Books and Old Boyfriends

Next week I'll be getting KEOWEE VALLEY back from my editor at Bell Bridge Books, and my part of the editing process will begin. I can't wait. Literally, I'm itching to start. I picked up the novel two weeks ago, sticky notes and pen in hand, and began rereading for the first time in months. I was Sherlock without the faithful Watson, but on the hunt for content irregularities--like the fact that in one scene I'd given my protagonist a single chair, and in another scene she has two--and other mechanics mistakes: a doubled word, an odd sentence structure. Being an English professor, I'm a stickler for clean copy; it'll kill me if the final version of my novel has a mistake in it.

Breathe, my editor says. Put the manuscript aside for a few days; wait, she says, until you get it back from me. Then work. And after, let it go.

I've tried to back off from my novel, though review copies of it sit in a cardboard box at my feet. Sometimes, especially after a compliment from my publisher, or receiving a thrilling blurb from another writer, I pick up the novel and randomly flip it open, looking for what they see. At times, I catch a glimpse... at others, I see only potential, and I have to physically restrain myself from the primal urge to "make it better."

This is exactly how I used to be about ex-boyfriends.

In my past life, I was one of those people. You know: the person who wants to stay friends with ex-boyfriends. I could never understand how so suddenly I was cut off from this person I'd cared about, how I was supposed to remove him from my life and to forget anything we'd shared. Granted, I was a bit of a commitment-phobe before I met my husband, and so the person doing the "breaking up" was, 99 percent of the time, me. This puts a different spin on things, I know, but hear me out.

It's not just that I wasn't ready to let go of that person--that old love--it was also that I was second-guessing. It started in middle school with a boy I'll call Sam. Sam was a tall, dark, teen-idolish 12 year-old who began his pursuit of me by making fun of the size of my boobs. (I was a tomboy in every sense of the word, and at this point in my girlhood this type of male attention freaked me out and ticked me off. In essence, I'd no idea it meant he liked me.) Sam got better. Eventually he brought me roses. They were gorgeous. Still, I was confused. I liked him--alot. But I didn't know what to make of him.

Eventually, our young love was brought to a screeching halt with a three-way phone call in which I was forced to choose between Sam and my best guy friend, (we'll call him) Bart. My preteen intellect and hormones were flying around like the ball in one of those baseball machines at the arcade--you know the ones, where you stand and work the "bats" with your thumbs, and the little players twist this way and that, and the ball goes banging haphazardly into other plastic players and obstacles, and sometimes drops in the right hole. Mine usually flew completely out of the game into the "you suck at this" gutter. I didn't know what the heck was going on: I just knew that I liked Sam, I also liked Bart, and our little drama fueled the middle school gossip mill for months.

After I chose Bart--a whole other story--I couldn't help but wonder about Sam. I'd see him walk the halls--black-haired and brooding--or flirt with another girl, and I'd agonize over my decision. I still wanted to be friends! I still liked him. But he wouldn't talk to me.

Same thing happened in college, with my first real boyfriend. (We'll skip high school. That's a Sweet Valley High-meets-90210 boondoggle for another post.) We'd dated in high school, ended up at the same university. I liked this guy (we'll call him Alan) so much: he was cute, funny, and he liked the things about me that used to confound other guys. But freshman year, the whole college experience opened up before me like the deep end spreads below an Olympic springboard diver, crystalline, cool and sweet--with nothing to do but leap. And boy, did I leap.

Not long after my full-gainer reverse dive into the undergraduate experience, Alan started squiring about another girl on my hall. And suddenly, Alan--and our fun, heady, coming-of-age romance--began to look better to me than it had the first time. For a while, he responded to my emails, wrote me letters. He still cared about me, he said. After a  mountain weekend in Tennessee wherein a ton of Southern frat boys and amiable girls holed up in a big cabin together with free-flowing kegs, liquor, and music for three days straight (sorry, so sorry, Mom), we ending up kissing again. He kissed another girl the next night. It didn't hurt. But I was done. And yet, years later, I still want to be friends. It's an illness. 

