Surrounded By Story

We wander into the kitchen hungry.

His lunch.

Mine. (There's eggplant under that that lettuce.)

View from the front porch, where we most often eat.

Going back to work. Writing gets done here:

Business gets done here:

View from my writing place. My chickens and hats have been retired. They could tell you some stories.

I surround myself with stories -- little altars everywhere, throughout my home, but especially in my office (which is the living/dining room of this house). My life is held in these stories -- look carefully and you will see my children, my husband (when he had long hair and played the trombone)... me dancing with Bull Durham at my high school reunion...


My chickens, my favorite Golden Book, my political leanings, books that taught me how to write and that continue to stand guard when I need them,

Notes from school children and their teachers, original art by good friends, the star another friend gave me before I'd ever had a book published, "for good luck," she said, and it was... thrift store finds, presents made by my children when they were young...

...and that's just a fraction of what I see from my writing place, when I look up, weary and fuzzy-headed from trying to untie a story knot or figure out the next scene... or when I look up exhilarated because it has gone well.

My own story grounds me, so I surround myself with the artifacts of a long life and the people I love -- the desk organizer my son made in Cub Scouts, the handprints of my eldest daughter in plaster, next to her photo, the Robert Browning poem my Great-great Aunt Mitt gave me ("Grow old along with me/the best is yet to be/the last of life for which the first was made.")... the New Orleans beads Coleen and I gathered....
Photos of editors I've worked with, litle pink houses (thanks), dominoes we still play, pictures of family members who've gone on before me, old bottles found at the cabin in Luray, bits from the beach, my mother's button box... it's all precious.
It helps me, as a writer of fiction, to be surrounded by these facts. It helps me, as a human being, to remember where I'm from.

Have a great weekend, everybody. Surround yourself with your story.

Merciful Heavens, It's YouTube

Oh, y'all. It's a running joke around here, that "once you're on YouTube, it's all over" -- meaning, you've really lost control of your informational life. So imagine my horror at finding myself there yesterday. I'd forgotten about this interview, and had no idea it was up on the website at the Frederick News-Post, but there I am, in all my road-warrior glory -- heavier than I've ever been, bone-tired, and beat. Gaaaaaack! I hardly recognize the woman who began this journey eight years ago. (And you thought the road was glamorous!)

I sent the link to Jim, with these words: "How do I get it OFF there?" He wrote back: "hey, it's good... you can copy and borrow it maybe for your site... but it should stay there."

I took his advice. What do you think?



Thanks to the folks at the Frederick News-Post for the link (well done!), and thanks again, Spring Ridge, for bringing me back to my old hometown. I had a blast. That's the road conundrum. In the moment, it's so wonderful.... the kids, the teachers, the teaching, the learning, the root beer floats.... so it's a question of balance. I'm still looking for it.

The Role of Television in the Sixties...

I haven't fully tackled the scene where Franny watches JFK's speech on television (as school-assigned extra credit, on October 22, 1962), but I will -- I know my editor is right, that we need to see that scene, as the story makes a huge pivot here. I wrote about this last week, and received lots of mail afterwards. I wanted to share one letter, with permission, from teacher Trish Vlastnik, at E.J. Swint Elementary School in Jonesboro, Georgia. Thanks for your thoughts, Trish:

----------------

Deborah,

I recall how these major events of the '60s unfolded for us as students and how the television played such an important role in our awareness. Every space craft lift off required a trip to the auditorium of the school where the entire uniform-clad, school body, sat and "watched" the lift off from the one lone black and white TV set on a cart in front of the room. Often, we couldn't see much more than cloudy images yet we sat sometimes for hours, listening to the announcers as the spacecraft and crew prepared for the countdown.

I also remember how we gathered as a group on the living room floor inches from the b & w set to watch the moon landing that day in June.

And how every major address from our eloquent and handsome, copper-haired president, required our undivided attention. It was more than a civics lesson -- it was the awakening of civic awareness in middle-class kids who had no reason to be interested in current events until that moment. It was, to some degree, because of this new interest and involvement,that his loss was so devastating to each of us and the Nation as a whole.

