The Long Road

This summer my family took a vacation much different than our others. Rather than spending a week in a specific place, we drove. We put 3,600 miles on our car, 4,800 in an airplane, seeing parts of the country my kids have never seen. We wanted to see Yellowstone, we wanted to hit Mount Rushmore, but more than anything, we just wanted to see the west. With the wide skies, the red rocks, the gentle hills, the open roads with no one on them for miles -- this is all so different than where we live with our forests and traffic jams and slivers of sky.

"Look at that!" we had to keep saying, nudging our kids out of their books and games. We had to constantly remind them, this isn't a destination vacation: the journey's the thing.

It's something I am realizing is true of my novel, as well. I harbor a sense of shame that it's been in the works so long. Three of the last four years have been wrapped up in this book. I should be done. Those are the words that whisper in my ear constantly. Why so long?

It's so easy to think that writing THE END, the destination of every novel, is the point.

And then I wonder, why am I so desperate to get to the end? I have no deadline. I have no agent tapping her toe, no publisher checking the mail.

I've done this before. I know what is at the end.

The end.

That's what's at the end. No more characters. No more chasing them through dark pages. No more laying at night wondering how they are going to survive, if they'll be okay. No more living in their world.

Right now, I'm on their journey with them. I have one chance to do this. One chance to travel this road, have my heart break with theirs, feel joy with them, wonder what is at the end. Not just the end of the writing, but the end of them. One chance to have them to myself before sending them out.

I know what it feels like to have the characters who have become like family to me arrive at their happy place, to be done with me, maybe before I am done with them. It's a moment filled with pride, and then days on end of missing them.

I am on the journey. And if that takes a little longer than I thought it would, a little longer than anyone else thinks it should, I'm going to savor every minute.

Everyone's Got A Story; And Where I Was When I Wasn't Here

I've been gone for a while. Apologies on that! Maybe I should have posted that I was taking a blog break, but I really did think I'd get around to writing!  Instead of writing, though, last week I was here:

Yeah, hate me all you want. Six days of blissfully warm, breezy Florida air, the sound of waves crashing at my feet, my toes dug in the velvet-soft sand, three great books.

The family got up every morning and swam laps in the pool, ate a leisurely lunch at a great hamburger place, then headed out to the beach where we surfed, swam, and read great books. I managed to polish off three novels while looking at this scene; not a bad way to both relax AND do school work! After showers, we sat on a wide deck watching the sunset, listening to live music, and eating dinner.

Did I say BLISS??

After a summer of trying to balance cramming in my school work with enjoying time with the kiddos, it was great to be a part of this:

My oldest and youngest got attacked by sharks...

 

 My daughter ran into trouble with a swordfish...

We saw lots of pelicans hunting for food...

And my awesome husband wrote me messages in the sand...

I didn't realize how stressed I was until I was there, no laundry to do, no dishes to clean, no decisions to make other than what to order off the menu. I could stay up late, sleep in late, have no agenda. 

It's not the way I could live forever - I like a scheduled life - but for a week, it was exactly what I needed. I came back eager to dive back into writing.

Before we barely got settled in at home, though...

EARTHQUAKE!!!!

I know, this is old news by now, and most of you have heard about this and a lot of you felt it too. We live not very far from the epicenter, though, and as it was my kids' first memory of an earthquake, it made the day quite exciting.

We felt the initial 5.9 quake as well as all the aftershocks (which so far total four), none of which were dramatic beyond "Hey, the house is shaking!" I do admit I laughed a bit at all the people running OUT of the buildings (you aren't supposed to run outside in an earthquake, people) and screaming (What is this, war of the worlds??). When you've lived in California long enough, you realize this kind of earthquake is not a panic-inducing moment.

But most people here have never been in an earthquake, and everyone wants to talk about it. Where they were. What they were doing. What they thought it was. Everyone. The news is full of them. Twitter and facebook are full of them. The store clerks, the doctors, the people in the parking lots.

Everyone has a story, and everyone wants to tell it.

Which I love. Aren't we all, to some extent, born storytellers? How cool is it, then, to be able to make your living doing just that!  I think we writers are the luckiest people on earth!

New York, Here I Come

In four more days I will be on my way to New York City.

It's funny how different this trip is than last year's, in so many regards.

First, last year I was dreaming big about NYC and agents and hoping to be sipping champagne in the near future with someone who loved my book as much as me. I took addresses of agencies tucked in my camera bag, hoping to at least pass by some of the offices.

Secondly, even though I was in a writing frame of mind, it was truly a family vacation. Which meant, it wasn't about me. And I was fine with that.

In four days, though, I will be leaving my family behind and traveling to the Big Apple with my sister in our first ever sisterly outing. The excuse - because there has to be one - is that our mom is singing in Carnegie (I KNOW! Isn't that AMAZING??) and we are going up to see her. The backstory is, we are packing our cameras and taking a total photography trip. Three days, once concert, 70 hours of photography. Neither my sister nor I plan to sleep too much.

