Holly Robinson's Blog, page 9

Debut Novelist Leah DeCesare Talks about Making the Switch from Nonfiction to Fiction, and How Cutlery Can Help You Find Your Perfect Love Match

Leah DeCesare’s nonfiction parenting series, Naked Parenting, is based on her work as a doula, early parenting educator, and mom of three. In 2008, she co-founded the nonprofit, Doulas of Rhode Island, and in 2013 she spearheaded the Campaign for Hope to build the Kampala Children’s Centre for Hope and Wellness in Uganda.

Now DeCesare is launching her debut novel, Forks, Knives and Spoons, a fast-paced and often comic read about how to find love when you least expect it. Here she talks about what it was like to make the switch from nonfiction to fiction, why Santa Claus kept making his way into her novel, and just why it’s so important for writers to support one another.

Q. So I have to ask: in this novel, your character Amy goes off to college and tries to convince her friend Veronica that they should use the “Utensil Classification System” as a guide to finding a suitable boyfriend. Did your father give you this guide when you left home, like Amy’s gave it to her? Do you believe the UCS holds true?

A. That idea of labeling guys as forks, knives, and spoons is the nugget from real life that I spun the rest of the story from. The August before I left for Syracuse, out to dinner with my parents, my dad spontaneously gave me this last ditch talk about guys. At school, my girlfriends and I elaborated and invented and really USED this system, so that concept stayed with me. But there was no STORY around it, so when I finally sat to write this book, I really had to build the characters and their arcs, and let the Utensil Classification System (the UCS) become a backdrop and an organizing idea serving the characters and their growth.

I’ve asked myself the question if I believe the UCS works. In short, I kind of think it does hold true, with some caveats, as the characters discover: “It’s not an exact science.” Recently, my dad (only half-jokingly) told my 18 year-old daughter that he was going to have to give her the “Forks, knives and spoons talk” before she heads off to college next year. I think I’ve preempted that, though, since she has read the book.

Q. Which came first, the concept of a utensil classification system or your desire to write a novel? How did the concept and your ambition come together?

A. Since the time I was very young, I wanted to be a writer. I would write poems and stories, and even sent off the first five chapters of a novel to a Big Five New York City publishing house when I was ten years old. (My first badge as a writer – a rejection letter in fifth grade!) So, my desire to write a novel far preceded the UCS. When I hit my forties, I thought, “What are you waiting for? When are you going to write a book?” I reorganized my priorities and time to fulfill my dream and lifetime goal. Somehow, I knew this kernel that had lingered in my mind for two decades had to be the book I wrote first.

Q. You have Santa Claus appearing in various guises throughout the story—why? I find him kind of a spooky character in real life…

A. I love this question, and it’s actually a funny story how Santa came to be in the book. As a new novelist, I approached writing this book in a bunch of different (many unsuccessful) ways, and in the process of wrong turns, I really learned a lot. While writing the scene with Amy on the train back to New York City, someone sat down next to her. I remember exactly where I was writing and the moment when it happened. I leaned back and asked aloud, “Who the hell just sat next to her?” I honestly had no idea. The Santa-like figure came from that. He was a little creepy in the first version, but I tried to make him less scary and more of a kind stranger. Once he delivered the message to Amy, I then wove the Santa thread throughout the manuscript a bit more. I guess I can blame Santa showing up on the muses—his appearance at all preconceived or intentional.

Q. I love the way you weave stories of true, lifelong friendships throughout the book, not only between women, but between women and men. What character did you relate to most?

A. Thank you. I think anyone who knows me would say there’s a lot of me in Amy’s character. It makes sense, since it’s her dad in the story who tells her about the Utensil Classification System like my own dad told me. It’s not my story, but I did give her my habit of semi-obsessive teeth brushing, and I am a hopeless optimist (and a bit of a romantic) like Amy is.

Q. Which character was hardest for you to write?

A. I guess I’d say Jenny. I think we all know someone who behaves like her. Her story and self-image made me sad, as a mother and as a woman. I was happy for her in the end.

Q. You’ve written a lot of nonfiction, like your “Naked Parenting” series. How was the process of writing a novel different for you than the process of writing nonfiction?

A. In so many ways they are vastly different writing and creative experiences. I found writing the parenting books much more straightforward and a much easier process. For one, the word count on those books is about a quarter of the size of Forks, Knives, and Spoons. In writing the Naked Parenting books, I learned more about my process as a writer. I found I work better in focused bursts than in doing a little bit everyday. I love to pack my writing stuff and easy meals and hibernate somewhere alone for three or four days at a time; it allows me to get to the point where the work flows and I can be very productive.

Writing a novel is like solving a puzzle, while writing the parenting books was more like writing longer, linked blog posts. I found the two to be dramatically different. Writing nonfiction is more linear and logical, still creative and fun, but it has the goal of imparting knowledge, of sharing information in an accessible way, while fiction writing feels more wide-open to me.

Q. You have worked as a doula, helping women give birth. Did you have a doula or two when you were conceiving this book? How does the process of ushering a book into the world compare with having a baby?

A. I’ve often thought of different people who’ve helped me along this path as my “book doulas,” so I love that you’ve made that link too. My first book doula was Angela Lauria, a book coach who I hired when I decided to get serious about writing; I wanted definitive accountability as I began. I also hired a structural editor, Jeanette Perez, after some early drafts.

As a novelist, I feel I’ve found my tribe. So many authors have embraced me and continue to be incredible supports. I love connecting with, and learning from, other authors and I’m so thankful for the encouragement and virtual high-fives, for the early readers who provided blurbs and reviews. It has been an amazing feeling of community.