Just had to share that. Though of course I haven't read your book yet, I applaud your insight in choosing this pivotal moment in our histories as the backdrop for your story.

I follow the pomegranate with great interest and hope all is progressing well for you.

----------------------

I'm so glad you just had to share that. Of COURSE Franny would watch this speech with her family. Of course she would.

And... all is progressing well. It's slow, this revision work -- this is the go-round I have with the manuscript before copy editing, and I want to make sure I've got it right. I'll be here, in the green chaise, all day.

Tactile Revision

Track changes has been eating my lunch. I finally figured out yesterday that I needed to get away from the computer, where I had been trying for a long week to read my editor's comments on the manuscript, and answer them using the comments feature in track changes, while also revising on the computer -- it wasn't working. Each day I was a little more bogged down and depressed about it, especially about sections where I really needed to breathe and make some space for revision.

So I got outta town.



Jim and I climbed into the car yesterday afternoon, I brought my 325 pages with me, and we drove into the North Georgia mountains, to an artist fair in Blue Ridge, where we knew our artist friend Jimmy Murphy was showing.

As we pulled onto the highway, I tugged the rubber band off my pages, uncapped my blue Pilot fine point pen, began reading my editor's comments on the page, and -- lo! -- commented back, right on the page.

I began at the beginning, and I was surprised to see how easy it was, suddenly, to revise the small stuff when I could SEE it, splayed in front of me, like old times. Why didn't I do this sooner, instead of struggling so much this past week? Revising has felt like walking under water. Now I can breathe again.

We had a good time at the fair, had dinner with Jimmy and Kate, and rode home mostly in silence, holding hands, through the rain-spattered darkness. The mountains -- and good friends -- had worked their magic. This morning I'll enter my comments into the manuscript using track changes and see if I can move forward. I feel good about it now. I keep forgetting that I'm a tactile learner. I need to touch it, manipulate it, have my hands on it, and then I can move forward.

Farmer's Market Morning

I wore what I pulled on first this morning, shoved a straw hat on top of my unruly hair, and headed out at 8am, for the Morningside Organic Market. I tell Jim all the time, "I look like an old lady now, with her long skirt and mismatched clothes and floppy straw hat, in the garden." But my friend Vimila didn't think so. She took one look at me this morning when we ran into each other at the DeKalb Farmer's Market (I scooted in to buy some fresh coffee and peanut butter) and said, "Cute!" ha! I'm cute. Who knew.

So already this morning I've been to the market, and to the little plant place I like. I'm making a cucumber and tomato salad for lunch with some steamed fresh cauliflower, and cold grapes. Oh, some carrot-raisin muffins from the DeKalb Farmer's Market, along with that freshly ground peanut butter.

No revising today, but I will work Sunday. Today is for domestic chores and friends for supper (lentil/rice loaf, salad, and that crusty bread you see in the top photo -- it's a garlic loaf made by the good folks at Magnolia Bread Company).

For such a long time I haven't had the psychic space to enjoy these simple domestic chores, to welcome friends -- and a Saturday morning -- without the underlying, slow-cooking anxiety about the next travel, whether it's in a week, a month, or (sometimes) two.

Balance, balance. I'm finding it. I bought a mango. And some petunias and potato vine for my flower boxes -- they haven't been planted in years. I'm set. Happy weekend, all, from the cute one, in her garden.

Big Boned Revision

I have one large scene to write from scratch today. My editor thinks Franny should be present when JFK gives his Cuban Missile Crisis speech, the night of October 22, 1962, a Tuesday night. The speech is school-assigned extra-credit for Franny, but her mother doesn't allow her to watch it.

Why not? Franny's mom doesn't want the children upset -- the situation is tense enough already.

But really -- REALLY -- why not? -- The author wants Franny to have time to read Jo Ellen's letter.

This is a convenience for the author, and my editor caught it. I have read his thoughtful comments many times, and we talked by phone about this as well. He's right. It's best for the story that Franny hear this speech.

This will require reworking and rewriting, the creation of a brand-new scene that will inform the rest of the book and that will need to be woven in seamlessly. And this sort of revision requires hours and hours in the chair (for me). So no yard work today, just straight revision, no chaser.

