walking – Flights of Fancy

The Counting Game

Remember, you have to count all the way down to zero. No peeking!

One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight …

The last time I played Hide and Seek was probably more than ten years ago, but I feel like I still experience it a bit every day. Counting down or counting up, doesn’t matter—my brain insists on organizing things with numbers. Is this weird? I don’t know.

Here’s a sampling:

Two hundred = the stairs down to the Lake Michigan shore. To hypnotize myself back to sleep in the middle of the night, I count this descent step-by-step in my mind.

Wooden stairs descending through cedar woods to a distant beach. — *Can you spot the border collie?*

Four-Seven-Eight = the breathing pattern I employ as my backup means of sleep hypnosis.

Forty-five = the minutes I allow myself to get back to sleep before giving up on hypnosis and getting out my book.

Two = the hours I’ll read before trying, again, to sleep. I’m apparently kind of obsessed with this issue.

Four to eight = the hills my daily dog walk encounters (varies per route).

Seven = the big roots I must climb over on one section of the trail.

Dog standing on a trail above a big root that crosses the middle of the trail

Twelve/eight = the compound quadruple meter (four beats per measure, three eighth notes per beat) of a rhythm that beats in my head while I walk. Sometimes I catch myself clacking my teeth to it.

Two = the “rev-up” words I recommend agility students use to get their unmotivated dogs blasting off the start line (Ready? Steady?)

Six to Eight = the hours I once practiced per day, back when I aspired to be a professional musician.

One (or one thousand) = the maximum number of chapters (or minimum number of words) I try to write daily for a first draft. Depending on plot complexity, this often ends up as a single scene within a chapter.

Forty to fifty thousand = the total number of words I aim to write for each MG manuscript.

Two = the number of drafts I write before anyone other than my dog experiences a word of it.

Sleepy dog lying on dog bed — *A captive listener*

Twenty-five to sixty = the number of agent rejections I force myself to endure per manuscript, before giving up and moving on to the next one. (I know you’re supposed to acquire at least 100 rejections, but my spirit can’t handle that many.)

Two = the chocolate-chip cookies I get to eat at the end of a good day. (Thus, every day becomes a good day.)

Looking at my list, I see that it highlights things that are central to my life: sleep, food, dog/walks, music, and writing. Not bad. Except for the music and writing parts, it’s pretty much a dog’s life. A lucky dog.

Do you stratify your days with numbers, too? Writers in particular: I’m curious whether you religiously keep track of your word count, or the number of minutes per day that you write, or anything else numeric related to writing.

I’m starting to think that the childhood game of Hide-and-Seek should be part of a training manual for How to Navigate Life. It requires tremendous self-control, yet it nurtures excitement for what comes next.

And what does come next?

Simple. It’s the release of restraints, the sudden transition to a new stage. if you’re the counter in that game, it’s literally the time to unmask your eyes and set yourself free. You might tiptoe or clomp, walk or run—you choose. The best part is that you finally get to search for those little devils who’ve been hiding from you. And the structure, patience, and anticipation leading up to this point make the whole thing worth it.

Back to counting. But watch out, because pretty soon … here I come!

Happy Tales!

How Old Are You?

Don’t worry, you won’t need to count the candles on your cake for this one.

After you’ve reached a certain age, at least until you’re so ancient that you’ve gained bragging rights, people stop asking how old you are. For me, this happened around the time wrinkles started to spread from the corners of my eyes like neglected cracks on a car windshield. Avoiding the topic of age is fine with me. I’ve always been grateful not to be reminded of my own mortality. I’ve also gotten increasingly sensitive to how long I’ve spent on this planet without making much of a difference. And to be completely honest, I worry about ageism in the writing world, where professionals may look down on anyone who isn’t a wunderkind with tremendous future potential.

*None of us can avoid the inexorable march of time, and with it the reduction of our own potential. Photo credit: Ricardo Moura*

So it’s kind of weird that I’m asking such an intrusive question. I think I need to rephrase it. What I really mean is, how old are you in your mind? What age is the person your memories most frequently revisit? These might be your best memories, but they could just as well be traumatic ones. That is, I’m not asking what age you want to be (twenties for me, please—backpacking and trail-building in the wilderness with seemingly limitless energy and nary an ache). Nor am I asking what age you feel yourself to be (I’m guessing about eighty for me on days when my back hurts from sitting, my hips ache from walking, my elbow stings from lopping weeds, my foot twinges for no apparent reason, and my thumb throbs from an old pinecone-throwing injury).

Writer & dog standing at the shore of a high alpine lake in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana — *I will never not hike, though it definitely takes a toll on the body!*

I most often see myself as about eleven years old, one of the happiest times in my life. At that tender age, I was still young enough to feel secure in my place—surrounded by family and friends, immersed in school, music, and nature. But I was old enough to question things that were happening around me and to realize that the world was a heck of a lot bigger than I’d thought it was just the year before. I wouldn’t lose my best friend for another year, and I wouldn’t lose my ability to play music for nine more. I didn’t yet suffer from teenage angst, and I didn’t have to deal with the high pressures of academia or adulting. I spent a lot of time in imaginary worlds—stories that never left my head, though the complex imagery that accompanied them sometimes made it onto paper.

