Returning to Montpelier and VCFA

Our bed. In packing mode.

This is the state of my bedroom. For my Mom, this will probably bring flashbacks (or, as I like to call them, fond memories) of the state of my teenaged bedroom.

But no: this is my bed, now, as I pack for 11 days in Montpelier, Vermont, at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. I fly out Wednesday morning for my second residency, and thus the beginning of my second semester in the MFA in Writing program.

I'm looking forward to it: 10 days of lectures, readings, workshop, and just being around writerly people. I'll get a new advisor for this new semester, and I'm curious about whom it'll be. And as much as I'm a wee bit sad (and a bit anxious) about leaving my family for that long--namely my two year-old--I'm looking forward to 10 days of just thinking about myself.

Sounds supremely selfish. But it's true. Only having to worry about me, about where I need to be and what I need to do, will be heaven. It also doesn't hurt that I'm renting a house in Montpelier with friends I'd made over the last residency. I'm envisioning wine on the front porch, exchanging of book lists, lots of talk (okay, gossip).  

My first semester as an MFA in Writing student was an interesting one. It flew by, and I never truly felt like I'd a minute to slow down. Truthfully, it was a balance act--teacher/mother/wife/writer/student--with a landing I'm afraid I didn't quite stick. I'm hoping that this coming semester will be a bit more manageable, if only because I've done it before.

Running the gauntlet
(Photo credit; en.wikipedia.org)

Even as I write that--be a bit more manageable--I cringe. Because I know that won't be true. Happily, my novel comes out September 15th, which is obviously a dream quite literally coming true. But with it comes several months of promotions, some travel, and quite a bit of work. I'm also teaching classes. And, oh yeah, back being a grad student. Trying to coordinate these roles alongside navigating family life at times feels like running the gauntlet.

You know the gauntlet, right? It can be as fierce as the picture to the right--all medieval and brutal and sharp--or as ridiculous as one of those Japanese reality shows where the contestants are knocked by enormous rubber waterwheels into foaming florescent water. My life seems more like the latter--really, really funny at times. With an ouch.

It's been an exceptionally busy few weeks. Good weeks, but crazy ones. My daughter is out of school. My husband took a new job that has him traveling and working from home. (More on the two-people-in-the-house-working-from-home hootenanny in a later post.) We celebrated his birthday and our 8th anniversary with our first date in months, which was wonderful. We went to an early movie and dinner in Asheville, N.C.

My husband and me, celebrating our 8th anniversary

(The movie, Snow White and the Huntsman, which I thought I'd be ambivalent about but which I really, really enjoyed. Charlize Theron is fantastic as the evil queen, Chris Hemsworth brings surprising dimension and even tenderness to the Hunstman, and Kristin Stewart makes a darn good bad-ass. Plus, the abundance of Golden Globe, Emmy and Oscar-winning actors is a win: Ian McShane, Theron, and more.)

I've yet to figure out how to successfully navigate life as a fully-functioning (read successful) workingwritingMomwifefriend. I've read dozens of books and blogs on the subject, hoping that one would hold the magic key. Most say the same thing: get organized, schedule, enlist help, make time for yourself.  

Time for yourself. Bah ha ha ha ha.

Kidding, kidding. It is possible. It can be done. Just maybe not this week....



* I may post while at VCFA, I may not. I hope you all have a wonderful end of June!

Reclaiming Summer

Rhododendron in Pisgah National Forest
(Credit: myspace.com)

The rhododendron are blooming in the Pisgah National Forest. Milky white with pink centers, in fanning green bushes tall as trees. On my favorite trail they grow like a great tunnel, canopying above. Running beneath them yesterday, the smell was like the forest exhaling summer.

It was only my second trail run since I'd sprained my ankle pretty terribly last month. If you're a runner, or even a part-time runner, you know what the first run back after a break is like: it's wonderful. Truly, you feel like a rock star, like you could run for days.

And then there's the second run. This was yesterday for me, running on very sore legs and a grumpy ankle encased in an Ace brace, my eyes scanning the trail ahead for unruly roots or rocks. My dog (an extremely athletic, almost 9 year-old black lab) bounded ahead, pausing only to drink from creeks or to look back at me as if to say, "What's up with you? We're in the forest, don't you get it?"

Then there was the rhododendron. And soon I was looking up, breathing in. Sure, I felt every jar in my ankle, blinked back sweat from my eyes, readjusted my sloshing Camelback. But when my dog shoots me one of those looks, one of those looks that says, Come on, you ridiculous human, this is the LIFE, it's imperative that I listen.