I remember when I wrote LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER, how I left out completely the scene at Miss Mattie's store where a hidden Ruby watches her grandmother leave on the bus, bound for the airport and Hawaii, and we get to see all the characters interact, and learn a lot about who they are and why they do what they do -- how the town sees Miss Eula, how Ruby's heart is breaking, and also how Miss Mattie discovers Ruby and shoos her on home.

My editor Liz said, "I think we need to see this scene -- I wonder why you left it out?"

It wasn't because I needed Ruby to do anything else (in the way that I need Franny to read Jo Ellen's letter). I just didn't want to see my character's heart break. This was one of my first lessons in learning that my characters hearts need to break on the page, not in some far-away place that the reader can't access and must imagine.

In the same way, I need to let the reader see Franny's fear and hear her parents talk, her crazy Uncle Otts pontificate, and her little brother Drew begin to withdraw from the world... this is the stuff of life. As writers, our job is to suit up and show up and plow through the middle of it, instead of tap dancing around the edges.

So. That's my charge today. You can read the full text of President Kennedy's October 22, 1962 speech, and see/hear it, here, at American Rhetoric.

As promised, here's the link to the writer-at-home interview that Kimberly Willis Holt so graciously invited me to do on her blog. Thanks again, Kimberly, friend.

The Rhythms of Revision

You'll find me at Kimberly Willis Holt's blog today, as this week's Author at Home interview -- I hope you'll check it out. I'll post the link once it's up. In the meantime, you can read "This Week's Visitor" at Kimberly's site, where she introduces me and talks about how we are connected. Thanks so much, Kimberly, for the invite, and right back atcha for how grateful I am for our friendship.

I'm finding a rhythm to this revision. There will be days I sit in the chair for long hours and revise, rewrite. And there will be days -- like the past two, where I work in the wee hours, as the sun comes up, and then go out and work in the yard for the rest of the day, letting my subconscious work on the story while I do something physical.

I took this photo this morning, as the sun came up. I have all my doors and windows open now -- these past few days have been perfect spring weather, with a big breeze and cool temperatures, and lots of sun... perfect outdoor working weather, and I have a yard that has been neglected in the five years I've lived here and have been on the road.

So this week is also about taking back the yard -- taking it back from the encroaching woods! My friend Stoney Vance has been offering to help me in the yard for three years, and finally I am home for a long-enough stretch to tell him to come on down.

So we're working together, with Jim. Six hands (and legs and hearts) are chopping and sawing and bundling and mowing and pulling and raking and more.

It feels so good! And the shape of my yard is coming back -- "Oh! I remember this!"

The early morning hours are still best for writing. The quiet hours with the novel, my editor's comments, my notes from our conversation two weeks ago, and my rested mind, ready to tackle the story. The breeze wafts through the open windows, the birds wake up and sing, and I am lost, deep in 1962.

After mental work in the morning and physical work all afternoon, I get to the end of my day exhausted and exhilarated. I look at my calendar and blink is disbelief (again) -- I've got the whole summer! The entire fall! Into winter and next spring! -- to write, to live here in this house and take good care of it, to allow my mind to rest from the road, and to encourage creativity to come creeping in, as it always does, in small moments of paying attention.

I slip gratefully into the new, deep bath at the end of the day and let those jets I declared I did not want, soothe my sore muscles. Thank you, thank you, thank you -- I say it out loud.

I eat what my body tells me it wants. Last night it was homemade pimento cheese on organic whole wheat bread and a cup of steaming toffee tea with half-and-half -- ha! Every bite was divine. I fell into bed grateful to be alive.

And here I am this morning, beginning again.

Back To The Sixites

The only thing missing in this picture is me. I. Moi. And nothing will happen here if I don't take my place in this picture and say yes to the work ahead.

So:

Throat Coat tea steaming in a favorite mug: check.

Office organized (well, you can see the floor and the desk): check.

Green chaise in that office cleared off and ready for a long occupancy: check.

Manuscript printed out with all editor comments and questions in all sorts of long-winded bubbles in the right margin (I love these; I need these): check.

