Independence Day: Maybe Too Little but Never Too Late

by Sheila Curran, author of EVERYONE SHE LOVED and DIANA LIVELY IS FALLING DOWN.

Okay, so the 4^th has come and gone and I’m still thinking about the subject of independence, which can mean so many things. There’s the patriotic kind, which I tend to celebrate more by thanking my lucky stars I get to live in this beautiful land under the rule of law, a freedom I don’t take lightly. I know how many people have risked their lives, and livelihoods to get us where we are today. I thank them. I would even gladly pay more taxes to show my gratitude. (Like 81% of the population, but that's another blog.)

The sort of independence I’m chasing lately is highly personal. It might even be deemed suspect by those arbiters of good psychological health, the imperious they who seem to operate like a Greek chorus of guardian angels in my brain. You should step outside your comfort zone, should accompany your husband on an almost free business trip to Europe, should get over your almost agoraphobic need to remain at home in order to stick with your novel.

For years I’ve abided by the conventional wisdom of so many experts. In order to become a better person, I needed, I was told, to stretch myself. Take on unfamiliar assignments with gusto, even if the five minute TV interview that went smashingly cost me three weeks of anxiety, or the upcoming book talk at my college reunion sabotaged my ability to enjoy the beach vacation immediately preceding it.

I felt that if I just kept plugging away, I could finally overcome this silliness of mine, this desire for routine and order and sameness, this risk-aversion bordering on pathological.

Decades ago, when my brother Tom was going through a bone marrow transplant, I remember calling him to recount what I thought was a funny story. I tend to make myself the butt of jokes. My anxiety is – in my family – like a quirky pet we all like to poke fun at. I’d returned from a lake visit in Wisconsin, wherein I was in a motor boat with my four-year-old son and his friends. The teenage girl who was driving suddenly offered me a chance at the wheel.

“Go, Mommy!” my son yelled.

For just one minute, I had delusions of grandeur. I grinned. I think might have I even nodded, my game face on.

The driver stood and started the hand-off requiring that I step in and take the wheel when I realized that I might very well kill us. Instead of moving over and calmly putting my hands at two and ten o’clock, I sank to my knees, grabbed the bewildered young woman’s thighs and begged her “Please don’t make me do it!”

We laughed, my brother and I then I nattered on about a speech I had to give to the foundation of the college I worked for. I was terrified. When I’d exhausted my supply of fearful commentary about the fool I would very well make of myself, Tommy paused and said, “Sheila, just drive the boat.”

My foundation talk went wonderfully. A year later, almost to the day of that phone conversation, I told the ‘Drive the boat’ story at Tommy’s funeral. Those words became code in my family for those things we feared but nevertheless knew we had to do.

Twenty years later, I’m still trying to drive the boat. The trouble is, each time I succeed in public speaking, it makes not a whit of difference in the paralyzing anxiety I experience beforehand. The only exception is when I have to do it routinely, say on book tour, and then it’s a piece of cake.

When I accepted the invitation to speak at my college reunion, it was far enough away that it didn’t seem problematic. Even in March, when I visited my father and mother and mentioned it to them, it was only a cause for congratulations and a true feeling of gratitude. (My college held a very dear place, not just in my own heart but in that of my parents too.)

The next time I visited home, my father was still alive, but not conscious. He died the next morning, surrounded by his kids. Eight weeks later we all gathered at the beach, as we have done for nearly thirty years. We cast some of his ashes into the same water we’d bodysurfed with him just two years earlier, when he was ninety.

I left that vacation with my siblings a day early to fly to Cincinnati and drive to Oxford, Ohio, a tri-partite errand during which I first had to keep the plane from crashing, then drive a car on unfamiliar turf after losing my glasses and third, deliver a speech which I’d not been able, despite many days of working on it, to get ‘right.’

The next morning happened to be my father’s birthday. I told myself I was meant to be there. I ended up “winging” the talk, something I never do, and sharing a really lovely hour with intelligent women and men I admired. I met lots of new people, sold some books and enjoyed being back in my old dorm room, walking the halls and reminiscing.