Mural of a landscape with a crowded town surrounded by lush greenery and jagged peaks — *If I’d had the nerve to paint one of my childhood murals on a city wall, it might have looked something like this. Photo credit: Muhammad Shakir*

This, then, is why I write middle grade fiction. Pre-teen kids deal with huge issues, for sure, but they’re still young enough to be resilient, hopeful, and curious. They’re at a prime age to go on fantastic adventures—both real and imagined. They treat the obstacles they encounter with humor, courage, and surprising wisdom. They make such fun protagonists!

My husband says his thoughts most frequently take him back to high school, a time when he enjoyed nerding out with a wide variety of creative friends. I’m guessing he’d focus on YA if he were a writer. My aunt, who writes women’s fiction, says she revisits her thirties when she met the love of her life (and my uncle chooses his forties for the very same sweet reason). My eleven-year-old dog doesn’t say, but he acts like he’s about three. Maybe picture books would work best for him.

Dog lying with front paws on an open picture book, with a picture featuring a cow diving into the water — *Tock enjoys his favorite picture book, The Mollys B, by Joann Howeth.*

My question for everyone else remains the same: how old is the you that your mind replays most? Was this a good time or a difficult time for you when you actually lived it? If you write, do your protagonists tend to be that age as well?

As we make our way through our lives, maybe our most memorable age will give us a better understanding of the whole. That’s my hope, anyway.

Dog standing on a rock, his shadow reflected facing the other way on the ground. — *Is that unforgettable time of your life in the distant past—or maybe happening right now?*

Happy Tales!

Stuck in a Rut — and it keeps getting deeper!

Do you ever want to be a little kid again, nestled deep in the universe of your mother’s arms, content in the knowledge that she’ll look after you, nurture, comfort, and help you so you don’t have to do it on your own? Best of all, she’ll figure out what you want to eat and prepare it for you. I have such fond memories of savoring my thermos of pea soup at preschool.

A bowl of pea soup with a wooden spoon — *I no longer have the Holly Hobby lunchbox & thermos, but the fact remains: this was my favorite food, growing up. Photo credit: Saad Ahmad*

I often wish I could go back in time for this exact reason: to have my mom in charge, making all the important decisions. No doubt about it, I have a great mom and have been unusually lucky in that respect. But I wonder whether other people with big love for their parents yearn to return to those early days. I also wonder whether the difference between then and now is particularly harsh for writers.

Parent and child holding hands — *Photo credit: Prabin Basnet*

To explain what I mean, I need to specify: I’m talking about the past/present difference for aspiring writers—those without an agent, editor, or publicist urging them to usher a new work into the world. If that is you, welcome to my Unagented Writers’ Club! We have no one directing our career, guiding us forward, or validating our writing from the perspective of a mentor in traditional publishing. Every day we have to choose what to work on all by ourselves. In fact, we have to choose whether to work at all. Would anyone notice if we stopped?

Sadly, no. No literary professional, anyway. And this is what is suddenly stopping all my forward momentum.

Dog stopping headlong to intercept a frisbee in front of a soccer goal — *If it’s a matter of keeping the frisbee out of the goal, Tock absolutely will slam on the brakes for it.*

This stuck status is weird for me. For so many years now, I’ve done what all the writing craft books tell us to do. I’ve written a story, sought outside critiques, taken it to workshops, polished the thing to a shine, submitted it, and, while waiting for the replies (if any) to my submissions, begun another one. I’ve lost count how many unpublished novels I’ve got at this point. Nine, I think? After completing the last one, I’ve found myself reluctant to start again. I can hardly stand the thought of birthing yet another story that will never find its way to readers.

Worse, this feeling has bled into other parts of my life as well. Or maybe without the constant writing I used to do, I’ve noticed the other bits more. Every day I wake up at the same time, eat the same breakfast, go on the same walk with my dog, and proceed to fill my day with the same things I did yesterday. When I crawl into bed at the usual time, I think to myself, “Well, that’s another day done.”

Dog standing inside woods where trail leads — *Almost every day, Tock and I enter the woods here.*

Do you ever feel like this? Totally stuck in your life, as if each breath inhaled, each minute lived is simply another one to get through, on the way to some distant goal that, realistically, may never happen? Your tires are spinning, and you’ve finally realized that all this engine revving is just making you sink deeper.

*This dog is a much more thorough hole-digger than Tock. Photo Credit: Suraj Tomer*

I’m tired, I guess. Tired of pouring my soul into something that only my critique partners will see. Tired of a sinking feeling in my gut that this story will progress no further than any of its forebears. Tired of wondering what the point to all of it is. I’m stuck in a hole of my own making—one no one would even know about if I didn’t mention it here. The worst of it is, I can’t seem to dig my way out!

Looking up from a deep rocky hole with blue sky above — *My current POV. Photo credit: Elias Tsapaliaris*

Hold on. I need to stop my rant here, because I do in fact have a way out. It’s so obvious I’m embarrassed to have overlooked it.

