Category: Writing

The Next Big Thing

sandybarker

I am cheating a little in posting this meme, as I was not tagged by the author who I follow via her blog, Charlotte’s Web, and that is part of the meme’s premise. That said, Charlotte Otter – a South African writer who lives with her family in Germany – has often inspired me to put pen to paper (‘finger to keyboard’ doesn’t quite sound right, does it?). I recommend checking out her blog, and when it is published, her novel. Simply, she is an exceptional writer.

This meme is timely for me, as I just submitted a well-honed draft of my book proposal to Jen and Kerry of the Business of Books for editing. They promise a return of the draft by December 1st and in the meantime I keep chipping away at the novel itself. I have been writing (almost) every day for two months now. Looking back over my calendar, I have only taken four ‘vacation’ days from writing, and I am benefiting greatly from the momentum. As Timothy McSweeney says in his Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do,  writing is a muscle. I am pleased to say that I am getting some decent mental biceps from the consistent writing. I should note that not everything I write is always literally gold, but that’s what revisions are for.

The idea of this is that a writer puts up a post on his or her own blog answering ten questions about his/her work in progress, and then “tags” other writers to do the same. Then, the writer posts a link to his/her “tagger” and to the people he/she is “tagging” so that readers who are interested can visit those pages and perhaps discover some new authors whose work they’d like to read.

So, here we go…

What is the working title of your book?

All Over the Map. Previous working titles have include The World Ate My Oyster and Desperately Seeking Sarah, but I like this latest one best. And it came about organically while I was discussing the plot with Ben. I said, “She’s all over the map – literally,” and we both paused taking it in. “That should be the title,” he said, simply. And I agree.

Where did the idea come from for this book?

A decade ago I wrote several drafts of a travel biography. One of the people I handed it to was Simonne Michelle-Wells, who said, “This should be a novel. You need to re-write this as fiction.” I resisted for years and then made a half-hearted effort to write it as a novel a couple of years ago. I came back to it with renewed love and determination this year. So, now it is a novel.

What genre does your book fall under?

Contemporary women’s fiction. Some would say ‘chick lit’ which I am not adverse to. It is not a cutesy as quite a lot of chick lit, but it is a novel for and about women.

Which actors do you have in mind to play in the movie of your book?

I have a dear friend in Australia who is an exceptionally talented actress, Lisa Adam, and I have often pictured her as the protagonist, Sarah (who is an Aussie). I think this film would be cast with some fresh faces.

What’s the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

I agree with Charlotte. This is hard.

Sarah, an Australian living in London, is devastated by the end of her seven-year relationship, and seeking a way to get on with her life, takes a job as a Tour Manager leading fellow travelers on tours around Europe.

(serious run-on sentence)

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I hope to have it represented by an agency, hence the book proposal. There is a lot of merit in considering self-publication and I am studying up on that – just in case.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the novel?

The first draft of the travel biography, a few months – all hand-written. The first draft of the novel will take longer, as although there is good source material, I am inventing, amalgamating and re-crafting the tone and style. In the past two months I have drafted a third of the novel. This has included three total passes.

Which other books in this genre would you compare to your novel?

Marion Keyes, Maggie Alderson and Jennifer Weiner write novels that I’d like mine to sit next to in the bookstore.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

My own experiences with a break-up, living in London and being a Tour Manager.

What else about your book might pique a reader’s interest?

Humor. I inject humor so as to reflect real life. Stories can’t be all misery, or all joy. Also, I am working especially hard on the characters. I want readers to recognize people they know from their own lives.

Who to tag?

Megs Thompson. I met her at the Whidbey Island Writers’ Retreat. She is dynamic and clever and I love the concept of the novel she is writing.

Simonne Michelle-Wells. I am not sure what Simonne is currently working on – she has been blogging quite a lot lately.

You’re it.

