I Wrote A Novel

At the beginning of this year, I wrote on this very blog that I planned to write a novel this year.  I started one and abandoned it, not quite ready for that story, or maybe the story was not ready for me.

I turned to a new story and went with it.  I feel like I finished this novel at least six times this year because it had so many drafts.  I've announced 'the end' far too many times.

But today was the most real of all the ends because, like I said, I wrote on this blog that I planned to write a novel this year.  I am very stubborn.  And it is the end of the year.

So I wrote it.  I'm grateful to those of you who have read it.  And I look forward to seeing what will happen to it, if anything at all.

And I hope to write another one next year.

Here are some words of it, so you believe me.

Happy New Year, my friends.

Adelaine sunk to the curb, let her hair tumble to her feet, let her chin fall into her knees.  She pictured Reagan caught in the long strands of grass poking up from the edge of beach.  Adelaine had never been afraid of the ocean, would go to it even in the pink of morning when the air was cold.  She would let the shells nibble at her feet until she felt the smooth sand beneath her, until the ground disappeared all together and she was floating, arms out, the sun at the fall of the earth, toes gripping the cool water. 

But Reagan always stayed behind, weaving the thick blades together until she had a crown of brown and gold.  Adelaine would leave the ocean, stand over her, dripping, and wonder out loud why she would not go with her, not even let the water to her knees.  “I can teach you, ya know,”  Adelaine told her.

            And Reagan wrapped the braid of grass around her wrist.  A bracelet that, when she let go, unraveled to the sand. “It just seems like it would be so easy to get swept away.”

Getting There

It's the end of another year and I feel obligated to reflect.  To stop and do something I rarely do, look over my shoulder and see what I left behind.  But that's difficult to measure.  That's difficult for me to know.  Because, on the surface, very little happened.  From this day last year to this day, today, I live where I lived.  I work where I worked.  I love who I loved.  I suppose there is comfort in that.  Worlds can easily be thrown into upheaval.  I feel fortunate mine has not.

All this quiet, this stillness, however, has afforded a major shift in perspective.  I've been stirring inside.  I've been scheming, as always, in the dark.  And it would be hard for me to say that nothing has changed.  

I might say 2011 was about laying foundation.  I'm ready to say that 2012 will be about building. 

Last night, I had one of those endless, frustrating dreams. I was trying to hail a yellow taxi in New York City.  Not for me.  For a friend.  I stood on the corner, my arm out high, and I watched the cabs pass us by, one after the other.  No one stopped.

I remember the dream-me thinking that I had too great a responsibility to this friend.  Because the subway was not running.  I did not have a car.  The bus was headed downtown only.  The taxi was, obviously, a hopeless case.  The dream-me said, We're not getting anywhere.

But the real-me knows better than that.      

Memory of Sintra

I woke up this morning and, for some reason, my head was here.  In Portugal at the Palácio da Pena in Sintra.  We walked the wet paths, clutching our umbrellas, through fairytale mist.  The lush woodlands carved out this picture of slippery yellow and grey, dripping to just a blur.

We took the train back to Lisbon and, the next day, my friend Lynn and I met up with Graça, a stranger to me and, up until then, just a woman who penned work e-mails to Lynn.  She was barely five feet tall, in a black suit one size too small, cheeks red and chubby.

Graça had a lot to say.  About everything.  Barely let us sneak in a word.  She led us through the streets, always marching many steps ahead, forced baked goods into our hands, analyzed event spaces (Lynn was there on business.  I was, as usual, observing...tagging along.) Her judgements were much bigger than her height.  She was unimpressed with almost all that she saw.

You went to Sintra yesterday? Her eyes huge with disapproval.  What a silly thing to do.  To see one of the most beautiful places in the world, in the pouring rain.


I don't know why I think of Graça and Sintra today.  But, for me, Sintra will always belong to the rain.

Multiple Conversations

I've been told I am a good listener.  I've also been told I am a terrible listener.  I guess I listen to what I choose to listen to and ignore all the rest.  Which is how I approach many things.  Throw myself into what I love, sigh loudly at all the rest.

Part of the 'Melissa is a terrible listener' judgement is that Tyler believes I do not listen to him because I am able to have a conversation with him and, at the very same time, listen to an entire conversation that is happening elsewhere...between two strangers on the sidewalk, in a restaurant, or in a subway car.  

This became apparent to him when I sat next to actress Michelle Williams at a restaurant in Brooklyn. When we left I was able to relay huge portions of her conversation to him.  But Tyler had not seen me distracted throughout the meal.

Tyler doesn't think it's possible to be a part of both conversations and believed I must be fake listening to him.  But it's just not true.  It is possible!

