There’s just no accounting for taste. Or for obsessions. I can’t tell you why I’m obsessed with hermits, but I can tell you today is a banner day if you happen to be interested in hermits too—there are hermit videos on YouTube!Yes, now if you’ve ever wanted to see the inside of a hermit cave you can click HERE, or if you want to stare into the face of meditating yogis in solitude you can click HERE.
And really, who doesn't?
After college I moved to Then one day I got a break. My roommate, an intern in the PR department at Microsoft, landed me an interview with the Copy Chief of Corporate Communications—the head of all the marketing and communications writers. Despite the fact that I took the wrong bus and arrived late and, perhaps worse, wore a really bad hound’s tooth suit, Tony and I clicked. He had done his graduate work at the same
Until then, I’d never had the pleasure of being edited on a regular, daily basis. I miss it terribly. This piece could definitely have used an editor. To me being edited is like scratching a mosquito bite, the way it feels good and bad at the same time. Sure you feel like an ass for being caught making dumb mistakes, but reading that freshly edited page, free of errors…well, I guess you might have to be a writer to appreciate how that feels a lot like getting into clean sheets that someone else has washed and put on the bed.
Does anyone else do things that feel completely normal to you, but may seem bizarre or superstitious to others? Amongst the requisite computer-related items on my desk sits a tray with collection of various trinkets, my Fetish Garden. It holds a clan Cameron badge, a jade three-legged toad, an ingot, coins from countries I’ve visited in a small clay bowl that my son made, a prism with the Mayan calendar carved in it, a replica Egyptian monkey inkwell filled with shells that I picked up from Big Sur after I’d won an award at a writing workshop there, and a carved stone my Mom gave me before surgery, among other things.
I was writing a road trip scene today and felt like I needed a little music while I worked. But since I prefer to write in austere conditions with no distractions to the eyes or ears, I don’t even have a way to play music in my office other than my laptop. So I thought I’d check out Pandora.com, which my husband has been raving about since it debuted on the internet. Guess what? I have a new obsession! Pandora knows me better than I know myself! Pandora understands me at the core! Brace yourself for even more exclamation points!This kind of unbridled joy at Pandora’s mind reading skills has been going on all day.
On/Off by Snow Patrol just came on! I’d written this song on my hand a few weeks ago, meaning to buy it, but never got around to it. Did Pandora see that? It’s crazy over here, my friends! Run to Pandora.com and feast your ears. She knows what you like!
Wait…are you kidding me? Now it’s Jason Mraz! Am I that transparent? Are my tastes that obvious?
When not writing, I’m busy raising two children. Sometimes they astound me–like when seven-year-old Juliet cranks out a Flash animation in less time than it takes me to upgrade my browser. All DNA responsible for this feat comes directly from her father. From me? A love of books and frosting.
Today I have to take my own advice and just get my asp in the chair and open my manuscript.
Yesterday I was working on a freelance project that involved far too much of my left brain: reworking citations in an essay bound for an MIT Press anthology. This is dull work, closer to tweaking html code than writing—Chicago Style, MLA Style, Turabian Style, they all have their own weird little rules to follow and translating one to the other is tedious10. For me, this is the soul-sucking part of freelance writing.
Working on non-fiction projects, especially anything academic, always throws off my fiction writing for a while. After double checking each and every word or date to make sure it follows specific citation style rules, it feels a bit weird to sit down and write with no parameters. I can write a sentence without having to hit the “insert endnote” shortcut key? Really? I can just, you know, make stuff up?
The day before last it was over 80 degrees and yesterday five inches of snow fell on the newly mowed lawn. If the weather can move that quickly from one extreme to the other, why can’t I?
If you are lucky enough to secure representation by a big-time Literary Agent, here are three things you should never do:
There’s a reason most agents don't tell their clients the names of their other clients. Because reading the chipper websites and blogs of writers recently signed to your agent, all full of hope and promise and – ugh – good news, can do nothing positive for your writing. If you’re looking to get a bleeding ulcer they’re top notch, other than that there’s no reason to do this kind of stalking research.
Maybe this whole path to publication, which for me has been one gigantic, slowly meted dose of discomiture, is designed to toughen you up for when your manuscript is published and gets reviewed. Maybe it’s like how being unable to sleep well while pregnant prepares you for the next decade of sleep deprivation. Or maybe my manuscript just sucks.
I delivered my children in the same small hospital where I was born, my daughter is the Bellview Bobcat that I was long ago, and I only live a short walk from the house in which I grew up. Because this is a small town, I know the people who bought that house. Decades later they still live there; he was my old English teacher and she's the children’s librarian at our local branch. I go to the library often and almost every time I see her she mentions the cutting board.