A (writing) contract with myself

sandybarker

Six weeks ago I enlisted the help of a dear friend and fellow writer, Jen, to hold me to the terms of a contract. I drew the contract up myself – no, I am not suddenly a lawyer – so that I would be accountable for working as a writer. I got this idea from Aimee Bender’s article in Oprah, Why the Best Way to Get Creative Is to Make Some Rules, which  you should really check out if you are a writer, or you want to hold yourself to any sort of disciplined pursuit. Around the same time, I also came across this article in Redbook by Sandy M. Fernandez, Join the Accountability Club.

Both articles give great advice:

  • Set a clear, attainable goal
  • Tell others about it
  • Ask them to hold you accountable for attaining your goal
  • Check in regularly
  • Attain goal

Voila!

So, with these two great minds in mind I created my writing contract, phase one of which concludes today. It goes a little something like this:

Dates: September 17th to October 31st 2012 (1 ½ months)

Conditions:

  • Write every day for minimum of one hour
  • Can include: Book proposal; Book revision/new content; Blog post
  • Permitted: 5 ‘vacation’ days
  • Aim for 12 hours per week
  • Check in with Jen every day via text message: “Done” = completed at least one hour; “Vacation” = took the day off
  • Jen replies “Check” for each message

I am happy to report that I took only 3 vacation days, two of which were while I was actually on vacation in Napa Valley, and the last one was on the day I hosted a dinner party for 25 people.

I am also happy to report that I aimed for an hour a day, but averaged 2.5!

I am further happy to report that writing is now something I now do every day, because I am not only accountable to Jen, but more importantly to myself. As a result, I have completed a total overhaul and re-draft of part one of my novel. I started with a travel (auto)biography and now I have a work of fiction. In home renovation terms, I tore done all the internal walls until I was left with just the foundation and some structural support and completely rebuilt, refurbished and redecorated it.

I am additionally happy to report that I am close to having a dynamic, well-crafted book proposal completed. This will then go out to agents and publishers.

I am lastly happy to report that Jen and her hubby Nate welcomed their baby daughter, Ellie, nearly a week ago. And brilliant as she is, Jen was still my accountability bud while in labor and just after Ellie’s birth – a her own insistence.

Many, many thanks to Jen and to the other writers I  have in my life for your unwavering support and encouragement. Thank you to my non-writer friends and family members who have liked my Facebook updates on the progress, and support my endeavor to finish this novel. And thank you to Ben and Lucy for allowing me to lock myself away for hours at a time.

Nearly there…

Whidbey Island Retreat

sandybarker

The night was dark and stormy…

Saturday night I was snuggled in my little corner room of the Captain Whidbey Inn while a storm raged outside. A screen door on the ground floor kept slamming in the wind, waking me throughout the night. Fellow guests had talked about the two ghosts that haunt the inn while we ate dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I wouldn’t have traded places with anyone – not even my boyfriend who was winging his way to sunny Australia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was on retreat, and what better place to lock yourself away for a weekend of writing than an old inn on the water, and backing onto the forest?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What an incredible weekend! I was part of a wonderful group of creative women, Anne, Thea, Lea, and Beverley and we had three incredible writing workshops with three diverse and exquisitely talented authors:

Stephanie Kallos

Bharti Kirchner

and Terry Persun

As well as my immediate group, I also met Megs, Kate and other gifted and passionate writers. I loved the collaboration, the camaraderie and the incredible amount that I learned. I have seen my own work with a renewed and critical eye, which means I can take another pass at it with particular attention to the following:

  • Differentiation of character (there are a lot of women in my book – are they all distinctive from each other, or do they bleed into one?)
  • Fleshing out the antagonists (‘bad guys’ have feelings too!)
  • P.O.V. shifts (oops – slap my hand)
  • Setting (the oft-neglected child)
  • Depth (short-shrifting the reader will only piss them off – thanks Stevie!)

