Swoon

Much to my horror, I fainted last night! Pretty scary business. I wasn't hot, drunk, thirsty, sick, scared, upset, or any of the other reasons I can think of to faint. I walked out of a reading and felt confused about how to get back to my dorm room. Then I got the classic weird vision thing and ringing ears, made my way to a low wall and boom! Luckily, writer friends were on the scene and helped me out. They reported I was pretty pale at the time. Still feeling kind of wobbly, so I'm taking it easy. I did do my panel on long form narrative with Frank Gaspara and Craig Lesley, and I must say we rocked. Dorianne Laux brought me Gatorade, which I think helped (maybe my electrolytes went haywire?) But I was happy to get back in bed with Gillian Flynn's terrific novel Gone Girl. I have a meeting in a half an hour, but I think it's back to bed after that. I hate to miss the readings tonight, and the Silk Road party after, but I'm pretty sure I won't be up to it.

But feast your eyes on this! The gorgeous cover of the Italian edition of THE KNITTING CIRCLE!

Miles to go before I sleep

I love wifi on airplanes, yes I do! En route to Portland, OR from Chicago, writing this at 35000 feet. The hum of a plane is one of my favorite sounds, like music to me. What a week of traveling around! And actually it's the start of a busy month of travel. Tuesday, as soon as Annabelle's last day of second grade party ended, GJ and I loaded her in to the car and headed back to Woodstock. (It is so hard not to write here: We are stardust, we are golden...) The fabulous Martha Frankel put us up for the night, and fed us the yummiest salmon dinner with kale salad, and invited good friends to join us. The next morning we went to her husband Steve's store Fabulous Furniture where I picked up the table he designed and built for me--it fits 1000 word jigsaw puzzles! I will post a picture of it when I get around to transferring photos from my phone to the computer. Also, the lamp with the pink Cadillac sticking out of it, which now stands over the aforementioned table in my playroom back home. The fact that Steve fit these items in my Mini Cooper is kind of mind boggling. But he did! Stopped at the excellent bookstore there after breakfast at Bread Alone and signed books, then drove home where, for one hour, I ran around like a crazy person, doing laundry and packing for my flight to Chicago the next day (more in a minute), and loading up on groceries, all before I hopped on Amtrak to New London where my darling buddy met me at the train station and took me out to dinner. The food: awful. The night: lovely. Back on Amtrak to Providence, arriving at 11:30. Home to bed for only a few hours sleep before it was time to get up and make one of those awful 6AM flights. But we were all excited to get to Chicago for Ariane's graduation from Northwestern (missed Sam who couldn't come because he was busy putting on Cinderella in Westminster, CO). Got to Baltimore and our flight was delayed...for 5 hours! Ugh. Somehow the time passed, and eventually we were driving north from Chicago to Evanston and all sorts of graduation fun. I had to leave a day early to get to Oregon and the Pacific University low res MFA program. Connecting in SFO very soon. Then it will be the stocking up on supplies for the week (Oregon wine and fruit and if I'm lucky Stumptown coffee), moving in to my groovy pad in Forest Grove, and hopefully having some Copper River salmon for dinner tonight. Teaching begins tomorrow, first thing, so tonight will be me preparing for class...A crazy week!

I have brought my Waves blanket, which I just might finish as I listen to all the great readings and lectures this week. Then it's on to striped dish rags with Lion Brand's new kitchen vintage yarn, The colors are so yummy!

Just finished reading Sophie Hannah's Truth Teller's Lies. If you haven't read her yet and you like psychological thrillers, you will love hers. Great women characters, messed up detectives, Great Britain...what's not to love? On to Gone Girl next...

Summer day, summer day, summer day

I think that's a quote from Henry James, and it sure fits today here in Providence. Warm and pretty, birds chirping away, flowers in bloom, sun coming through the leaves on the trees outside my window. And the first day in a very long time that I do not have a deadline hanging over me. At least for today I can do whatever I like.

In the daily life of a writer, I find that my rhythm is idle time alternating with too much to do. There isn't really ever idle time because I always have stories developing in my mind. Those days--like today--when I am free to just think my thoughts are valuable to my writing process. It's a difficult part of writing to explain to non-writers or beginning writers: seemingly doing nothing is actually vital to stories taking shape.

Today I might take a walk to the library or the RISD Museum. I will definitely defrost my freezer. I might watch a few episodes of Damages (I am addicted to it!) I might knit. Likely, hours will pass with me just thinking...