At the end of my last post I mentioned seizing the summer, trying to recapture the essence of what made this season so spectacular when we were kids. But it's hard, isn't it? Our lives are insanely busy, complicated, and the days pass so quickly that looking at a calendar is a recipe for whiplash. But if we don't do it--don't slow down, don't take a moment to just be--then the moment is lost, and we never get it back.

It's time to reclaim summer.

Here are three items from my personal "to do" list--things I hope will help me take back summer from the oppressive heat, the jam-packed schedule, the blood-thirsty mosquitoes in my backyard:

My daughter, 2 years old, baking a birthday cake for her daddy yesterday.

1. Enjoy time with my daughter. Really enjoy it. Take her for walks in the woods, for creek adventures and ice cream. Show her how to catch lightning bugs. Listen to what she has to say.

2. Read as many books as is humanly possible. Even if it keeps me up late at night. Even if I look a decade older in the morning. Read anything I want--magazines, books from the bestseller list, biographies, beach reads. Be brave enough to put a book down if I don't fall in love with it. (As an English professor, I have a hard time with this.) But summer is far too fleeting to trudge through a book you don't like.

So far, my reading list this summer has included Jeffrey Eugenides's The Marriage Plot, Melissa de la Cruz's Witches of East End, Patricia Hampl's The Florist's Daughter, Adriana Trigiani's The Shoemaker's Wife, and various issues of Garden & Gun, Southern Living, Poets & Writers, Parenting Magazine, and a little book a dear friend gave me that we keep in the bathroom, called Very Nice Ways to Say Very Bad Things.

3. Breathe. I mean it. Really breathe, deeply and cleanly, inhaling the light (the smell of rhododendron in full bloom, wafting scents from restaurants I pass on my walks around town, my daughter's giggles, my husband's clean shirts, the sweet early morning mist) and exhaling the dark (too little sleep, a calendar that would make the most "together" woman I know weep, short tempers, a cluttered house).

After all, it is summertime. And the intrinsic magic of summer never really fades, no matter how old we get.

So what's on your reading list? (I need ideas!) What do you plan to do to enjoy summer?

The Bad Boys of (My) Summer

The DVR is a beautiful thing.

Recently we aquired its magic, after about a year of hearing friends sing its praises. The other night I DVRed (I still want to say "taped") the newest film version of Jane Eyre, the one starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender.

Photo credit: http://movies.nytimes.com

I'd read Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre for the first time in middle school, and finished the book torn between a new obsession with the wild English moors, and an odd attraction to Rochester. I couldn't decide if I abhored him, arrogant, dark man that he was, or if I was wild about him, as Jane was. And at 13, this put me in a state for weeks. So much so that I hadn't returned to the story for years, until last night, when I watched the movie for the first time.

Photo credit: www.movies.about.com

Suffice to say, I went to bed dreaming of dark, dank, low-slung two-hundred year-old English hallways, and Michael Fassbender laying there in the dark, with a candle.

Which got me thinking (and this can be dangerous): What is it about those "bad" boys? Why do we love them--or, more accurately, obsess over them, in spite of their obvious faults?

I don't ascribe to the antiquated psychology that says that women think they can "tame" or "change" or "heal" a dangerous man. I've thought that was a load of crap since I read my first Harlequin at age 12. I think it's much more complicated (and at the same time more shallow) than that.

I think we like the "bad" boys because they're hot.
I think we like them because they're different, because they draw us out of the sometimes monotonous "ordinary."
I think we like the mystery.
I think when we're young and stupid (and stupid with hormones), we see their mystery as a challenge, and we draw for them a much deeper well than they truly possess.
I think we long for the illusion of the passion they seem to emanate, not realizing (at least until we're about 30) that it is an illusion, a fire certainly flaming at the moment but so easily extinguished.
Again, they're hot.

This post could erupt and grow into a psychological argument, but I won't go there because most folks don't read blogs for that sort of thing. Instead, I give you my personal list of "bad" boys. These are gentleman I've been obsessed with (in a very teenage, I'm-writing-awful-love-poems-about-you sort of way), and there's no real explanation for some of them.

Really.

1.) Rochester from Jane Eyre. (Now, namely Michael Fassbender playing Rochester.)

Photo credit: www.poptower.com

He's brooding. He's mysterious. He plays a game of cat-and-mouse with Jane that crosses the line into cruel. There's no explaining it. Oh, and he can ride a horse. In breeches.

2.) Sam Elliot. Sam Elliot playing anyone, but especially a cowboy. 