Bharti made this great point that some authors get to the end of their book and realize that the characters never eat. Mine eat, but it is a detail that can evoke setting really effectively, so I need to ensure that I have given it the right amount of attention. Much of my action in part two takes place on a coach and I know that I can spend more time on developing the sense of claustrophobia that develops on a six-week trip. Stephanie told me that chapter one intrigued her, but that she was pissed off because I start after the crucial, catalytic moment. This is a great point! I am now working on a prologue to see if that addresses the issue. Of course, chapter one, which I am in love with by the way, will now need a major re-write. Terry’s workshop highlighted for me that one-note characters are boring. My villain in part two needs nuances and I have just the scene to bring his out.

I am so very excited to get to work. And I have a hell of a lot of it to do!

 

Retreating to move ahead

sandybarker

Today I will be retreating to Whidbey Island for their Writers’ Association “Lockdown” Retreat. I will be locking myself away (voluntarily) with other writers – authors and poets – for two-and-a-half days on my absolute favorite of Puget Sound’s many islands.

My aims:
•    To get some ‘objective’ feedback on my book (the people attending don’t know me, so can only react to what is on the page)
•    To engage in meaty conversations about writing, prose, poetry and all things literary
•    To spent the weekend wearing Ugg boots and big chunky sweaters, drinking tea and whiskey (not at the same time)
•    To write, write, write
•    To learn everything there is to know about everything
•    To be challenged to be more innovative, more creative and to stretch myself artistically
•    To learn more about the business of books
I am retreating to move forward. I can’t wait.

When I grow up…

sandybarker

I want to be an author. A published one. Who writes for a living. Books, in case you were wondering.

I am taking a class with two published authors, who also worked in publishing. They have authored 40 books between them – and they are my age. They know stuff, and in one lesson I learned more than I have taught myself by reading at least a dozen books about how to get published. I have three more classes, and by the end of the month, I will have the tools and know-how to pen the perfect book proposal.

Self publishing and e-books are the way into the industry for many authors. But, I am going to do this old-school. With an agent, or an editor, and I am going to author a hold-it-in-your-hands-and-turn-the-pages book. And then I am going author 3 more – to start, that is. The stories are already in my head.

My heroine is Sarah.

She is currently 27 and it is 1996. She is Australian and lives in London. Her relationship with her boyfriend of 5 years has ended – they broke up in Paris – and she is spinning in the aftermath. If she were Dorothy, this would be the part of her life where a tornado picks her up and dumps her in a queer, but magical world. Dorothy has Oz; Sarah has Europe.

I started the book as an autobiography – years ago – and am now novelizing it. Re-writing it as fiction has been surprisingly satisfying, because as interesting as my past is (and it is pretty interesting), fiction is funner. There is still truth in the words, because I write from a place of knowing, but Sarah can be smarter, funnier and more self-aware than I was when I was alone and broke in Europe after the collapse of a five-year relationship. Sarah is Sandy 2.0.

Non-sequitur: Today I went into a bookstore. This is rare, because I have owned a Kindle for one year, four months and one week. Browsing for new books has become an online activity, like catching up with friends, shopping for shoes and writing to my mother. But today was special. For a start, it is sunny here in Seattle, and when it is sunny, you leave the house. Period. You just do.

Also, I had homework to do. My task by next class is to research books like mine and identify my competing titles. This is so I can paint a clear picture for agents and editors of what my book will be like. They will not only want to know which books mine is like, but what will make mine distinctive from these books. And, what will my book look like on the shelf as it is nestled among these competing titles? I have some work to do, and this type of work is best done in a bookstore.

And the last reason I went to a bookstore today is that sadly, my Kindle carked it (it doesn’t work anymore) last night. You would think that with something that has been a part of my life for the past year, four months and one week, I would have a period of mourning longer than 13 hours. But no. It was surprisingly easy to get back into my bookstore groove.