The week ahead will not be as decadently free. Tomorrow GJ, Annabelle and I are going back to Woodstock. I'll sign some books, hang with friends, and bring home my new table and lamp. The lamp has a model pink 1959 Cadillac on it; the table was designed to fit a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle on it (no more doing my puzzles on the floor or dining room table!) Both were designed by Steve at Fabulous Furniture. You can see what Steve's work at: www.fabulousfurnitureon28.com/about.html. 


Also tomorrow (ok, I'm now writing in green and can't switch back!): Annabelle's last day of second grade! Yikes! 


Wednesday night I'm meeting my old pal in New London, CT for dinner. Then up way to early Thursday for one of those dreadful crack of dawn flights, this one to Chicago for Ariane's graduation from Northwestern. Two fabulous days in Chicago before I head to Oregon and the low res MFA program at Pacific University. 


My niece's wedding at the Athenaeum library on Saturday night was amazing! We roamed the stacks and drank great wine and nibbled on yummy snacks and celebrated Love. Ah! The wedding came in between Annabelle's school play (Viva the French revolution!), Auntie Junie's 78th birthday party (Viva Caserta's Pizza!) and Annabelle's ballet recital (Viva the tutu!). Capped off with a dinner party at our dear friend Bruce's--smoked salmon on johnny cakes followed by grilled lamb chops. Need I say more?


By the way, I am loving this new format for my blog. And I've received lots of positive feedback too.One of the features I really like is that I can access statistics about the blog--how many views it gets a day, where the people reading it are located, the gender of my readers. Lots of surprises! 


THE OBITUARY WRITER has come through copy editing and is on its way to becoming a real book that we can hold in our hands. 


And my Waves blanket is half done. It's gorgeous! The pattern calls for each color to appear only once. But I have enough yarn to repeat my waves and make it a bigger blanket. I will definitely make more of these--the pattern is so easy and it's a great project to take on my travels. I also ordered Lion Brand's new kitchen vintage yarn--the colors are so vivid! I'll take that with me too to knit up some striped dishrags this summer. 


Enjoy this summer day!

Transit of Venus

As a lover of rain, I am enjoying this lovely rainy weather we've been having all week. But I hope it clears up in time for the transit of venus tonight.As you probably know, this is very rare--in fact, it's only been recorded six times, ever. I love this from today's NYT: "This week, people on Earth can see with their own eyes the beauty spot--as beautiful as Marilyn Monroe's--bestowed by Venus on the Sun."Isn't that beautiful?

I have a little romantic story about this too. When I was a teenager, a boy I liked took my to Providence for the afternoon--a very big deal for me.He walked me up and down the neighborhood where I now live, and told me odd and whimsical historical facts. The whole time he spoke, I wished he would hold my hand, although if he did I might have fainted. I remember standing on Benefit Street, peering down Planet Street as he explained about the transit of Venus, and how the street names Planet and Transit came from it. Even back then I was a romantic, and believed that all this talk of Venus must be a sign of a great love developing. But as these things go, eventually my feelings for that blue eyes boy changed. I fell in love again and again, but always remember that summer afternoon with him.

I hope we all fall in love a little bit today, in honor of that beauty spot bestowed by Venus on the Sun...

Both Sides Now

Woke up to the most beautiful sounds in the world: NYC waking up outside my window. Greenwich Village in particular makes the sounds I most love. Add to these this morning rain falling gently onto Greenwich Street and I have the perfect background music for a morning of working. Today's goal is to finish revising Book Six in The Treasure Chest series, in which my time traveling twins meet the last Queen of Hawaii. I took a risk with this one, and introduced a lot of new ideas. All of which failed (according to wise powers that be). So it's a total revamp, and one that is going slowly.

But it makes me pause to think about the importance--no, the necessity--of revising. Too many new writers resist it, and their work suffers as a result. So far for me, 2012 has been all about revision. More so than writing. I spent months on revising THE OBITUARY WRITER. And truly, folks. The book sings now. I am so eager for everyone to read it.

The novel deals with themes of grief and loss, but also explores questions of love and marriage, infidelity and women's changing roles over time. I am going to post random sentences from the novel here starting next week as a kind of fun way to introduce it to you. 

Last night, I went to hear Judy Collins at Town Hall here in Manhattan. I don't go to lots of concerts. In fact, as I was walking there--along the High Line, which you must do when you're next in NYC--I realized I go to about one a year. Last year Aaron Neville, the year before John Prine and Iris Diment. Of course, I always try to go to at least one day of the Newport Folk Festival, which last year meant Emmylou Harris and Pete Seeger. And I admit to being a Parrot Head too. So you get some insight into my musical taste here. I am dying to get to a Zac Brown concert, but so far haven't been able to make that happen. But I digress...

