thanks.

August of 2008 does not seem like that long ago--a few months after I graduated college, living in Greensboro, NC with my pregnant (for the first time) sister, engaged, working at a coffee shop. That was the month I started this blog, and it recently struck me that that was nearly THREE years ago! Time feels suspended, and I don't feel like I have aged at all, much less three years. But I have, and it is real to me most lucidly in the more easy going, less insecure, meeker, hopefully more refined quality of my heart. A wine that has aged a few years is better. If it ages several dozen years and is kept well, it can be exquisite. Hope for the future.

But when I realized that n2sh.blogspot has been around for that long, I was overcome with thankfulness for those that read it. As much as I hate to admit it, much of my courage in writing comes from feedback, rather than self-assurance. Recently, I have been given the gift (perhaps in response for my desperate prayers for SOME KIND OF ENCOURAGEMENT GOOD GRIEF) of a few n2sh readers mentioning that they read this blog. It is irrational the vote of confidence this is, like hearing that someone loves your singing voice after they overhear you in church and you suddenly wonder if you could go somewhere with it. But to know that people visit once, and then return is unbelievable to me! Why?? I don't imagine anyone actually typing the URL into their browser, but I guess you must (Yes, YOU) unless it's a link you have clicked or, I can hardly imagine, is a tab or a favorite (unless you're my sister, because I know she's tabbed me).

Anyway, I wanted to say thanks. Especially recently, hearing through the grapevine, or hearing to my ears, some votes of confidence. I really, really appreciate it.

Tomorrow night I am going to see the author Emily Giffin present at Wake Forest University (of which she is a graduate) on her book series beginning with Something Borrowed. I don't typically read chick lit, but picked up the book at the used bookshop for three bucks. I'm excited because my current book project, Roma Roma, is something that I am VERY excited about, and is a muted form of chick lit. I'm double crossing my fingers that I get to meet her and, more importantly her agent (Theresa Park). Please, please send prayers up for me tomorrow!

just in case you wanted to be inspired...

You should read my sister, Hannah's, blog. She is level-headed, straightforward, honest, tender and bright. She has absolutely the cutest family in the United States of America, and she posts lots of great pictures.

www.hansdigginin.blogspot.com


The latest post is about her new son, William, and the beginning of a 3-year journey to correct a foot problem he was born with. Forrest Gump style...

sweet, sleepy saturday

It is a perfect Saturday. This morning the forecast said rain, but that didn’t happen. It’s gorgeous and windy outside, the kind of day that looks warm from the cozy inside of your house, with the sun creating lovely mirrored reflections on the hoods of cars parked out on the street. There is a muffled buzz created by the lawn manicurist a few doors down, edging the yard of the house with the lime green door that is for sale by owner. He has been out there all day, but I don’t think that sounds terrible on a day like this.

Here, inside, it is quiet but for these sounds: the tick-tock of the grandfather clock that hangs on the wall in the living room, the wind moving the great, heavy branches of the pine tree in the front yard that looks a lot like the Christmas Tree in Who-Ville—the one the Grinch takes down. There is also the sound of wind chimes from my neighbor’s front porch, a sound that I love and I imagine the quiet neighbor also loves, although I rarely see him. There is now the sound of my fingers clicking the white keys of this laptop. It is gloriously quiet, and yet there is this soft symphony of sounds.

I’ve painted my nails, and am reading a book called I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson. Two days ago I picked up The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle from Ed McKay’s, the used book store, which was strangely placed on the Free Books shelf. When I asked why, the clerk said it was because they don’t keep hardback copies of books published more than 2 years ago. This book is in mint condition, except for the big black X slashed in sharpee on the paper jacket (which is a kind of sickening, tragic practice in my opinion—give the book away, fine, but don’t slash the hell out of it). This is a book I have had great intentions of reading because it is so highly acclaimed as a work of great and epic fiction, so I opened it nobly. However, I just finished re-reading my favorite book, Steinbeck’s East of Eden, which is, again in my opinion, the greatest novel ever written, but which is also very deep, heavy, and powerful. And long. I realized that I wanted some easy-to-digest, enjoyable literature that made me laugh. So I dropped Edgar in the clean laundry basket, and picked up Person’s novel. I’m loving it, and it’s in the same style as my current project, Roma Roma. Great inspiration, great camaraderie.

