, as well as Escaping Into the Night because I could test my prose on him by reading aloud at bedtime, and note where he laughed, or seemed bored, or got confused, and listen to his questions, and hear where my own words soared off the page and when they sounded flat.

Now he's too old to be read to any more, so this week I must have looked like an idiot muttering Leah aloud in a coffee shop as I waited for him to get through with drivers' ed classes. Like my harmony singing--a lot of it was flat. I fixed weak verbs, cut out extra words, smoothed out transitions and even deleted whole paragraphs that went nowhere. I am an auditory person, so hearing what I write is crucial in the revision process. If the words don't sing, the book isn't done.

Raf has gone through the first 50 pages of Leah. He's caught typos, drawn a few smiley faces at lines he likes, and corrected a couple of things I didn't quite get right about goth clothes or emo. What am I going to do when he's no longer a teenager? I'll need to find some new consultant fans.

This summer I've learned some hard things about myself: Even when I have open time I *can't* write all day. Moreover, I find a million stupid things to do to distract myself from writing at all. I will not admit the number of games of computer solitaire I have played--the most insipid and useless way of wasting time. It's all about avoiding that terror of emptiness--whether it's the blank page or the blankness of too much time. This week has been a little bit easier, because I've spent the mornings taking my son to driver's ed. Having a schedule again has provided the benefits of getting me up and moving, as well as three hours of enforced time in coffee shops, after which I give myself total permission to quit writing for the day. I'm glad I'm sliding into this routine at the end of summer, because it's helping me feel better about the transition back to teaching. Strange as it sounds, I need not only structure to function, but also distraction--not the immediate distraction of loud music or phone calls, but the long-term distraction of having other things to do and think about, so that writing becomes precious, rather than an obligation.

So the trick now, as it always is in fall, will be how to balance my right brain life (writing) and my left brain life (teaching), not to mention the schedule dance of shlepping my son to music lessons across the state (it will be a while before he gets his license) and the countless other requirements of family life. And I've also learned that my brain (or my soul, or both) needs something new from time to time to jazz it. I've been a compulsive dabbler all my life, and at 51, most of the things I've dabbled in over the years seem old hat. But life without a passion creates passionless writing, so I'll have to squeeze in a Spanish class, to keep up what I learned in Guatemala, or a community chorus or something to feed the muse.

I guarantee this: in two weeks I will not be complaining about too much empty time. I'll read back on this entry and think I was nuts to even think this way.

I was intrigued by Becky's </a></b></a>post on the sticky note/large pad revision process, as I've been involved in one type of revision or another all summer. I have always told my writing group that I greatly prefer revision to initial writing, as I know what I'm working with, but lately revision has felt harder, perhaps because I'm not so easily filling in "the gaps" I see, which Becky so thoughtfully referred to in a previous post. But persevere we must. I think of writing, especially in the revision process, as giving birth, final stage. You are pushing, pushing, pushing for that extra revealing detail, the character description or dialogue that will bring the person in your mind to life, the plot point that will push your theme where you want it to be, and at the same time add suspense and motivation to the reader. Sometimes, as I struggle over a section of my work that is flat, underwritten, or just plain bad, I mutter, "Push, push, push" to myself and write anything--just anything, to try to get the process flowing. It's like an improv game I've learned. Two people start a scene with a prompt. They're at the gas station, or a bowling alley. They start to talk, and if a third person, the moderator, doesn't like what one of them says, they ring a little better, and the person has to come up with a different line, each time, taking the scene in a new direction.

Another revision model that has been helpful in keeping me going is the music metaphor. My children are both musicians. They're always excited when they learn a piece well enough to "perform" it, which means getting the notes, the tempo, the dynamics and the technique with some fluidity.  But that's when the real learning begins, the nuances and the shading. That's when they'll start practicing the same passage over and over again to refine the technique and get just the right expression. And then, when they perform the same piece, viva la difference! Not that it was bad, the first time. But now there's depth. And sometimes, just like in writing, their teachers will tell them to put a piece away to "season" it. When they come back to it a few months or years later, it might take a while to relearn some of the notes, but ultimately the final performance is deeper, stronger, better, because they've learned a few things along the way that they can bring to the piece.

So, when I'm struggling, I like to think of writing like that. I like to think about the first time I heard my daughter play Debussy's Clair de Lune, and how she plays it now, months later. I keep the vision that all this work will ultimately make the final product better, deeper, even if I have to rewrite the same chapter twenty, or thirty, or even one hundred times.

After being home for three weeks, you wonder, were you ever really on vacation, which is one of the reasons I am stretching this blog post into three sections. Our final destination in Guatemala was Guatemala City, where we stayed with a family as part of our international host/traveler exchange, Servas. My family has been traveling this way for twenty-five years, and it has consistently provided us with the most awesome and memorable moments of our travels, as well as many new friends. Servas is not couch-surfing, nor is it a hotel or bed and breakfast. The goal of the organization is to facilitate peace by breaking down barriers between cultures. People visit for two nights, and the emphasis is on getting to know each other. Through Servas over the years, I have done things I had never planned to do while traveling, including attending a Welsh poetry recital at a local school, viewing a private collection of museum quality Native American art, riding a horse bareback (my daughter did this--I was chicken), and spending two days in a remote cabin in Ontario, accessible only by canoe.

And it was not in our travel plans to attend a reception at the National Palace with the President of Guatemala, but that it was what we did.

Our Servas host turned out to be the Director of the National Park System there, so after spending the evening before chatting with his friendly and hospitable family, and the day touring Guatemala City with his lovely twenty-year-old daughter, we stopped back at his office where he told us he wanted to bring us along to a presentation on sustainable tourism and preserving Mayan culture. And, oh yes, the President would be there.

In addition to the President's short speech, we were treated to a performance of Mayan music and dance, and a video and presentation on the past, present, and future of the National Parks. Good thing our Spanish was in good shape by then. I didn't get all of it, but I got about 80%.