I’m also in a group of novelists all debuting in 2017 called ’17Scribes, and I love how we all help each other out with questions and the learning curve of publishing. I feel like we’re all doula-ing one another through this process.

Q. This novel is set in the eighties. Was that a deliberate creative decision, or just a time period you were keen to write about? How would this novel have been different if you set it in the year 2017?

A. It was a conscious choice to set Forks, Knives, and Spoons in the late eighties into the early nineties for a few reasons. First, it’s a period I know and could realistically convey the college culture at that time, but I also wanted to show some timeless truths about growing up and seeking love despite cell phones and technologies. If it were set in present day, I think some of the incidents could have unfolded differently – or not at all. Certainly, today, handwritten letters and phone calls on the hall payphone are extinct, and finding someone in a crowd outside at a fire drill or at a party is easy by comparison.

Q. And, if you were to give three golden nuggets of advice to aspiring writers hoping to publish their own novels someday, what would they be?

A.

Believe you can do it and go write! Study the craft of writing and keep challenging yourself to grow as a writer.

Seek out connections with other authors for mutual support, encouragement and brainstorming (whether about your actual story or later in marketing your book).

Read and learn all you can about book promotion – no matter what, like it or not, authors must have a role and a stake in the promotion of their books.

The post Debut Novelist Leah DeCesare Talks about Making the Switch from Nonfiction to Fiction, and How Cutlery Can Help You Find Your Perfect Love Match appeared first on Holly Robinson.

Author Margaret Combs Talks about the Impact of Autism on Families and Why We Need Memoirs More than Ever

There are many fine family memoirs, but few tackle the subject of what it’s like to have your family life impacted by the birth of a sibling with a disability. In her moving new book, Hazard: A Sister’s Flight from Family and a Broken Boy , award-winning journalist Margaret Combs delivers an unflinching coming-of-age story set in the nineteen fifties and sixties—one with a remarkable perspective on autism and a great deal of heart.

In this interview, Combs tells us how she found the courage to write a raw family memoir, what it was like to make the leap from working in radio to writing a book, and the essential role that memoirs play in our culture today.

What gave you the courage and the impetus to make the leap from creating journalistic narratives to writing a family memoir so raw with emotion?

I knew from the beginning that I had to enter this writing differently. There are many nonfiction books out there about families, siblings, mental and physical disability, birth defects, which are geared toward connecting parents and families to helpful information and resources. (Thankfully, I might add–I wish my parents could have had those books.) What I felt was missing was the interior of a family going through this enormous upheaval and especially over the arc of a lifetime. Disability does not end; though there are moments of triumph, it goes on forever, and in my brother’s case, gets more distressing and complex with age. I wanted to bring that side of the story out of the shadows. I developed courage through the writing process itself. More than anything I wanted to lean toward the emotion, and yet, as a journalist, I was conditioned not to do this. Fortunately, I was supported by a circle of writers whom I trusted and respected and they flagged me whenever I retreated into my journalism space – where it was much safer. I relied on them to ask for more, and above all, to help me tell my story with compassion – compassion for my parents, for our entire family, for all families who are going through this today.

How did you decide what shape to give your memoir? What was your process for getting the book to its final shape?

I didn’t start out knowing its shape, and for this I’m grateful. Memoir is a creative writing process. It’s not an expository writing process with a clearly defined outline and a march toward the finish line. In my experience, it’s more of a conversation that leads deeper into a part of the woods you’ve never visited before. Several times, I had to choose whether to follow it there, or to stop, turn around, and run back to safety. I ran in and out of those woods more than once, but ultimately went back in, fortified by the feedback and guidance of other writers.

I started out believing I was writing a story about my brother. I hadn’t yet learned that it was a story about me. I started with a box full of journals that I had kept for twenty odd years, and went through each one, marking with a red tab every place I had written about my brother. He wasn’t the only recurring presence – other organic themes surfaced throughout – but he was a constant presence, and the tabs were the first visual proof I had of how much I carried him with me. I lifted these journal entries out onto one long sheet of paper and they became the scenes that guided me forward. It was this sheet of episodes that I first took to my writers’ group. Some episodes developed into chapters, others became scenes and flashbacks that deepened the chapters.

I relied on my sister, Barbara Ann, many times – she was an ally and could fill in the holes of my memory. I had a mentor, Brenda Peterson, who was leading my circle of writers and asking questions and steering me along, pulling me back when I strayed too far out into the trees. The first chapter of my book is actually the outgrowth of an exercise that I did in one of Brenda’s memoir workshops. She asked everyone to write a scene that explained their entire life. My scene was the day my mother collapsed, a moment when life changed for me, and that became the starting point of my memoir.

After I had several chapters and an annotated table of contents, I wrote a book proposal, presented it to some editors and agents, and happily, Sarah Jane Freymann took it on. But first she wanted me to ponder my ending and she actually asked me to go ahead and write the last chapter. I was so stumped that I attempted it several times, and then in frustration, took a long walk in the Grand Forest near my home. That is where I found my epilogue. The final refined shape of the book came together after the book was accepted by Skyhorse and I worked with my editor, Olga Greco. It was through her guidance that I put the final stitches in place. It was a long iterative process, with many surprises and epiphanies for me as a sibling and a writer.

Did you consider another way of telling this story? As a novel or film, perhaps, instead of a memoir?

