Making a Fist

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching the palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

"How do you know if you are going to die?"
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
"When you can no longer make a fist."

Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.

Naomi Shihab Nye

From: To Kill a Mockingbird

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

Harper Lee

*Keep on fightin' the good fight, bloggees. I'm a bit overwhelmed by injustice these days, but I'll be back soon with regular updates.

From: The Secret Year

"I want to call you. I just looked up your family's number. I'm pretty sure it's yours because the address is on the flats, near the Higgins Farm Bridge. Would you want me to call you? I feel so cut off from you. It seems crazy that I don't even know how you are. Sometimes I love the fact that nobody knows about us. We have this secret, so juicy I can feel my mouth dripping. Other times, like now, it seems stupid to hide this way.

It's later. I just talked to you. You didn't sound mad. Your voice felt good in my ear."

Jennifer R. Hubbard

A Booknapping from the Depths of Despair

Hey bloggees, I didn't die, but I thought I might. I've been really sick--sicker than I've been in a long time. I thought I might never write again. Have you ever been so busy, so sick, so something, that you started to become blind to the light at the end of the tunnel? (I just typoed "The Light at the End of the Title." Children's book idea!)

I know I'm dramatic, but that's how my mind works, peeps. For a few days, I could not foresee a time in my life when I would ever have the strength or time to work, write, have a social life, or blog. I felt like I was so behind, I would never catch up. Then, I bit the bullet and called the doctor.

Long story short: I'm feeling better, more than better. Feeling like you may never write again does wonders for your motivation. I have washed the accumulated dirty laundry, both literal and figurative, and my betas have nudged me with a gentle but firm request for new pages. I am truly blessed, yo.

While I was gone, I hardly even read. That's how sick I was! But I did manage to catch a lovely turn of phrase here and there, and one in particular kept me going:

"Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings."

Victor Hugo

I am back bloggees, with a vengeance, and I feel the need to look back on my time in the trenches and offer a hand to the peeps who might be there right now, wondering if they will ever write again. So help a bloggee out, peeps. Have you been there? How did you escape the doldrums of your life and get back to being a doer?

Houston, I Have a Problem.

So, I don't know if you pay attention to the Just Reading list over there, but I've been reading Jellicoe Road since 2009. I am in a reading slump, y'all. It's not Jellicoe Road's fault. The book is great, but it got lost in the Christmas shuffle and never managed to regain my attention. I keep meaning to finish it, but now every time I see the orange spine on my coffee table, it feels like work. I'm so sorry Melina Marchetta. It's not you. It's me.

Something won't let me give up on Jellicoe Road. There's a mystery that I'd still like to solve.

Bloggees, do you get into reading slumps? How do you handle them? Start something new? Read an old favorite? Got any recommendations of titles that will get my finger hovering above the next page button?

From: The Paper

A motivational article by Dani Shapiro appeared in the LA Times a week or so ago. In the article, Shapiro ponders what makes great writers. My favorite quote of the article:

"Every single piece of writing I have ever completed -- whether a novel, a memoir, an essay, short story or review -- has begun as a wrestling match between hopelessness and something else, some other quality that all writers, if they are to keep going, must possess.

Call it stubbornness, stamina, a take-no-prisoners determination, but a writer at work reminds me of nothing so much as a terrier with a bone: gnawing, biting, chewing, until finally there is nothing left to do but fall away."

I also love that she calls the publishing industry "the nerdy distant cousin of the rest of media."

Read this article if you've ever wondered if your continuing to write in the face of all the doom and gloom of the industry is yet another manifestation of your subconscious need to harm yourself.

From: After Tupac and D Foster

"'There's millions of people in the world, though. And more getting born every day. And some of them blow up--like Tupac did. I think that's why he's so cool by me, because he didn't come from any rich people like a lot of those celebrities be coming from--with their mamas or their daddies already movie stars.' Neeka leaned her head against the window. 'I mean his parents were out there being Black Panthers and whatnot, but they was struggling too. Didn't always have money. Didn't always have food.'

Neeka looked at me. 'I want to blow up. Have people knowing my name. I want to walk inside a subway car and have white people be giving me big respect instead of looking at me and my family like we some kind of circus act or something.'"

From young adult novel After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson

Facebooknapped

"Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."

Ambrose Redmoon

Facebooknapped from a status update posted by nonfiction writer Maria Housden

Sidetracked

Half-way through writing a spellbinding post, I got up to put out the trash. That's when I noticed my dog Hank was being awfully quiet. Usually at 6:40 in the morning, he's chasing squirrels and waking up the neighbors. So I checked on him.

