A Writer's Tragedy - and Maybe Getting Past It?

So I was going to a little family reunion in Dallas last weekend. I love to work on planes; I love filing my little backpack with tempting projects. For this trip I wanted to ponder my children's book-in-progress, a deliberately old-fashioned book set in a cottage like my cottage, on a street like my street, a street filled with whimsy and wonder. I wasn't sure I liked the direction I had taken the story and wanted the fresh perspective that would come from thinking about it Somewhere Else, like in a Southwest Airlines plane cruising at 35,000 feet. 

Into my backpack went my trusty clipboard-with-the-broken-off clip on which I've written all my books for the past half-century and the fifty pages of handwritten notes, in my teensy-weeny handwriting, which I had scribbled over the last few months in the predawn hours up in my writing nook. 

(Not the actual notes for this book but a sample of what the pages look like)

But my flight was at 6:30 a.m., and I had taken a 3:30 a.m. (!!!) bus from Boulder to the airport, so I was understandably a tiny bit sleepy as the plane took off.

Are you getting a bad feeling yet? A VERY bad feeling?

I didn't realize that I had left that labor of love in the seat pocket in front of me until I reached my destination and went into my backpack to retrieve my computer. Wait - wait - where was my clipboard and my notes? Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, OH MY GOD, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I filled out the online form for items-left-on-planes although this one hardly fit into any of the categories offered (e.g., it had no serial number!). I got back a form reply from Soutwest that they would look for it and keep me posted. But their next email began with the dreaded word, "Unfortunately..."

They didn't find it. I realized they were never going to find it. If they hadn't found it as soon as they cleaned the plane, they weren't ever going to find it. It had apparently just looked like . . . trash. Oh, sweet little clipboard, companion for over sixty books written over forty years. Oh, months of thought, months of questions to myself, months of tentative answers (none of which I remember now), GONE FOREVER.

Now, this isn't quite as bad as it sounds. I had already written some 60 pages on the book; the handwritten pages of the manuscript were among the items now gone forever, but I HAD typed them up; they were saved in my Dropbox. And I HAD planned to rethink my original vision for my book: maybe this was the universe's way of nudging me - nay, forcing me - to do just that? 

Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, famously left a valise filled with all his story manuscripts - AND THE CARBON COPIES!!!! - on a train while going to buy a bottle of Evian water at a train stop, and it was gone forever when she returned. Hemingway reportedly said - many years later - that it was the best thing that could have happened to him, a catalyst in changing his style to the one that would someday win him the Nobel Prize in Literature. (He also reportedly said it was the reason he divorced Hadley!).

So maybe this is a GOOD THING? But what if it is a message from the universe telling me that my writing career is OVER? That this new book was indeed what it seemed to the cleaning crew on that Southwest flight: trash? And everything I wrote from now on would be trash? My sweetheart David says this isn't a message from the universe at all; it was just an ACCIDENT with no coded message from the Fates.

I'm going to go with the GOOD THING hypothesis. I'll weep and wail some more, then calm myself and get ready for a new vision for this book for the new year. With a new clipboard to go with it. 

The Winter of a Writer's Discontent

It's not quite winter yet according to the calendar. But the year is drawing to a close, which means end-of-year literary accolades are being trumpeted on social media, with best-of-year lists proliferating everywhere.

Lists that my own sweet, beautiful book is NOT on!!!  

Lists that most of my friends' books aren't on, either. Though certainly, a quick glance at Facebook reveals many friends posting how grateful, honored, humbled, etc. they are by the honors showering down upon them. As George Gershwin wrote, and Ella Fitzgerald sang, "They're writing songs of love - but not for me." And maybe not for you, either. 

This is a hard time of year to be a writer.

Mind you, we disconsolate ones are the lucky ones who actually had a book published in 2024! We are the fortunate few who ended up with a publisher's contract and a book with our name on the cover to hold in our hands. It is becoming harder and harder to squeeze one's way into that increasingly select society. Even writer friends reaping all this delicious end-of-year attention have long-time editors pass on their next book; after all, stellar reviews don't necessarily translate into sales. Even friends whose books sell heaps and heaps of copies lately are getting more than their share of rejections.

It's always been a hard time to be a professional writer - but lately, it seems, even harder.

So what is a poor, self-pitying writer to do? What tidings of comfort and joy can we offer ourselves? 

Alas, I have nothing better to offer than to remind myself that, hey, I actually like to write. In fact, I love to write. My happiest hour of the day, which I call "my hour of bliss," is when I'm curled up with pen and pad of paper, putting words on the page in my tiny scribbly penmanship. I enjoy this vastly more than I enjoy doing the New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle, which I also do faithfully every day. 