I pondered writing it as fiction – partly to have more leeway in developing the story, and partly because fiction is beautifully safe – it protects the author in a way memoir cannot. I was very intrigued with Eli Gottlieb’s book, The Boy Who Went Away, which is a poignant and gorgeously told story about two brothers, one of whom is on the spectrum. At an awards event years ago, I asked Eli Gottlieb why he had chosen to tell the story fictionally – it was so intimately told, it read like a memoir – and he said simply, “It gave me more freedom.”

Ultimately, I decided to write my story as I felt it and knew it, as a memoir, without distancing from it. It was the only way I felt capable of writing it. However, I wrote each chapter as if it were going to end up in the bottom drawer of my desk and never see the light of day. I needed that anonymity to reach the story, to drill down deep enough and stay with it, until I hit bedrock.

How have your skills as a memoirist been impacted by your work in other genres, such as radio? For instance, do you “hear” your language as you write, since you’ve written so much for stories that were meant to be audible?

Yes, absolutely, I hear the language. My time as an NPR reporter is when I learned how to tell a story, how to bring it to life, often with sound and ambiance. Sound is very emotional and intimate, and I hear it, even when I write an expository article or profile. I lay down the voices first, and then fill in around the quotes – similar to the way a radio script is created – allowing the voices to tell the story.

With memoir, I hear two voices, one in each ear: one is emotional, the other factual, and the craft is to keep them harmonizing together. Facts by themselves do not tell a story, sensory details do. When facts overcome the paragraph, the reader is immediately distanced – the narrator may as well be a lecturer imparting information, or laying out a history textbook: this happened, then this, then this. The memoirist’s job is to ask why, what was the impact of these events, what do I know now that I didn’t know as a child, how do I recreate the emotional truth – how do I make sense of them in a way that not only makes sense to me but to the reader?

Portions of your book appeared in literary journals like the North American Review . Did you write the book that way, as a series of essays or sketches that just kept coming to you piecemeal? Or were you consciously writing a book all along?

Both, actually. I envisioned this as a book, simply because I felt it needed that length to bridge a lifetime. But I started with episodes, which grew into scenes, which developed into chapters. Each chapter had its own story arc, and sometimes that meant it emerged as a stand-alone piece – like “Mercy,” which appeared in the North American Review. I didn’t write the chapters intentionally as standalones. It can be done that way but if you’re not careful your book will end up little more than a string episodes. You have to ask, how is this chapter serving the overall arc of the book? How is it moving the narrator forward emotionally? Or are you just lining up scenes that keep rehashing the same emotion?

The narrator’s emotional growth is the plot of a memoir, more so than the events in the story. It helped me to map out an annotated table of contents early in the process, which helped me see the entire book all at once. As I progressed with chapters I began to see the arc of the story emerge. Once I saw that arc, I moved chapters and added new ones. I’m a visual person, so I printed out the TOC and marked it up mercilessly – and at one point I cut up the text and moved chapters around on my dining room table. It was a way of having a conversation with the book – to have it talk back and guide me.

We have so many ways to tell stories today, from podcasts to Netflix, from blogging to Instagram. What role do you think memoirs play in today’s world?

Memoirs play a vital role. More so today than ever before, in this culture of unprocessed emotion, talk radio, and the shouting of tweets. A well-written memoir processes emotion for the reader and offers wisdom and insight – it slows things down and both the author and reader journey together. The telling of our stories is how we connect as human beings, how we learn from each other, how we help one another gain wisdom and strengthen. It’s easy to pigeonhole people as stereotypes, to see them as “the other”, until you hear them tell their story.

There is a deep and profound intimacy between the printed word and the reader. When a person reads, he or she is alone with the author, and there is no more intimate way to experience a story than one-on-one. Even an audiobook will interject a voice into the mix, usually not the author’s voice, adding a third person’s interpretation. There’s nothing wrong with any of these story methods. Movies can be powerfully moving, and so can radio pieces like NPR’s Storycore – we have many senses through which to take in story. But the printed word to me is the most compelling connection with the least number of people in the room – it plugs the heart and mind of one human directly into another’s.

Your memoir is as much a coming-of-age story during a certain time in American history, from the 1950s to the 1970s, when so much was changing in the political landscape (and for women especially) as it is about how your family coped with your brother’s autism. Why is your story still relevant today? What do you hope other families affected by children with autism might learn from you experiences?

My book spans several decades but it takes the reader right up to the present. So it is contemporary. My intention was to show the entire lifespan with all of the phases, rather than just focus on the beginning. The impact of a sibling with a severe mental or physical health issue extends well past the diagnosis, the early interventions and treatments, the tutoring, the difficult teen years when hormones awaken, the young adulthood when programs come to an end, when counselors say “we’ve done everything we can for him”, when one parent has to quite work to stay home with the disabled young man or woman, and when the parents pass on, the sibling(s) having to take over as parent.

As wonderful as it is to see all of the current early intervention and research on autism and support for young parents, I sense every family is still experiencing the emotions of my parents, the anxiety and worry, the shock of the diagnosis, and many a sibling is standing in the shadows, watching as their parents struggle with the emotional and physical demands of the one affected child. My hope is that my story can help families today in two ways: shed light on the profound way every member in the family is deeply affected, giving voice to those many moments when they feel baffled and alone, and secondly, to help mothers and fathers take a deep breath and remember their other children. Siblings are processing worry and concern by themselves, they’re trying not to rock the boat any further than it is already rocking, and they’re trying to make things better for their parents. They’re taking everything in and holding it close to their hearts.

The post Author Margaret Combs Talks about the Impact of Autism on Families and Why We Need Memoirs More than Ever appeared first on Holly Robinson.

Who Are You, Really? What Part of Yourself Matters Most?