So the moral of the story should be that I came home with renewed enthusiasm to drive the boat. Not so much. Instead, while on a walk with a dear friend who is also a therapist, I said I’d been searching for the meaning in this experience, and yet no grand epiphany had as yet emerged. At that moment, though, even as I said that, the light bulb went on. I found myself saying, and really meaning it, “Maybe the point is that I really don’t have to do this anymore.”

Wow. Seriously? Could I possibly be right? I know it counters the wisdom of the Protestant Ethic and Catholic Guilt as well as my own code of constant self-improvement.

Here’s the thing. I have finally understood that life will present me with many opportunities to ‘stretch myself.” And though it’s a mighty thing to chug and chug and keep on chugging, it’s also okay to let yourself off the hook.

I remember playing tennis with my dad. He’d tell me that only for the first five minutes of the game did I need to concentrate on lessons the pro had taught. After that I should just forget it and play.

So here’s to stretching myself in a new direction, that of not caring whether I measure up to an ever-expanding ante. Here’s to playing the game as I want, letting myself off the hook, and being myself, even if it means owning my silliness. I’m planning to stay put and do what feels comfortable for a while. To paraphrase the author of LETTERS TO JACK who I heard on my beloved NPR, when asked about an accident that paralyzed him, he said that he’d never understood the meaning of happiness until he was stuck with who he was and not constantly striving. So in that spirit, I too am taking leave of my senses, or maybe finally taking note of them.

To all of you women out there pushing yourselves so hard, maybe the holiday of independence can free you from too many expectations and allow you to just be. Who knew it could be the goal of a lifetime?

Sheila Curran's next book is set in midtown Atlanta and concerns several couples facing mid-life and mid-marital crises.

Guest Post: Ellen Sussman

Leave Home and Learn

By Ellen Sussman

I’ve been a writer all my life. I write about contemporary life, about relationships and love and loss. I always push myself to go deeper as a writer, but it wasn’t until I pushed myself deeper as a person that I was able to make some real breakthroughs as a writer. How’d I manage that? I left the country.

When I was thirty-one, I moved to Paris for five years. It didn’t just change my life – it changed me. Some of those changes were small – I learned to dress better, I expanded my food horizons, I learned to love city living. Some of those changes were momentous. In my twenties I was conflicted about being an American – I had been part of the hippie culture and the anti-Vietnam war movement. In Paris, I became an American. Being a foreigner made me clear about who I was in a way that I couldn’t fathom when I was among my own kind. And I learned to see the world from a much broader perspective, instead of a small American perspective.

My writing flourished after that experience of living abroad. I felt as if I could write more deeply about my characters’ experiences – because I understood my own in a new way. My eyes were wide open – and I tried to capture that every day when I sat down to write.

When I started to write a novel that took place in Paris, I began with an idea: how could one day in Paris, one hot summer day, change the lives of three Americans? As I entered their world, I saw the ways in which a foreign culture challenged them, opened them up, and took them someplace new. I could use all my knowledge about how living abroad – or even traveling abroad – gets under our skin and makes us feel different. I’ve never had so much fun writing a novel.

FRENCH LESSONS tells the story of one American ex-pat and two American tourists. One loves Paris, one hates it, and one is seeing it for the first time. All three grow to love the city by the end of the day. But, more importantly, they all come to know themselves because they are in a new, unfamiliar world.

I still travel a great deal. I’d still like to live abroad again for some length of time. The experience of leaving home is remarkably valuable for a writer – when we leave home we begin to learn ourselves in a brand new way. And we use that knowledge to deepen our fiction.

Born to Write by Michele Young-Stone (Our Newest Girlfriend!)

Not “Born to Run”, like Bruce Springsteen, but “Born to Write”

People often ask, “When did you know that you wanted to be a writer?”

Answer: “I was Born to Write. As soon as I learned the alphabet, I was writing stories.” I’d sit alone in my dad’s smoky den, making up fairytale stories, imagining myself part of this other shinier world.

I was a fat kid with bushy hair and buckteeth. I was always apologizing and worried about what everyone else thought. I was klutzy, having trouble walking ten feet without falling down. (

I now see this same trait in my own son, but at least he can run fast. I could never do that either.)

