Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Snow Day

They closed schools, shut the subways down, the BQE became a ghost tunnel, and we prepared for the blustering, dumping, blizzard they said it would be.

Instead, the storm surged East and North and we had a slushy few inches. 

A let-down, in some ways. I expected a wonderland when I woke up. And, for me, I thought how much better a snow day would be if I didn't have to wake up and be ​present​. If I could read all day in my pajamas, watch a dumb movie on tv. 

At least, we thought, Little O could play in the snow, in a way he couldn't in his infancy last year. We bundled him in his space-suit, his hood an astronaut puff. We stepped out the door, caked snow on his mittens, touched it to his cheek, our voices knocking up a register, as always. ​Snow! Snow!  He sat in it, looked at it, had this way of looking back up at us, glum and unimpressed, wondering when we'd take him in from the cold. 

Our usually happy baby spent the rest of the day indoors crying, fussing, unhappily being plopped from one uninteresting activity to the next. The mat, his room, the bag of books, the basket of toys, the slinking dog pull-thing, the ride-on push-car with its piano keys. None of it inspiring, apparently. 

Yes, we stayed safe. Yes, all was not lost or destroyed. We are lucky. But I feel his restlessness. So much excitement over the white-stuff. Press conferences and news headlines. Empty supermarket shelves. The possibility that the world we know and everything around it could turn white and drift and slope, shake our footing, shape the ground, contour our lives, and we'd see something we'd never really seen before. 

I guess the gray and white days will slog along just the same until spring. 

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

First Drafts



Sometimes, when I face a first draft, the daunting, bridge-less white gaps of story, I feel overwhelmed. I think, this is the worst part of writing. This is the conjuring. Every word, every sentence, an angry miracle.

Other times, the empty spaces feel like possibilities and I marvel in them. I send strands of story as far as I can. I circle them into messy, tangled nests that I hope will one day become functional.

I often count words and days. I wonder when I'll reach an end. I make deadlines. I think if I can finish a draft before this but after that, I will be on track to get here so I can get there. Because if I don't get there I'll never be anywhere and who, in their right mind, would want that?

I add. I divide. I carry the one. I try to understand how long it will take to finish.

Finish.

Finish.

The old chant.

So much of my creative life, measured in the completion of words, rather than the actual practice of finding them.

Today, I thought, this is the best part of writing. The actual, well, writing. The wandering and wishing through a story I didn't know I knew. The waiting for words, however agonizing.

I think there's certainly something to be said for completing a work. For thumbing through the pages of a printed manuscript. For being able to say, I did it.

But, today, I feel even more satisfaction as I sit with all the words ahead of me and say, I'm doing it. 

Monday, January 12, 2015

Blue Birds by Caroline Starr Rose

This week we're celebrating Caroline Starr Rose's Blue Birds, which turned out to be my first completed book of the new year. Little O was feverish and cough-y and had fallen asleep on my chest. A rare moment for the boy who will no longer sit still. I reached for this gorgeous novel in verse and read it without ever needing a bookmark, turning pages to find out what would happen, stopping to re-read the most beautiful passages, until I reached the end.

This novel takes place in 1587 and follows the friendship of two spirited, young girls. Alis: the only English girl to arrive on the island of Roanoke. And Kimi: a member of the Roanoke tribe. 

Tensions rise between the English and the Roanoke, war is waged, and these girls find one another, call to one another, take unbelievable risks, and make room in their hearts to understand and love one another like sisters.  

The novel takes place in 1587 but it's a story for right now. Today. This minute. 

It's a story to stop and sit with, to use the rare moments of quiet amidst all the terrible noise. War wages across our world and within our hearts and we need more stories about finding empathy and compassion. We need more stories about two girls who find beauty in the mystery of one another, who look past their differences and find a shared language of friendship and love.

I loved this book. I also needed it. Since every day I listen to the noise and wish we could all find a new way of seeing. 

There are so many stunning passages in this book but I'll pull one of my favorites, a question Alis asks: 

What if a flight of birds
followed the wandering one,
joining him on a journey
entirely new?

These days, I ask a lot of what if's. This gorgeous novel answers many of them. It releases in March.

But read on to pre-order. The book is gift enough but Caroline has another beautiful gift for you too.

This post is part of a week-long celebration in honor of the book Blue Birds. Author Caroline Starr Rose is giving away a downloadable PDF of this beautiful Blue Birds quote (created by Annie Barnett of Be Small Studios) for anyone who pre-orders the book from January 12-19Simply click through to order from AmazonBarnes and NobleBooks A MillionIndieBound, or Powell's, then email a copy of your receipt tocaroline@carolinestarrrose.com by Monday, January 19. PDFs will be sent out January 20.