There’s a lot of noise out there that keeps distracting us from what’s truly important. There are the small, daily sounds of trying to get through an ordinary week, like grocery lists and utility bills and car repairs.

Then there are the bigger, scarier noises—the headlines about terrorists and refugees, political shamanism, new viruses on the horizon.

With so much noise, it’s difficult to discover, and then remember, who you really are. What is your essence? If everything unimportant was stripped away from your life, what would people see?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since reading an incredible story in the New York Times Sunday magazine last month called “The House at the End of the World,” by Jon Mooallem.

The story profiles two men. One is Dr. B.J. Miller, who lost his legs in an accident when he was a college sophomore, and went on to become a leader in the area of death and dying. The other is Randy Sloan, a young man who adapted a motorcycle for Dr. Miller to ride despite his prosthetic limbs.

When Sloan was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rapidly-moving and incurable type of cancer, Dr. Miller helped him navigate how he would die. What struck me about this story, besides the incredible admiration I have for both men and for the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, which Dr. Miller was directing when Sloan went there to live at the end of his life, were the questions Dr. Miller asked of Sloan.

One of the questions was this: “So, what’s your favorite part of yourself? What character trait do we want to make sure to protect as everything else falls apart?”

Dr. Miller’s message to his patients is one we should all embrace, no matter how young or healthy we might be: No matter how much noise there is to distract us, it’s essential to keep rearranging our lives in ways that will allow us to commit, and then to remain faithful, to the parts of ourselves that feel most meaningful.

Or, to put it another way: If you were a snowman and you melted, what would you want people to see left lying on the ground? Your red cashmere scarf? Your expensive black leather gloves? That fancy phone?

Or your warm, beating heart, the joy you took in doing good work, and the love you feel for the people in your life?

The post Who Are You, Really? What Part of Yourself Matters Most? appeared first on Holly Robinson.

Creativity Frozen? How to Start Writing Again

A confession: I stopped writing fiction for two months recently–the first time I have ever stumbled to a complete halt. Why? The usual reasons:

1. THE ELECTION. I couldn’t focus on fiction when truth seemed so much stranger.

2. HOLIDAYS. Let’s admit it: for women writers, holidays are time and brain drains.

3. DOUBT. I had sent the first 200 pages of my new novel to my agent. Her response? “Um, no.”

4. MONEY. Life isn’t getting any cheaper and fiction isn’t any getting any easier to sell.

With so many great reasons to quit, why did I feel compelled to beat back writer’s block?

Because I feel horrible if I’m not writing, and decent-to-amazing when I am. Writing fiction is my portal to another life. When the words are flowing, nothing in my “ordinary” life feels impossible, from dishes to democracy.

So I had to find ways to reboot my creative habits. In doing so, I stumbled onto a few new tricks that might help you, too:

Switch Up Your Schedule

Before this particular hiatus, I would get up and exercise, do half an hour of social media, then dive into my paid freelance projects. Only when all of those “must do” things were completed did I “allow” myself to write fiction.

Since that wasn’t working anymore, I decided to switch up my schedule and try writing first thing in the morning–before I exercise, and often before I even get dressed–just for an hour. If I have an early morning conference call or deadline, I get up an hour earlier to write fiction. Then I quit after that hour, do my day job and house chores, then get back to my novel after dinner for what I call “play time.”

Writing early in the morning means my head isn’t cluttered with news headlines and social media noise, and calling it “play time” lets me just tinker with the words at the end of the day, when I’m in my bathrobe and the world feels far away.

Read Books about Writing

I hardly ever read self-help books for writers. I’m too big-headed, thinking, Hey, I already have an MFA and have published six novels, plus many more ghostwritten books. What else is there for me to learn?

So, when my good friend, the writer Maddie Dawson, gave me a book called Why We Write edited by Meredith Maran, I said a gracious thank you, but set the book aside.

Then the book mysteriously drifted to the top of the stack on my nightstand, and one night I started flipping through it. This book turned out to be just the nudge I needed, with advice from writers I admire and their own tales of doubt. For instance, bestselling author David Baldacci, of all people, writes, “Every time I start a project, I sit down scared to death that I won’t be able to bring the magic again.” This, from a guy with 110 million books in print!

Lower Your Word Count Expectations

Most of the writers I know set daily word count goals. I do, too, especially when I have a contract with a tight deadline. Even without a contract, I have traditionally given myself word counts to ensure that the work keeps progressing. When my writing screeched to a halt, I felt terrible when I couldn’t make my word counts, but some days I just couldn’t do it. I was felled by a crushing crisis in confidence.

As Homer Simpson famously quipped, “If something is hard to do, then it’s not worth doing!” I’ve always been one of those driven Yankee types who believes that, if you try hard enough, you will succeed. But, in this case, Homer was right. My word count was working against me, because I took each day I fell short of coming up with the “right” number of words as yet another sign that I’d failed. I had to remind myself that the only one who was making up those word counts–or cared about them–was me.

So I did the unthinkable: I cut my word count goal in half. On good days, I exceed it and feel wonderful. Even on my worst days, I can make the limit–which makes it a little easier to sit down and write every day, knowing my goal is within reach.

Leave Off Mid-Sentence

Because I was so scared of being blocked again, I started following the advice I used to give my writing classes back when I was teaching college students: I always leave off in the middle of a scene, and preferably in the middle of a sentence, so that I know EXACTLY what word I’m going to type next. That way, the next day I won’t have to worry about that age-old question, “What will I write?”

Dare Yourself to Be a Bad Writer

We have this image in our heads, right? It’s the perfect sentence. Or even the perfect book. Maybe you can even see the cover image and your name splashed across it.