Lastly, my first and only serious boyfriend before my husband--a wonderful guy, truly one of the good ones. This relationship, too, I broke (glad I did, or I wouldn't be married to my husband, but still... I broke it bad). And afterwards, I thought I wanted it back. Him back. I wanted his friendship, and I wanted more. But I wanted it on my terms, and he, I can say without a doubt, did not. He just wanted me. For months I tried to make him see that we could be friends; and, for a while, he came around--great guy that he (still, I'm sure) is--but it was too hard. Zoom in to us tailgating at a Clemson football game, both leaned up against the side of my parents' car, serious, me telling him I wanted to see him AND other people, and him telling me he couldn't and wouldn't. (At stage right are my parents and assorted family friends, trying vainly not to look like they're eavesdropping.)

And though I knew, somewhere deep down in my real self, that he wasn't the one for me and I certainly wasn't the one for him, I balked. I second-guessed. I wasn't ready to let go. 

The problem is, I want it my way, and I want it all. This has not abated since I was a 12 year-old brace-face or a 20 year-old co-ed. But it's my personality. And it ain't pretty.

Years later, I'm still, really, not friends with any of these guys, much as I'd honestly like to be. Two of them are "Facebook" friends. The last, I'm afraid, is gone for good, and any chance at friendship gone with him. That's my fault. And that's okay. 

My job, now, is to look at my novel like I look back at that last relationship I had before meeting my husband: to think on it fondly about once a year, remembering the good moments, and then to bid it adieu, wish it--and whatever comes of it--truly well.

To do this, I think I need balance. In my life, in my work, and at my desk. If I can achieve said balance, my life, my schoolwork, my next novel, and my desk will be better.

But currently, here's the state of my desk:

Would it frighten you to know that I cleaned it last night?

Here's another angle of my desk. My dog is the sprawling black animal on the right. She knows it's a non-preschool day and so we won't be hiking, and she's choosing to ignore me.

Looks all cozy and writerly, right? (In addition to being messy.) It is. Until you factor in the balance-upsetter, the game-changer, the love of my life: my two year-old. Can anyone achieve balance with a two year-old?

That's a ponder for another time. For now, here's what my husband and I got to try to distract the kid so I might find some balance in my writing life: (this is about three feet away from my desk)

Balance? Ba ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha.

Happy Weekend, all!

Shake Up

Life is moving along at the usual clip, we're living comfortably in our daily routines, cocooned by structure and need, and then: shake up. Something happens. Something small, like a low-magnitude earthquake that barely shifts the floor beneath your feet, subtle but odd enough to be noticed: a friend's odd attitude, problems with a car or an appliance, a forced route change on your way to work, a fender-bender. Or, something big happens--an illness, news of a divorce, a job loss, a spiritual epiphany--and this time the quaking lasts for minutes, knocks pictures off the walls and shatters dishes, cracks the street, warps foundations, the reverberations felt and suffered for miles. This is the inevitability of being human: at some point, we'll all get a shake up.

As much as I like to think myself a free spirit, I enjoy the comfortable rootedness of my life. I'm lucky enough to have a home, a family, a job, an avocation, a fairly healthy body, good friends and a great dog. My days are very much the same--something I'd always feared as a teenager and 20-something, when I thought I'd never be happy unless I was traveling the world, constantly experiencing new places and people--and, about 85 percent of the time, I'm okay with that.

There are reasons for this, not the least of which my brain is your basic constant whirlwind, like many writers', I'd guess. It's turbulent, messy, able-to-leap-to-anxiety-ridden-empathy-with-a-single-bound, and at times borderline unstable. The word maelstrom gets overused, but that's what my mind is (and my husband can attest to this). The word is from the early Dutch, its roots are Scandinavian, and since these folks gave us berserk and the Vikings, I think they know a bit about  insanity.

Here's the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary definition:

maelstrom
        1. A great whirlpool, orig. one in the Artic Ocean off the west coast of Norway, formerly supposed to suck in and destroy all vessels within a long radius.
        2. A state of turbulence or confusion.

     

I've convinced that, over the years, I've kept my wild mind in check with reading and writing--solitary, focused acts that so engage me that the outside world melts away, and I'm just left with the page. And so routine and tradition can be comforting to me, instead of dulling. This always surprises me about myself.

What I'm trying to figure out is how, in the midst of a shake-up--whether it's the possibility of a move, my daughter suddenly deciding she won't nap on a day I desperately need it, or a critic hating my writing--I can calm the maelstrom of my mind, yoke that erratic, fearful energy and make it work for me. The last thing I want to happen is for my inspiration (and sanity) to be destroyed like the monster Charybdis in the Greek myth, who sucked in ships off the coast of Sicily. This is a possibility. My ship could be easily sucked.