Dog standing next to digging tools that are lying on the grass (shovel, pulaski, and trowel) — *Tools for unearthing something*

I have a shovel.

Not the metaphorical one I thought I needed, but an actual steel shovel. All I need to do is fetch it from the garden shed, grip its smooth wooden handle and start to dig. This will get me away from my computer and my dark thoughts, first of all. Second, it’ll take me to the garden, which desperately needs weeding and turning over before the first frost. Third, and most important, as I use the blade to dig beneath the grass roots and excavate the rich loam, maybe something in my mind will loosen as well. It might pull me further away from writing … or it might pitch me back into it. I don’t know, but I have to try.

As I dig, I remember how last year in this same garden, my shovel turned up my grandmother’s ring. I thought I’d lost it in the woods months earlier, and spent many days scouring the part of the trail where I was sure it had fallen. That time wasted was nothing compared to my joy at spotting a golden shine through the dirt. An unexpected treasure!

Part of a gold ring sticking up through the dirt — *Do you see it?*

As I dig, I think about Stephen King’s wonderful craft book “On Writing,” and how he likened finding a story to digging for fossils. You have to chip away and away with tremendous patience, never certain what you’ll find—or whether you’ll find anything at all. If you’re lucky, a form will gradually begin to reveal itself, and if you’re even luckier, it’ll turn out to be so special that you won’t stop digging until it’s been completely unearthed.

As I dig, the shovelfuls of soil turn to clumps and then to grains, the weeds to root wads to thin white hairs. The deeper I go, the more I see. A worm, a beetle, an acorn, a tiny green tomato. I’ve written before about focusing on detail, for other reasons, but I realize that it’s key to working through my publishing woes. I need to let go of my big-picture writing goals for now, and focus on the very small.

I can do this. On a walk I’ve been on hundreds of times, for instance, I spot tiny changes every day. A leaf turning gold here, a fallen branch there, a tendril of algae in the pool, a kingfisher swooping low over the water. The same goes for writing. There’s always a nugget of a tale to nourish, whether or not it’s developed into a complete book. There’s always something to revise, whether or not it’s ever submitted.

Dog tugging on a very large branch that's still attached to the ground in the woods — *Tock is good at helping me spot interesting new branches (or trunks, in this case) that deserve a good tug.*

And on it goes. I give my shovel a pat when I put it away. It doesn’t confer the comforting guidance of my mother, nor the professional structure and motivating deadlines of a literary agent. Nevertheless, it’s prodded my brain out of its rut. My creative work isn’t done, should I choose to continue it. I guess the best I can say to myself for now is “stay tuned.”

Happy Tales!

Photo credit for opening image: Janusz Maniak

Transitions

Or: How to Carry On When You’d Rather Dig Your Heels into the Ground and Grind to a Halt

I’ve said this before, but I’m terrible at accepting change. One of the toughest adjustments for me isn’t even that bad. It’s something we all experience on a regular basis. It pales in comparison to traumatic life events like major illness, divorce, job or home loss, war, and death. Many of us probably welcome it, in fact. Yet still, I struggle with it, every year.

Large maple tree in field with some orange leaves mixed in with the green — *The Faerie Tree is beginning to turn.*

You may have guessed what I’m talking about: the seasons. Given my current location in the Northern Hemisphere, I specifically mean the transition from summer to fall. Late-summer days with the crickets chirring and the pleasant-but-not-hot sun warming my face are, to me, the definition of perfection. The natural world feels calm and friendly. I experience moments of certainty that everything is fine, and will continue to be so forever.

*It really does not get much more sublime than this.*

Wise people say that perfection is boring. So why is it so hard for me to part ways with the old family summerhouse: the high built-in bookshelves stuffed full of musty tomes, the quaint kitchen ice box, the six generations of family photographs and portraits, the many porches and white-gabled windows, the half-mile-long forested driveway, the view from the bluff of the distant Manitou Islands? Even tougher to leave behind is the land itself: the 200 steps down to the beach, the half mile of wild Lake Michigan waves, the bears, porcupines, and foxes, the 2.5 miles of hiking trails that I poured gallons of sweat into building for hours each day this summer. On my last walk of the trail system the day before our departure, I paused at each of the landmarks I’d named on the trail to say goodbye. That was the saddest end to summer for me.

Left to right from top: Fern Gully, Haunted Birch Grove, Precarious Plunge, Southern Wilds, Streams of Consciousness, Terrace of Triumph, The Monarchy, Vista Sur, Wanderer Track

But the house is not winterized and must sit shuttered and cold throughout fall, winter, and early spring. None of us live remotely close to it, so we can’t visit during those months, either. Not that I would want to – when the nighttime temperature begins to dip into the 40’s, the house starts to feel more like a refrigerator than a home, and it never quite warms up enough during the days. It is a necessary goodbye, and one I understand completely if I stick with the logical side of my brain.