Photo credit: www.lawenforcer.com

I have a thing for older men, obviously. Can't help it. Yes, even with a handlebar mustache. Even long-haired and sweaty, in Road House. And yes, I do have a Master's degree in English.

Mmm mm. Love me some Sam Elliott.

3.) Mercutio, from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet."

From the 1996 film
(photo credit: www.the-mousetrap.net)

I realize that there's a bit of a jump from Road House to Shakespeare, but bear with me. I've had a thing for Mercutio since 9th grade honors English class, when I memorized the Queen Mab speech for a project. He's a true friend, smart, witty, wily and cool. I have a feeling he was hot, too. Even in tights.

4.) Eric Northman from Charlaine Harris's bestselling Sookie Stackhouse novels. (Okay, Alexander Skarsgard playing Eric Northman.)

Photo credit: www.tvfanatic.com

So he's a 1,000 year-old Viking vampire with no regard to human life or suffering. He's big, he's badass, and he doesn't care who knows it. (I do miss the long-haired Eric.)

5.) Mel Gibson as William Wallace in Braveheart.

Photo credit: www.free-extras.com

I saw this movie in high school in the theatre with two big, tough guys who are practically my brothers. We all cried at the end. And I know Mel has since lost his marbles. Despite this, my love for him as Wallace will never die. The craggy face. The scraggly hair. The courage. The kilt.

Sigh.

6.) Doc Holliday. Doc Holliday in the Wyatt Earp dime novels. Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in Tombstone.

Photo from MySpace.com

 Scrawny, pale, and consumptive... it doesn't matter. He's funny, charming, with a Southern accent that could melt butter. And he's a card shark who can shoot. Plus, there's the loyalty to Wyatt. You can't underestimate loyalty.

Tombstone's also got Sam Elliott. In a black trench coat. With a gun. And the mustache. Yowza.

7.) Uncas. From any version of James Fenimore Cooper's The Leatherstocking Tales: the novel itself, Sara Donati's version Into the Wilderness, and the movie The Last of the Mohicans.

Eric Schweig as Uncas
Photo credit: www.mohicanpress.com

Uncas is brave, strong, handy with a weapon, and oh-so mysterious. In The Last of the Mohicans, he's willing to fight hand-to-hand on a cliff to save a young woman that he may love. All I have to do is hear any song from this movie, and it gives me the chills. Still, after all these years.

It doesn't hurt that Eric Schweig is gorgeous. He set me on a preteen obsession with Native Americans that I've yet to shake.

8.) Paul Newman. In any movie, really, but especially as Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Photo credit: www.slowtrav.com

Some may vote for Redford in this film, but for me it's always been Newman. The blue eyes, the big heart, the cocksure grin, the wily plan to rob a bunch of banks. Love him.

9.) Toby Ziegler on The West Wing. Okay, Richard Schiff as Toby Ziegler on The West Wing.

Photo credit: tvguide.com

Sure, he's surly and stubborn and sometimes cold. But he's also uncompromising, idealistic, and smart as hell. And he's a great writer who loves his country more than life itself.

Again: Sigh.

10.) My own, personal, real-life list of "bad" boys. From the rock climbers/ mountain bikers/ paddlers/ Alaskan fly fishing guides/ regrettable frat boys to the 8th grade Lothario who wrote something very inappropriate in my middle school yearbook.

You all know who you are.

We had some good times. I'm glad they didn't kill me.

So, the "bad" boys. Irresistible, unstable, rakish and rascally. They're fun to dally with, fun to dream about, and certainly fun to write about. They appeal to the danger we harbor in our ordinary souls. To our wild sides.

The appeal of the "bad" boy, however, is temporary. It burns bright for a while, and being with them can exhilarate just as it hurts like hell. But men are at their best, I think, when they've shaken off the arrogance of youth and the shallowness of surface things.

As for the bad boys, they sure do make for a good story every once in a while.

So I'm interested, because I know I've missed more than a few: Who are your favorite "bad" boys of summer?

Summertime, Summertime

I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.

~ L. M. Montgomgery

Summer is here, summer is here, summer is here! For me, there is no real dilineation of the season except for the letting-out of school, the thick mist low on the bottomlands, the emergence of green corn, and the appearance of the lightening bugs. I still feel summer like a child does, like a glow low in my abdomen, spread out to the edges of my appendages, sparking at the fingertips and bare feet. It is, as it always was, a gorgeous, magic, infinite time of year, no matter how old I get or how my life changes.

This past week I abandoned the Internet for a week at my family's lakehouse in the South Carolina foothills. This, and my willful, lazy embrace of summer, are the reasons for my not writing in a while, here. I don't have a good excuse.