Bookstore visits are best accompanied by a good coffee, so I stopped for one of those first, and with more anticipation that I could have, well anticipated, I stepped inside the small bookstore at the top of Queen Anne hill. It is aptly named Queen Anne Books in case you want to stop by. It really is a lovely store. I immediately gravitated towards a Valentine’s Day display, where I read through a couple of picture books, and then picked up, “Are you a Jackie or a Marilyn? Timeless lessons on love, power and style.”

The cover was kick-ass. And don’t listen to that nonsense about not judging a book by its cover. That is B.S. perpetuated by authors of books with crappy covers. Of course you should take the cover into consideration when choosing a book. If you don’t like the cover, how on earth are you going to convince yourself to spend hours reading what’s on the inside? It would be like trying to convince yourself to eat a bowl of great-tasting sludge. And if covers weren’t important, all book covers would look the same. I digress.

I flicked through the chapters, and I liked the lay-out. The text is interspersed with clever comics and quizzes. If I am going to read non-fiction, I like it to have an angle. Quirky, funny, smart, or otherwise engaging non-fiction for me. Pages and pages of paragraphs put me off. I have the attention span of a gnat; I need to be stimulated.

I moved on to the final selection criteria: The first page test. I read it and the tone and pace spoke to me, so I took the book to the counter. I told the store owner I was still browsing. I had yet to do my homework. “Do you have a section of what I would call ‘chick-lit?” She visibly flinched. I guess she doesn’t really consider that a genre, although all my girlfriends would know exactly what I meant.

She pointed me towards the Romance section. I stared down at every book Diana Gabaldon has ever written. “Uh, I guess I mean something more contemporary, like Nick Hornby for women.” This seemed to bamboozle her further. She started scouring the shelves for books and pointed to Audrey Niffeneger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. This is one of my favorite books, but nothing like what I am writing.

“Uh, something lighter than that. I just read Bond Girl, which was more like what I am looking for.” She pulled three more books from the shelf and left me to look them over. They weren’t right for my competing titles list, but the good news is that in my attempts to identify what sort of book I was looking for I remembered Jennifer Weiner and Jane Green as two authors who write books like the one I am writing. I was pleased that I had made some progress on my homework.

And although I didn’t find any other books to buy, I am happy with my first post-Kindle purchase. Perhaps I will stick with ‘real’ books for a while.

Reading, Writing and Relatives

sandybarker

I am spending some time with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew in London.  They live in the bustling borough of Teddington, where terraces houses are the norm and vehicles try to maneuver down narrow streets without taking off the side mirrors of parked cars.

I have spent most of my time here at home, or out and about the neighborhood with my sister and nephew.

I have visited with two long-time friends, and enjoyed outings to Kingston (shopping hub), Oxfordshire (to see our Great-aunt), and to Hampton Court Palace. I have seen and done some really cool stuff, and usually I would blog all about it.

But I have started this blog post seven times. Seven. My travel writing synapses appear to be broken. Unlike my sister, whose oven is steaming food rather than roasting it, I cannot call a handy-person to come fix my problem.

I wonder if it is because I am reading so much during this latest vacation. Sometimes I am in a writing phase, sometimes I am in a reading phase and sometimes I would rather just watch America’s Next Top Model. I would love for this writing issue to be sorted out, however, as I have made some fascinating observations during my stay, and I would like to get them down to share with my fans. Yes, I really wrote that. You know who you are.

And so I am left with one topic to use as fodder for my post: what I am reading.

Victoria and Mark (aforementioned sister and brother-in-law) love books and have an extensive library in their home. These three books caught my eye.

I love anything about Robin Hood (yes, even that silly film by Costner), so picked up the first book in the series, Hood. It re-imagines the tale, presenting Hood as a Welsh Prince in the 11th Century, whose kingdom is usurped by a French count, who has murdered his father. Loved it. Couldn’t put it down. Read it in three days. I did that thing where you stay up until midnight and you can’t keep your eyes open anymore, so have to put the book down. I can’t remember the last time I stayed up late to read a book.

I bought the other two books on Kindle.

A couple of weeks ago I finished The Art of Fielding. To say that it is a book about baseball is to over simplify a book that is indeed – a little – about baseball. It is a modern American piece about some well-drawn people with beautifully-crafted arcs. I loved it and I don’t mind baseball. The Costner films about baseball were both terrific, by the way.

I am also about 1/5 through Steve Jobs’ autobiography. I loved the start, but it has dissolved into a detailed history of Apple’s rise to infamy. I am not sure what I expected, but I am hoping to learn more about the man and less about the business.

Also on the Kindle and already capturing my attention, is the new Stephen King novel, 11.22.63. This is about a man who travels back in time to stop Kennedy’s assassination. I am fascinated by Kennedy’s reign and time travel.  I also like King’s writing, so I think I will enjoy getting stuck into this one. I should mention that Costner was also in a film about Kennedy’s assassination.

I didn’t read anything today, though. I was too busy out and about with my nephew and sister at Wisley Gardens.

I am glad to have finally finished an actual post. ‘Til next time…

Writing with abandon

sandybarker

by larryfire

I have been writing a book for nearly a decade.

When I type out those words it seems impossible that it has been that long, but it is true. Nine years ago I started penning a travel biography about my time in the UK and Europe from ’96 to ’97.  I began this project old-school; I literally wrote the first draft.  By hand. Onto paper. With a pen.

I still have the first draft packed into a box in a friend’s attic in Sydney.  In the book’s first incarnation, chapters either read like journal entries or as essays. It took about 2 months to get everything down on paper.

I then began systematically typing it into a borrowed laptop. Technology was relatively primitive back then so I backed-up my files onto floppies. As I re-drafted over the years, the thumb drive changed my life, and I put the floppies away with the first draft. Then came an external hard-drive, and now my book (a wholly different-looking beast than how it had began) lives in The Cloud.

But I digress…

Once it was input into electronic form, I worked away at my book in spits and spurts. I wrote about the process in a previous post (Write Now!), so I won’t bore you with it again.  The last line of that post says, “Yes, I need to get back to my book.”  And yet, here I sit some 6 months later, and I have managed to squeeze out a paltry 4 chapters.

To change the subject, I saw an old friend last weekend. Well, she is not old, but we have known each other for the better part of 20 years. She, too, loves an American and lives in the U.S. A work trip afforded me the chance to see her and meet her husband (lovely bloke). The fates smiled on me doubly, as I was able to take more away from the reunion than the simple pleasure of catching up.

Larissa (her real name) is a creative type too. We met studying for our respective Bachelor of Arts degrees, both with a major in Theater Arts. She has come full circle after some professional detours and is currently rehearsing a Sam Shepherd play, and is a voice over artist and teacher. I, too, have had some professional detours from the stage, which is why I know I love to write.

I moaned to Larissa that I have no motivation to write my book at the moment. Or any moment, really. I work at a computer eight hours a day, and while I mostly love my job, it does not inspire me to sit at a computer when I am not there. There are many things I would rather do when I am at not at work: reading (Oh, how I love other people’s books!), running, movies, conversation, cleaning, laundry, and a thousand other things that seem more appealing that the thing that I supposedly love to do most.

I also mention to Larissa that I am inspired by something else at the moment.

I want to write the story of how I met Ben, of how we fell in love while living a world apart, and how I ended up packing up my life and moving to another country to live with a man I had yet to spend more than 5 consecutive weeks with. I want to write about that.

But there’s The Book…

How do I abandon one book to start another? Will I ever finish it if I keep finding distractions – literary or otherwise?

Yes. No. Maybe.

Which brings me back to my conversation with Larissa.  “You are not abandoning your book. You are putting it away so that you can follow inspiration. You can always come back to it later.”

She said this while we were walking through Whole Foods looking for the ingredients for my Quinoa/Wild Rice Salad. Suddenly, right there next to the bulk bins, it made sense. I needed to give myself permission to abandon my book, so that I can follow what inspires me now.

On the flight home I scribbled furiously into a scribbler pad. I filled 20 or so pages and there is (much) more to come. A lot of the content has already been written and will come from travel journals, emails,and accounts that I wrote for us after our trips together.

In the car on the way home from the airport, I recounted my epiphany (thanks, Larissa) to Ben. He recalled that a favorite author of his said, and I am paraphrasing, “Some of my best work happens when I am procrastinating from the work that I am supposed to be doing.”

I have asked Ben’s permission to be candid. He has given it. I think. For weeks now the first lines have been bouncing around inside my head. “It seems a little ‘hokey’ to say that I dreamed about Ben before I met him. But I did.” Since deciding to abandon my book, those words are on paper now.

Oh, and recipe for the salad to follow. It is incredible – no, really!

The Gray

sandybarker

You step out into it. It consumes you, touching you in ways that make you uncomfortable. It doesn’t have your permission, but you have no choice; it forces itself on you. Sometimes you can forget that it is there, but not today.

Its companions are damp, cold, and quite often, wind.

The damp seeps into your clothes, chilling you from the outside in, while cold nibbles at your extremities turning them blue and then white. When wind intrudes, it cuts through to your very bones. And yet this trinity of misery is not as powerful as their master, The Gray.

You have adopted a stoop: head down, shoulders rounded and protective. A frown has made its home on your face. Your curl into yourself, wishing away the pervading presence of The Gray.

It invades your every thought. It pushes you down from above and sits heavily on your shoulders, on the crown of your head, on your eyelids and the tip of your nose. You do not stand tall. You are never not cold.

Your mood is gray. You crave nothing, hate nothing. Everything is neutral. Extremes have no place in your existence. Your soul has been doused in peroxide. Sometimes, just there in the periphery, you see glimpses of passion, of disagreement and debate. Yet you have succumbed to the numbing, and do not participate.

You make jokes about it with friends and colleagues, trying in vain to lessen its hold on you. The jokes are stupid and only serve to highlight what you so desperately wish you could disguise: that you crave sunshine like a starving man craves a hot bowl of soup.

You ignore it, pretending that it is not just there on the other side of the window pane. You laugh so hard you made no sound. You scoff potato chips straight from the bag. You make lazy love on a Sunday morning. You read the latest best-seller, voraciously turning the pages. You meet friends in trendy coffee shops and drink $4 lattes. You pretend and pour yourself a gin and tonic, with fresh lime and extra ice. You drink it with the thermostat turned to 78. You pretend that it is light outside.

You seek camaraderie among fellow ex-pats. Californians become your closest allies. Those who are native to this place apologize. “It’s not usually like this”, they say. They are tired of The Gray too. Yet it continues to out-stay its welcome. You cannot remember last summer, except in snatches of blurry images, the colors fading each time you recall.

And sometimes, just when you think The Gray will always be there, it goes.  Warm air floods your lungs, and you can feel the freckles forming on your nose as you tip your head to the sun.

You are forgiving in these moments, forgetful of the how much The Gray weighs, of how dense it is. You become lighter. Your exuberance is contagious and those who love you flood back, eager to bask in your joy, to share it, no longer having to pretend with you, but sharing an important truth: that light is life.

You start to forget The Gray.

And yet, it has not left, not for good. It has only waited in its own shadow, just long enough for the forgetting to begin. And then it returns.

You fight it. You are drowning and want to push through its viscous mass and break the surface into the light. You want a warm breeze to play with your hair, and trickles of sweat from your elbows and knees. You want the steering wheel to be too hot, and to sink your bare toes into the sand on a sun-soaked beach.

You hope. You know there will be an end to The Gray. But not today.

Photograph by Oliver Neilson

Write now!

sandybarker

I want to get back to writing my book.  Let me qualify that: I need to get back to writing my book.

My book starts as a series of journal entries (both personal and travel) and letters in 1996 and ‘97, long before I know I will write a book.

In 2001, I start writing chapters, by hand.  The chapters flesh out story snippets and descriptions of people and places.  The chapters expound on inner turmoil, extreme loneliness and a budding thirst for a less-ordinary life.

By the end of 2001, I am typing these chapters into a computer, adding more details, more perspective and more poetry to my word count.

I print out what I consider the second draft and edit onto the pages.  Like the cliché that I am, I carry dog-eared pages with me everywhere, reading and re-reading the story of me.  My book, a travel biography, begins to take shape and I move chapters, fool around with format and finally settle on a 3-part tome.

Part One. Narrative. Documenting the end of life as I know it.  My alone-ness.  My fear of drowning.  My knowledge that doing something, anything, is better than doing nothing.  Not knowing what ‘something’ to do.

Part Two. Narrative.  A journey in a wide circle.  Defeat.  Triumph.  Forging relationships.  Learning that I don’t know everything.  Learning that I know a lot.  Drinking in facts and places and more people.

Part Three.  Episodic.  The circles continue, concentric, overlapping, my life a Venn diagram.  Hating myself.  Loving myself.  Losing myself to excess and pretended celebrity.  Stillness.  Silence.  Sleep and a momentum that ultimately forces a new trajectory.

Years pass.

I occasionally dust off a printed copy.  What draft is this?  Eight?  Eleven?  I lose track.

“I am in love with this,” says a friend.  “But it should be a novel.  It should be in the third-person.”  I disagree, and re-write chapter one for the fifty-millionth time.  Each time I re-write it I love it more.

“It’s wonderful, Sweetie,” says my mother.  “She has to say that,” I think.  But she actually does love it.

I feed it in cruel increments to willing and select friends.  I want critics, not sycophants to read it.  Only that will make it better.  I write in sporadic and manic phases.  I accomplish much, then nothing for months, years.

In 2009, I sit in modest, yet well-decorated apartment in a foreign city, and I read chapter one.  “This should be a novel, in the third-person,” I think and I smile.  It has taken me years to get to this point.  I tell my friend, herself a writer, a successful one.  She is pleased.

I dig out the letters and journals from a decade before, all brought from my homeland for this very purpose, and I read.  I remember a girl I once knew, one who loved passionately and had her hopes crippled.  I think of her fondly as I might think of a distant relative I was once close to.  She saddens and angers me, yet I know I will always be protective of her.  She is, after all, me.

I return to the keyboard, and I start at the beginning, a very good place to start.

Chapter one.

I write the story of a young woman called Sarah.  She has a whole life, most of which I have yet to discover and some of which echoes my own life.  I love her, as fiercely as I love the girl in the journals and hand-written lengthy letters collected by loving parents and returned years afterwards.

I feed it to a new friend in meaty chunks.  She wants more.

It flows out of me, like a mother’s milk.  Chapter one.  Two.  Three.  Six.  And then, nothing.

Months later I return to the pages I wrote and do not recognize the words.  “Who wrote this?” I wonder and then remind myself that I did.  These words are mine.  And they are good.

Yes, I need to get back to my book.

One book in one minute

sandybarker

Of course, having just read through my friend, Simonne’s, 15 books in 5 minutes (note that she claims she wrote her whole post in 5 minutes. I took 45. Hmmm), I have realized that my favorite classic of all time is not on my list (it is on hers, though).

I could argue that it is in The Pantheon of books, and that it goes without saying that it is not only a favorite, but has an inexorable ‘classic’ status. Did I really need to mention it in my 15 books in 15 minutes? (I should say that it took me less than 7 minutes to come up with my list.)

Um, yes. I did. I should have to revoke my ‘awesome English teacher’ status – for at least a week.

The book is: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I first read it because I had to teach it, and I discovered magic. I did everything in my power to make my students love it as much as I did – for the simply told moral tale, and for the never to be repeated writing of Harper Lee. I guess when you win the Pulitzer for your first novel, the pressure to produce a second one can be great.

Phew. Glad I got that off my chest.