Horror: empty yard, broken hook dangling eerily from the dog run.

The yard had been quiet for about 10 minutes, or was it 20? So enthralled by my wonderful blog post, I wasn't sure. Bad dog parent, I scolded myself. Then I ran up and down the block, through the yard, and to the train tracks where he could get easy access to other dogs' backyards.

Silence everywhere. I called his name. Silence. I jumped in the car and would not let myself drive to the main drag where too many half-asleep souls were driving to work too fast. No way he'd go there, right? Right?

After 25 minutes of frantic searching, I spotted an SUV stopped in the middle of the road, door flung open and left that way. The driver stood outside the open door, talking on a cell, and looking down at something on the side of the road.

I raced down the road and halted next to her SUV. She was looking down at the old man who was crouched on the ground, rubbing the ears of my Hank. Our reunion was joyous.

But after our short ride home, there was no way I could finish my post. I was too anxious. My heart beat at a techno bassline pace. So I started typing this true story for you, and I tried to think of a way to tie it in to reading or writing so I wouldn't just be the crazy blogging dog lady.

Here's what I came up with:

Life and writing is filled with surprises, both horrible and kind. Do not be so rigid in your ways or your writing schedule or your outline that you see something like your dog running away as a total screw-up of your entire day. Embrace what you have, not what you want. Write what comes easily. I could have forced myself to sit down and finish that post, but it would have sucked. What came easily today was this love song to my dog.

As I write this, Hank is asleep at my feet, weary from his adventure. Today's blog post is almost done. And the other one--the greatest half-finished blog post in the world? I'll finish it later. Last night, I went to bed wondering what I could write for Nathan Bransford's guest blog challenge; now I know.

It's 7:35: one crisis solved; one blog post written; one contest entry halfway done. And I even managed to get the trash out on time.

When life hands you lemons, grab some sugar and make a lemon drop shooter.

And yes, that is Hank at the top of this post. Isn't it obvious why I love him? He's made of awesome. Ever had a sidetrack lead you in the right direction? Tell me about it.

The Artist's Dilemma

Yesterday I had nothing to say, so I didn't post. I wasn’t unplugged, like so many other writers. I kept clicking New Post and then opening new tabs and getting lost in endless searches for inspiration.

Today: *silence*

But I don’t believe in writers’ block or bloggers’ block, so I decided to come up with something to say. I am disillusioned quite often, blog-readers. I have done a lot of over-thinking on this, and I am pretty sure the reason is that I am highly sensitive. But really I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about you.

Because being over-sensitive is the artist’s dilemma.

It’s what makes us feel for other people when we read or write about them. I’ve blushed when a character did something embarrassing. I’ve thrown the book across the room when a character failed despite all of my wishing for him to succeed. I’ve spent whole afternoons pondering this: these worlds are fake, so why can’t they be fair?

One reason we get disillusioned so often is that writing (a gooey-inside spiritual kind of thing) has to reconcile itself with publishing (a hard-as-steel soul-sucking sort of thing).

Anyone who knows what an ISBN is knows business ain’t booming in the publishing world.

Editorial Ass explains how gazillions of books are made so they seem to be bestsellers and are then quietly destroyed when they are inevitably not.

This post by sweetie pie agent Kristin Nelson says that paranormal historical romance could be dead. I had no idea. And publishing is dead and print is dead and vampires are dead. Yes, even the undead are dead.

This post speaks for its stupid self.

I mean, it’s enough to bring everyone down, isn’t it?

But fear not, blog-readers because artists also have an, uh, (enter opposite of dilemma here) in their unending hope that things can get better. This is what makes us re-read the scene of the book we just threw against the wall.

I send you all to Jennifer Jackson’s agent blog, where she says to those who follow directions:

Be ye not dismayed. Your efforts are worth it.

She’s talking about the query process, but it’s good advice no matter what you’re putting your effort into these days.

Right on, writers. Write on.

Writers' Block, Kitchens, and Cold-blooded Murder

Yesterday, my husband and I had a pity-fest about the state of crazy our life is in.

I’m revising a novel, which is sort of like writing a novel when you're in the throes of it—except that you have a mess of unintelligible words to break through instead of a blank page. Husband is remodeling our kitchen. He’s not a contractor or a plumber, electrician, or carpenter. He’s just a regular guy who watches a lot of HGTV.

Anyway, our kitchen is currently the equivalent of a blank page—nothing but a wood box waiting for some building to happen. I said to a friend the other day, “Our house has no heart.”

Husband is feeling a little overwhelmed regarding what to do next.

To this, I answered, “It’s just like writing a novel—sometimes you have to take it one chapter, one page—one word even—at a time. Eventually, hopefully, you have a whole book.”

Then I took my own advice. I printed out a chapter and edited it old-school style: red pen to paper, slashing each repeated idea, adding whole sentences, questioning every word. Every. Single. Word.

After 5 pages, I emailed my beta: “There’s so much red it looks like I murdered chapter 14!”

So there you go, random blog-reading people. Stuck? Overwhelmed? Wondering whether you should just open a new document and start anew?

I recommend printing out a do-able amount, a page if that’s all you can handle, a paragraph. Take out your red pen and murder your darlings. Your changes will have you feeling like a vampire after a dose of the good human stuff.

Happy holidays, murderers!

Life is too short for shoddy prose

For a while, I’ve wanted to take Booknapped in a new direction. I’ve been thinking of adding more of my own ideas here in conjunction with the ideas of others, commenting on my booknappings instead of just posting them here for you to figure out for yourselves.

My first order of business is to introduce myself and my blog.

What the hell is Booknapped and who are you anyway?

The idea behind Booknapped is that artists work as a filter, taking in everything and holding the best in their subconscious until it comes out in their work. Booknapped is a record of the influences in my world—words so smart I wish I said them.

I’m a writer. By day I get paid to write for other people. I listen to their ideas and transform them into text. By night, and very early in the morning, I don’t get paid to write about made-up worlds and characters I build in my head. One day, I hope to get paid for my night and early morning work, but I’m fine and dandy with paying my dues.

Why should we listen to you?

I don’t know. Maybe you shouldn’t. Use your judgment. I went to a great university where I majored in English. I traveled. I moved to the edge of America to study writing for three years. While I was there, I read all kinds of books. I finished many of them. I also taught writing and literature classes.

Now, I’m an editor. I read about a 100 books a year. I’ve written two novels and millions* of short stories and poems. My writing has been steadily improving for the last 30 years. By my calculations, in another 30, my work will be phenomenal, and this site will have many more readers.

What will we see on the new and improved Booknapped?

Writing tips, links to good articles about writing and funny sites about punctuation, rants and raves about the world and the artist’s place in it, complaints about my characters who have been being bitches and bastards lately, the occasional dirty word, pictures that say a 1000 words, me groveling at the feet of writers so good I want to give up sometimes—etc.

Basically, the same stuff my favorite quotes are about: not being an asshole, not letting the bastards get you down, and writing. I won’t complain about writers and editors even though both piss me off regularly. I might regale you with fascinating stories about the writing, editing, beta reading, and querying process.

Oh and self-doubt, so much self-doubt you could wade in it.

And quiet rebellion. I am a big fan of getting on the boat, and then tipping it from the inside.

On Booknapped, you won’t see reviews--especially bad ones. I might tell you that a particular author is made of awesome or that I want to ask a certain book to run away and elope with me. But I will never say that a book sucked or that a writer needs to go back to waitressing. I won’t do this for several reasons:

• It’s tacky for an artist to put down another artist. It is impolite and goes against all that I believe. What do I believe? That anyone who has the guts to create something and then subject it to public scrutiny is my hero.
• I don’t finish books that suck, so for all I know they get better. If I were to say a book was bad, I’d have to read it to the end to make sure I was correct. Life is too short for shoddy prose.
• Booknapped is a love fest. It’s a place for me to store ideas that are so incredible, so insightful, that I want to internalize them. I don’t want to clog up all this beauty with crap.

You’ll still see quotes sometimes, because, well, wouldn’t it be more fitting to sum it up in a quote? To explain, I’ll use the words of Ricky Fitts from the movie American Beauty:

Because it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.

Why did it take you so long to put your own ideas on here?

Because I’m shy. In real life, I hide in books, music, and museums to avoid conversations. In my cyber life, I guess I do the same. But here I come, blogosphere. Look out.

P.S., Leave comments, people! Don’t let the only response to my barbaric yawp be my own echo. Let me know what you think of this rash new policy on Booknapped!

*estimate

From: The Rules of Survival

"Is she still dangerous to us? Maybe. Anybody can be dangerous. But once she was all-powerful in our lives. She was the queen bee and we served her. Now she's dangerous like a mosquito. A mosquito might bite you. It might carry malaria. But most of the time, a mosquito just whines and buzzes. And even if it bites you, even if it draws blood, well, so what?"

Nancy Werlin