Dog in winter jacket on a snowy slope in early morning — *Not all of us love a frozen landscape (Tock begs to differ).*

Unfortunately, my brain has a creative, romantic, illogical side as well. It’s this part of me that pats the trunks of the big trees to try to remember the feel of each rough rib of bark. It’s this part that grips the handrails on my last climb up the bluff as if I will never let go. It’s this part that says a silent farewell to all the other bits of myself that have embedded in this summer place as we bump down the dirt drive on our way back to our “real” lives.

Dog trotting along a long, sun-dappled driveway in a deciduous forest

How do I carry on after such a transition? Naturally, I look to my dog. He’s dedicated like no other to the sand, the water, and the trail-building, yet he displays no regrets when it’s time to leave. He simply curls into a ball on the seat and becomes a road-tripping Zombie Dog for as long as it takes to get to his next fun adventure. He’s delighted to return to his other house, his other toys, his other woods and ponds. He doesn’t care that his primary house has little history, that the neighboring woods must be shared with other people and dogs, that his owners don’t spend three-quarters of the day outside anymore. If he could speak, he’d probably reassure me that this is his time to catch up on sleep, to dream of the scents and sounds he stored over the summer (at least, when he’s not reacquainting himself with the scary sheep on the farm next door).

Dog curled up in a small bed with a blanket on top

If he can do it, I can, too. During the coming damp, cold winter days, I’ll pull up the pictures of my fifty-nine trail landmarks. I’ll remember what it felt like to tread past them atop the sandy soil, cedar roots, and birch bark. I’ll think of the sound of the waves, the funky smell of the goldenrod, the sight of a fat porcupine waddling over the birch logs that I’d dragged in place to keep the trail out of the mud. I don’t think I’ll ever relish winter the way one might if one has fur and a penchant for snowballs, but my memories of summer will push me along. At some point, those memories will turn into hopes. They’ll pull me toward an enticing future summer that I wouldn’t even know I had to look forward to if I’d never had to leave. I can picture my dog already, rousing himself from his back-seat slumber and pressing his nose to the window when he senses we’re getting close to a change. To something different, interesting, and precious. Always precious.

Dog standing in a meadow near a thicket of shrubs and trees — *The Tangle of the Tyrants (invasive Russian Olive) lies just ahead. One of these years, we’ll get it all cleared and I’ll rename this landmark.*

Maybe if summer weren’t ephemeral, it wouldn’t be so sublime. Those mythical wise people must know what they’re talking about.

Happy Tales!

The Dog Days of Writing

Do you find your writing sliding into the realm of the subconscious in midsummer? I do, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. The Dog Days of Summer are my favorite time of year.

I get up at dawn just before sunrise, before the heat and the bugs have swamped the woods. There are too many trees to spot Sirius the Dog Star, the phrase’s namesake, but I know it’s there. For one thing, the Romans wouldn’t have put dies caniculares, or “days of the dog star,” in their midsummer calendar if it weren’t reliable. For another, if I were to visit a field in late July or early August on a clear pre-dawn morning with the intent of spotting Sirius, I’m fairly certain I’d succeed (at least until several millenia from now, when the Earth’s wobble will have shifted the dog days to midwinter). Sirius is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major and the brightest star seen from Earth, after all. The stars of Orion’s Belt—one of the few constellations I can recognize—point southeast, straight towards it.

Orion's Belt in the night sky — *In lieu of Canis Major, here is Orion’s Belt. Sirius would be off the lower left. Photo credit: NASA Hubble Space Telescope*

But the origin of the phrase isn’t why I love this stretch of days.

I think it’s partly because the Dog Days are ushered in by my son’s late-July birthday. For its combination of sheer hard work (labor, right?) and the astonishing and incredible euphoria of holding my baby for the first time, that particular day has imprinted itself in my brain as the best one of my life. It doesn’t hurt that he’s grown into one of the sweetest, most conscientious human beings I know (yep, biased, but pretty close to the truth all the same).

I also love the Dog Days because I’m at last at last down to a single layer of clothing. No more long johns, jackets, or even long-sleeved shirts. The world and I have reached equilibrium. Even as I heat up on a walk, sweat dripping down my cheeks, I feel as if I’m part of everything around me, swallowing and blowing great lungfuls of humid air with abandon, rather than burrowing inside hood, jacket, turtleneck, and gloves to protect myself from the harshness of a winter wind. Through the sultry heat and clouds of bugs, through the great gulps of water my dog and I take from our bottle, through the daily marathons of endurance these walks become, the Dog Days of Summer envelop me in their green, bee-buzzing, frog-burping, osprey-chirping womb.

Dog with plastic dragonfly attached to his collar and "flying" above his head — *Tock’s defense against deerflies: a fake predatory dragonfly attached to his collar that “flies” above his head.*

Another view of dog with fake dragonfly flying above his head — *Works great! (except when he rolls in the dirt after a swim)*

I can’t even picture winter right now. Nor can I imagine myself spending hours each day in front of the computer, wrapped in blankets while exercising my mind. Normally, I jump right into editing a newly completed story, sending the edited version to critique groups, composing drafts of query letter and synopsis, but not during these precious Dog Days. I’m too busy submerging myself in the moment. Each footstep becomes a lifetime of sensations. Any frustrations I felt last month about making progress on my writing disappear. The Earth wraps around me, and I find myself taking the break that everyone tells me should happen after a first draft. My worries slip into the warm waters of the pond along with my dog, into the shovelfuls of dirt in the garden, into the spray of cool water on the azaleas, into the paint on the siding of the house. Hopefully, my subconscious is still working on the story, figuring out how to address the problems that’ll surface when I revisit it. But I can’t be bothered to check at the moment. My conscious mind has detached from it, immersed in the real world. The good thing about this is that after the Dog Days have ended, I’ll view my draft as a first-time reader might. I’ll be able to spot those flaws that my mind glossed over back when it knew the story too well.