So far, I've only found two answers:

1.) Be in the woods and alone (okay, so I'm not really alone because I'm always with my dog, Scout, but still). Whether it's twenty minutes or an hour and twenty minutes, being in the woods--anywhere outside and natural, really--soothes my mania. Tames the mercurial beast that lurks deep within my DNA. When it's just me, Scout, the trees, the creek, the thin winter light on the birches, the mud, my heart is free. I can't explain it. Call it time with God, sacred silence, whatever you want--it's a gift.

2.) Wake up early. This one's a toughie for me, because my husband likes to stay up late, and at times I get sucked into (see, the maelstrom again) staying up late with him. Also: there's always the chance that my morning footsteps on our old hardwood floors--and Scout waking and stretching when she sees me, her toenails clicking on the floor, and the creaky, clanky process of starting the coffee maker--will wake my toddler, early, and if it does, well, then... there's just no point. But, when I do set that alarm an hour earlier, when the house and the world are still completely dark and there is something akin to silence in my world, there's a magic there. A dawning.

Speaking of which, that's another word rooted in the Scandinavian:

dawning
       1. The beginning of daylight; daybreak, dawn; the east.
       2. The first gleam, the appearance, the beginning (of something).

So morning is always, for me, a beginning, especially when it comes to my storytelling process. Anything can happen. "Dawn," the Oxford English Dictionary again tells us, means "of the morning, the day, etc: begin to grow light."

I recently read Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James, and afterwards stayed up late to rewatch the Joe Wright (director)/Deborah Moggach (screenwriter) film version of Pride and Prejudice. The Keira Knightley one. (Which I think is a fabulous interpretation of the Austen, by the way.) One of the most gorgeous scenes in the film--and there are several--is of Elizabeth taking a dawn walk, like she always does when she needs to think, and, pausing in the between-light, she sees Darcy walking toward her, his coat tails billowing and his stride long and sure through the English heath. It's utterly romantic. And it's absolutely the beginning of something--something wonderful and promising and unknown. Something, to be sure, Austen fans have dreamt on over the almost 200 years since she wrote the novel.

I'm convinced: Mornings are magical. Beginnings are good, even when they shake us up a bit. There is, inevitably, a morning after a quake. Daybreak promises nothing but whatever we make of it, however we choose to respond to the actions of the day before--nothing but a beginning.

Which is quite alot.

Blurbs and Quotes for a First Novel: Or, It's Not All Greek To Me

I'd thought, after my novel was sold and the fairy dust cleared and settled, that the process of finding authors to read my work and offer a blurb or quote I could use to promote the work would be a bit like attempting to get into a sorority.

I don't know how it's done elsewhere, but in the South when a sweet girl goes off to the big university and decides (or others decide for her) that she'd like to be in a sorority, friends of the family who are alums will often write letters for said girl. They send them to the powers-that-be in that sorority, encouraging the powers to take a good, hard look at the girl: that she'd be perfect for their group. (I always imagined perky 21 year-old college seniors sitting around a pink office with Greek letters embroidered on everything--the stationary, the backs of chairs, cross-stitched and hung in pink frames on the walls. But that's not fair, because really, those girls could easily be sitting in a pub having beers, a stack of letters on the table before them.) The point is: I thought it'd be harder than it really is.

The fact is, authors have to work more diligently than ever to promote their own work. The times they are a changin'. So while I've utilized my literary agent and my editor when seeking those quotes and blurbs, I'm doing the bulk of it myself. And what I've found is that most writers are incredibly generous, willing to take the time to help out a first-timer in need. That's not only awesome, it's a relief.

I haven't followed any format. I simply made a list of my favorite authors, whether or not I thought I'd have a chance of getting a quote or blurb from them. I concentrate on (but don't limit myself to) historical fiction authors, because that's the genre of my novel. And then I do my research--entirely online as it turns out--learning the best ways to contact them. Some are easier to reach than others: they've got direct email addresses on their websites. Others insist you go through their literary agents or publishers, and yet others have online forms you can fill out (these concern me the most, for some wierd reason... because I wonder where that information is actually ending up). I also look into their places of business, especially those who also teach for a living, and find email addresses that way.

When writing to these folks, I write from my heart. I give the necessary information--my name, my novel title, my writing background, my publisher/editor's info, the publication date, etc--but I also let them know how much I admire their work. That is, of course, the reason I choose them: I love their stuff. I'm not afraid to admit that I fawn (and yes, it is fawning when you're openly praising a writer whose work you've loved for years), and I'm honest about it. Email is tough: so much meaning can be misconstrued. It's important to be straight-forward. Be yourself. This is my theory.