I've started to think this is a skill that women have.  To be able to 'engage' in multiple conversations, file them away and pull them out when necessary.  But I also think it's a skill that writers have.  Being present in our own lives while sneaking into a stranger's life for a time.

Are you a good listener?   A selective listener like me?

Letting Go

I'll head off to Long Island tomorrow to spend Christmas Eve with my parents, then fly to Jacksonville early Christmas morning to spend a few days with Tyler's family.

I had set today as a deadline for myself, to finish a writing project, to complete my novel, drop the old clothes off at Salvation Army, donate the mountain of books that had created a fort around my writing desk, clean the apartment, and many more items on a To-Do list that seemed to grow longer and longer.

I did most of those things.

I even managed to take a walk to eat the most amazing donuts I've ever eaten and walk the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights to get a glimpse of my city's skyline (it never fails to amaze me, even after all these years.)

Then I sat down, just moments ago, to unanswered e-mails, to a google reader with 400 items unread.  It may sound silly to some of you but it bothers me to have too many e-mails ignored, to have a list of articles and blog posts yet to read.

But I looked at the screen and I did something nearly unprecedented.  I just clicked 'Mark All As Read'.  Even if the google reader had not been read.  I filed the e-mails away to have a clear inbox.  I apologized to the novel, told it that I needed more time, uninterrupted time, not this stop and start pattern I've been running in circles around.

It made me feel better.  To mark the google reader, file the emails, be at peace with leaving the novel unfinished.  I will not let it hang over me.

Lately, I think I've been holding on too tightly, clinging to something I can not define.  I am ready to let go of my grasp.  To live this Christmas, breathe in this winter, see another year through.  There is no better time, I think, to close my eyes and let go.

Happy Holidays to all of you.

Dream Builders

Lately, I feel as if all kinds of serendipitous things are happening to me.  To be honest, they happen to me a lot.  Fates aligning in a strange way.  Connections being made at just the right time.  And it is always why I write fiction based in reality and watch documentary films because magical things exist in real life, no fantastical world necessary.

When I opened my email inbox just moments ago, I found that my dear friend Lynn had sent me this photo because, she wrote, it sums up what you have been expressing lately.

And it also meant much, much more to me than she knew (to which I responded you are not going to believe this...)  But, then again, the best of friends always know.  And they always believe.

Book Buying: A Shift In Perspective

Shopping, for me, is a torturous experience.  This is true at all times of year.  But it is particularly true this time of year.  My vision of New York City warps itself into nothing but endless bodies parading the sidewalks, like sausages oozing out of the casing on every subway platform and store.  I push through, sigh loudly in long lines, rub shoulders unwillingly.

At a dinner party the other night, I met some people who had made peanutbutter for all their friends and family for the holidays and I thought, Yes! Peanutbutter.  Next year, everyone will get peanutbutter.

These days, my local independent book store is the only place I can navigate with any sanity.  But I find myself frustrated even there. 

Several times in the past few weeks, I have stood with sturdy hardcovers and debated.  I have wondered, is this book worth it?  I wanted, desperately, to buy Tyler's mother The Bhudda In The Attic by Julia Otsuka.  Do you know how much that 144 page book is?  Do you?   

I did not purchase it.  I walked away.

Lately, I have wanted books I can not find.  Some written years ago, others, perhaps, just a little obscure.  I walked to the register, asked if I could order them, and was told I was better off looking elsewhere because it would take a long time to order them or they weren't available at all.

I stood with Murakami's 1Q84.  I stood with Joan Didion's Blue Nights.  I stood with Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus.  I stood with Harbach's The Art of Fielding.  All of them, in their hardcover forms, with prices that seemed just a little too high.

Do you know how much I love books?  (you must, of course must)  Do you know how desperately I want to read all of these books?  

In the end, I walked out empty-handed.  I went to Barnes and Noble and bought only the Murakami book because I am desperate to read it and I knew I could get it at 40% off there.  

I also knew, in my heart, that I could purchase every single book I wanted on Amazon.  Every.  Single.  One.  You realize that they have them all.  

I know I am but one person.  A person who does not have an e-reader and therefore can only read library books or purchase physical copies.  A person who spends an obscene amount of money on books as it is. 

There are a lot of statements being made and debates being had about the way books are bought and sold today.  But I don't think it's about (even if it is about) evil empires versus Mom and Pop.  I don't believe it's about (even if it is about) what books are worth or paperback versus hardcover versus e-book versus used book.

I think it's deeper than that.  I think it's about being in an independent book store, going to an online retailer, walking to the nearest chain.  It's about standing with a hardcover, looking over at a paperback, being able to buy a book you loved once rather than a book you might love.  I think all of these things are working together to create a major shift in perspective.

It's about peanut butter.  It's about standing with a book and walking away.