Stopped at 23rd. Street and descended the High Line for dinner at The Half King, Sebastian Junger's pub. This is a fun place to grab a burger if you are in the neighborhood. I opted for a soft shell crab po boy instead, because the window for eating soft shell crabs is so narrow that I have to have them constantly. Unfortunately, this one was mostly coating and iceberg lettuce. But it didn't really matter. Drinking beer and sitting outside and dipping my fried into a chipotle mayo more than made up for it. Plus, I made fast work of a giant bowl of mussels to start, and they were fabulous. Cooked in a rich garlicky marinara. Eating them made me decide I should make mussels more at home. Easy and yummy.

Back on the High Line and onward to 43rd. Street. Madeleine Peyroux opened the concert. I love her first CD, and when she sings Leonard Cohen or Edith Piaf, you just want to weep. But everyone had come for Judy, and after intermission (mine spent in an interminable line to the bathroom) she took the stage in black sequins, knee high boots, that gorgeous mane of gray hair (note to self: when I am 73 I too will have a gorgeous mane of gray hair. And knee high black boots.) and sang her heart out. Both Sides Now. Helplessly Hoping. Send in the Clowns. Mr. Tambourine Man. Her encore song: Somewhere Over the Rainbow. And her in between song banter was almost as mesmerizing as she reminisced about the Village in the early 60s and the folk scene there. My heart be still. I kind of floated back home, and sat with a cold glass of chardonnay grinning until bedtime.

Today, I'm getting a surprise visit from an old friend. I'm thinking we might hit MOMA and the Cindy Sherman retrospective. Unless the rain sends us into a movie theater instead. Tickets tonight to the play Peter and the Star Catcher with another old pal. Cannot wait to see it! We are having an early dinner pre show, probably at his favorite place. I don't know the name, and there is no sign on the door. You just have to know which brownstone door to open. I always see someone famous there. Last time it was the guy who played Sal on Mad Men. 

But of course I am still fresh from our trip out west to deliver Sam safely into the arms of the Missoula Children's Theater. Above, one of the little red trucks that travel the country all summer, delivering theater to kids. Sam will be in truck #38, visiting Colorado, NM, Kansas, and Nebraska.

But before we hit Missoula, we spent an interesting day in Salt Lake City (which is where we flew into because there is nothing like a road trip out west!). From there the next morning we drove through Idaho to Yellowstone, and spent the night at the great Old Faithful Inn. Lots of bison spotting, and some huge mule deer. And lots of snow! And of course, Old Faithful. I watched it erupt about five times because it is just one of those things that gives me the chills to see, like the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog. Day three found us in Bozeman, MT and there I discovered the Country Bookshelf, one of those indie bookstores that you can lose yourself in for a very long time. I did! Final stop with Sam still in town: Missoula. I cried, yes I did. A lot. Happy for him, sad over a Sam-less summer in RI. When we left Missoula, we got fortification at Liquid Planet where I think I had one of the best cups of coffee ever. Back to SLC, and a night in a gorgeous B and B near the state house. A bottle of cabernet on the porch, watching evening settle over the city.

I had photos to share, but it is almost 10 o'clock and I have a book to revise! So I will post them soon.

One final thing: knitters, you must knit this blanket in the Waves pattern. Loop.com has it on their website. It is easy, with just one challenging row out of every four. I will post a picture of mine when I finish, which will be soon!

Westward ho!

Tomorrow we head west to deliver Sam into the loving arms of the Missoula (MT) Children's theater. He'll be training in Missoula for a week or two before he heads off in his little red truck to bring theater to kids in four western states. I am so proud of him! But have had a lot of crying jags over him being gone all summer. These past couple of weeks with him home have been so good. The sound of his big feet coming up the stairs. Sitting around watching Tony Bourdain's No Reservations marathons. Hitting the meat truck for lunch. Sharing music. Just being with him. I have done a pretty good job of keeping my tears to myself. But oh dear.

Still, I am excited for us to take this trip, all of us together driving through Utah, Wyoming and Montana. I love the west, and I'm thrilled to share it with Annabelle. I was lucky to snag a room at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone, and a dinner reservation there that night. She so loves the natural world that I can't wait to see her reaction to Yellowstone. I'm hoping we get to spot a moose or bear, which I have done on past trips, just for Annabelle.

And I can't let today pass without saying Happy Birthday to two of my favorite proper nouns.