Usually I can’t enjoy a day like this—it’s like I’ve got a motor that doesn’t turn off, only idles. But lately I’ve been on the go a lot. Today it feels good to sit here in my little brick house with my big dog and napping husband and read under the windows.

whoa month.

This has been the whoa month. From the love seat in my dear friend K.’s apartment in the Mission district of San Francisco, I am listening to footsteps over my head and cars just out of the window. We spent the day in the de Young museum, looking at dresses in the Balenciaga exhibit, traipsing through Golden Gate park and walking down near the Ferry building all the way to Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square, took a hike out to a great little Mexican place, and are getting ready to head out for a little more fun. This coveted five-day weekend in S.F. comes on the heels of a 24 hour trip to Baltimore to see my Grampa’s 90th birthday speech, a weekend of digging up our front and back yards to plant spring grass, which most people swear will be a failure, and my sister’s second successful baby delivery! And that is a story…

Early the morning of March 13, Hannah and Josh went to the hospital because H. was fairly certain it was the baby hour. They sat for a while, and when they were finally admitted, sent a text saying today is the day. By noon, Mark and I (plus Kyle) were there, along with my ma and J., waiting for labor. Ma and I planned to be present for the halo moment, and obviously the boys planned to flee far, far away. By half past three there was no "progress" (let's keep this PG) so M., K. and I left to run back to H&J's house to grab some things. While at the house gathering the requested materials, we received a text from J. saying that she was about to begin "pushing." We flew like three bats out of the mouth of hell to the car, and drove 30 mph over the speed limit to get back to the hospital. Silence in the car--no radio. Watching for cops, me praying that I would not miss this monumental event.

They dropped me off at the front door, where I jumped before the car even came to a full and complete stop, and ran into the hospital. Of course I had no idea where to go, and frantically reading all of the signs, sort of shouted at this little nurse pushing a cart, "Babies?!" She looked at me blankly-- "Where are the babies?!" She pointed down a hall, through which I began a sprint. I blew past several people, who all stared at me, and turned a corner with a screech (in cowboy boots) where a security guard was standing. Bad alignment of circumstances. He shouted, "Ma'am, please walk!" To which I replied, "MY SISTER IS HAVING A BABY!" To which he replied, "You still need to walk." At this point, I'm buzzing the little intercom thing that lets you into the birthing unit. "Room number?" "168." "I'm sorry, but the woman in that room is in labor." "I UNDERSTAND THAT. I'M HER SISTER! I'M SUPPOSED TO BE IN THERE!" (Capitalization denotes shouting) Door buzzes and I take of running. Hear the security guard somewhere behind me yelling for me to SLOW DOWN, which I do, for a few paces, and then take off at a sprint again, hear him coming after me, screech around the corner and fly into Hannah's room like a psychopath. I walk in, labor is HAPPENING, and the doc looks at me and says, "Were you running?"


And then William Kyle was born... Good job, sissy :)

march.

Mark and I were supposed to have company for dinner tonight. I bought all the ingredients for this very suave Asian Sesame Chicken dish, and I was ready. My friend Megan called at 6:45 (they were supposed to come at 7) to tell me that her husband was sick, and they'd have to take a rain check. Bummer.

But now, I'm sitting in the writing room with the toad lamp on, which only casts a minimal yellowish glow over the room. The overhead light is offensive and prohibited. Mark and Sidney are curled up in Sidney's bed beside my perfect little desk, and we're listening to Frank Sinatra. I made the meal, and we ate half of it, and put the leftovers in the fridge for lunches this week. We did the dishes together, and filmed a video of Sid and me dancing around the kitchen. Having nothing to do is turning out to be quite a good time.