Laptop battery charged: check.

Nothing else on today's calendar: check.

One author showered, ready to suit up and show up: check.

Let the revisions begin.

Finding a Creative Balance

This is a view from IRA last spring...
And this (below) is a view of the top of my bookcase next to my writing place this morning. This has been my life of opposites these past eight years, and I have loved it, although it has not often been conducive to creating the next novel or picture book. Now I have three novels under contract with Scholastic, and one new picture book just sold, and I need some steady writing time ahead.
I've been journaling all morning -- I am home for the next ten months. I may take a trip in that time, but it will be with my husband, for pleasure. Not that working in schools and at conferences hasn't been a pleasure, but -- ahem -- for the first time in eight years -- 8! -- I'm going to stay home for a good, long while, and see what it's like to live in one place with my family, to have routines, to be able to really pay attention, and to create without the distraction of so much travel.
I'm going to admit, I'm scared (who am I, if I am not the globe-hopping, teaching-writing, singing and dancing ONE WIDE SKY with Kindergarteners, airport-sleeping, bad-food-eating author?), and I'm exhilarated (will I even remember what it was like to be a writer who stayed home and wrote? And oh! the opportunities ahead of me!)

I've been trying to come back home for years but just haven't been able to manage it. Now, largely thanks to Scholastic's faith in me and the Sixties Trilogy, I'm doing it -- I'm taking a leap of faith of my own. Scholastic has asked for these books in a timely manner, and I won't disappoint them.
I'll document progress (you can see what I've been up to by clicking here), not only on the books, but on life. Next month will mark five years that I've lived in Atlanta. I've hardly been able to get to know the place! Now I will. It was five years ago this past week that I bought the little house in the little woods where I now live. June 15, 2004 I moved here. I want to mark the occasion this year, somehow, and I will.

I'm rethinking my online presence (as I always do). I will finally rework the website and will continue to tinker with the blog. I'm twittering away and find that I like it.

And, I bought sketchbooks. Big fat ones with terrific paper, and great pens, and these watercolors, and brushes, I've got paste and scissors and markers and a gathering basket, and my own good imagination. I'm going to create. I'm going to write. I'm going to collage. I'm going to garden. I'm going to walk up Stone Mountain. I'm going to get to know my neighbors. I'm going to get more than a fleeting glimpse of my home and family and kin. Maybe I'll even be a good correspondent again.
It has been a long haul, friends. In 2000, with my first books about to come into the world, I became a suddenly single parent. The words "internet" and "soul mate" were used. I thought I wouldn't survive the destruction of a 22-year marriage, and worse, I worried my children wouldn't survive it, either.

But we did. We all survived, even my (now former) husband, whom I wish well every day of my life. We raised four great kids together, and I am grateful for the days I had at home with those kids, and for the creative space I carved out during those years as I became a writer.
But because of what happened, my life turned up on its ear. I became a road warrior in order to care for us, and I didn't write another book for almost five years. EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS is the book that gave voice to my despair. In the time I was writing it, I went back to school and got my MFA, my mother died, my father died, my marriage died, my youngest child graduated from high school, I turned fifty, I sold the home we had lived in for 25 years, I moved to Atlanta, and then... the dog died. So much change and loss. I've written about this time, here.
On the other side of that loss were the beautiful gifts that came out of a terrible time. LITTLE BIRD was certainly a gift. FREEDOM SUMMER, RUBY LAVENDER and then LITTLE BIRD did so well in the world that they brought invitations to travel to more schools, more conferences, to do good work in the world, to meet wonderful people (many of whom have become good friends), to keep my daughter in college, pay for my home and renovate it as I could afford, and -- this was exhilarating -- to stand for myself in the world, for the very first time in my life as a woman who could make her own decisions and totally take care of herself and those she loved.

It also brought me Jim.

Who knew? Who indeed.

It brought me the Sixties Trilogy, which brought me Scholastic, which has brought me full circle back to that place I stood in eight years ago, ready for first books to be published, ready to become an author, something I had been working toward for over twenty years.
This is the simplistic version of those years but I wanted to say it out loud, to make it real, to say goodbye for just a little while to the travel, which was so often so grueling, (and which turned me into someone I didn't physically recognize!), which took so much away from my family and from me, which gave me so much I can hardly quantify it... and I wanted to say goodbye, for now, to the students and teachers I have come to love...