Raymond Carver's writing helped make me a writer. I will never forget the thrill I felt when I discovered his stories in The New Yorker long ago, and how his unique style opened up my imagination and helped hone my own style. Celebrate him today! Maybe read one of his short stories, like "Cathedral" or "What we Talk About When we Talk About Love."

And Happy Birthday to the Brooklyn Bridge! One of my best things to do on a beautiful autumn day in NYC is to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and marvel at it, and at the two boroughs it connects. If you're in NYC, take a moment to gaze at it. or better yet, take that gorgeous walk!

AH-CHOO!

Greetings from the land of sneezing, coughing, and nose blowing. Yes, I have been taken down by a very bad cold. If ever there could be a good time to have a bad cold, this week is it. Annabelle is on a class trip to Quebec and my sweetheart is on a work trip to Singapore. This means that I have been free to moan and complain, wake up at 3AM miserable and listen to podcasts without headphones on, stay in my jammies all day--mostly in bed--and read (SHIRLEY JACKSON: A RATHER HAUNTED LIFE) and write (working on not one but two secret projects!) and watch TV (GIRLS, CHOPPED, and a spur of the moment rental of THE BREAKFAST CLUB) and knit (the second fingerless mitt for my sweetheart, a finished hat with alpaca and a pattern from Yarnia in Nacogdoches TX, and a puzzling how to video for the pattern a month from Mason-Dixon Knitting).

I have soft scrambled eggs (some people call these French eggs) in a double boiler with butter and cream and fried up bacon and made toast; cooked up my favorite comfort food, which is doctored packaged ramen from a NYT recipe (you poach an egg in it, add butter and two slices of American cheese, scallions or sesame seeds if you have them on hand--I didn't); reheated fried rice leftover from a dinner party we had in which sweetheart made sous vide short ribs with char sui sauce, I made the fried rice and dry fried Szechuan string beans, and we bought a whole chopped duck in garlic sauce from the duck place two doors down from me. Last night I finally dragged myself to the supermarket and got the fixings for the pot of black bean soup I've been dreaming of all week.

Here is the revelation I had while I sat in bed coughing and sneezing and nose blowing, my two cats--Hermia and Gertrude--nestled beside me, my computer on my lap: there is great joy for me in being a writer. In writing. In not talking to anyone all day (well, except my mom who is very sympathetic to my misery and Sam who calls in reports of his life as an actor in NYC and my sweetheart in Singapore who has the same bad cold but is eating giant crab legs and shrimp that are still wiggling on the plate and who patiently tells my what time it is across the world). Mostly, I am just living in my head, in my imagined worlds, which is what writers do. Happily.

Yesterday I remembered with great fondness having a similar bad cold thirty years ago when I was writing SOMEWHERE OFF THE COAST OF MAINE and living on Bleecker Street. Every day for a week I called my local Chinese restaurant and got cold sesame noodles and fried pork dumplings delivered. Every day. I stayed in my jammies and wrote my book, typing on an electric typewriter, living in the imagined world of those three friends who had gone to college together in the 60s and of their teenaged children. My two cats, Lewis and Daphne, nestled against me then. I read Anne Tyler's DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT and I ate those dumplings and noodles and I was happy.

So often, writers have to do the opposite of this cocooning. We have to go to libraries and bookstores and fundraising luncheons and book clubs and talk to people. We have to get up at 4AM for a 6:30 flight, and sleep alone in hotels, and eat airport food, and not write. This, my friends, is not a complaint. I am the luckiest person in the world. When I was four years old I read my first book and had one thought: I want to live in a book. And that's what I do. I love the great pleasure of meeting people that my books have touched. I love all the independent bookstores that hand sell my books. I love sharing the story of how I got from that four year old girl to the woman who wrote these books. But in the excitement and busy-ness of promoting our books, writers can lose the simple joy that comes from writing. That's what I rediscovered this week. The joy of moving your story along to an unexpected new place; of understanding something new about your character; of keeping the real world at bay so that you can be in your imagined one.

Tonight I will meet the bus bringing Annabelle and her classmates home. Tonight my sweetheart begins his long journey across the Pacific back to me. Tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 I will give a talk at the Athenaeum Library here in Providence. And I am grateful for all of these blessings. But I am grateful too for the blessing of this bad cold that kept me inside and in the world of my imagination, the place a writer needs to dwell.

On this, my last day of seclusion, I will write for hours. I will dip into Shirley Jackson's life. I will watch that damn video again and hope I understand what I'm supposed to knit. I will roll some yarn and make my black bean soup. And I will return to the real world of teaching and parenting and loving rejuvenated, inspired, writing.