Dog swimming to a stick — *Tock’s favorite Dog Day pasttime (that’s a stick, not a dead fish).*

But enough of writing. I’m gonna go do some hard physical labor and forget about the state of my draft—and the state of the world, other than its immediate, comforting presence all around.

Dog carrying a stick in an open woods — *A coastal beech forest*

Happy Tales!

Finding Joy

The mundane things that give me hope when I need it most

Three per day, I’m told.*

Write them down. Doesn’t matter how ridiculous, how real, how important to anyone but you. If they bring you some degree of happiness, they deserve your recognition.

Like swallowing daily pills, capture your observations. Any spark of interest, any surge of hope: jot it down. Here’s my list for a week in May.

1. The nightlight’s pattern on the wall

2. Waking up: wow, I was able to go back to sleep after all

3. Dog watching me, always

4. No gloves!

5. Edits to make on a manuscript

6. Leaves four times bigger than last week

7. Blender clatter: oats + water = oat milk

8. Wiggly lamb tails

9. Flash of orange: an oriole on the picnic table

10. Small red frog in the brown leaf litter

11. Reading a chapter of my recently completed story: I like it!

12. Greenery ringing the pond

13. A pair of curious otters poking their heads from the water

14. The chocolate-rich aroma of spring soil

15. Watching the rhododendrons bloom

16. A query, successfully sent into the ether

17. A card game with my son: this time I will win

18. The pride of owning a big stick … for a couple minutes

19. Scrabble with my husband: this time I will win

20. Curling up in bed to read

21. Upside-down dog

What’s on your list?

Happy Tales!

*Thanks to my writer friends Robin and Suzy for insisting I do this exercise. What would I do without you?

Life Never Gets in the Way

Often when I hear people explain why they haven’t been writing lately (or editing or querying), they’ll sigh, and then justify themselves by saying, “Life got in the way.”

I’ve always nodded sympathetically and agreed with them that it can be so hard to get anything done writing-wise when we have all these other more urgent tasks to attend to. And … dare I say it? … things that are a heck of a lot easier to do than focus on writing.

Someone filling out a To-Do list — *Photo credit: Glenn Carstens-Peters*

But now that I really think about that age-old idiom life gets in the way, I feel the need to counter it with: “Really? Isn’t everything we do part of living? Including writing? I mean, it’s not like we’re tapping away at a keyboard from six feet below ground in a cemetery—unless we’re a particularly inspired gravedigger.

Border Collie sitting next to tombstones in an old, crowded cemetery

So the next time you arise from your computer or your notebook to make a phone call, pay a bill, go to a day job so you can pay that bill, care for someone sick, buy groceries, figure out what to make for dinner from those groceries, do your taxes, go on vacation, or walk your dog, remember: all this stuff is an inevitable part of living. There’s no need to make excuses or resent these interfering tasks. Just do them. Enjoy them if you can. Because life isn’t in the way—it is the way. (Yes, even the taxes! I’ve found that if I immerse my mind long enough in those nonsensical numerical calculations, they can become relaxing, almost hypnotic).

Say to yourself: I’m gonna steep myself in this chore of the moment. I’ll fully experience it in present time, including (but definitely not limited to) my writing.

Border collie galloping across a field on a path toward the woods

For me, of course, living means walking my dog every day. Multiple times, beginning with a long, vigorous jaunt soon after dawn, before I’ve jotted down a single line. Lately, living has also meant painting the interior of our house, one slow room at a time. And it’s meant digging roots and rocks from the hillside to make space for ten rhododendrons.

While I step through the wet leaves and brush past budding shrubbery in the woods, I smell the moist earth, I listen to the Carolina Wrens and Pine Warblers, and I help my dog search for the perfect-sized stick (i.e., big) that he can carry proudly down the trail.

Border Collie holding big stick in his mouth

While I dip the brush into a can or the roller into a tray, I gaze at the silky-creamy texture of the paint and the glistening coat it leaves on the formerly dull, grubby wall. This brings me a pleasure that almost makes the tedium of the wall-cleaning, hole-filling, and trim-taping worth it.

Paint roller in a tray with white paint — *I meant to take a picture of my own paint roller, but never found a time when I wasn’t covered with paint in order to do it. Photo credit: Callum Hill*

While I heave a pickaxe at a stubborn rock in that tenth rhododendron hole, I endure my aching back and wrists and splatters of dirt in my eyes, and enjoy the satisfaction of the pick slipping beneath the rock, jiggling it loose so I can fit my gloved fingers around it and heave it out. Space at last for a young plant to be freed from its pot, so its roots can begin to explore the musty, mushroomy loam, and its leaves and buds can plumpen and brighten.