I was tortured by my older sister, positively tortured. Ask anyone, they’ll agree. I couldn’t fight back so I struck with words—including some choice ones hidden under the cutting board. I remember the day I carved the cruel words about her there, thinking no one would ever get under the thing. I had just made a cup of Personal Frosting, you know a little powdered sugar, cocoa, butter, and milk, all stirred together in a mug and eaten with a spoon. (Admit it; the frosting is the destination. Who needs cake?) I sat on the kitchen floor and looked up at the cutting board that was pulled out above my head and though, perfect. I can’t remember what she had done that day to piss me off, but my thoughts about her that day are now recorded forever.
Who knew Mrs. C would keep her cookbooks in the cupboard under the cutting board? Who knew she’d enjoy sitting on the kitchen floor next to her open cupboard browsing those books? Who knew she’d ever pull out the cutting board and look up while down there?
I saw Mrs. C again today at the library and the first thing my kids asked her was, “Do you still live in Mom’s old house?” They love the cutting board story, no matter how many times it’s told…
Words live on; be careful where you publish.
So after I wrote about Making a Literary Life, I thought I’d send Carolyn See a Charming Note about how much I loved it, and include a link to the post. Guess what? She wrote back! How great is it to get a Charming Note responding to my Charming Note about the Charming Note’s author of a book about Charming Notes?
While I felt like an idiot because I implied it was her book that spooked my long-lost friend, and while being described as "chipper" does nothing for my Street Cred®, Ms. See’s Charming Note was a fantastically charming treat:
Dear Christy!
That's the cutest damn thing I ever saw! (But I can't help but wonder what spooked the other woman so much!)
Thank you, dear. You were just so sweet to write it -- and to send it to me. Might it be possible to connect on to my web site? I don't know how to do that, but if I forward it to my web master, might she glue it on somehow?
I love the rest of your blog too. It's so chipper!
Many, many many thanks...
xxx
Carolyn See
I’m the kind of person who never misses a meal, even if I have to take beta blockers in order to deal with the social anxiety of sitting with hundreds of strangers. So last year at a writing workshop that I attended without the camaraderie of my writing group, I tried to time it so I’d arrive for dinner right as the dreaded “wine reception” was ending. Unfortunately, when I got there it was in full swing so I had to grab a drink and make a few laps, hoping for someone to grab my arm and say something, anything, to me. While social, even gregarious, in many ways, I am absolutely incapable of walking up to a cluster of strangers and joining in the conversation, especially if the topic is oneself and one’s writing. 
Today is a very special day. My writer’s critique group has decided to start a blog, and today was the first post. At last night’s meeting we hashed out who would post on what day and I didn’t take into consideration that I’d be following Julie, writer and English teacher extraordinaire. She posted first and set the bar high—including graphics! Now every Friday I’m going to post some lame thing that disappoints everyone who has read her Thursday post. 
You know when you have so much to say about something that you can’t say anything at all? That’s how I feel about the 
Wow. It´s been quite a ride so far. I´m with a group of Nueva Age people, which has made this trip a real trip. Nothing is as it seems, there is hidden meaning in everything: "tourista" is the spirit clearing your bad energy (it´s the salad, people, stay away from the leafy greens!), the freaky sound of the howler monkey, which is a lot like a thousand Jaguars all roaring at once, is the monkey throwing its etheric body around (it´s called an enlarged hyoid bone, people!), and on and on.I’m leaving for the Mexican states of
But I digress, and I know you want to get back to my riveting thoughts on packing for
I’ll be visiting some of the most spectacular cities of the ancient Maya - research for one of my Young Adult projects. I’m most excited about spending time with a Daykeeper (basically a calendar expert, the Maya have 20 amazingly intricate calendar wheels) and learning more about Maya cosmology, especially in relation to the muy mysterioso 2012 end date of one of their calendars.
In addition to cosmology, I’m also interested in tequila. I’m thinking about pitching a mini book on tequila so I can write off my consumption without actually having to write too mas about it. What do you think, editors? Any takers? World rights go for a bottle of Del Maguey Mezcal Tobala and a basket of limes!
More from the Mundo Maya to come. Adios!
I had to take Mrs. McCracken’s Typing Basics junior year (yes, on a real live typewriter a la Mark “I was the first person in the world to apply the typemachine to literature" Twain). I couldn’t see the point. I distinctly remember remarking, “I don’t need to know how to type, I’m going to have a secretary…” I can’t recall what I thought I was going to grow up to be, but whatever it was it involved having a secretary to touch those loathsome keys.
