I Dare You

A book club gathering, a talk to give, two classes to teach, a theater program to edit--oh, but it's coming up on that time of year when surely I have no time to write. I mean, I can't do everything, can I?
When I get in this frame of mind, I’m reminded of a time when our family was visiting my mother in that foreign country, southern California. I say foreign, because while the weather was sunny and warm during the daytime, the “natives” had decided-- since it was technically almost winter-- that they must be bundled up in sweaters and parkas. And since noone in their right mind would swim in the winter, the management of my mother’s condominium had turned the heat off in the pool.
However, we are a family of swimmers. My four children insisted we at least go down and sit in the always-heated “cajuzzi”, at least gaze at the 50-degree pool. But, you can only sit in a hot tub for a few minutes without feeling like a steamed fish. I soon got out to get towels and call it a day. My eldest son followed. But, rather than grab a towel, he ran over to that freezing pool and jumped in.
“What are you doing,” I shrieked, looking to the fence for the life-saving equipment.
“Come on in, Mom, “ he called. “It feels good."
Who was he kidding? How could swimming in melted ice feel good?
“I dare you,” he taunted.
"It will be miserable," I rubbed my shoulders, wanting to ignore this dare. But, I took a few tentative steps towards the ice bath. I jumped in.
It was.
Freezing.
Skin-prickling.
Miserable.
“You have to keep swimming,” he coached.
I did. And I enjoyed so much, he had to coax me out of that ice bath as well. My skin was so cold that the jacuzzi water burned.
Ever since that experience, the ropes around my heart have loosened. My son had been right. After the initial shock, that freezing water I’d so feared felt wonderful. Why had I waited so long to jump in?
That ice-cold water knocked down boundaries I’d created over the years—and not just regarding “the proper” temperature for swimming. When my children were babies, I set up a writing goal of 200 words/day..an arbitrary beginning that soon became The Law. The Law was the pinnacle of achievement. Rather than pushing harder as my babies became children--and I had more free time-- I forgave myself when I didn’t make my daily goal. I mean, geez, I'd think, comforted by the sound of the Golden Oldie playing in my head: you know the song--"I can't do everything."
These days, when I catch myself humming that tune , I remember my trip to that foreign land.
I remember my son, saying, “I dare you.”
I remember that ice bath waking my soul.
And, most of the time I remember to stand up and jump right in.

**Plot Consultant Martha Alderson has set up an inspirational blog on writing. http://www.plotwhisperer.blogspot.com.

**Author and humorist, Lynn Walker, has set up a blogspot on easy recipes. http://www.queenofthecastlerecipes.blogspot.com

The Plunk and Play Method

My youngest daughter is a piano player. Oh, she's not the willing sort. In fact, many times she's wanted to quit. (And, in fact, for a year she did.) But whereas when my other three children quit, they never returned to even look at the keyboard, my youngest was always drawn back to the piano. When she was angry or sad, plunking on the ivories revived her spirit. So, just recently the whole family begged her to start lessons again.
The funny thing--and I watch it every week--is she will moan and groan about the new piece her teacher has given her. When she does finally sit down, she'll spend many agonizing hours figuring out the different parts of the song. After a couple of days, though, she'll be whizzing through that song, playing it as if the notes were an extension of her soul.
Until the next lesson. Then the process begins again.
I was reminded of this process on Sunday night as she played the latest Russian waltz. I hate Sundays (It means the end of playtime.) But this past Sunday was even worse, because I was at a juncture in my story in which I didn't know what to do next.
Monday I got up thinking of my daughter struggling with her new piece and how she eventually figures it out. I sat down at my computer. But instead of opening the story and beginning at the beginning of the chapter --my normal routine-- I wrote down whatever was inside my head. Some thoughts were for the beginning of the chapter, some dialogue was for the end, and some stuff didn't even go until the end of the story. It felt strange--a lot of plunking here and there. But, Tuesday, when I went back to make sense of all the parts I'd plunked down, I was whizzing away. Whereas I normally need all the time the kids are at school to reach my daily writing goal--this week, with this new process--I zoomed through the material. My soul was singing. I actually got up and did a little dance.
Okay, to be honest, this wasn't an entirely new process. I've taken workshops on letting your conscious flow through your fingers, writing whatever comes to you. But that always seemed a little New Agey for me. Besides, if I wrote whatever came to mind, there would be so many random thoughts involved-- we need more dogfood, Book Club Expo is right around the corner, I loved John Nathan's book on Japan --that I'd never get to my story.
I tried a modified version of this stream of consciousness writing with My Half of the Sky. But again I was almost afraid of it--more prone to sticking to some school lesson I must have been taught and which was now a part of my genetic make-up: begin at the beginning. But this past week, after whizzing through my writing --and even having enough time to go buy dogfood before school got out-- I've now been converted to the Plunk and Play method.