Dog standing (with frisbee) next to a young, freshly planted Rhododendron Boursault

Like Frederick the Mouse, I store away these thoughts, feelings, and sensations I experience in the non-writing world. And when I am able to sit in my office once again with a few free hours beckoning, I’ll draw out the memories. The colors, scents, sounds, frustrations, tedium, sadness, satisfaction, and joy. Always the joy.

Cover of "Frederick the Mouse" by Leo Lionni — *Simply one of the greatest picture books ever.*

For to be a good writer requires one thing above all else: an appreciation of this incredible, complex planet and our lives on it. Life, in all its ugliness and beauty, is the way.

Happy Tales!

Nothing but Skin and Bones

The sheep have been shorn. Once round balls of gray fluff, they transformed in the space of a morning to scrawny pink creatures half their former size. Their bellies still bulge with approaching babies, but otherwise they seem mere skin and bones. When I first saw them from a distance, I thought they were lambs.

The thing is, winter isn’t yet over. Though it must feel good to be rid of all that woolly weight during the ever-strengthening noon sun, how are those sheep going to feel in the windblown 15-deg-F cold that’s coming in a few days? Just thinking about it from within the warmth of my house and my many layers of clothing makes me shiver. And it makes me glad I’m not a sheep.

*When Tock & I go outside in the winter, we have to layer up and keep moving to stay warm!*

Happy as I am to be human, I feel as if the sheep shearer pays me unexpected visits, too. On a surprisingly frequent basis, I am ripped down to my very essence. I’m forced to take a good hard look inside: at who I am, what I’ve done, and what I’m going to do about it. (Note: I’m talking metaphorically here, not physically—except for my recent scalp-and-hair-ripping surgical experience that I hope never to repeat.)

The arduous “shearing” process probably happens to me a lot because I’m a writer, and the writing life bears a remarkable similarity to a newly shorn sheep. No sooner do I celebrate finishing Draft 1 of a manuscript, for instance, than I must make an abrupt transition to some other aspect of writing. Querying an older manuscript, for instance—matching myself to agents and putting together query packages in which I promote myself and my story as much as possible—such fun! (if you’re a writer, I hope you detected the high level of sarcasm). Or, ooh, here’s another shift: from drafting to the formidable process of editing a new manuscript.

This transition between creation and revision happened to me the day the sheep were shorn, and boy, could I relate to them. I felt as though I were stepping from my comfortable writing cave into the bright, cold world, clutching the story I’d just birthed to my belly, knowing it was time to take a good hard look at it, to strip it down to its bones and examine every aspect of plot and character, to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Thing is, I adore revision. Being done with a first draft infuses me with the same sense of relief the sheep must feel. I can write! Enough to complete a whole novel! It’s only the transition from the initial writing to the tearing-down and reconstruction of it that’s difficult. I know that once I get into the routine of re-reading, of searching for inconsistencies and re-writing those places, I will get used to my new thin skin and begin to bulk it up once more. I guess the same can be said for switching gears from writing or editing to querying, but less so. Let’s just say I’m grateful that a bout of querying doesn’t take nearly as long as those other parts of the process.

Since no post of mine feels complete without the inclusion of my dog, I’d like to add that he, too, finds changing gears shocking. I once trained Tock to lie down in the middle of a recall. He’d be bounding my way, expecting a treat, when he’d hear the command to stop before reaching me. When I first did this, he ignored me and continued running, assuming I’d misspoken, no doubt. Granted, the second command was confusing because it ran counter to the strong instant recall he’d formerly been trained. But when no treat emerged from my pocket for the recall, he started to realize that he needed to heed the change in orders. He’d slow to a trot, then a walk, then maybe a stop a few feet away from me. Only after further training did he learn to stop fairly quickly as soon as he heard the command. So it can be done, even with a dog who is not the brightest of border collies. It’s a similar behavior to the one skilled herding dogs are trained to perform when they’re galloping toward a flock of sheep. An even more advanced behavior these working dogs learn is to stop mid-gallop and “look back” for a missing sheep or group of sheep. Imagine the intelligence and drive it would take to abandon the first flock and head off for a second one that might not even be visible.

Dog starting to lie down during a recall — *Tock is told to lie down mid-recall. This is hard for him!*

The good news is that dogs can indeed learn how to handle shifts in their established routines. The shorn sheep have also accepted their big lifestyle change (though I’m pretty sure they’re going to be shivering a bit during the coming cold snap). Not that they had any choice in their shearing, but I like to think they’re walking with an extra bounce in their step now that they don’t weigh so much. And if they can, surely we can, too. So if it’s time, writers, move on! Wrap your arms around your torso to bolster your spirits, and get to those queries, or to that revision, or maybe to dreaming up a whole new story and putting pen to paper once again. The good thing about being a human rather than a sheep is that you get to decide which it’s going to be.

Sheep with big wool coats in a snowy field — *Fluffy warm sheep a few weeks prior to shearing.*

Happy Tales!