But what we put on the page early on is usually terrible. I’d forgotten this, somehow, and hated everything I wrote, until I went back and looked at some of my journal entries made while I was writing my last novel. There it was, in my illegible handwriting: “My writing sucks. Who’s going to want to read this?”

I had written these words about a novel I sold to Penguin.

The magic of writing lies in the rewriting. You need to keep that thought front-and-center, so that, as you set words down on the page, you’ll stop worrying and just let yourself be a bad writer. Throw in all of the adjectives you want! Let your characters speak in cliches! Who cares? This draft is for you alone, so that you can tunnel your way into the heart of the book. Then you can start chipping away at its edges and sanding down the rough spots. I’d suggest writing maybe fifty or a hundred pages, then stop, read what you have, and outline where you want the book to go. Then write a book jacket description–something you imagine as marketing copy for your book.

If you still can’t see the direction after doing those two things, write another fifty pages and try this exercise again. Eventually the smoke will clear and you’ll see where you’re going–and how far you’ve come.

What about you? Any strategies to share for overcoming writer’s block?

The post Creativity Frozen? How to Start Writing Again appeared first on Holly Robinson.

Is It Harder to Be a Novelist or a Screenwriter? (Plus a Brief Meditation on How Being a Writer Should be Like Smoking Cigars.)

Lately, my novelist friends and I have been talking about finding other jobs because the publishing business is so rocky. Usually this list of possibilities is short, since we’re not really qualified to do much other than write. Waiting tables, maybe, or working in retail.

“Maybe we should just write other things that pay better,” one of my friends suggested. “Like screenplays!”

She has always been an optimist. Still, that conversation led me to wonder whether it’s easier to be a screenwriter than a novelist these days, so I asked Toronto-based screenwriter, , who wrote the screenplay for the 2014 thriller, “Freezer,” starring , to tell me about his career path. It turns out that selling a script and actually getting it made into a movie might not be any easier than selling a novel and seeing it in bookstores…darn it.

Q. I love the cobbled-together word you use, “sacriverance,” to describe the combination of sacrifice and perseverance it takes to make it as a writer. When did you first set out to become a screenwriter, and why? And what feeds your “sacriverance” when the going gets tough?

A. I’ve been a writer since day one. It chose me. I was born with a pad and pen in my hand (not a laptop). Also, from the beginning I was a huge film lover. In my last year of high school I realized I wanted to seriously be in the film industry in a creative capacity. It was during this year that I first started reading about the script-to-screen process and the role above-the-line talent plays in getting a film made. So writing + film = screenwriting, and I jumped off the ledge into the fire, building my wings on the way down.

As to why I became a screenwriter, I come from the world of hip hop, which completely shaped and molded who I am. In that world, it’s all about proving yourself lyrically, which stems from the writing; and being able to paint a picture and tell a compelling story from your writing, and then being able to do it live and move the crowd is a whole other story. Screenwriting was basically a natural extension of that. I owe everything to hip hop – it’s the foundation of all my creativity.

My sacriverance is fed from one key thing: hardcore, relentless, unwavering, blue-collar perseverance. I’m a fiend for this. I have an obsessive, burning desire to make a go at it. It’s not just a hope and a dream. I knew I’d never be okay on the sidelines. I had to take action. Writing goes beyond being a passion or love of mine. I get in where I fit in, and when the going gets tough, I just know that quitting has been – and never will be – an option. I’m programmed to do this. Don’t know anything else, don’t wanna do anything else.

Q. I know you wrote a lot of scripts before selling “Freezer.” Why do you think “Freezer” was the one that made it? Is it really better than anything else you had written to that point, or was there some combo of luck and connections involved?

A. No luck or connections. Those are myths. Well, having connections is not a myth, it certainly helps to know people, but I only know people and made connections because of what you mentioned – I wrote a lot of scripts and spent years at it, and in that time I built up my network. So that’s part of why I was able to sell a script after so many years. “Freezer” was not necessarily better than anything I had written at the time, it just happened to be really good timing in terms of the concept and genre and people (producers, execs, actors, directors) who were looking for something like that. I have to give credit to my former manager in L.A., because he took a chance on me and was able to get “Freezer” set up with a great company who went to bat for it and were serious about getting it made the right way.

Q. You’re one of the rare writers who has actually managed to have a film made into a major motion picture with “Freezer.” Do you think of yourself as a “success?” Where there any really low points along your journey to selling a script–times where you thought you might run out of “sacriverance?”

A. I think of myself as a success because I’ve persevered in my journey. Perseverance, in my opinion, is what separates the adults from the children. Success for me is not money or material things or any position I’m in. This is a crazy, polarizing, back-breaking, lip-zipping, confidence-shattering business, and just to get representation and an option, or to sell a script is a success, let alone have something produced and have it picked up for distribution or included in film festivals or whatever. I’ve succeeded because a number of goals were reached not necessarily from hard work, focus and determination, but from pure tenacity, persistence and personal resilience. You can be the most talented, driven individual, but even talented people quit. Perseverance is the name of the game. Of course there were low points; it’s been so frustrating I can’t even begin to tell you. I’ve had many boiling points, believe me. It’s still, and will always be, a struggle. However, I will never run out of the sacriverance. I’m built for the kill.

Q. I know that you’ve kept every rejection you’ve received since 1997. When you look at that growing pile, what makes you think the journey is worth it?