**Congratulations to my dear friend, Becky Levine. She just landed a contract with Writers Digest to do a book on the value of critique groups. It's due out end of next year. Yeah.

**The 20th Annual San Francisco Authors Luncheon (http://www.kidneynca.org/) is October 11th from 10am. Yours truly will be helping out with this function which benefits the National Kidney Foundation. This year's featured authors are Tobias Wolff, Nancy Snyderman M.D., Curtis Sittenfeld, Jacques Pepin, Diane Johnson, and Andre Dubus III. It should be a great luncheon. Come say hello.

A Charming Scene from Old Singapore

Last night I was honored to speak for a group called China Hands. Four couples started the group fifty years ago, four couples who had a connection with China--either they'd been born there or had lived/worked there. One of the founders mentioned that her parents were married in China and, afterwards, took a holiday around the world, stopping in Singapore for a stint. This must have been around the 1930's. Her parents saw five oxen on the front lawn at the Raffles Hotel. Five oxen? An auspicious number? A holy animal? No, they munched on the yard all day long and kept the grass short. They were the official grass cutters.

**Yesterday, I received a note welcoming me to the Book Group Expo in October. I will officially be there on Sunday the 26th from 3-5:30, but I'll be roaming about all weekend, as there's a whole line-up of exciting authors attending: Masha Hamilton, Gail Tsukiyama, Brian Copeland, Nicole Mones, to name a few. Check it out. www.bookgroupexpo.com. Come by and say hello.

A fun forum...a fun site

This weekend I'm doing a forum on http://www.bookballoon.com/. Witty, intelligent writer, Cliff Garstang is the moderator, asking questions not only about My Half of the Sky and the characters involved, but about societal issues, travel experiences. If you have a chance please drop by --ask a question, make a comment, take a look around the fun site.

