The Pitter Patter of Little Feet

No, I didn't just give birth or adopt. I'm talking about the delicate sounds of twenty pounds of geese pounding about on my roof every morning.

I live on the third floor of a three-story apartment building, and every morning a flock of geese greets the dawn atop the peek of my roof. They fly in softly, land with the delicacy of a toddler running across hollow logs, and carry on a conversation at the top of their lungs with the geese over a hundred yards away atop a different building. Then, after about an hour or so of carrying on, they swoop down off the roof (usually frightening me and my cats) and fly off into the greenbelt, honking and squawking at full volume.

I love it.

This morning, when I took out the trash, two waddled to the very edge of the roof and eyed me the way of birds the world over, head cocked a little to the side. They were clearly enjoying their lofty position. As I walked away, they honked softly at me, then louder and louder the farther away I got, reminding me of an insecure bully, who only taunts you when he knows you're too far away to do anything about it. When I walked back, they grew quiet and still, watching me intently. Once I was out of sight, they started honking amongst themselves again. I wish I'd gotten a picture. They were so cute!

Full Circle: A Writer's Journey

When I first started thinking about marketing a novel, not just writing one, I was shocked to learn that most of the publicity for my novel would likely fall smack dab on my shoulders, not my publisher's shoulders. It seemed grossly unfair. After all, I'm the person who has toiled away for years creating something that people will want to read. I'm the one sitting at my desk after school, after work, on the weekends, and early in the morning, while the rest of the world is enjoying their time off.

Shock morphed to righteous anger. This method of publishing and promoting was clearly a byproduct of lazy publishers looking to capitalize on my profits without having to spend a penny of their money to do so. Above and beyond publicising my own novel, I was going to have to hunt for an agent to sell my work, creating pitches and blurbs about my own novel so that first an agent then an editor could sit back on his or her haunches and thumb through offerings like bloated gods, randomly picking a lucky winner here or a catchy-titled novel there. It was all enormously unfair. I wanted to rant at the publishing industry. I wanted to rant at the general public to demand more access and more knowledge of more titles.

I did rant for a while. Then I did some research. I gradually wrapped my mind around the vast number of novels that exist already on the shelves of bookstores across the country, the rapid rotation of those titles, the steady stream of new novels from big-name and midlist authors squeezed into limited square footage. Anger gave way to despair. How was there any room left? And there was bitterness, too. These big-name, well-known authors were getting tons of marketing money thrown behind their novels. What about us little people, the authors just starting up? If I had the amount of money in a marketing campaign behind my debut novel as Dan Brown or Jayne Ann Krentz gets for one of their novels, I'd be a big-name success in no time, too.

I plodded on through research, receiving another slap in the face as the world of want-to-be-published authors crystallized and I realized that for every author already on the shelf, there are at least two more waiting, writing, perfecting their craft, querying, and planning to become published authors. The playing field was full, and I was standing in the stadium, one in a million of want-to-be players, yearning to push my way past the barricades for my time on the turf. The agents and editors were the muscle-bound gatekeepers, easily holding the throngs back, selecting only the most prime candidates to be allowed through.

Pity, large swaths of self-pity, lakes and oceans of self-pity. I wallowed. How, in this incredibly impacted market, was I supposed to compete? How was I supposed to get my novel that I thought was so great published? How was I supposed to raise awareness of my novel in a market deafened with the shouts of big-name authors and movie-tie-in novels?

I don't know what made the self-pity, the bitterness, the anger and the frustration and the despair abate. Perhaps it was the one truth that had remained throughout it all: I want to be an author. I want people to read my novels.

With that truth, was the realization that if I was the person who has to do the legwork to spread the word of my novel, I will. I will research how to market it. I will leave my safe, quiet world and make public appearances to promote myself. I will work the online angles to drive traffic to my website and to the online stores to buy my novel. I will continue to write and perfect my writing after each rejection, continue to write when I'm tired from working my other job, write when life wants to push it aside and tell me to give up.

I no longer think of the publishers as spoiled corporate giants, of agents and editors as ego-inflated gatekeepers. I understand the parts everyone plays in this vast industry. I understand my part, and I'm willing to do the work to my myself a success.

Because being a published author is one of the first things I wake up thinking about. It's one of the last things on my mind when I fall asleep. I want, with soul-deep clarity, to be a published author, and nothing's going to stop me.

Reader's Block

I have been at an impasse with my to-be-read shelves for the past week. Nothing has worked. Novels I know I will be enthusiastic to read soon look as exciting as encyclopedias now. I've tried my usual method of reading the first lines of novels and still nothing leapt out at me.

Which meant I moped a bit and spent far too long cruising the Internet through blogs I cared and didn't care about and generally disrupted Cody's life and anything interesting he might have been doing. Me without a book doesn't make for a happy household.

Fortunately, I broke my reader's block today. I found Sunny's Mona Lisa Awakening and it hooked me. Hooray! And hooray for a new-to-me author!

