Moving on….

One of my favorite sayings is that you can do everything you want, but just not at the same time. This past month has especially brought this point home to me—and I mean “home” in the literal sense.

Saying goodbye to our old apartment.

The moving van almost about loaded to go to our new home.

Beautiful tree greeting us at new home.

Inside the new home, post-move.

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And so, what’s next? Well, I’d like to write that I’ll be catching my breath, unpacking, and decorating to my heart’s content. But that will have to wait until after THE LILY MAID novel deadline in January. To be honest, this move felt a bit like being thrown out of the delivery room mid-labor. There I was, chugging along with my revisions and then everything came to an crashing halt (albeit for a very welcome and wonderful reason). Still, the muses don’t like being thwarted, so the nesting will have wait a bit.

To help get things moving again, I’ll be off on writer’s retreat for a week. Fingers crossed I’ll be able to catch up enough to feel less panicked about the state of my novel! Right now, I have about 85,000 words revised, with the final 35,000 to go. Here’s hoping I’ll build up enough momentum that it’ll be easy to tie up all those character arcs and plot threads. Just in case, I have a second retreat planned in January. This one is for two weeks in England near where my novel’s ending takes place. (Never underestimate the power of place to spur inspiration!)

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CLEOPATRA’S MOON giveaway: And the winner is….

…. Congratulations to Indigene! An e-mail will be sent to you with information for claiming your copy of Vicky Alvear Shecter’s CLEOPATRA’S MOON. I know you’re going to enjoy this wonderful novel!

In other notes, it is snowing—SNOWING!—in Brooklyn this afternoon. Below is a view taken during my walk to the new house. This is the earliest snow I can remember in my twenty-plus years of living here. Is a long winter upon us?

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Publishing Monday: Piles o’ books!

I was very amused this morning to come across this at GalleyCat. It’s a post linking to photographs of books in media companies—from Flavorpill to the Village Voice. Some of the books are essential for business. Others were sent for review but will never be read—a veritable slush pile of the published.

I guess it’s no surprise that I’m not alone in possessing semi-artistically arranged piles of books in my workspace. For the record, here are two of my recent piles. I’m sure you can tell by their titles that these are all for my novel THE LILY MAID. And yes, that is a Tim Gunn bobble head doll. It’s autographed too. These days, I’m all about making it work!

On a related note, I’m about to jump in head-first to revising the rest of THE LILY MAID. My agent and I have agreed on an end-of January deadline for me to complete my next draft for reasons that are too soon to reveal. As things stand now, I’m about 2/3rds of the way through. Sooo, to make this goal doable, I’m streamlining my life until this novel is safely finished. I’ve planned several writer’s retreats. I’ve cut back on gallery hours and events. I’m turning down lunch dates and other extra-curricular activities. I’m also tying up loose ends on other projects such as the Sacred World Oracle (which is just about finished). My lovely beta readers have been placed on alert.

The reality is that book deadlines require me to go into my “cave*”. Much as I want to do everything, I realize it’s not possible for me to do so right now. Nor do I want to, frankly. I’m adoring writing THE LILY MAID. More importantly, I’m at the stage where it’s emotionally distressing not to be working on it.

So here’s to the final marathon. May I have lots of gaterade along the way and no shin splints!

* Phrase courtesy of the lovely Christy English, author of TO BE QUEEN.

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Publishing Monday: Gaian Tarot giveaway winner—and a talk from Jennifer Egan

First off, congratulations to Sally! You’ve won a copy of Joanna Powell Colbert’s luminous Gaian Tarot. Sally wrote:

What a beautiful deck. It’s great to read about the creative process behind it.”

I heartily agree. I loved the Gaian Tarot’s compassionate and expansive view of humanity—how embracing it is of all cultures and experiences. The art is truly lovely too. I especially thought the accompanying guide book was wonderfully written and very well organized. I’m finding Joanna’s tarot philosophy to be similar to mine, especially in regards to viewing the numbered minors as organic developments of a suit’s energy.

Sally, an e-mail has been sent to you with information for claiming your prize. And many thanks to Joanna for sharing her wisdom and creativity with us on my blog! As I mentioned in my interview with Joanna last week, the Gaian Tarot is now available as a trade publication from Llewellyn Worldwide as well as in a limited edition format. To learn more and try an online reading, visit the Gaian Tarot website.