A Mooncake Festival to Remember

Last night was the Chinese Mooncake Festival. Many folktales revolve around the festival, when the largest moon of the year peers down orange and round and harmonious. This is a time of family gathering, a kind of Chinese Thanksgiving. Our family, busy with school starting and sports and friends, celebrated in a different way this year. By accident.
Some friends invited us on a hike in their backyard. A hike in the backyard, you think (as I did). Why, that will be fun. That won't take too long. Only my husband and my youngest and I were interested though. We left the others at home and went off for this beautiful, short hike around 4:30.
“It's a bit rugged at first,” our friends said. (But they were bringing along their five-year-old. How bad could it be? )
I felt like we had entered the world of Tarzan. Dirt crumbled and rocks slid from underfoot as we made our way down the mountain. I grasped onto vines and branches to keep my footing. My legs trembled from weariness.
At the bottom was a beautiful reservoir where the kids swam. What an amazing world we had entered. Just from our friend's backyard. In the back of my mind, though, I kept wondering how in the world we were going to pull ourselves back up.
“There's an easier path home,” our friends assured. I held onto that word, “easier,” like dessert after a month of avoiding sweets.
We lounged around the reservoir until the sky started to turn grey. Our friends suggested we better get going. They'd never stayed down there so late. We exchanged stories about people getting caught in the dark at campsites (or as in my case) in my own neighborhood. We giggled about having to get down on hands and knees to find our path home. Then we headed off on the easier path.
Oh, that was nice. A wide road, no tree trunks to balance on, no branches to hold onto. We were reveling in the ease of it all, thinking of dinner. (The five-year-old had his pasta with red sauce already planned. ) The sky was getting dark fast.
"We're almost there," our friend said, leading us off the wide road to another narrow path, a shortcut that would lead to an offshoot into the back of someone else's property. We walked along this narrow path, hugging the mountain, as the other side dropped off into oblivion.
Just as we were about to lose all light, just as we should have been to the end of our journey, our friend called out to his wife, "Did we miss the cut off?”
He was sure we had gone past the cut off that led to the property we could exit from. So we stumbled our way back. But no, there was no cut off there. We tried moving forward again. The surrounding got darker and darker, as though we had entered a cave. My youngest thought she heard a sound Was there an animal out here? She accidentally kicked a rock and we heard it thump, thump, thump, thump all the way down the cliff.
“I just want to go home,” she whispered grabbing onto my waist.
It was so dark. We were hungry and cold. We had no idea where we were or where we were supposed to be. I was ready to get down on my hands and knees.
Just then a huge spotlight shone through the trees. A rescue helicopter? Had one of our sons called help for us?
The moon, the roundest, brightest moon of the year, shone down like a flashlight, giving us light and hope to move forward. Then came another spotlight--this one a flashlight--from a neighbor who had come to show us the way. What a difference all that light makes.
It was as we were walking home by the light of the moon that my husband and I realized we had been wanting to do a full-moon hike for a long time, and--by the way--isn't it almost the Mooncake Festival?

Some Words of Wisdom from East of Eden

The East of Eden Writers Conference this past weekend was a grand celebration. The messages that were reinforced by the keynote speakers:
1) Writing takes time,
2) It's painful,
3) In the end, you just have to sit down and do it.
Karen Jay Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Club, said that when her children got to schooling age, her husband wanted her to go get a job. She wanted to try writing, so she asked him to allow her a year to see if she could write a book. At the end of that year, she went back to negotiate another five years.
Hallie Ephron, author of many books including the Dr. Peter Zak mystery series, said that while everyone says you have to love writing in order to do it (as money is definitely not a motivating factor), she hates writing. It's painful. It's miserable. (She loves re-writing.)
Brian Copeland , author of Not a Genuine Black Man—the choice for Silicon Valley Reads for 2009—said he loved writing, but it's hard to get going. He has his own method, and it's the only method that works for him. The AIC principle. A** In Chair.
It was reaffirming to hear other authors going through similar struggles. It was fun to see old faces and meet new. And now it's back to the chair.:)

It's Party Time!!!

I love writers' conferences--a gathering of like-minded people eager to share ideas and writing tips and contacts and good books. My favorite kind of party.

Tomorrow I'm heading down to Salinas to do a workshop on editing at the East of Eden Conference. I'm sure I'll come back jazzed and with an armful of books. I've already cleared off my bedside table in anticipation. Of the books cast aside, I wanted to let you know of some great ones I've enjoyed this past month.

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (translated from Japanese by Megan Backus.) This is the story of a young Japanese woman who loses her grandmother (her primary caretaker) and goes to live with a boy and his mother. It addresses the subject of loneliness and reads like poetry. The book was the winner of two of Japan's most prestigious literary awards and is currently in its 57th printing.

**Kitchen is also on the required reading list for the Asian Lit class at the SF Conservatory of Music along with yes, yes, yes, My Half of the Sky. Yeah!

Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez : In 2002, Deborah Rodriguez ventured off to Afghanistan with Care for All Foundation, an emergency and disaster relief organization. She knew nothing really about emergency and disaster relief--she is a hairdresser by trade. But she had a generous and brave spirit. When all the doctors and nurses had gone, she stayed behind to to build a beauty school and salon (something the Taliban had outlawed). She encountered the Taliban, women in arranged marriages, bombings, cultural divides--and all with great humor and grace. This was not only enlightening, but fun to read.

The Night in Question by Tobias Wolff: I'm often at a loss when it comes to short stories. Like pure poetry, I know there's a message there...but perhaps I'm just not getting it. Not so with these stories.