Heeding the Call

I sat down today just to write a blog and then leave. Then I read Lilith Saintcrow's post on Deadline Dames and was galvanized to write. If you don't go read it (and if you're a writer, I think you should), the gist is to get off your butt and just write. Don't write to be pretty and perfect. Just write. Write crap, write something good, write something bizarre or crazy, but write something.

So I did. I wrote a page and a half for Aria. I didn't feel like editing Madison. I felt like forward progress. And I know editing Madison is forward progress, but it didn't feel like it would be today. Today it felt like work. And I wanted to let my imagination play.

If nothing else, hopefully this helps me fall asleep faster tonight. Not lie awake and wonder if the world of Aria has too many magic-wielders or if Aria's quest is true and good. Not write scenes that I've already written, rewriting them to perfection in my sleep-addled brain.

What I wrote today wasn't much, but I think it was good. It was forward progress. Even if I cut it, it was still forward progress. It's helping me shape young Aria into the woman I know she'll be, and it's helping me find her voice, knowing the woman she'll be and figuring out how she would view her young self. Confused? Me too a little.

Finding Bliss

Seventeen months ago, I gave up dairy. I never determined whether or not I'm lactose intolerant. In fact, I've never bothered to look up exactly what lactose intolerant is. I just knew that my body was unhappy and needed some time to relax without dealing with foods that I knew I had at least a mild allergy to.

I expected to go without dairy a month or two, then reintroduce it back into my diet. To my surprise, I felt so much better once dairy was removed from my usual foods, that I didn't want to add it back in.

After the initial cravings for cheese faded and I learned to be very careful when eating out, I've gotten along great without dairy. The only thing I've missed, is all the dairy desserts. Specifically, frozen yogurt, ice cream, and gelato.

A wave of yogurt and gelato shop openings seemed to coincide with my choice to eliminate dairy, making my decision that much more difficult. It was like the very city was mocking me, each shopping center testing my resolve to remain dairy-free.

I buried my intense cravings for these creamy good desserts under reassurances that my body was much happier without them (it is), and pretended that I didn't miss them (I did).

Then I read about LaLoo in February's edition of O magazine.

Ice cream made from goat's milk. I started drooling just looking at the picture. I dreamed of ice cream that night. I haven't dreamed of eating dairy products since October of 2008. I drooled over LaLoo's website the next day.

Yesterday, Cody and I made a special trip to buy some. Last night, I had my first bowl of ice cream in 17 months. The first bite of LaLoo's Deep Chocolate was bliss. So was the next, and the next. It's a wonder I didn't eat the whole mini carton in one sitting. It was so delicious! Thank the universe for happy goats!

Logic vs. Creativity

I've been out of my writing groove. I took the weekend off, as has become a trend now that NaNo is done. Then Monday I didn't have much time, so I only worked for 15 minutes on Madison. Yesterday, I did nothing.

Last night, not terribly coincidentally, I had a hard time falling to sleep. All the story and creativity that I hadn't given myself time to express yesterday balled up and wanted to be worked on at bedtime. I wanted sleep. Neither of us truly won. I refused to get out of bed to work on a project, but I also didn't fall asleep until sometime around 2 am.

Today, I didn't write again. I didn't make the connection between loss of sleep and not writing until midafternoon. I'm not going to have time tonight to write, either, and I can feel all the creativity building again. The only problem is that it doesn't want to finish the latest batch of Madison rewrites that I'm over half done with. It wants to go back to Aria. And I don't know if I should indulge myself or not. I'm afraid if I leave off with the Madison edits, I'll lose my place and the pacing. But I want to use this Aria energy while I have it, too.

Creativity doesn't like to listen to logic. It can be forced. Sometimes forcing is the best thing I can do and sometime that's just an energy drain. If only I could tell in advance.

First Lady Inspiration

I have been reading The Secret Lives of the First Ladies on and off for the last year and a half, and it only just yesterday occurred to me to put it on my Shelfari bookcase. It's been my standard go-to book when I'm between novels or nothing else sounds good. And it's been fascinating.

In six to eight pages per lady, Cormac O'Brien gives a glimpse into the key events of the 43 first ladies (Michelle Obama is not in my older edition). I found each woman's tale captivating. All these women have gone through the same general experience—been a wife to a president—and not a single one was alike.

I think part of the appeal is seeing how each woman dealt with her position. Not counting Hilary Clinton, not a single woman had designs on politics. Each fell in love with a man who was driven (or compelled or in the right place at the right time) to become president. None set out with the ambition of becoming America's first lady.

What's even more remarkable is the influence these women had on a nation—an influence that, much as the subtitle claims (What Your Teachers Never Told You About the Women of the White House), I never learned in school. The agendas they pushed through congress, the organizations they backed, the lifestyle choices they made that influenced a nation are remarkable. The sacrifices they made are just as astounding.

Over and over again, I find myself impressed and inspired by all these women were able to accomplish. It's been a good reminder for me in my daily life: When things become overwhelming, I remind myself of these women who were able to juggle children, political events, press, their personal organizations, nearly constant White House remodeling, campaigning, and their personal lives with aplomb. It makes my troubles balancing work and writing and blogging and life seem quite manageable.