March used to be my least favorite month. It has always felt like a month-long headache to me, with lots of rain and gray days, inbetween temperatures where you're too hot if you wear socks and close toed shoes, but too cold in flip-flops. April is a little better because my dad's birthday is in April, and April is the month before May. May is an unarguably wonderful month, mostly because of flowers and Hannah's birthday.

In N. Carolina, the trees have started blooming and there are long successions of cloudless, sunny days. Granted, I tend to forget that on the gray ones, but I am being cleansed from this antipathy for March. maybe I will even like March. That's progress, folks. Hannah is going to have a baby any day now, whose birthday will be in March, and Mark's parents are coming to visit in a few weeks to help us grow a lawn in place of the straw that lays in brambles all over the front, and the dirt in the back.

Lately I have been writing a new book. It's called Roma Roma, and it's about this catering company macrocosmically, and this thirty-year-old single mom named Rosy microcosmically. It is written in first person, which is a new challenge. I love this book already, ninety pages in. I'm also sending out Lost Lily week by week, receiving copious silences and rejections. However, bright spot, I got a minimally personalized response from an agent this week who said, "Many thanks for sending me this material, which I read with interest."

SHE THINKS IT'S INTERESTING. Praise God. I can step back because this is a step forward. "This is a totally subjective view," she said.

It feels good to be in March this year - organic and rich, like good soil.

valentines day after.

We couldn't really do the whole 'valentine's day' thing yesterday, so we did it tonight. This was my v-day surprise for Mark...

my baby brother.

Kyle is five years younger than me, six in school years. I asked God for months for a baby brother when I was five, and when he was born I begged God to take him back because I wanted primary access to my mom's lap again. As an elementary and middle school kid, I treated Kyle pretty terribly because I was selfish mostly, and because he was an annoying little brother. And then, mid-way through high school, I realized that he was actually kind of cool. By the time I graduated high school I was downright devastated to leave him. He is 19 now. He is six foot four or five, and he is my dear, dear friend. He is the only person I have that fills this one specific place in my life. I am not sure when he switched from little brother to best pal, but he did. And sometimes, when we are driving from Winston-Salem to Chapel Hill because he slept over on a Saturday night and he has to get back to school, and we are talking about swimming and girls, and marriage and stress, and our family and our dreams, I have a mental about-face and think how uncanny it is to be best friends with your siblings. Both of them.

Kyle is a swimmer for Carolina and this weekend kicked some serious Duke and NCState tail. Here is a video. He is in lane 2--far away from the camera. He won :)

rejection and starting over.

Now that I have come to the end* of the writing and editing process of this novel, re-named Lost Lily, I am in what I like to call the endless winter. The season of searching for an agent, sending letters cold turkey to people who have nice offices with windows overlooking Times Square. At least this is what I picture when I am depressed and generally disenchanted with the search, hopeless, and totally self-effacing about my ability to write anything at all.

People often ask me, "So what happens now? You get it published?" I usually kind of laugh, maybe sigh internally, and say, "Perhaps."

Once you have edited the stew out of your manuscript, taken it to the point of perfection, and then sat down to edit it once again, you may be ready to search for an agent. Once you have secured an agent, he or she has to job of pitching the idea to a publishing company. At this point, I believe I am ready, but I may end up back at the drawing board.

I drafted a query letter as well as a synopsis of the novel. The query is a brief, spirited pitch of my idea. It does not summarize the entire story, but rather gives a summation and a kind of hook. It says, "HERE I AM! This is why my novel is worth reading." Authors often send queries to dozens, if not hundreds of agents before they get a bite. The query letter was the hardest thing for me to write. To sum up my passion and my plot in less than 200 words was a high challenge and I spent about 25 hours working on it. I recently re-read the letter, and I think it stinks. I need to write a new one. So it goes.

A synopsis gives the entire plot, start to finish. It does not tease the reader or keep any secrets hidden. This is the agent's way of quickly reading through the drama to see if the story is any good. This, too, is very short, but also needs to read in some way as the novel reads, needs to contain the spirit of the story.

