Great mornings at the desk the past two days, and I think I’ve finally hit a sustainable groove to keep me working away on the novel. The page feels both urgent and fresh, and I’m coming to the page with ideas and leaving the work for the day with entry points waiting for me when I return.
Today, I went on a bike ride with our daughters, aged 7 and 6, to see if we could spot the 10-foot alligator who was photographed having a snack of a turtle in our neighborhood while we out of town.
We didn’t see the alligator, but we did have the chance to visit with one of our 7 year old’s friends who lives nearby. While the gils played, I visited with the parents on the porch. The girl’s mother is also a writer, and she is about to leave for a weeklong writer’s retreat. I was sharing my envy with her. During my doldrums a few weeks ago, Mallory tried to send me away to a writing retreat, but the one I most rely on was full and booked throughout the summer. I was telling my friend that even after four novels the work hasn’t gotten any easier.
But I’ve found ways to live in the work even when the work wasn’t coming to me, or at least I wasn’t coming to it in the right way. I’ve been reading a lot, and while reading another author’s work I also hold my own novel in my mind. While I read, I ask What can I learn from this character? How can I apply this technique or causality or the use of this object in my novel? I’ve also found myself connecting with my novel each night when I enter the dream space before falling asleep. I make the same connection when I slowly wake up each morning. These are the two parts of my day when my mind and heart are most open to possibility and creativity, and I try to make use of them. Even though I wasn’t working at the desk, I was working.
Yesterday I received a number of emails and text messages letting me know that my last name was a clue in yesterday’s LA Times crossword, which is reprinted in newspapers across the country, including in Wilmington where we live and in Asheville where I work. It was an honor to see my name and debut novel mentioned, and it was also surreal.
But while I got a big kick out of it, it didn’t excite me the way it would have in 2012 when A Land More Kind Than Home was published. Back then every mention of my name or the novel was a huge deal. But things feel different now. It’s not that I’m not touched or proud or a little embarrassed by seeing my name in the crossword, it’s that I now realize that seeing my name in the crossword has very little bearing on my career and certainly no effect on the work at hand. I still had to get up this morning and get to the office and sit down at the desk by 7:00 a.m., just like I did yesterday, just like I’ll do tomorrow. Onward.