I also love sharing my writing with others, but there are MANY ways to do this. One friend is having a blast writing "fan fiction" (for a TV series I never heard of) and garnering lots of enthusiasm for it from her fellow fans. Another friend has become a storyteller and hosts small, intimate storytelling gatherings in her home. I am going to give the sermon in the worship service at my church on the last Sunday of this month. And my sweetheart's birthday is this month, too; he ADORES my poetry, and I'm woefully behind in writing some new poems for him as a birthday gift. 

The inimitable Brenda Ueland in her wonderful 1938 book If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit, has a chapter pondering "Why a Renaissance Nobleman Wrote Sonnets." She notes that it was NOT with the hope of "getting them in the Woman's Home Companion" (ha!!!). No, a Renaissance nobleman wrote sonnets "to tell a certain lady that he loved her," so that he "knew and understood his own feeling better" and "knew more what love is." We write, Ueland said quite simply, for "the enlargement of the soul." 

Yes, publication is nice. Yes, end-of-year fuss and fanfare are pleasant. I still want these. I am still going to try to get them in the years to come, though whether I do is chiefly up to the universe, not to me. But in the meantime, I might as well keep on writing. It enlarges my soul more than the New York Times Connections puzzle is ever going to do. 

My New October Life

 So now it's October, the most autumnal of autumn months, "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" (Keats). We made a visit to Munson's Farmstand in an effort to make a small, seasonal beautification of our beloved cottage. 

We are eagerly awaiting the changing colors of the many mature trees on our morning walk down Bluff Street, especially the maples, which have the promise of adding scarlet and crimson to the predominant gold of Colorado's fall foliage. The days are still warm, but the nights are cool. Today, as is fitting for the first day of October, the high is forecast to be 75 and the low to be 42. Bliss!

After a hiatus on my writing project, this morning I returned to the writing nook at 4:15 a.m., settled myself on the cozy loveseat there under a fleecy blanket, and picked up my pen again. 

During August I scribbled some 30-plus pages of notes and wrote 20 pages of actual text, which I shared with my writing group, the Writing Roosters, at our mid-September meeting. They had WONDERFUL comments. There is a magic in a critique group, where each member comes with their own comments and questions, but as we talk together, the interaction produces something new that none of us might have come up with on our own. 

Main problem they identified: this was my first-ever try at writing a book with an omniscient narrator, and I clearly have a lot to learn about how to do this effectively. Readers need to have a wise, trustworthy, insightful, authoritative presence guiding them through the story. All I had was distracting, frenetic head-hopping from one character's point-of-view to another's. But I LIKE learning new things!

Main insightful question they posed: the book is the story of four children during a semi-enchanted summer on a street much like my own Bluff Street, a street filled with whimsy and wonder, where the street itself is going to be a character in its own right. So: "How do the children need the street? And how does the street need the children?" Ooh!!!!!!

I couldn't leap into work on the book right away, however, as a long-dormant academic project reappeared on my desk to command my immediate attention. I sent it off a few days ago, and then gave myself a few days to recover.

Then today, the first day of the month, the first day of my FAVORITE month, I spent a joyous hour this morning, asking myself, "How DOES the street need the children?" I think I have the start of a couple of tentative attempts at an answer... and I have all month, and all year, and the rest of my life, really, to answer it, as ALL I want from writing now, in the eighth decade of my life, is joy, in whatever form it comes to me. And this is the form in which it is coming to me now...

Reunited (with Writing) and It Feels So Good!

Now that we are settled in the cottage (the cottage! the cottage! the cottage I love so much!), it was time to face The Rest of My Life. Which means: if I have this beautiful writing nook, I needed to start actually writing in it. 

So, four days ago, on July 29, I actually did.

I slipped out of bed at 4:30 a.m. and crept up the stairs to the nook. I made myself a pot of tea in my Wedgewood teapot. I curled up on the couch under a blanket. I turned over my beloved hourglass and picked up my clipboard, pad, and pen. And I started to write.

I didn't know what to write, so I just started talking to myself on the page:

WRITING NOOK - DAY ONE! RETURN TO WRITING!

ONLY GOAL: TO WRITE - to play - to explore - to reenter this world and reinhabit this identity

I don't know WHAT I will write, only THAT I will write.

I am always thinking about reinventing myself as a writer, so I wrote a list of possibilities. Try writing - gasp - a book for grownups? Personal essays? Make a serious commitment to poetry? 

But every time I consider reinventing myself as a writer, I always come back to my first and best love: children's books. And now I was drawn to writing a book for young readers set . . . in a cottage! On a street like my new street! I made this goal for myself: to create a fictional world readers will want to live in and never leave, a world filled with whimsy and wonder, like the world I am living in now.

I started making notes... asking myself questions... walking each day on Bluff Street with a writer's eyes alert for story possibilities. I decided right away that this book is going to be, defiantly and unapologetically, just what I want to write, a book with an old-fashioned sensibility (think Maud Hart Lovelace, Eleanor Estes, Elizabeth Enright), a quiet book without a page-turning plot, a book radiating kindness and generosity toward its characters and its readers. 