A. Taking action and never quitting something you’re so passionate about, have a burning desire for it and feeling you were meant to do it is always worth it. I started writing (short) scripts in ’94, but December of 1997 (when I wrote my first feature) is when I started actively pursuing the business, sending out scripts and thus facing rejection; so it’s been a 19-year journey for me, one of ups and downs, highs and lows and every nitty-gritty thing in between. I asked myself early on if it’s worth it, and I only needed to ask myself that one time. I’ve never questioned my talent, ability or mental stamina. However, that rejection pile of mine is definitely a reminder of the journey and its worth.

Q. How has the film industry changed in the twenty years or so that you’ve been trying to realize your goals as a writer?

A. I’ve seen firsthand how things have changed, from a writing perspective, and then on a broad level just from following the business on a regular basis. Three main things have changed. One is content. People are viewing films and TV in ways nobody thought was possible 10 or 20 years ago. So many different companies offer consumers many ways to buy what they’re selling, and non-traditional has become traditional. Number two is the amount of fully integrated companies that have stepped up to the plate to produce, finance, sell and distribute films in the low-to-mid-budget range that the studios wouldn’t normally touch. So a lot of these companies have become their own studios, but work outside of the studio system. The third thing that has changed is the TV landscape, from a writing perspective, genre perspective and IP perspective. The envelope keeps pushing when it comes to television content, in terms of form, genre, subject matter and character portrayal. In terms of my goals specifically as a writer, there are certainly more ways to get your material out there and get noticed, especially with the plethora of writing competitions now, and sites and forums that host scripts and provide feedback coverage (for a price of course). But one thing remains constant: it will never, ever become easier to break into this business… Never.

Q. What words of advice do you have for other writers out there who are struggling to find an agent/manager and sell their screenplays?

A. Figure this out for yourselves. I had to. I will tell you this though – and it can be for anybody who wants to perfect their craft and artistry and make a name for themselves… it’s what I call the cigarette versus cigar scenario of advice:

A cigarette is made on a conveyor belt, pumped out the exact same way as millions of other cigarettes, mass produced, in a very short time. Whereas a cigar is carefully hand-rolled, each one unique, quality-controlled, only after the different kinds tobacco (leaf, wrapper, filler) have been carefully grown and fermented over time in the right conditions. A cigarette gets smoked in minutes, usually rushed, then stomped out, whereas a cigar is properly cut, smoked slowly, enjoyed with great conversation, especially paired with a good meal. Which do you want your craft to be – a cigar or a cigarette? Always focus on quality, authenticity, uniqueness and originality. That will set you apart from the rest.

The post Is It Harder to Be a Novelist or a Screenwriter? (Plus a Brief Meditation on How Being a Writer Should be Like Smoking Cigars.) appeared first on Holly Robinson.

How to Survive (and Maybe Enjoy) Going Public with Your Book

Recently, I asked a debut novelist what events she had planned around her book launch. She shrugged and said, “Not much. Most marketing is done online these days. That’s fine with me. I hate speaking in public.”

She’s right. Unless you’re selling like Paula Hawkins or John Grisham, your publisher won’t pay to send you anywhere. It’s more cost effective for them to put their marketing budget toward advertising and online promotions. And, hey, we writers aren’t typically the most confident public speakers.

At the same time, if you don’t do book events, you’re going to miss out on connecting with readers and celebrating not only your book, but the craft of writing. Even if the idea of appearing in public seems nonsensical or downright scary, set up your own events and get out there. Here are some tips to help you survive going public with your book:

Think Beyond Bookstores

Many bookstores won’t arrange events for indie authors unless they’re local (and some won’t even do it then). Even if you’re traditionally published, it’s important to think beyond the bookstore. This past weekend, for instance, I got together with authors Connie Hambley, Laura Moore, and Natalie Reinert to talk about their books and my most recent novel, Folly Cove, on a panel about why authors put horses in fiction. We held the panel at Equine Affaire, a huge horse event, and signed books afterward through Taborton Equine Books. What a blast!

Make It a Conversation

If you’re scared to speak in public, try Toastmasters, practice in the mirror, or do what I did and take a stand-comedy class. Nobody wants to listen to an author drone on from notes at a podium or read an entire chapter of a book. For each event, try to talk about yourself and the book for a few minutes, then read for no more than ten minutes and take questions. The idea is to turn your event into an interesting two-way conversation.

Try the Meet & Greet Approach

Some of the weirdest but most entertaining events I’ve done are “meet and greets.” I typically do these at Barnes & Noble bookstores, but I’ve arranged them at other stores as well. The idea is that you sit at a table somewhere in the store that gets heavy traffic—often by the front door or the cafe—and talk to people. That’s it. It’s like being a Wal-Mart greeter, except you don’t have to wear a blue smock and you happen to be sitting at a table with a stack of your books on it. The idea is that, by engaging in conversation with you, people will want to buy your book. To my surprise, I like doing this, maybe because there’s no real pressure in, say, complimenting the sweater of a woman who walks by, or answering questions like, “Where’s the bathroom?” (Many people will think you’re a bookstore employee at first.) I have met all sorts of people this way, and I have sold a surprising number of books to complete strangers.

Don’t Forget the Library

By far, most of my author events take place at libraries. Sometimes I meet with book clubs, but other times I arrange events myself, often to coincide with a theme—an upcoming holiday, local settings, or whatever else the librarian thinks patrons might enjoy. I’ve also run writing workshops at various libraries, or I’ve met with their ongoing writers’ groups to talk about publishing. It’s a great way to build a community not just for your book, but for yourself.