Authors who offer direct email addresses, I've found, respond the quickest. And they'll tell you, right away and often with regret, that they simply don't have the time to devote to reading your novel. Others will write back immediately, surprising you, and agree. They give a mailing address, I pop a Special Format Review copy of my novel in a big, manilla envelope with a handwritten "thank you" note (because, good Lord am I thankful!), and off it goes.

The worst case scenario is that the author just doesn't respond. But persistence (in every aspect of life, whether you're learning to cook creamy grits, garden successfully, or trying to potty train your dog or your daughter) is key. I'd attempted to contact one of my favorite best-selling historical novelists in every way I could find--via her online form, through Goodreads, through Facebook, through her publisher--but hadn't had any luck. I decided I'd send her one more quick, private Facebook message, and that would be it. By the next day she'd sent me a direct email, apologizing for taking so long at getting back to me, and offering to read my novel. She was honest: She couldn't promise a blurb, but she'd read it.

And that's all any first-time author can ask for. It's a review copy, so it hasn't been edited yet. More than that, I know that my novel won't be every person's "cup of tea." And that's okay.

So far, I've had two wonderful writers read my novel and offer blurbs. One, Darci Hannah (author of The Exile of Sara Stevenson and The Angel of Blythe Hall, two novels I love) I emailed directly using an address she offers on her web site. Another, Philip Lee Williams (a prolific writer in several genres, and the author of The Flower Seeker, The Campfire Boys, etc) I met through a fan letter, me to him. I'd read an essay he'd written about the place where my novel is set, and the essay affected me so deeply I just had to write him. We began a correspondence, and I asked if he'd read my novel. Both of these authors not only agreed, they were gracious, generous, and kind, and I'll be forever thankful for their praise.

I've got other authors currently reading my novel, and it's difficult not to worry on that: to hope like all heck they'll like the story I tried to tell. Some of them will, and some of them won't.

But I'm finding, more and more, that writers are--overwhelmingly--an interesting, generous, quirky, wonderful bunch. When you're a writer, your daily life can be quite solitary. You sit at your desk, staring at a computer screen (or a legal pad, if you're old-school), and you invoke the mystery. You pray for it to visit its magic upon you. You work by yourself, because no one can do it but you. It's easy to forget that you're part of a community--that you can be, if you want to be. You've just got to reach out.

I'm big on tribes. My tribe of friends, especially, is comprised of the coolest cats I know. But it's nice to know that I may just be joining another tribe soon, a tribe of authors I already admire. And as long as the hazing doesn't include zit cream, funneling really bad beer, or eating mystery food while blindfolded, I am all in.

Back in the Saddle

First residency at the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program completed: Check.

Back home and procrastinating like the champion pro-cras-ti-NAY-TOR that I am: Check check.

It's 3:06 in the afternoon, and I'm still wearing my pajamas. Granted, they're whimsical, black and white, Fair Isle-patterned, Victoria Secret long underwear pajamas, but it's after 8 a.m., and I'm still wearin' 'em. The gas logs are blazing, my black lab is snoring on her Christmas-present new dog bed, and my toddler is napping. Finally.

It's not that I've been lazing about, as my husband likes to say, "eating Bon Bons." (What ARE Bon Bons, by the way? They sound like something French and dirty.) So far today, I've fed my dog and child, helped my husband find his wallet, made up a grading calendar and graded assignments for an online writing class I'm teaching, checked both of my work email accounts, washed several loads of laundry, finished a novel assigned by my faculty advisor at Vermont College, and prepped and started a big, fat crockpot of turkey chili for tonight's supper. Yet, I'm still in my pajamas. If Publisher's Clearing House arrives at the door--like I'm sure they will since I've been filling out those daggum envelopes for years--I will be That Woman. You know, the one in her housecoat with the greasy hair, covering her face and shouting, "Oh, law, I can't believe I'm on T.V. like this!" Of course, I'll be in my cute Fair Isle pajamas.