I’m all grown up now. Hallelujah! But that little fat kid who sat alone and wrote princess stories is still a part of me. She always will be. I invent worlds, and I’m still prone to favor happy endings.

Most recently, I signed a two-book deal with Simon and Schuster, and my debut novel, The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, was chosen as a Target Book Club/Emerging Author pick for the summer.

I always “believed” that I would be published, but with every rejection (and there were thousands), I questioned my talent. The one thing that kept me going was (and is) I WAS BORN TO IT. There was something in me—for as long as I can remember—that compelled me to put stories to paper, and there was a desire and need to share those stories. “Can I read you something?” This was and still is something I say/ask on a pretty regular basis.

I’m amazed every day that I get paid to do what I love. I get to share my stories with the world. My book has an actual Library of Congress ISBN #. It totally blows my mind. I am humbled and grateful. A day never passes where I don’t think, “Wow! My dream came true.” Thanks for reading!!!!!!!

Publisher’s Weekly named The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors as one of the top ten debuts of 2010.

Young-Stone has written an exceptionally rich and sure-handed debut, full of complex characters, brilliantly described. . . . Her style certainly has an electric immediacy." The Boston Globe

Visit Michele at http://micheleyoung-stone.com

Utterly Distractable

Even as I write this--a small piece of writing unrelated to my novels--my daughter stands beside me explaining patiently that, "I stepped on Ellias' starfish and he hit me. Is that the baby crying? Can I go get him?" before she breaks into song about something "rubbery-with-bumps." (By the way, that's my baby in the laundry basket.)

So, "writing season" a la Allende, NO WAY! I'm fortunate to find a writing minute in which to gather my disparate thoughts and try to build something.

Being a full-time stay-at-home mother and a novelist, while seemingly compatible from the outside--after all, you do both things at home, and as we all know, writing can be squeezed into you spare time, has no overhead, and can be done while half-asleep and nursing--from the inside it demands some creative scheduling. I feel blessed to straddle both world, as well as confused by the mental gymnastics that are required in order to do both things well.

In truth, as far as my process goes, I rarely am able to write for any uninterrupted period of time, even when I have a babysitter in the house (which I do right now). I've been gladly and happily nursing one of my three babies for the past five years pretty much non-stop, so that even during the writing of my first novel when my house was quiet and I didn't have to pay my babysitter three times what I make in order to watch a whole gaggle of children, I stopped to nurse my son. Even now, sometimes, I stop writing to go watch my children playing. They always play so perfectly when I'm not around!

I would not recommend the distracted method of writing. On the other hand, as I've said to other writers aspiring to publish and produce, don't wait until you have time to write. If you want to write, do it now, however you can do it, in whatever way. I believe in this advice for all activities, and I cringe to hear friends say things like, "I'll do that when I've paid off the mortgage," or "I'll start that when I have enough money."

Yes, I am a carpe diem writer. Being distracted, being pulled by my children's needs probably makes me a lesser writer. In fact, I'm sure I could come up with a hundred more active verbs than "was" if I didn't have little hands pawing at me. But I want them and love them and wouldn't have it any other. If I had a zillion dollars, I wouldn't hire a nanny and spend all day writing the great American novel. There's a great saying in the world of religion and spirituality (of which I am also a part as an ordained minister), that the best sermons are not preached but lived. The same could (maybe) be said of novel writing. Our best stories aren't written but lived day to day. Our lives are much better books than our books. Or so it is for me, anyhow, and so I want it to be.

And so I encourage the distracted among us to write anyway, and any way you can, for its own sake, and to see what might happen. Some writers write to live. Some writers live to write. And some of us write while we live and live while we write and that may mean a little pureed sweet potato gets a free trip to Random House on the cover of a manuscript and that's okay. I'm a work in progress myself.

Samantha Wilde is the mother of three, 4, 3 and nine months, the author of This Little Mommy Stayed Home, a graduate of Smith College, Yale Divinity School, and The New Seminary, a certified Kripalu yoga teacher, an ordained Interfaith Minister, and the Director of Mission at Spring Street Preschool in Amherst, MA. You can visit her website at samanthawilde.com.