Groups Are Great

If appearing alone scares the pants off you, either because you’re a shy public speaker or don’t think you can draw a crowd, try arranging a panel. I speak on a panel of cross-genre writers, The Nevertheless Writers. Together, we often draw more of a crowd than we can do individually, especially if we’re speaking to aspiring writers. It’s also fun to get together with other writers in your genre and speak on a common topic, whether it’s horror, time travel, or families in conflict.

Don’t Do This to Sell Books

Finally, the most important advice I can give you about arranging book events is this: Don’t do them because you want to sell books. Arrange events with the goal of meeting new people, connecting with librarians and booksellers, visiting with old friends, and—most importantly—to celebrate why books matter.

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Author Brandi Megan Granett on Writing, Publishing, Archery & More

I admit it: as a veteran Scrabble player, I was delighted to see the cover and title of Brandi Megan Granett’s new novel, Triple Love Score. Even better, competitive Scrabble serves to move the narrative of this quirky, sweet romance forward, and the plot has enough twists to keep the writing original and readers guessing. In this interview, Granett talks about her inspiration for the novel, whether writers need an MFA, the ups and downs of publishing, what archery has taught her about being a writer, and much more.

Q. How did you come up with the unique plot premise of a poetry professor using a Scrabble board to write, and finding love along the way?

At the time, I was both playing a lot of online Scrabble and falling in love. I also challenged myself to write 500 words a day. Each day, I started writing without any plan or plot in mind. The things around me organically found their way into the novel.

Q. I was intrigued by the fact that you’re an archer. What has archery taught you about writing?

Archery taught me so much about discipline. In order to rise through the ranks of Olympic recurve archery, an archer needs to immerse herself in practice, learning, and resources. Acquiring these skills through my sport enabled me to see how my writing efforts needed the same level of daily dedication, learning about craft, and support from outside resources and networking. At the end of the day, with both archery and writing, you only get out what you are willing to give.

Q. Before writing Triple Love Score, you earned an MFA in Fiction. Do you feel like aspiring writers need an MFA if they’re going to succeed in the publishing world?

Not at all! But I do value what I learned in my MFA program and the time it gave me to write. MFAs are great for people who are looking to carve space for writing but need “permission” to do so. They also serve as a great avenue for people who love to read to see how writing is made. If writers do choose to go at it on their own, reading critically with a writer’s eye is the one skill I feel they must cultivate.

Q. I earned an MFA many years ago, and I have to say that some people in that program were inclined to sneer at the whole romance genre, or at any fiction that seemed the least bit commercial, for that matter. Did you experience any of that? And were you always drawn to read and write romances?

I purposely chose to write something that was marketable. The manuscript I wrote as part of earning my PhD in creative writing takes several creative risks, such as spanning the YA and adult genres and using narrators of three different generations. While many people commended the beauty of the writing in that book, they lamented their inability to market a book like that. With Triple Love Score, I got tired of being literary and missing out on publishing opportunities. I wanted to try something new. Has anyone in the academy sneered at me? Not at all. In fact, most people just nod and say, “Good for you.” Will it hurt me if I apply for tenure track teaching positions? Only time will tell!

Q. As I understand it from your blog, you had a pretty complicated path to love, marriage, and motherhood. Did any of your personal experiences inspire the experiences your main character, Miranda, goes through in this novel?

Like Miranda, I found myself needing to make choices about my life and whether or not I was willing to trust love. When I found myself divorcing my husband of many years, it became clear that what I thought was only a friendship could, or perhaps should, be something else. Risking things for love is hard enough. Risking a lifelong friendship is even harder.

Q. You published your first novel, My Intended, with a traditional publisher fifteen years ago, and this one with a small independent press. Publishing has gone through a seismic shift since your first book came out. How has your own publishing experience differed between now and back then? Any advice for aspiring authors who hope to publish a book one day?

I loved feeling like Nancy Cleary of Wyatt Mackenzie was on my team. With my first novel, Harper Collins bought William Morrow in the middle of my publishing process, and my entire team was fired. With Wyatt Mackenzie, my emails get answered, and I know Nancy is rooting for Triple Love Score as much as I am. For aspiring authors, I would tell them not turn their backs on any opportunity out of fear of what people might say about them. Maybe self-publishing is the way to go; maybe a small press, or maybe aim for the big 5 with a traditional contract! Each option in this marketplace presents pluses and minuses. At the end of the day, most authors hustle every day to get their book into readers’ hands, no matter what publisher is on the spine.

Q. In addition to writing fiction, you work as an online teacher and mentor for writers. What do you see as the most common roadblocks to creativity, and how do you help people overcome them?

I work with a lot of people on memoirs, and the toughest obstacle I see is a fear of people’s reactions or a desire to protect the ones we love. People fear putting things on the page that might get taken the wrong way, even if it is their truth. In these cases, I recommend Mary Karr’s Art of the Memoir; Karr really lays it on the table and explains why you have to tell your story, your way. Another big roadblock I see is time. Writing time is precious and rare, and few people make an effort to find that time. This attitude can creep in and prevent you from ever getting anything done. I advise writers to do one thing: write. No matter the time or place, carve it out wherever you can.

 

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In Praise of Public Libraries

I recently had the honor of speaking at the 2016 New England Library Association Conference. As I walked up the steps to the podium, I kept my eyes focused on the stairs, hoping I wouldn’t pull a Jennifer Lawrence Oscar’s Night move and trip on the way up. I was anxious. What qualifications did I have to tell librarians anything?

The truth is that I am in awe of librarians. They are the most curious, agile, techno-savvy people around. They have figured out how to go beyond offering books to the public and now provide anything else you can imagine: concerts and community summer reading programs, museum passes and meeting rooms, teen lounges and lectures. Even more amazing is the fact that our librarians—along with the help of involved volunteers—have figured out how to pay for all of these resources and services, despite the constant budgetary battles over scant public funding.