This is all to say that in spite of each of the aforementioned tasks being important, I'm still procrastinating. Here's why:

I arrived home from Montpelier, Vermont and VCFA on Sunday, January 8, exhausted from travel and desperately happy to see my family. At the airport in Greenville, South Carolina, where I last landed, my two year-old towhead of a daughter broke from her father and sprinted through a crowd of people heading toward baggage claim, and leapt into my arms. My God--what a life! Two days after returning home, two of our best friends in the world and their twin 16 month-olds arrived at our tiny house in the mountains, and we had a wonderful few days together, eating and drinking and chasing kiddos and laughing with more friends. Then, my parents came to visit for the day before leaving on one of their many jaunts about the globe (they've been burning up the mountain highway to our house for, oh, the past 2 1/2 years). Then my husband and I poohed out a bit over the weekend. Sure, we went grocery shopping and cleaned up and played with our daughter and hiked with friends and I began cleaning my Jabba the Hut of a desk, but we poohed out.

Which brings us to today. I gave myself last week, as a gift, to regroup after the residency and to enjoy time with friends. But now it's time for the heavy lifting. For the work on the many, many pages of creative and critical writing I'm to mail to my advisor in three weeks. But I find myself, home again, willing to do anything else that needs doing in my house, other than write. Because writing is hard. And I'm a big, stinkin' mess of procrastination. The Pro-Crass-ti-nay-TOR: able to avoid the-thing-she-loves-doing-most in a single bound. More on this at a later date. (See: I'm sneaky.)



The residency itself was a good one, my first with Vermont College. The campus was snow-covered and lovely, the lectures for the most part interesting and helpful--some downright inspiring. The new friends, especially, a joy. Writers are a ridiculous, wonderful, ego-centric, odd, irreverent bunch, and it's always nice to be in the company of my people. Even the dorm room I stayed in--though some may disagree--wasn't so bad. Though I did feel, upon entering, a swift urge to paper the walls with Matthew McConaughey posters and blast the Dave Matthews Band. And order pizza at 3 a.m. And wear flip-flops. And go to breakfast wearing the same clothes I'd worn the night before. But I digress.

See, the dorm:

Not so bad, right? Bigger than my freshman year dorm room at Clemson. (On a side note, I slept like a rock in Vermont, woke each day bright-eyed at 6:30 a.m. Wierd.)

And the campus, small and lovely:

And Montpelier, the state capitol, only a ten minute's walk down the hill from the College. I spent quite a bit of time there with new friends and alone, dining and shopping and wandering:

Around the State House...

 

across foot bridges...

 

at the oft-frequented Postive Pie 2, our unofficial residency hangout, with new writer-friends Rachel and Kim ...

through the streets of town...

wandering neighborhoods, admiring the old Victorian homes and added-upon cottages... watching the Winooski River slowly freeze at its edges, despite the unseasonably warm weather...

hiking in icy Hubbard Park, with my new friend, writer Amy Wallen...

climbing the old tower there...

utilizing the Port-o-Potty (cutest I've ever seen... and yes, I've seen a few Port-o-Potties)...

It was heaven, that time in the woods. Even though I slipped on the ice and thought I fractured my elbow. But I digress.

So now I'm home, trying like all heck to organize my life, my work, my writing, my schooling, my family into one neat, color-coordinated schedule. I'm trying to figure out how I can do it all, and do it well.

I may give myself one more week....

Repeat the Sounding Joy

Usually, I become a deep thinker at Christmas time. A ponderer. A sponge for the lovely, bittersweet, joyous and sometimes maudlin emotions winging out from most December souls. I can't help it: I'm a born empathizer. But at times, I even annoy myself.

This December, the season has been especially busy. I realize that I alone am not suffering under the hectic pace of the holidays, but for some reason I'm feeling it this year a bit more than usual. I've been trying to kick the feeling, and it's beginning to budge.

Last night, after my husband had returned from work and taken over toddler duty, I made a trip out for last-minute teacher gifts and groceries. My town was fairly empty, and the white lights lacing the trees on Main Street, the huge Christmas tree at the courthouse, the snowflakes on the power poles, they all glowed, dripping with rain. The grocery store was fairly calm, and I moved beneath the florescent lights from aisle to aisle in a bit of an exhausted trance. I didn't see anyone I knew, and this was a bit of a gift. It was nice to be alone.

On my way home, I couldn't help but drive slowly down my street, looking at the lights. Candles lit the windows of so many houses, and it seemed like even the most humble of apartment-dwellers had given in to the season, stringing a lone strand of fat colored bulbs up one railing. It made me smile. The glowing Santa statuette on my neighbor's lawn, these lights, my own, seemed suddenly a small reach for joy.