ALL I want right now is just to LOVE writing this book with all my heart. Then whatever happens is up to the universe. The ONLY point right now is LOVE. 

As of this morning, day four of my return to writing, I have 13 pages in my tiny handwriting of scribbled notes. 

Each one a labor of LOVE. 

If You Have the Perfect Writing Nook, Don't You Just HAVE to Write?

The best thing about my new cottage - the very best thing about my very sweet new cottage - is the little room tucked under the eaves on the upper level, which David has designated as my writing nook.

You approach it up a narrow circular staircase.

And then there it is: a small, snug, cozy room with a loveseat (and I love to write while sitting sideways on a loveseat), and a chair for David if he comes to visit me, and a little table tucked under a window, and a bookcase made decades ago by my father filled with the books I love best with my beloved hourglass perched in the place of honor on top. 

There is even a little sink where I can get water to heat up for tea in my Wedgewood teapot. David just ordered for me the New York Times recommended best water-heating device, and it arrived yesterday.

The nook opens out onto a rooftop deck.

From the deck you can get a view of Boulder's iconic mountains, the Flatirons (the ones that are featured on all the postcards). Here they are!

I have had many pleasant writing spaces in my long life as a writer, but never one as irresistible as this, and one given to me, all to me, by someone who loves me and is rooting with all his might for me to thrive and flourish as a writer.

The only problem is that I haven't been writing this year, recovering from my sequential double fractures (first left elbow, then right arm) and feeling generally discouraged about myself as a writer, given the many changes in the world of publishing in recent years, many of which seem to be leaving me behind (which is fine, it really is, or sort of is, or just has to be). 

But with a writing nook like this, how can I NOT write? 

I just HAVE to write in a nook like this. 

Don't I?

Welcome to My New Fairyland

We moved! My sweetheart and I said our farewells to Rainbow's End, the mountain paradise where we lived so happily for the past two years. It was time to live somewhere in town, closer to public transportation and with fewer (than 34!) steps to shovel in the winter. So we found ourselves a hundred-year-old cottage on quiet Bluff Street in the Whittier neighborhood of Boulder, which has oodles of whimsy and bursts of joy on every block.

First, the cottage itself! Isn't it sweet?

Here are photos from this morning's short walk of exploration. 

A hollow tree welcomes strangers. 

A community fairy garden invites all to linger and play.

Generosity abounds!

A pocket park is hidden up a secret path of steep steps.

And just around the corner:

As I ponder the second half of 2024 and what it will bring, and where my future journey as a writer will take me, it's hard not to think this creative, generative energy is bound to rub off on me. Maybe my next book will feature fairies, elves, and gnomes . . . and ripe cherries for the picking . . . and free seeds for the planting ... and a secret park . . .   

Who knows?!

The First Day of the Second Half of 2024

I haven't written a blog post since early March. 

I haven't written much of anything since early March.

My life has been pretty much on hold since I had a SECOND fall (this time on black ice) and a SECOND fracture (this time a "proximal fracture of the right humerus" - terminology I had never heard of until this unfortunate event) on March 21, almost three months to the day after tripping over an exuberant grandchild and breaking my left elbow. Luckily, I could just switch the cast on my Vermont Teddy Bear from one arm to another.

For what seemed like forever, I couldn't write with a pen (my favorite activity on this earth) or type (my second favorite activity on this earth) or dress myself or use a can opener or scoop out hard-frozen ice cream or drive or . . . or . . . or . . . anything at all, really.

Long famed for cheery resilience in the face of trauma and tragedy, I have to confess I just gave up. I moped. I whimpered, whined, and wailed. I sulked, sniffled, and sobbed. 

I still loved my sweetheart, and he still loved me, but he now had excruciating and incapacitating sciatica pain. At least we had complementary disabilities and could offer compensatory services, he with two functional arms, me with ease in bending and stooping. But it wasn't exactly a season of great joy. Nor did having to shovel the 34 steps into our house after a series of spring snowstorms (one dumped twenty inches of heavy, wet, white stuff) appreciably increase our daily quotient of rapture. 

I published a book but wished it had gotten more effusive reviews. I abandoned the plans I had made (which I probably wouldn't have carried out anyway) to figure out how to promote it on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Why bother? What bother about anything?

Bowing to age and infirmity, my sweetheart and I decided it was time to leave our little lovers' paradise in the mountains for the ease of living in town, and we managed to find a sweet hundred-year-old cottage to which we will be moving next week. It's the right thing to do, but oh, it's hard to leave this place we have loved so much. Will we ever be that happy anywhere else? Will we ever be that happy ever again?

The first half of 2024 has been HARD!!!

But today is the first day of the month. For decades I had the practice of starting a new life on the first day of each month. And it's also the first day of the second half of this challenging year. So it's time to start an EXTRA-new new life, right? A complete restart? A chance to salvage 2024? A chance to salvage everything?

Wish me luck!