When I saw that I had Typing right after morning break, I hatched a brilliant plan. Mrs. McCracken always wrote the day’s lesson on the board, so I’d go in during break and pretend to practice while I’d really be carefully typing the day’s lesson slowly, without mistakes. Then in class when we’d have our time test, I’d just type crazily like a 4 year old, throw away that gobbledygook, and then turn in the previously constructed work. I aced the class, and came out completely unable to type. My foresight could not have been cloudier.
So now, as a freelance writer who is paid to type, I still hunt and peck. I’m fast, sure, really fast actually, but in a jerky, nonsensical, start-and-stop way. A lot like I drive. Most disappointing, though, is the physical pain my cheating has brought on. I have carpel tunnel in both wrists because of the weird way that I hold my hands as I pounce on letters. A constant, chronic reminder that The Adults were right--cheating only hurts the cheater.
"Cosmic irony" bonus: My first real job out of college was at Microsoft.
Yeah, those things will never catch on...
Fortunately, that space produced two new book ideas that I didn’t even realize were brewing. In the first couple of weeks I couldn’t stop writing, scenes were just pouring out of me. I worked on both manuscripts simultaneously and then I hit a wall. I realized I had to be monogamous; I had to pick one and deepen my commitment.
I was torn on which one to pursue and my writer’s group was split on the decision. I decided to try Agent Laura to get an objective opinion on which she thought was more viable. She was heading off to a conference, so she sent them off to a Secret Reader to get an opinion until she could get to them. Apparently the agency has readers, kept anonymous to the clients, that review work when even the agent needs a second, objective opinion. Personally, I love the idea of a Secret Reader – I want complete honesty and only someone who has no stake in whether or not you like them can be unabashedly, brutally critical or, on the other hand, give you a genuine compliment.
Yesterday I received the comments from said Secret Reader and was delighted that s/he had such good things to say. One manuscript was strongly preferred over the other, and supporting reasons were given. All of it was true true true, but unable to be seen by me.
Forging ahead with MS #1!
As previously mentioned, I love the solitude that the writing life brings. But one of the drawbacks is that there is no feedback loop; you sit in a room and write, and occasionally glance up at the finches outside your window, then you go back to writing - but there’s no one there.
I look forward to it every week because, hey, when you’re a mother of two young kids it’s really nice to have one night a week that you know will be spent with adults talking about things you love. But more than that it gives me people, real, live people, to write for; it’s not just me and the finches anymore. I have an audience. And somehow that fact alone gets my ass in the chair on a Monday morning.
I went skiing today, a perfect warm, sunny spring day, and realized that I've been taking life way to seriously lately. Character ideas for my current project spun through my head during the drive up, but as soon as that first lift scooped me off the earth and into the air, all was forgotten. I spent a blissful day on the mountain without thinking about writing. That's good. A little distance is a powerful thing; in fact, I took a day off from blogging and now as I re-read my previous posts I realize I sound like a jackass.
Why writing? Because no one has been paying Ornamental Hermits for a couple of centuries now. I worked in
Someone once told me that to find out what you’d love to do for work, look critically at your bookshelf. See what you spend your time and money reading about. Me? I have an extensive collection of books on hermits. Ancient Tibetan hermits, Indian hermits, modern-day Catholic hermits – you name the hermit, I’ve got the book. Give me a new hermit to read about and I’ll be up all night. So I realized that inside my broad Germanic frame lives a tiny, hunched over anchorite begging for solitude.
As a writer working from an office at home I have found a way (now that kids are in school) to have long stretches of solitude without having to survive only on tsampa and sleep on a bed of pine boughs. I can live like a hermit for six hours a day and then enjoy the richness of the rest of my life.
In addition to the solitude, there is the thrill of constructing something from nothing, of creating a new world, of developing characters you come to truly love or at least love to hate. Most of all, though, there is the sheer pleasure of working with words; for every hundred dull sentences I write there’s one that I love so much I keep rolling it over and over on my tongue like a dessert that’s too good to swallow.
From Edith Sitwell’s 1933 English Eccentrics:
Certain noblemen and country squires were advertising for Ornamental Hermits. Nothing, it was felt, could give such delight to the eye, as the spectacle of an aged person, with a long grey beard, and a goatish rough robe, doddering about amongst the discomforts and pleasures of Nature.
So here I am, making my first post and freaking out.
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