Yesterday before the evening store run, I'd put my toddler down for a nap like I always do, and had collapsed on the couch, quite literally unable to keep my eyes open. My limbs felt heavy, and welcoming blackness engulfed me. I may not have emerged for hours later, save for the incessent ringing of my cell phone and my daughter's wails over the monitor. I woke groggy, still caught by sleep, and stumbled to her room. It had been as if my body and my brain shook on it, and decided to take me by force.

My husband insists that this was my stress--work, home, motherhood, impending trip, Christmas business--having its way with me. He may be right, but it still feels strange. Stress? I have a great family, a home, an avocation, my health, and a Christmas tree. What do I truly have to be stressed about?

I think I just needed a nap. This is odd for me, as I'm a pretty peppy person. But I believe if I lie down, even now, I might sleep until Spring.

So, no nap. A shift, refocus. On Christmas--that most mysterious time, that awakening. Here's my recipe, if you will, for a return to Christmas cheer. (I cannot guaruntee this will work for you, should you be filled with Christmas ennui... but it does for me):

1. Throw off plans. If you need to order out for supper, do it. Ask for the Christmas burrito.

2. Sit in front of the fireplace until your back burns.

3. Read Christmas stories, to your kid(s), your significant other, your friends, heck--even the dog. I suggest Van Allsburg's The Polar Express. It doesn't get more magical than train of children chugging through a snow-filled forest, wolves pacing beneath the Christmas moon.

4. Eavesdrop at a small-town post office. Standing in line earlier this week I heard lovely Christmas greetings between friends old and new. There's nothing like a big, fat smile on a wrinkled face. Pure magic.

5. Watch Christmas movies, lots of them, whenever you can. Even if it's after midnight. I suggest: White Christmas, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, The Family Stone, Love Actually, and, of course, It's a Wonderful Life. Forgo any sarcastic thought, any lingering of cheese. It's Christmas.

6. Step outside. Breathe deeply. Consider the sky: starry or dark, it's the same sky looked upon by the ancients, the holy, the sinner and the saint. It is full of Mystery. And that's okay.

Wishing all of you joy in this season of Light,

K

Happy Holidays! Or, As We Say in Russia, Весёлого Рождества!

This was a major toddler morning.

For those of you who have kids, you'll know what I mean. For those of you who don't, simply picture a ten-car pile-up on the freeway, stir in a little background whining, some nuclear bombs exploding in the near distance, ten car alarms going off at once--and no one turning them off, and getting smacked in the face by an indignant little person. There, can you see it?

This was my morning. We were thirty-five minutes late to preschool, and I missed my twice-weekly hike in the national forest with my dog: a time I treasure, one I look forward to for days for the rich smell of the winter earth and the life-affirming cold of the air near the river, for the silence and the sight of my dog bounding up the trail ahead of me, for the thinking time. Instead, I barely managed to brush my teeth, throw on my bra and a fleece coat (I still wore the fleece pants I slept in), slap a toboggan on my head and tuck my daughter under my arm like Heisman, and make it to the school.

This was after the Mexican stand-off over the yogurt. It wasn't blueberry, and so really, it had it coming. The banana, bless its heart, became a giant crayon which my dear child used to smoosh into the coffee table, to "draw" with.  It was World War III over the coat, the right cup, the treatment of the dog. I said "gentle hands" and other inanities so many times I think I'll change my name to Rainman.

I have a pint-sized problem.

She's my little Czarina. My precious little despot. A two year-old schizophrenic with dimples and a killer left-hook. Here's her photo. (See how tall she is? She did NOT get this from me. That, and the tyranny she gets from her father. The big mouth may be my fault.)

Do not be fooled by the blonde hair and the dimples. She's a tyrant, I tell you. A gorgeous little centuries-old Russian despot. The other day, the despot came with me to the post office, and the postmistress gave her a few Priority Mail stickers to keep her happy. I stuck them on her chest and told her I was shipping her to Siberia. Or maybe her grandparents'.

Learning how to be a mother, a wife, a college teacher, and a writer--not to mention a functioning friend, family member and a generally good person at Christmastime--has been tricky. I'm about to add graduate student to this mix, and I've really avoided thinking much about it. I'm not sure if this is wise, but it's the way I'm going about it. That is, until Dec. 28th, when I fly to Vermont for my first ten-day residency in the MFA in Writing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. A stack of manuscript pages for my first VCFA workshop (which I'm seriously excited about reading) I've had to put at the bottom of the pile of to-be-graded English final exams and essays on my desk, simply to keep them out of sight. Because, I lack self-control when it comes to reading. Last night, I almost lost my just arrived copy of Diana Gabaldon's The Scottish Prisoner to the lukewarm depths of my bath. Because I fell asleep there. (Not because of the novel--it's fantastic. Because I. am. officially. an. old. person.)