Inseparable

I had to take our car in for service this week. A mundane task, right? Well, I was dreading it. Not because of the hour-long drive in frozen weather, nor because the appointment was scheduled to take all day for some inexplicable reason. I was even willing to put up with the insipid pop music blasting without cease into the waiting room.

My view of the inside of a Tesla service station waiting room — *The endless wait*

No, the main reason I was so reluctant to go was because I couldn’t bring my dog.

Pathetic? Maybe.

Weird? Yep.

True? Definitely.

Dog returning to me on the beach with stick in his mouth — *He’s like a boomerang, always coming back to me.*

In my defense, I’d better back up. I’m sure I’m not the only one for whom 2024 was a super tough year. For me, it was the toughest year on record (in my admittedly privileged life)—and that’s not even counting the usual pitch and query rejections that continue to chisel away at my sense of writerly worth. I won’t dwell on the chaos my family experienced because I’ve written about it plenty already. Let’s just say that while this past year was sometimes exciting and possibly character-building, it’s also been exhausting and downright scary.

The one constant through all the turmoil, the one warm fuzzy creature by my side has been—you guessed it—my dog. He gets up when I do from his bed next to mine, he crunches his kibbles while I work on my cereal, he gets dressed (with help) in his fleece jacket right before I pull on my down one, and he strikes out on the trail while simultaneously leaping in my face to remind me how wonderful an excursion together will be. And so we walk, for two hours every morning and another half hour in the afternoon, despite horizontal rain, branch-snapping winds, and cold that freezes the sheep farm’s trickling faucets into lumpy white shrouds.

*Could anyone avoid binding to this fellow? I think not. (True with or without the platypus.)*

But my dog’s proximity doesn’t end with feeding and walks. He lies on the rug outside the bathroom while I shower, he sleeps in my office while I write, he sprawls at my feet while I cook, and he hops in the car to attend any errand with me, whether it’s a quick trip to the store or a multi-hour excursion to a distant town. Wherever we go, he usually gets an outing, even if only a brief stroll around a parking area or a game of frisbee in a small patch of grass by the hospital. (In the interest of dog safety, I feel it’s important to note that our car has a Dog Mode, in which the battery keeps the car at an optimal temperature no matter how inhospitable the weather is outside. Bringing a non-service dog along for errands would otherwise be impossible).

Border collie lying on kitchen floor — *Tock is excellent at performing the dual functions of kitchen rug and auxiliary garbage disposal.*

I’ve always kept my dogs close, but this year and this dog more than any other. He has become part of me, as inseparable as a limb from my body. On the rare occasions when he’s not with me, I feel his absence like a gaping wound that will never heal. Dramatic? You bet. True? Well, my arm has never actually been ripped off, so probably not, but you get the picture. My dog is part of my essence—that indefinable aggregation of things that makes up a person’s personality and convictions. My sense of self. My soul. I can’t picture myself without him.

This gets me to wondering: are there other things from which I am inseparable? That is, if they were taken away, I would feel as though I’m no longer me.

Short answer, yes. Some of these inseparabilities (is that even a word?) are vain and trivial. I can probably quickly get over them. My hair, for instance. I’m scheduled for surgery this week for skin cancer on my scalp. Though the doctor is hopeful they’ll be able to suture the area closed, it’s possible the removed section will end up large enough that they’ll have to do a skin graft and then I’ll end up with a bald patch on the top of my head. I’ve been trying to envision myself either wearing a hat or wig to cover it for the rest of my life or going the other route and shaving my head entirely. I know people routinely lose their hair for all sorts of reasons, so it’s totally selfish that I find this upsetting. I don’t know why my view of myself in the mirror is so strongly tied to my sense of who I am. I have to remind myself that at least my dog won’t care.

Author with small bandage on top of head — *Breaking News: Surgery #1 (of 2) is done, with sutures!*

Then there are the bigger things, like my human family. Son, husband, parents … all of them hold a part of me within them just as I do of them. Work is another big one. Though I’ve never had a steady, traditional, well-paying career, I seem to have spent most of my life working in one way or another. For whatever misguided reason, I’ve chosen to grind away at things that take a long time to learn and perfect, and I’ve invested years of passion in each. Music first: giving that up due to injury was traumatic and required a lot of internal rewiring of my sense of self. Next ecology, then dog agility training, then writing. I’ve now spent so much time studying the craft of writing middle-grade fiction, specifically, that it’s become a huge part of my identity. Even if no one but my husband and my critique partners ever read my finished works, writing these novels occupies an important part of every one of my days. I love being part of the writing community, and experiencing the pleasure of crafting a phrase, a scene, a story.

Hands typing on computer keyboard — *Photo credit:* *Glenn Carstens Peters*

At this point in my life, if anyone asked me who I am, I’d say: children’s book writer and dog / nature lover (those last two things go hand in hand for me, because how can you have a dog if you don’t like to get outside?). Of course, this is but one moment in my existence. Maybe by next year, I’ll have added another inseparability to my list.

How about you? What are those things so intrexicably tied to your being that you can’t imagine existing without them?

