The Gut

I'm sitting here with a file open, waiting, waiting. Where to begin? I am about half way through the rewrite. I should push forward to the end, right? I quote John Steinbeck in Writers at Work, Penquin edition: "Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on."

So I should keep going through to the end. But my instinct, my gut, is telling me I missed something, that I should go back and correct it. Sometimes, craft and a sense of duty override instinct. I make notes about the thing my gut is screaming about, that visceral, feral, not-a-step-further feeling., and keep going. That is the smart thing, the professional thing, right?

Experience tells me that when something is screaming at me, it's too real and immediate to pass by, that getting that screaming thing on paper will have more vitality than the slogging forward because it's the right thing to do. Pressing onward will produce dull, listless writing, but the thing that screams at me, what will that bring forth? I have to go and see.

Red Audrey and the Roping has just made the short list for a Lambda literary award in debut fiction. I am very excited about this. I found Jill Malone's first novel surprising, written with a sure hand to complex character, style, setting, tone. Go find this book.

Butt in the Chair

I had a fun and interesting talk with the women's book club of OutLoud Books in Nashville yesterday. They seemed intrigued by my routine of getting up at 2 or 3 am every morning to write. I verified that this is absolutely true, every morning, seven days a week. They seemed to think this indicates great dedication. Maybe, but for me, as I tried to explain, writing is a habit, an avocation, a necessity. My routine does not work for every writer, and your not getting up so early each and every day does not indicate you are less devoted to your craft. Ideas and inspiration, the enthusiasm and passion for writing don't always magically appear at the designated time. But being there, in the chair, every day, making it a habit so ingrained that I can't do without it, means that I am open to it, and that the sometimes hard slogging, the mundane and dreary tasks of writing, editing, etc, gets done while waiting. I quote author Cynn Chadwick, who quoted Flannery O'Connor: writing is a habit of being.

As we began our talk, I pointed out that yesterday was the 44th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, that day in 1965 when about five or six hundred peaceful marchers were beaten back at the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, dozens sent to the hospital, and all of it shown on the national news. That is the day I chose for the ending scene in Miss McGhee.

I talked a little about the progress on What's Best for Jane. Set a decade ahead, the new novel opens in 1975, and moves from a great national force that swept the country to the affects on the individuals in the small town, from the political to the personal. I talked about that narrowing of focus and about writing from the point of view of a child, which I found very difficult.

A very interesting discussion.

See the cover of the new book? The one that's not out yet, because I've had some trouble, and because of it, I've been struggling with writing. See the manila folder? That's where outlines, ideas, notes, are stashed. The photo was taken at an authors' event at Java Nirvana in Gulfport, FL on Feb 15th, as I waited for it to begin. I sat fiddling and tweaking and writing yet more notes to myself about what comes next. I came to the event hoping to be energized and inspired by watching other authors read from their work and answer questions from the crowd. And I was rejuvenated. It was so helpful just to be there in the audience and to listen and get to talk a bit with other writers.

Gulfport is a lovely little village, a gem, one that I hope keeps on the wayside of the mainstream of tourists to Florida, though it has a beach, a pier, and inns, and wonderful shops and places like Java Nirvana. It's our secret here in St Pete, and I would hate to see this place change.

So I am writing again, pushing forward after the trouble, getting somewhere with the rewrite of What's Best for Jane. The new, and final, target for release is October 2009. Of course, troubles are never over simply because you declare them to be over. They have a way of popping in on you, no matter how determined you are to put them aside and move on. It has been my experience that the moving on occurs without pause or consideration for our individual stumbling blocks.

Sunday, Feb 15th: 10 am till 2 pm: three authors, Lee Lynch, KG MacGregor, and Ruth Perkinson, will be at Java Nirvana in Gulfport, Florida. Come join them for coffee and conversation. They will read, sign books, answer questions.

I'll be there, in the audience, lending support and taking notes. Stealing ideas and inspiration.

Some good news, after a long summer aand fall of not-good things. Go to this link:

http://browse.barnesandnoble.com/browse/nav.asp?visgrp=fiction&exp=900002&N=712556+907132&Ne=900002+712556+907132&z=y

and you'll find Miss McGhee at #8 on the Barnes and Noble bestseller list for gay/lesbian/fiction/romance/ something else. The subcategories are several but meaningless to me. I can honestly claim that I have a book in someone's top ten best sellers, at least for today.

It makes me feel great. Better than I have felt for a long time. Personal, family losses that I won't go into here have made struggling with the rewrites for What's Best for Jane a real trial. Just lately, that dam seems to have been breached and so the work is going forward.

And hey, we have a new president. So we'll soon be done with George W. Bush.

Odds and Ends, Dots and Dashes

I just read Cavedweller and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, both excellent books that I missed when they were bestsellers. Why am I reading? Because I just sent in the ms of What's Best for Jane, and I am languishing in the desert, that barren, desperate place, waiting to hear from my editor.

The GCLS conference is this weekend in Phoenix, and I can't attend, for financial reasons. I really, really wanted to, because Miss McGhee is a finalist for an award. I shall make it a policy to always show up whenever anyone wants to give me an award, but my bank account just did not cooperate this time. If by some miracle, my book should win, I will post an acceptance speech of the highest order here.

While waiting for the editing process to begin on Jane, I have been thinking about the next project. A few people have suggested that I write a memoir, the story of my childhood, growing up in a large family in south Alabama. I have given it some thought, to the extent that a 150,000 word draft sits waiting to be dusted off and revamped. I think that the only way I could do this is to distance myself from it, to create a fictional version of myself, thus gaining leeway to make me so much more interesting than I am, and also insulating those friends and family who might not be pleased to find my cockeyed perceptions of them in print.

It would be like looking at a picture within a picture within a picture. Stretching the truth into an unrecognizable shape, creating a behemoth from a gnat. Lying through my teeth. I am beginning to like this idea.