I'm not sure how some writers do it. There's this famous anecdote about best-selling romance novelist Nora Roberts, and how she wrote her first novels at the breakfast table while her boys were eating cereal. I am not Nora Roberts. (Sigh.) In my life, I think the cereal could become airborn. A spoon makes a good catapult... I'm sure my little pumpkin pie would figure that out pretty quickly. She's sly. Maybe she's not Russian. Hidden beneath that exterior of sweetness is the soul of a secret agent. Maybe she's Mossad.

I swear I'm doing almost everything I can to spread Christmas joy. To be enveloped by the magic of the season, a magic I have so genuinely believed in since childhood. Our house is lit with white lights, candles in the windows; our tree is small but hardy, full of glowing bubble lights and beloved ornaments, our stockings hung by the chimney with care, our manger scene placed just out of the sweet little puddin' pie tyrant's reach. Heck, there's even a Santa hat on the rocking horse. We dig Christmas in this family, let me tell you.

See, here we are, enjoying Christmas. Look how calm the despot is. Can you see that blue hundred-yard stare? I think she's just biding her time.

Perhaps I can make a deal with that sweet little schizophrenic Czarina: give me back my precious toddler of yore, and you may return at 16. We'll even let you obscond with the peasants. But despots don't make deals, do they? I think I remember this from World History. They lop off heads. Or utilize efficient firing squads. So maybe I'll lay low, hide behind the dog, play "Frosty the Snowman" on the DVD player as many times as I possibly can, at least until my husband gets home. Until then, writing anything except for this blog post may have to be put on the back-burner, sad as it makes me.

Because a girl's got to make it through the day, нет?

Special Review Copies of Keowee Valley are Here!

A big, beautiful, brown box arrived at my door recently, bearing within it the Special Format Review Copies of my forthcoming historical novel, Keowee Valley. Since my two year-old was napping, I hefted the box in my arms, tip-toed across the hardwood floors of our 1940s house--trying not to trip over the 88 lb black lab at my heels--whipped a knife out of the chopping block, and went to town. I'd like to say that I slit open that box with the elegant precision of a heart surgeon, but since this is a moment I've been dreaming about since I was about 12 years old, I abandoned the knife halfway through and ripped, packing tape be damned.

I have to admit, it's a bit disconcerting to see your own face and name (in my case, three of them) on the covers of an 8 x 10 copy of a manuscript that you know, in less than a year, will be a book. I set the box beside my desk, which currently resembles a Jabba the Hut of exploding English essays, and stared at it. I gave it a wide berth on my way to other rooms. I eyed it warily, as if it'd pounce. And then I got to work.

Finding the right people--authors, industry experts, etc--to review your  novel and to perhaps provide a blurb or quote (or, God willing, praise) for it, is an interesting process, one into which I'm delving for the first time. A while back, after I'd finished the novel and found my literary agent, I did some big dreaming, forming a wish-list of authors for the job. Now that my novel has a home with Bell Bridge Books, and I've got those big, beautiful review copies in hand, that list has become a very real starting point--and a bit intimidating. Trying to convince experienced authors (some pretty darn famous) to take a chance on a debut novel and its fledgling writer is a much tougher process than you'd think.

So, I've reached out via whatever method I've found--email, Facebook, home addresses, agent addresses--with a letter of introduction and an earnest, honest request. I know that I'll be refused by most--they have, after all, their own novels and jobs and families tugging at their time--but maybe, just maybe, one of them will remember what it was like to be in my shoes, and give me a chance. It'll be interesting to see who does.

One very welcoming group I've discovered: bloggers. I've already had some great blogger/book reviewers request to read the novel and review it, and I'm hoping to discover plenty more. I just adore folks who love books, and love talking about books: they are my people.

My publisher will be sending out review copies to pertinent reviewers as well, but I'm all about being an active participant in the process. I think it's an adventure. And as anyone who knows me can tell you, I'm a sucker for a good adventure.

Stay tuned!

And, just because it makes me grin like a giddy kid, here's another photo of the Special Format Review copy of Keowee Valley: