Writing Freedom

I find so little time to write, much less to blog, these days. But with today being Independence Day, it seems appropriate to jot down a few remarks (or as many as I can before the babies arise.)

I was on the train the other day when an old friend said hello as we headed into our stop. I'd been writing on the train and was off in my own world, but I'd been writingn about something that had angered me. She asked how my novel was going, and I explained that since the girls were born I'd had very little time to write. Yesterday, while taking the girls out for a stroll, I met a neighbor I'd only spoken with on the phone. I knew she was a writer — a playwright — and our conversations had almost always been about writing. Like my friend on the train, she said that I would have very little time these next couple of years in which to write.

I think I'll find the occasional moment to write, but I don't think I have the time currently to pursue an agent for my finished work. It's not merely the pursuit; if I actually got a bite, I'd not have enough time to respond appropriately.

It's frustrating, but the reality is that we only have so much time, and I already don't have enough time to spend with my girls. But the time I spend I hope is of quality.

Happy birthday, America. May your many wonderful freedoms continue, including the freedom to speak one's mind, to write one's thoughts, to pray to one's God — all without fear of being imprisoned for doing so.

Long Time No Write

The past month has been replete with opportunities — to work my butt off on things other than my personal writing. Aside from a 5-10 minute visit to my main characters in the Antarctica novel, I've done virtually nothing about that book except imagine. I value imagination. Indeed, it's crucial to developing a story and believable characters.

But it's not writing.

My time since vacation has been spent making the house acceptable to the many family members who arrived for the girls' baptism. It was a wonderful celebration, and I'm happy with how it all went (despite the mouse-induced hole in a hose to the dishwasher, but that's another story). But now it's done, and the summer is upon us — at least in New Jersey we define the summer as Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. You gotta problem wit dat?

So my summer resolutions are about to kick in: sending the completed novel out to agents (yes, a repeated theme from many previous posts), working on the new novel, and reading to my children. I suspect these things won't happen in the order I've listed them. But as long as they get done, I'm fine with that.

Vacation Writing

This week of vacation is different than most of my previous vacations the past few years. This year, I'm not re-editing my novel. I have one copy of it out in the world and I will send others out either this week or soon after. (Of course, I've said that before.)

Instead, I've been working on stuff around the house and feeding and diapering children. But I should also get a chance to restart my new manuscript, begun in November. No guarantees, of course, as children will demand all sorts of attention and I'm willing to give them a lot.

Are you writing daily?

Rereading Is Like Falling in Love Again

I recently began rereading John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath — right after finishing John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things for the second time in three years. Of course, this isn't the first time I've reread something. I've read John Irving's The World According to Garp numerous times. (And what is it I seem to have for books written by people named John?) But it's interesting to go back to a world, an era, a setting that was familiar once and becomes even more detailed and nuanced again.

In the case of The Book of Lost Things, I had been singing the book's praises so much that I initially worried it might not be as good as I'd remembered. But I loved it once again. A coming-of-age tale set against well known fairy tales and laced with grim battles that would keep young children stocked with a month of nightmares, TBOLT vividly traces the path of an angry boy through a world of his fears and fantasies. Connolly, a gifted writer, can choose words that linger like a scar. And when one faces man-like wolves and crooked men that personify evil, that gift gets ample use.

Steinbeck was one of my first "adult" loves as far as literature goes. While some teens were discovering J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, I was getting enwrapped in Steinbeck's simple declarative sentences. I'd forgotten where Grapes began; in my mind it was the scene of the "land turtle" that gets flipped onto its back, a symbol of the traveling Okies struggling to survive both the Depression and the Dust Bowl. And while I've been reintroduced to preacher Jim Casy, I'd forgotten how he recalled his trysts with the girls after preaching them into a fervor. (After all, it's been decades since I read this work.) But it's still the same gritty, difficult era that I remember and which still catches me surprised.

Perhaps saying that rereading a book is like falling in love again is going too far, but it's certainly enough fun that such dreams and sentiments are within the realm of possibility. And that's what good fiction provides.

Toes in the Water

I don't really have time to type this, but for those who've asked in the past about my completed novel (in italics because I know a novel is never finished until it's published), I have sent it to a friend who is an agented writer. He offered to take a look at it and consider passing it along to his agent.

I don't really expect anything to come of this, but at least I have sent it out with the intention of getting it to an agent. So I am celebrating my having done this ... not with actual Champagne but in my brain it is the first step in a long walk.

Readings From the Tenement Museum

An acquaintance of mine informed me about free events coming up at the Tenement Museum including a poetry reading in recognition of National Poetry Month. That same night, there is also a talk about sex and sin that sounds interesting.

For those in the New York metropolitan area, you may want to check out them and other free public events. Keeps the mental juices flowing.

Elephant Guy Says "I'm Still Here"

Don't worry, dear readers, subscribers, and followers. I've not fallen off the same cliff as the U.S. economy, science reporters, and little bits of dirt and rubble.

I've just fallen into the Daddy Zone. Not much time to do things as I used to. Even this brief missive is squeezed in between tasks.

But I promise to return very soon, hopefully with good news about looking for an agent and working on the new novel.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Real Man

Ok, this is old news by now, but I still think the whole Shakespeare portrait story was pretty cool. To think that such a painting was simply hanging in some wealthy family's home boggles my mind and makes me wonder what else is out there, waiting to be discovered.

I'm not expecting anyone to find the Holy Grail — neither literally nor metaphorically — but it would not surprise me to read about a long lost writings by Mark Twain or Emily Dickinson. I bet there's the equivalent of another few dozen clay pots full of Jesus-era writings tucked inside a long-forgotten cave or tomb in Israel somewhere. It's happened before, so why not again? Again, I'm not expecting new gospels or major discoveries, but neat old stuff. An autographed original of Milton's Paradise Lost, perhaps?

Historical discoveries help counterbalance contemporary idiots like "Octomom." (Note to the Newsweek reporter: No, we weren't wrong. The woman's insane.) I'm not convinced the world needed her right now. Wait until the economy recovers, Octomom, before you look to capitalize on your 14-strong brood. (I'm confident most literary agents understand she's not going to have an audience for a memoir.)

I look at the face in that portrait of the man we believe to be Shakespeare and wonder what he'd blog about, who he'd follow on Twitter, what he'd think of contemporary society.... The man in the portrait appears to be of his time; I'd expect Willy Shakes to be a multimedia superstar today. Writer, producer, actor, director ... a veritable Roger Corman. ;-)