The lakehouse is a special place for me, with a honing beacon that pings and lights no matter how long or far away I go from it. I could fill a book with the memories made there. But this past week, I was there because my husband was out of town on business, my daughter is out of preschool, and I'd just finished the last packet of my first grad school semester--30 pages plus 20 more for my summer residency mailed off--and for the first time in several months, my reading material was my own.

I packed an extra bag full of novels, biographies, new magazines, and DVDs, certain I'd wake early and stay up late, just to soak it all in. I took my laptop, thinking I'd be so inspired by sunrise over the lake and blue mountains that I'd be up every morning long before anyone else, typing away as I used to there as a teenager, so easily inspired. 

My soon-to-be three year-old, whom I was solo-parenting for the week, obviously didn't get the memo that Mama was going to be reading. And writing. She woke every night between 3 and 5 a.m., and only took a nap on the first and last day we were there. I spent days chasing her up and down steps, pushing her on the swing her Grandaddy installed at his Tiki Bar, just for her, and funneling her away from the edge of the dock. It also rained for three days straight. At the end of the week I looked about ten years older, and not tan. So not tan.

But still, it was a good week away from my house, my desk, my work worries. Sometimes you simply have to physically remove yourself from those things to disconnect. And, I had good friends visit, time with them and their kids, time--even if only snippets of it--to talk, to share, to laugh, to simply be. And this is priceless.

Photo credit: www.runwildadventures.com

Navigating motherhood alongside being a writer (and now, again a student) has been nothing but a challenge: an obstacle course like one of those mud runs, where you get to leap over fire and scale slippery walls and climb under barbed wire. You know the ones: where you come up utterly exhausted, your clothes trashed, with muck in your mouth and in your nose but a huge grin on your face.  Yep: motherhood is like this.

Thank God I like to get muddy.

Since it is summer, and the ferns are green in the woods, the crickets sounding their thrum at night, I vow to soak it in. To breathe. To go barefoot, eat a popsicle, ride a bike, and get dirty. I may be doing all these things with an almost three year-old in tow, and on very little sleep, but they'll happen. For it is summer (my, what a word!), and it doesn't get much better than this.  

 

Novel Tag Lines & Cover Art

Credit: articlebiz.com

This has been an enormously fun and anxiety-inducing week in the world of readying a novel for publication. In the past few days I've discovered the following things:

1.) My agent and I chose the right publisher for KEOWEE VALLEY. They may be small in size, but they are mighty in generosity. In a huge publishing house an author's wishes are often lost, especially when it comes to cover art. Most of the time at houses like this, authors will not even lay eyes on the cover of their novels until they're already set in stone.

But at Bell Bridge Books--though the publisher ultimately makes the final call--the author (a.k.a me) is not only consulted on cover art, she is considered. And this is huge. I have spent the past few days in back-and-forth emails with the house's marketing director and cover designer, and most likely wore everyone down with my cover anxieties (I really don't want it to look like a romance novel, I really don't want a woman's face to show, etc, etc, etc). But they have responded with reassurance, generosity, and inspiration. And I'm so thankful.

credit: ushistoryimages.com

2.) There is virtually no good stock art out there of women in Colonial dress--or Colonial fashion in general, particularly representing the mid-18th century... at least not the kind adequately respresentative of my novel. Oh, there are heaping French dresses and shiny silk bodices and plenty of "pirate's ladies," but nothing quite suited to KEOWEE VALLEY, and to Quinn, my protagonist, who abandons a civilized Southern city and adventures into the wild Appalachian frontier. Who wouldn't have worn a ball gown into the the wilderness, but who also wouldn't have looked like a Pilgrim.

So we'll see what the creative team comes up with for KEOWEE VALLEY. There are talks of utilizing an artist, which big publishing houses often do, but for which smaller houses often lack the discretionary funds, and instead utilize stock art. No matter what, I'm (now, after the flurry of emails) confident that whatever image is chosen, it'll be a good one. And it won't be Fabio and his lady in a clutch.

Credit: romancebookcovers.com

Not that there's anything wrong with this image. It's pretty darn awesome. But it's not suited to my novel.

Whew... fanning my face and moving on....

3.) My tribe is creative, generous, kind, and unfailingly supportive. This week I enlisted their help with two things: my author photo for the back of the novel, and a tag line for the front. I posted three photos my husband had taken of me over the weekend and asked folks to choose, because doing so was making me, quite simply, lose my Cheerios. And they did--close to 70-something people responded, not only making me feel plain wonderful, but also giving truly well thought-out opinions. Putting your face on a book that (hopefully) many people will see is something I find to be terrifying. But I get by with a little help from my friends.

The tag line: I sent out an email to some creative folks I know for help with this one. A tag line is a pithy, punchy hook that appears on the front of a novel (movies use these all the time).

Some examples of catchy tag lines:

* from the cover of John Grisham's The Chamber: "Between the crime and the punishment is the truth..."
* from the cover of C. Hope Clark's Lowcountry Bribe: "A killer wants to make certain she buys the farm."

And a few from the movies:

* "The true story of a real fake" - from Catch Me if You Can
* "She brought a small town to its feet and a huge corporation to its knees" - from Erin Brockovich
* "There can be only one" - from Highlander

My tribe answered the call, even enlisting their own family members and friends to help. I gathered up their dozens of great ideas, mixed them with my own, and sent them to my publisher-s-who promptly found one they loved, tweaked it just a little, and we may have a tag line for KEOWEE VALLEY. Because of my Super Friends.

Writing a novel is often a lonely process. You forget that in a crazy world and in a highly competitive field, there are people cheering you on. And I'm finding that there's nothing more fun, especially at this point in the making of a novel, than sharing in the process.

The Author Photo

I should've titled this post, "Holy freaking moly, my photo is going to be on the back cover of a book that people are going to SEE."

To relieve my anxiety, I'm taking a poll.

Over the holiday weekend, my husband took some photographs of me at my family's lake house in South Carolina, one of which I may use as my author photo on the back cover of my novel. The setting is perfect (even though you can't see much of it), because behind me are the Blue Ridge Mountains, a landscape that's an integral part of KEOWEE VALLEY.

All the literature says that the best book cover author photos are forward-facing head shots that are in color, and that reflect the spirit of the author.

But trying to decide which photo to send to my publisher is giving me a receding hairline. And (more) wrinkles. Will y'all please help?

In the spirit of forthrightness, I'll let you know that I may not use any of your suggestions. But I probably will.

I beg you to be kind.

Please rank in order of importance (1 = like the best, 3 = like the least) the following photos. Or, heck, if you only like one, list one. Whatever works for you:


Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

I realize they all look ridiculously alike, and could use more "touching up." I swear this isn't a vanity exercise: I'm honestly anxious about the decision. So any help will help.

Big virtual hugs--and good joojoo--to all who respond.

P.S. We attempted some "serious author shots" (me not smiling), but I just looked ridiculous.

P.S.S. It wouldn't be unethical, would it, if I used a photograph of Salma Hayek instead?

Happy Readers, and the Writing of Friend



Image credit: serc.carlton.edu

Some days the sun just chooses to shine. In reality, in Western North Carolina today our weather's been cloudy and stormy. But the sun is shining in my Inbox. And for that I am thankful.

This morning I woke to two fabulous messages in my email Inbox, which I happened to catch as I was racing through the house trying to get myself and my two year-old ready to head to the Forest with a friend. I was literally skating through our living room in my river sandals, dodging Trigger (my daughter's rocking horse) and Scout (our real dog, who decided she'd be a third leg and make me feel especially guilty that I wasn't taking her with us) when a particular email address on my laptop screen caught my eye.

Here's why: Last night after I'd just finished the new release of a bestselling author I particularly admire--her novels are gorgeous and fabulous and lovely and soulful and with an awesome little Southern (as in the Southern U.S.) - Italian kick--I decided to write to this same author, asking if she'd be willing to read my novel, KEOWEE VALLEY, and if she liked it, to offer a blurb.

Well, she'd written back by this morning, not only graciously agreeing (wooohoooo!) but also congratulating me and encouraging me to "enjoy the moment." Her email was genuine and kind, and I'm still glowing from it.

Then, next to this message was another fabulous little ray of sunshine: A message from blogger Michelle Griep, a writer and reviewer who has an advance review copy of KEOWEE VALLEY. She loves the novel, she said, so much so that she mentioned it in her blog today. She'll be formally reviewing KEOWEE VALLEY for Novel Reviews when it's published late this summer.

Happiness!

Bascially, it's been a good day. Even the dog has forgiven me.

Henry David Thoreau
(photo from Wikipedia)

But before I forget, please check out my writer-friend Christine Byl's blog post at Beacon Broadside, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Christine's debut, DIRT WORK, is forthcoming from Beacon Press in 2013. If you've ever wanted to head off into the woods, or to the beach, or to anywhere, alone, to sit and examine the natural world and your place in it... heck, if you've ever wanted to simplify, Thoreau is to be thanked.

May there be more sunny days ahead for us all.