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In other news, I was fortunate to attend the 11th annual National Book Festival last week. The National Book Festival is organized and hosted by the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. With over one hundred stellar authors participating, it’s a veritable harvest of publishing goodness. I was fortunate not only to attend the very glamorous opening reception (which was held in the stunning Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson building), but to also hear some of my favorite authors speak about their books: Dave Eggers, Toni Morrison, Sarah Vowell, Gregory Maguire, and others.

Recent Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan (A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD) was especially inspiring on the subject of writing fiction, a subject very dear to my heart—her words really resonated with me. Here’s a few of the many things she shared during her nearly hour-long talk. Bear in mind these are a bit paraphrased from my hastily scribbled notes:

On her reasons for writing: “Everyone advises you should ‘write what you know.’ Why do that? I write to escape to another dimension.”

On plotting a novel: “My subconscious is way smarter than I am. Writing is how I access the unconscious part of myself. I trust it to reveal the story.”

On writing A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD: “To tell this story, I had to use different narrative structures. I’ll do whatever it takes to tell a story.”

On a related note, here are the three rules she ultimately decided upon to structure GOON SQUAD:

1. Each chapter had to be about a separate character.

2. Each chapter had to have a different setting.

3. Each chapter had to stand alone as a story.

On the wisdom of story: “The story itself leads you to the place you need to go.”

On fiction: “The job of fiction is to raise questions.”

After hearing Ms. Egan speak, I was inspired to deviate from my LILY MAID-related “all-Victorian-all-the-time” reading list to read A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD. It’s really wonderful—a true tour de force of narrative structure and extremely memorable characters. It swerves dazzlingly in time from the San Francisco punk rock scene of the early 1980s into the present; and finally into a future New York City strangled by social media and global warming. While some have derided the chapter composed in PowerPoint as a gimmick, I thought it worked well.

I know there has been discussion whether GOON SQUAD is a novel or a clever collection of interlocked short stories. To my mind, it’s both. While each story stands on its own (as Egan intended), there’s a sense of elegiac loss permeating the book that ties everything together novelistically. Ultimately, GOOD SQUAD is a bittersweet Proustian meditation on the ravages of time. Highly recommended.

• Filed under The Novel, art and words, be-mused, creativity, friends and colleagues, giveaways and raffles, publishing, the world around me | No Comments

Creative Women Salon update: Your work on television?

Big news: The Creative Women’s Networking Salon is going to be featured on Brooklyn Independent Television for a feature about our lovely neighborhood. They’re seeking to interview creative women from the Flatbush area. If you’re interested in having your work featured on television, please arrive at 6:45 pm to be interviewed by the crew. Feel free to bring samples to show!

Here are the details:

Friday, May 6th, 7 to 9:30pm
Creative Women’s Networking Salon

Are you an artist, writer, creative entrepreneur or practioner? Come out and meet other like-minded women for conversation, inspiration, and wine. At previous salons, we were joined by photographers, crafters, editors, designers, artists, writers, and illustrators. Suggested donation: $5 for refreshments.

This event takes place at:
Kris Waldherr Art and Words studio-gallery
1501 Newkirk Avenue
entrance on Marlborough Road across from Rite Aid
Brooklyn, NY 11226
347-406-5811

More info: http://www.artandwords.com/events.html

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In other news, I’m hunkered down rewriting and revising my novel opening in preparation for the Backspace Writer’s Conference. I’m excited that I’ve already received my workshop group assignment — historical and commercial fiction — and am really looking forward to meeting the other authors. So far, my novel bible is really helping me clarify my characters’ motivations and relationship. That written, this new level of information is bringing up new questions as I write. It’s good in a somewhat nerve wracking way as I’m being forced to go deeper and truer.

I’ve also started running in Prospect Park with my friend illustrator Amy Saidens. And I’ve already injured myself. I feel like such a rube since I committed a classic newbie mistake: I didn’t get my running shoes checked out even though they were bothering me. Frankly, I didn’t want to spare the time or the money to shop for a new pair. Plus I figured my shoes were good enough for a beginning runner. So bad running shoes = lack of support in ankle =  intense knee pain.

I spent most of yesterday with my knee packed in ice and feeling deeply humbled. The good news is that my knee is already healing. And I’ve learned an important lesson: Don’t skint on time or money. This is a lesson I already know when it comes to my creative work, so I should have known better.

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