Each agent has his or her own preferences about how and what they want to read in a query. Everyone wants the letter. Some want the letter and the synopsis. Some want the letter and the first ten pages. Others want the letter, the synopsis, the first 50 pages and the god parent-ship of your firstborn son. Some want e-mail, no attachments please, and others want good old fashioned United States Postal Service, Sir.

To date I have sent approximately 14 query packages. Have heard back from six, I think, all shaking their heads "no" in one way or another. Some of the letters are canned, and they start with "Dear Author semi-colon" One actually said "Dear Virginia," which made my heart skip a beat, but it was also a thanks-but-I-don't-think-your-project-is-what-we're-looking-for letter. I don't have hard feelings, and in a way I even love this part of it, this sweaty uphill climb. And as you read this blog you might feel sorry for me, like this is impressive work, but it really isn't because this is what every novelist does, especially if she has never published anything before. I have to admit, though, last night when I got the DearAuthor letter from an agency I really really liked, I was bummed and did not very much enjoy the episode of NCIS we happened to be watching.

But here is the brightness: Yesterday I stumbled upon a video of a speech made by J.K. Rowling at the Harvard commencement ceremony in 2008. J.K. Rowling is a hero and I listened to that speech and was lifted up! This is what she said, fragmented and patched together, verbatim:

"Poverty is not an enobling experience. Poverty itself is romanticized by fools... Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential... Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I re-built my life...It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you fail by default... As is a tale, so is life. Not how long it is, but how good it is is what matters."

Now J.K. Rowling's rock bottom was way far down below sea level and I don't dare begin to compare my life to hers, because my life is pretty rosey, but here is what really struck me: POVERTY IS NOT AN ENOBLING EXPERIENCE. It's true. And in some ways, this writing--this exhausting, passionate, furious work of writing--that amounts to ZERO money (to date) and ZERO credibility feels a little like poverty. And it is not enobling, only pressing to keep on.

But as I digest, this is the gold that is left after it has been panned out of the dirt: I love this. I love to write. It is the only thing I have ever wanted to do. It is my dream, it is my passion, and I am doing it. This is the reason I am doing it! Because I LOVE IT.

J.K. said that when she was totally stripped all she had was a little typewriter and a big idea. Mmm, that's good folks.


On Wednesday I finished the final edits and cried at the end. Not because I was done, but because the ending really moves me. I sent the manuscript to my friend's sweet mom, Jody, who owns a print shop downtown. She prints my stuff for free, because she believes in me, and she tells me every time I swing by to pick up the pages that I can't quit. She printed it for me Wednesday. I went to Target and purchased the prettiest binder I could find. Lost Lily is sitting, bound the cheap way, on my desk. It's sort of my first real, perfected, official novel. Then, after lunch, I started outlining the next one. I have got a big idea and I love to write.



*"the end" can be only loosely applied to this stage of the book process, as I do believe I could continue to edit Lost Lily over and over again until I wore holes in the keyboard of my Mac. This is a transient "end," if even that.

desk satisfaction.

I should be editing.

Once when I was roaming the blogosphere I clicked through the posts on this one lady's writing blog and saw one post that I loved. It was a photograph of her desk, followed by a dissection of what was in the picture. For months I have intended to mimic this post, and today, as I procrastinate, it seems like the perfect opportunity.



This may seem inane to some readers, so feel free to move on. No offense taken.


See, this is where I live. The desk itself, of which you can see only the top, is the best gift I've ever been given. It was Mark's wedding gift to me. A white, antique writer's desk. Just what I could not have even manifested in my most perfect dreams. It is slightly tilted, with a sitting space that fits my legs, height and width, to perfection. The drawers stick, but I don't care. I love it.

Camouflaged, my little MacBook (her name is Dora) holds every word I have ever typed since college. Both manuscripts, my entire digital photograph library, my music (the last link, after my iPod was stolen out of my car in the driveway), a variety of "Favorite" tabs of blogs and writing resources I follow, and our budget. Dora and I have spent only God knows how many hours together in silence, and rambling.

The books are my go-tos. The favorites tab of my book collection. The complete works of e.e. cummings. Poet perfect. Stephen King's, Annie Dillard's and Anne Lamott's memoirs on writing, all of which have been of colossal importance to me in my pursuit of a career in the craft. East of Eden, Steinbeck's best, my favorite novel of all time including my favorite character of all time, Samuel Hamilton. The Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus, which has been a resource of great value as I tap my relatively shallow barrel of vocabulary trying to write with accuracy and clarity. A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver and Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher.

They are held up by the most beautiful spinning globe bookends, a Christmas gift this year from Mark.

There is a small bud vase with a vine rooted in water, to link me to the outdoors. A photograph of Mark, with his Red Sox hat, old faithful, and a bit of Cannoli cream on his lip, smiling his winning grin with his tilted smile. My favorite picture of him, aside from one on our wedding day that hangs on the wall in the living room. Just in front of the photo is this quote, from EofE:

"I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructable."

I love that quote, and I think I believe it.

There is also a photograph of my brother, Kyle, and me when we were kids--he was three or four, I was eight or nine. It's black and white, and we're sitting on this old red checkered sectional sofa surrounded by dozens of stuffed animals and we are laughing.

There is a little pink address book and stamps. Legal envelopes that I use to send out SASE's when I submit my manuscripts to agents. A box of thank-you notes yet to be written. Twenty-two cents. Bert's Bee's Medicated lip balm (because it's winter people). A list of agents, somewhat marked up, with dates and notes on submissions I have sent, and those I have yet to send, querying To Light a Thousand Windows. There is a candle, a paper weight, a Christmas card that says, "It was her opinion that true Merriment required good hot chocolate and extravagant amounts of tinsel." There is a copy of my query letter, an envelope of receipts from 2009 and 2010 (large purchases only) and a pencil sharpener, though I rarely if ever use pencils.

I think that's it, and above the desk is the picture of Emebet, the little girl we sponsor who was born on May 2nd, our wedding day, and lives in Ethiopia. I should have moved the Thesaurus so you could see her.

I considered tidying up a bit before writing this post, but decided not to. I am a writer and this is who I am, clutter and all.

a lot of stuff i don't deserve.

Since I didn't get to see my parents during Christmas, I flew down on Thursday to spend New Years with them in Florida. It was a breezy, relaxing, reading, sleeping, eating, running, sunning, chatting kind of time. Glorious, really. Mark stayed up in NC and hosted a bunch of out-of-town friends for the holiday (planned after I booked my flight to FL...) He took care of the dog, gave our bed to our friends and slept on the couch, cooked food, made coffee, did the whole "hostess" thing, only as a host. I was impressed!

Yesterday I flew home. There were some irritating complications with the flight and I should have been home by 3:45. I ended up pulling into our neighborhood at 5:30, generally tired and frustrated. There was a temptation to call Mark and see if he had at least put our sheets in the washing machine, but I resisted, remembering that where he had spent the past week working, cleaning, hosting, etc., I had been laying around reading the biography of Deitrich Bonhoeffer and drinking wine. On Ebert Street, this one house still has all of their Christmas decor up. I thought, "Ugh, if only I didn't have to take down the tree some night this week after work." And dinner... I did not feel like making dinner.

As I neared the house I saw (GASP) the Christmas tree undone and laying on its side on the curb! When I walked inside, the entire house was spotless. Even dust-free. Vaccuumed. Some ornaments were already boxed, while others sat waiting to be sorted and organized. The beds were both made, with clean sheets. The bathroom was clean and there was even a new package of toilet paper!

Mark heard me come in from the back of the house in the kitchen and said, "Hey babe! Watch this." And he showed me how he had taught Sid the Dog how to sit down on command! And stay! Can you believe this??

Of course, I was totally flabbergasted by this extraordinary feat of love. "What would you like me to make for dinner?" I asked, now delighted to do something for him, as he had done SO much for me.

"I already made dinner." He winked.

I stared.

"Salmon! Your favorite."