Free Advice

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

I'm going to veer from the current monthly topic of Process here at GBC to talk about something else that's been on my mind tonight.

On a writing forum I participate in, a relatively new member posted today about some of the writing/publishing advice she'd been receiving from nonwriting friends. The writer was upset because she felt the advice was misinformed and misguided. "Why don't you just self-publish your manuscript as an ebook?" people kept telling her. "That's where all the money is these days!" I'm not going to weigh in on that, on the self-published ebook v traditional publishing debate - at least not in this post! - but I will weigh in about the advisability of getting upset about stuff like this.

Cliff Notes version of my advice? Don't do it!

Longer version: There are so many things a writer can and sometimes should get upset about, it's wise to eliminate as many as possible and this is one of them. Having people in your life who are interested enough in what you do to offer advice - even if that advice is misguided! - is a grace. So many writers, over the years, have told me that their significant others, children or friends are dismissive of what they do. For some reason, I've never had that problem. From the beginning, even total strangers grew interested once they found out that I'm a writer. One time, I was on the table having a procedure to determine if I had breast cancer when the doctor, having been told what I do for a living by the nurse, began pumping me for information. I was sorely tempted to say, "Thank you for your interest, but can we wait to have this conversation until after you've removed that hollow tube thingy from the side of my breast???" For the record, I didn't have cancer.

And back to my topic.

For most things in life, there's more than one right answer. But when anyone offers you writing advice, the only right response is gratitude. It's not rage. It's not the stance of being offended. It's not hurt. It's not defensiveness. It is gratitude. Even if you think what you're being told is the most riduculous thing you've ever heard, even if the person offering the advice is the biggest asshat you've ever met, the only thing you need to say is, "Thank you. You've given me something to think about."

For those of you reading this who are in earlier stages of your writing life than my GBC sisters, internalizing this now will serve you well when you later are a published author and you receive a revision letter from your editor.

Believe me, when I first started writing seriously 17 years ago, I wanted what all writers want in the beginning: I wanted people to love my writing unreservedly. But over time, I learned that my best readers are not those who feel that way; my best readers are those who can say, "I love what you're doing here but this is what I think you can do to make it even better." Those kinds of readers are, again, a grace. And you don't get those kinds of readers if you're constantly being defensive and arguing with people who try to help you. I'm not saying you should heed every bit of advice you ever receive - far from it! You need to learn how to turn on your own inner editor so you can filter the useful advice from its opposite. But I am saying that writers need to learn how to take advice so that people will keep offering it. The truth is, if someone asks me for advice and then they make the whole experience unpleasant, I soon learn to stop helping. The thing is, the person can think all they want to that I'm all wet, but what they should be saying is, "Thank you."

One last thing to think about: The person whose advice you spurn today could turn out to be the person who could help you tomorrow...if only you hadn't turned them off.

Thank you for listening. I hope I've given you something to think about because you give me something to think about every day.

ANALYZE THIS

Years ago, I participated in a symposium called “Women and Popular Culture” at Brown University. In the morning, I sat on a panel with two other novelists. In the afternoon, professors presented talks on the depiction of women in film, TV shows and music videos. One professor analyzed a rock music video, claiming it was a meditation on Christianity because of all its “cross” imagery: the singer’s crossed arms, a crucifix-shaped earring, the X-shaped intersection of two spotlight beams. The speaker went on and on about how the people who created the video were making a subliminal religious statement. When she said this, one of the novelists from my morning panel muttered, “Or else they were all high on cocaine when they were filming it and they said, ‘Hey, that looks cool!’”

I was reminded of that comment recently when a friend sent me a link to a writing coach’s dissection of Karen Stockett’s novel, The Help. The essay explained the book’s phenomenal popularity by breaking it into scenes and beats and showing how Stockett had constructed her novel with the plot’s first turning point occurring exactly one-fifth of the way into the story, and each chapter containing a specific and uniform number of scenes, and so on. I couldn’t get through the essay because I was laughing too hard. For all I know, the writing coach may have conceded later in the essay that The Help’s huge success had something to do with its being a beautifully written book about a group of smart, sympathetic women who change the world for the better. But he was obsessed with the precise, mechanical composition of the story.