,,,but I am not gone too long. I already have schools on the books for next March, in Tennessee and Mississippi. I have books for you to read and more coming. And I will be out there next year, to support the new novel, which is published next May. You can't get rid of me that easily. :>
I'll be here in Atlanta for a while, learning to use my new camera, learning to play my banjo, writing the next book and the next book, and chronicling it all.

Thank you to all of you who have made my writing life possible. I have worked hard, have been stretched to my last nerve, and have also had so much belly-laughing fun. I know you know how that is.

It's not a stretch -- not at all -- to say that I couldn't be taking this time off the road without you. In fact, I wouldn't have made it through the past eight years without you. It has been my privilege and delight to work with you. I salute every one of you and send you my love and my deep admiration for all you do for the young people in your care.

And now... I'm home. I'm about to make some lunch and open this document from my editor -- my 1962 novel revision, full of his good comments and questions. I have no travel on the horizon. I can devote my full attention to this writing task, and I will. Let me walk outside for just a moment first, take a deep breath, smell the honeysuckle, listen to the bird song, walk the garden, and welcome myself back home.

Full Weekend

Hope your weekend included something that gave you comfort and joy. Ours included one silly puppy, one new haircut, one front yard mowed, reading on a blanket on the mowed front yard, a little rain, a garden in bloom, a passel of peeps, a wild game of dominoes, big burgers and birthday cakes, lots of music, too many desserts, loving remembrances -- tons of stories -- of childhood sillinesses, and other celebratory stuff -- even homemade mayonnaise.
Schools for me today, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Here I go. Back to work. It was fun, y'all.

Birthdays and Thank Yous

Well, it's not Bluebell Ice Cream (Ruby would be so disappointed), but it is Barq's Root Beer (accept no substitutes), and that's real crystal (my personal touch). Happy Birthday to me, and a root beer float to all of you -- thank you.

I'm home, I'm birthdayed out, and I'm working on an annotated version of the Aurora County Shoestring Tour. Tomorrow I'm back in schools and will be in schools until May 14, when I'm done for the summer, and will turn my attentions totally to the novel revision that landed back on my desk on Monday, avec copious comments from my editor. Wow. We are learning to work together, and -- I can tell -- this is going to be a great collaboration.

We had a delicious and fruitful (makes it sound like a drink) conversation as well. Soon, we'll have galleys of the first of the Sixties Trilogy -- I'll have art to show you, too -- this is the exciting part. But first I have to do my part and finish up what needs finishing up, smooth out and revise the last bits, and I will. More on this next week.

I haven't been able to fully inhabit the present since I've been home -- maybe it was that all-night ride home. But I'm coming back to myself, little by little. And I want to say thank you.

Thank you to Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt first of all. Without them I never would have attempted this tour. I didn't fully appreciate all that goes into scheduling such a month as we had in April -- now I do. Thank you so much for all your help.

Thank you to SIBA for embracing the concept of the Shoestring Tour and using it in their promotional materials.

Thank you to booksellers and the librarians who welcomed me so warmly, took such good care of me, told me such great stories, and sent me on my way, enriched.

Thank you to those who came out to events, who read the blog and cheered me on, and who continue to be so supportive of my work.

Thank you to Michele Norris and All Things Considered for the lovely opportunity to talk on the air about writing for and with children and teachers.

Thanks so much to Hannah for coming with me -- I wouldn't have attempted the trip to Mississippi without her, or the trip to North Carolina, for that matter, without Jim -- so thank you to Jim, too.
Thanks to friends who housed me, fed me, gave me a bed to sleep in, and sent me on my way refreshed. And thanks to the garden for blooming while I was gone -- look what was waiting for me on Monday morning. (Am I getting better with the camera, Ken?)
Thank goodness for gardens and flowers and books and booksellers and librarians and teachers and friends and family and banjos and root beer floats, and a good, known bed to fall into when it's all over. Thank goodness for story.