Writer standing facing her dog in an alpine meadow

Happy Tales!

The Number One Most Important Trait a Writer Needs

Do you have what it takes?

As many of you may know, my husband and I recently moved across the country with an advance notice of approximately three months. We sold, gave away, recycled, or just plain threw out half of our stuff, put our house on the market, said goodbye to our friends, hoped that someday our families would be able to make the even longer trip to come visit us, crammed our dog and last two houseplants into the back of the car, and headed east.

An overloaded truck on a busy road — *Photo credit: Bernd Dittrich*

After all that stress, we were exhausted, at least ten pounds lighter (nothing like a big move for a weight loss plan), relieved, and excited for the unknowns ahead that had pulled us out of our ruts and into a completely new life. (I know labelling emotions isn’t the best way to tell a story, but hey, this has been a big year for them). Our troubles weren’t over, though, with unforeseen health challenges and hospital stays over the next several months, all in the context of a challenging new job and no in-person support network.

Hospital scale — *Photo credit: Kenny Eliason*

Sometimes I wonder how it is that we’re functioning at all by now. How am I even writing this post, for instance, when I feel as though the anxiety and sadness that we’ve endured has built to near bursting point behind our carefully-constructed stone walls? How am I getting up every day, pushing down food for which I often have no appetite, throwing on some clothes that only a few people will see, reading the political news that inexplicably has hardly anything to do with climate change, and searching for something, anything, positive to think about or look forward to?

How do I keep going?

How?

Thank goodness I have an answer. Better yet, it’s only one word.

Resilience.

Let me say that again, if only for my own benefit. Resilience. Grit. An ability to claw one’s way from the mud and try again, no matter how impossible things seem.

Like so many things in my life, my border collie is my best role model of what this means. Let’s not forget that Tock endured a big change in his life, too—the greatest in all his nine years. He had to give up his precious ponderosa pine cones, for which he seemed to have developed a special receptor in his brain sometime back in puppyhood. When we lived in Montana, he loved nothing more than to roll one down into the trail from where he waited, only to spring up and catch it from me, run ahead and do it all over again. For Tock, that was his definition of a walk, some very productive work, and a fabulous time, all in one.

Dog lying in wait by side of trail, with a ponderosa pine cone placed in the trail for someone (me) to find. — *Tock frozen by the side of the trail, waiting for me to find the cone that he has placed where I will trip on it if I don’t pick it up.*

When we arrived at our new home, Tock picked up a small, egg-shaped cone from a pitch pine tree but immediately dropped it, like you might if you put what you thought was a refreshing mint on your tongue only to find out it was an aspirin. Not prickly enough! Tock was surely thinking. Too small! Totally wrong! He didn’t touch another one of those cones for weeks, and never even tried pick up one of the longer, softer white pine cones. But in the meantime, did he waste away in despair?

Dog sitting next to two pitch pine cones — *These two pitch pine cones are simply not worth Tock’s time.*

He did not. Almost immediately, he switched to sticks. He might have been a little confused at first because he couldn’t roll them into the trail, but he learned in the space of one walk to bring them back to me and drop them at my feet (or sometimes plow into me with one or thrust it at my face to show me just what an amazing stick it was, but that’s another story). He also discovered another incredible quality of sticks: they float. Nothing seems to bring him greater happiness now than swimming for a stick in a pond, or even in the ocean. Frisbees, which he’ll fetch if there’s nothing else, still remain a distant second. He has fully, proudly made the switch from a western mountain dog to an eastern swamp/ocean dog. And if he still has dreams about ponderosa cones, he wakes from them not with sadness but with enthusiasm for a new day—and a new stick.

Dog holding a big stick in his mouth — *In Tock’s opinion, a big stick is always best.*

Do I have resilience, too? Sometimes I feel quite the opposite. When I have fleeting thoughts of the lovely mountains that I miss so much, I immediately send them back behind my wall. I build it higher stone by stone, keeping the longing at bay. This sure seems like denial rather than toughness. But … then I take Tock for a walk by the ocean. The calm lap of blue-green water, the warm sand, the wave-smoothed stones soothe my soul and help me accept this trade of one sort of beauty for another.

Dog stepping into the ocean, his eyes on a floating stick

Back to writing—and an example that many of you may relate to: when I get yet another form rejection from a literary agent for my gazillionth manuscript, what do I do? Truthfully, I hurl it behind my wall—because if I dwell on it, my heart might as well be ripped out, my dreams destroyed. This is definitely not resilient behavior. But … after a day or a week or a month, I’ll open up that manuscript, fix it, try again. If I’ve queried it enough, I’ll put it aside and start writing something new. Because in the end, I know that continuing with my work is the best recipe. Not for success, necessarily, but for feeling a heck of a lot better than I did before. And because the world of publishing is so very difficult these days, I firmly believe that resilience is the most important trait we writers can possess.

So thank you, my furry friend, for inspiring me to jot down these few words. Simply the act of writing them makes me feel like I’ve climbed atop the stone wall of despair, unafraid of the monsters lurking behind it. And if I tip my head far, far back, I can see the sky.

Happy Tales!