Perhaps some authors create their novels the way these academicians seem to think we do: Graphing the turning points to make sure they’re exactly one-fifth, one-half, and three-fourths of the way through the story. Counting the beats. Inserting symbolic imagery at regular intervals.

But that’s not the way I write.

I’m a sculptor, not an engineer. For me, the process is intuitive. It’s possible that my stories have their turning points located exactly where a calculator says they should be, but if so, this happens purely by chance. I don’t write with a straight-edge and a compass. I write the way a sculptor creates a statue, kneading and molding, chiseling away this part and slapping some more clay on that part, then stepping back to assess what I’ve created and thinking, “Hmm, it needs something more here and something less there,” or “I like the way that part is shaped,” or, if I’m very lucky, “Hey, that looks cool!” (I should add that cocaine plays no part in this process. )

My next book, Good-Bye To All That, has five point-of-view characters. I start a new chapter each time I enter a different character’s point of view. When I was writing the manuscript, I never counted the chapters and tallied whose turn it was or how many pages I devoted to each. Instead, I thought, “I’ve spent enough time with Jill. Let’s see how Ruth is doing now,” and opened the next chapter in Ruth’s point of view. It was a thoroughly organic process. I switched chapters and viewpoints whenever it felt right.

When Good-Bye To All That comes out next March, some academician may post a meticulous analysis of the novel, explaining how masterfully I paced all those point-of-view changes, how cleverly I used Diet Coke as a symbol of Jill’s attempts to reinvent herself, how brilliantly I deployed Brooke’s and Melissa’s hair styles as a metaphor for the emotional turmoil in their lives. I’ll read this analysis and laugh myself giddy, thinking, no, I used Diet Coke because Jill just seemed like a Diet Coke kind of woman, and the hair thing fell into place because Melissa was dating a gorgeous salon employee and I needed Brooke to make Doug jealous, and anyway, hey, it looked cool!

Do You Go Off Process to Promote?

You know, I would really love to talk to you about my process. I think writers just adore process questions, because they're easy to answer and maybe they make your writing life seem much more romantic than it is. "Why yes, I have a process. I write for x amount of time every day" or "I put a single yellow rose on my desk, and then type pages every morning while sitting at a particular window with a gorgeous, specifically regional view" or "Like, Isabel Allende, I have a 'writing season' and I spend the rest of my year cooking for gorgeous meals for my large family and enjoying life" -- though seriously, does anyone but Isabel Allende have a writing season? Only she could pull off something like that.

So yes, I would just love to write a post about my process. The only thing is that as of this writing I'm totally off my process. That's because my paperback is dropping today, so I'm in promotion mode. I'm not working on the rewrites of second novel as I promised my agent I would. Instead, I'm blogging about all of my giveaways and tweeting about the e-book, and basically using my writing hours to sling paperbacks in as many ways as my introversion will allow.

This wouldn't be so disconcerting if I didn't actually have a strong writing process now. Back in the early days of novel writing, I was happy to abandon the 32 CANDLES manuscript for weeks, sometimes months at a time to write a new play or put together a short film festival or you know, just go to a really awesome party (read: free booze). But that was when I was a beginning novelist, undisciplined in every way.

Now that I've finally achieved all this hard-won discipline, it feels so weird to just stop everything and promote. Don't get me wrong I love promoting. It's great to use my brain for activities that involve people who actually do exist in the living world we know. But there's this vague-but-persistent guilt that attends every hour I spend promoting as opposed to writing. It feels like someone keeps tapping me on the shoulder while I'm trying to concentrate on something else. Seriously annoying.

I wonder how other writers handle this. Do you go off process to promote? Stop every thing to spread the word about your book? And if so, do you have ways of soothing the (really impatient) writing beast inside of you? I could really use the advice, so do let me know in the comments.

Oh, and if you're so inclined, you can pick up the paperback of 32 CANDLES at your local bookstore are right HERE.