There won't be any agent seeking on this trip... no fast beating hearts over feeling like this is my future. I'm on a more even keel these days. Of the four submissions currently out, only one is to a NY agency. And I have a new book moving along, going well but far from finished.

So this trip is a whole different vacation. No curfews. No little heads to tuck in bed at reasonable hours. No schedule to keep. Just a road trip of music, gabbing sisters, and lots of photos. Us and the big city.

Watch out!

Getting Back to the Grind

Tomorrow the kids head back to school, and for once, I'm sort of scared. See, for the last two weeks, my top priority has been mommyhood. Well, no one actually calls me mommy anymore. They're too old for that. It's sad really, the passing of the mommy into just mom, or occasionally Hey You! Fewer hugs, fewer kisses. More eye-rolling and sighs.

But I digress.

The writing thing, and the exercise thing, have been put on the back burner for the last two weeks. Okay, who am I kidding? They were shoved way back in the dark recesses of some storage closet. With all the parties and company there hasn't been a back burner to spare. Sometimes I have fought to keep my sacred writing time. I prop them up with the remote control and clamp headphones over my ears and disappear into my laptop. I kick the kids off the Wii to substitute the gym with a DVD to sweat to. I get it done somehow.

But I realized this spring break - and the week before - that if I wanted to be sane, and retain a portion of my hair, I would set it all aside. So I have cooked, and cleaned, and shopped, and made cakes, and cleaned, and cooked, and assembled goody bags and easter baskets and painted a beautiful watercolor pin the cottontail on the bunny and cleaned and cooked some more, and read to my kids and helped them complete their insane Spring Break homework (there should be a Law against that!! Isn't there a reason the word break is in the name??), and traveled a bit and ridden a few fabulous roller coasters (hey, it can't be all cooking and cleaning!), and then did a marathon day of laundry today.

And tomorrow I send them all off, and I head back to the gym unsure if I can even haul my bum across the parking lot let alone put a few miles on the treadmill. And I will sit to write a book that was going great when I left it and is now a far thought from my mind. I had to actually stop and think - "What were those characters names again??"

I really want it to be a great day. I am hoping it will be a great day. I am fearing it will hurt a bit.

But I am not intending on doing any cleaning. And maybe I'll just reheat some leftovers. That doesn't count as cooking, does it?

On another note:


So Jen said yesterday she wants to see more positivity. Honestly, can you get more positive than me? Hey - I even named my blog HOPE. Okay, maybe I implied that it's a crazy, wild, unbelievable and outlandish HOPE, but still. Anywhoo - so here is my positive thought for the day:

I may not have an agent yet, but I've had lots of agents tell me I am a talented writer. And when I feel like giving up, I remember that. And I remember that they could have not replied at all, or replied with a form rejection. And they didn't. They took time to actually write a personal note - sometimes several of them, and once a phone call. And I may write that over and over in that blog just to remind myself, but that's grounds for HOPE. And not so mad a one either.

Dancing In The Storm

This morning I will walk up this street and over this path:

And I will put my towel out, find my book, maybe dip my toes in the water here:



My youngest will dance in the waves...



My son will splash us all and look for the biggest waves...



We will make lemonade out of lemons, the way we did yesterday when Tropical Storm Fay came our way and we used the opportunity to fly kites...



And in general, I will just enjoy my family and the beach and the fun we have together:


And I will try not to miss writing, and editing, and the stress I left behind....

Because soon enough I will be back, and I'll wish I were here again.

Stick a Fork in Me - I'm Done!!!!

It's done! In record time!

Word-a-thon Stats: 50,000 words in less than five weeks.

Some Kind of Normal: FINISHED!

I have sent it off to my first beta reader, and I am taking a hiatus for two weeks to lay on the beach and let my brain go to mush and read some really good books and actually enjoy my family without a computer between us.

I thought the more I'd write, the more casual this would feel, but it feels just as thrilling as the first time!

WOOO HOOOO!

Totally not planned, but the last word of the book? Hope.

Seems kinda fitting.

Looking forward...

I had no caffeine today. I am asleep on my feet.

In exactly two weeks I will be here:



Between now and then I have to throw my daughter a birthday party, and finish the remaining 17,127 words left of the write-a-thon. I think this might actually finish the book. Or kill me.

What a better way to go out on vacation, though?

Today's word count? 1,286

Tomorrow will be better.

Going, Going, Gone

I'm on vacation. The husband took a few days off and we are doing fabulously fun things with the kids, going going all day long, staying up late, talking. I think I remember how to do that.

Even in the middle of word-a-thons, family is still the most important thing.

Writing is hard. Little time, here and there. I'll post the word count when I get around to figuring out how much I'm writing.

Until then, I may be scarce. I'll try to check in with y'all and see how it's going.