Libraries are among the few public institutions that are truly democratic. Librarians are the gatekeepers to these beacons of hope. They are the keepers of our intellectual and cultural history, welcoming everyone who walks through their doors. Rich or poor, young or old, you can use the library to find a book, research your family history or school project, and lead your children into a life of literacy.

I am not a librarian. I am a novelist, and not even the literary sort. I write commercial fiction and occasionally produce the odd essay or article. My office is in a barn behind my house, and my work clothes are usually sweatpants and a flannel shirt.

What could I possibly say to all of these knowledgeable, skilled librarians looking up at me expectantly, now, from their empty dinner plates, probably tapping their fingers because they’d already had a long day?

The truth is that I would not be a writer at all if it weren’t for public libraries. I never even met a writer growing up. I was the child of a Navy officer who, at some moment on board his destroyer in the middle of the Mediterranean, decided it would be a good idea to raise gerbils when he retired. Yes, gerbils: Dad had read a magazine article about gerbils being “America’s newest pet,” and decided to learn more about them. He raised gerbils everywhere the Navy sent us, from a ranch house in Virginia to an apartment building in Kansas, and finally on a farm in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. (Don’t believe me? Have a look at my memoir, The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter.)

The house we bought in West Brookfield had literally been the town’s poor farm. It was a huge ramshackle place, about eighteen rooms, many with transoms over the door. “That’s so they’ll know when people died in their beds,” my parents told me.

I was fourteen when I moved to that house and I hated everything about it. I had nightmares about dead people coming to my room. I hated being on a road in the middle of apple orchards and struggling dairy farms. I hated going to a high school where everyone laughed at my accent—a mixture of southern and Midwestern–and I hated living in a town where everyone called my dad “Captain Mouse” because they didn’t understand why we had barns full of rodents behind our house.

Over the next couple of years, I was bullied for my accent, my strange clothes, and, more than anything, simply for not being from there. My sanctuary was the Merriam-Gilbert library in West Brookfield, MA. It was a small brick building, but each time I walked through that doorway after school, I entered new worlds. I read Raymond Chandler mysteries and Dorothy Parker essays, steamy Jacqueline Suzanne novels and the crisp dialogue of George Bernard Shaw. Almost as important as the books I read were the librarians who led me to them, and who always welcomed my presence.

In this tiny brick building, basically unchanged since it was built in 1880 by funds donated by Charles Merriam, who had been born in West Brookfield and earned his fortune with Webster’s Dictionary, I was preparing to be a writer. I just didn’t know it yet.

Fast forward to college. I was convinced I was going to be a doctor and studied biology. My last semester, I had to fulfill an elective and took a creative writing course. It was taught by a visiting scholar, a novelist from New York. Once I sat down to write my first short story, the rest of the world disappeared. I no longer wanted to be a doctor—imagine how happy my father was about THAT decision—and instead took the next year off to work odd jobs. I told my parents that, if I didn’t get published and, what’s more, famous, I would quit writing and go to medical school.

That didn’t happen. Instead, I worked at odd jobs that gave me time to write—construction, waiting tables, even proofreading telephone books—and kept writing stories. None of them got published. I decided I needed a better education in literature, so I earned a Master’s in Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. They let me in despite my GRE scores—I aced the math section but tanked on the English–and I practically lived in the University library, catching up on all of the great literature I had neglected until then.

Since I was working odd jobs to support my fiction habit, I couldn’t afford to buy many books. Nor could I afford a decent desk or work space. Everywhere I went, the library was my second home: in San Francisco, California; Guadalajara, Mexico; Wakefield, Massachusetts and many other cities. I got married and had my first child, and began working as a freelance writer for magazines and newspapers. Publishing nonfiction was easy, but I still yearned to publish a novel. I needed to meet writers, I decided, and so I began attending lectures by local authors. Where? At libraries, of course!

Virginia Woolf is famous for saying that to be a woman and a writer, one needs a room of one’s own and five hundred pounds a year. She didn’t have children. I would add that every woman writer with children needs that room of her own to be somewhere outside the house. With so little money, I still had to rely on the library to provide me with a quiet writing space. Study carrels, tutorial rooms, reading rooms, conference rooms…I found them in my local libraries.

Today, I am the author of a memoir and six novels. None of that could have happened without libraries and the staff that helped me find the books and research materials I was looking for—and much more besides. I have an office and my children are mostly grown, but I still rely on libraries for quiet writing spaces and resources.

I wrote a good part of my newest novel, Folly Cove, in two different public libraries. I’m also currently researching an historical novel, and guess what? Librarians have guided me, providing me with essential historical documents related to my character and books about the nineteenth century.

As I stood before these New England librarians gathered for their conference, it occurred to me that I knew exactly the right words to say after all: “Thank you.”

The post In Praise of Public Libraries appeared first on Holly Robinson.

Debut Author Virginia Franken Talks about Flawed Characters, Her (New) Addiction to Coffee, What Dance Taught Her about Writing, and More

In her entertaining debut novel, Life After Coffee, Virginia Franken offers us the story of coffee buyer Amy O’Hara, who has devoted so much time to her career that she has become disconnected from her husband and two children. When Amy loses her job, she’s really left floundering—especially when her stay-at-home husband decides to turn the kids over to her so he can finally finish that screenplay he has been working on.

This is a comic novel, funny enough that certain bits will have you snorting tea through your nose. But it’s also a surprisingly profound meditation on that age-old question of whether any woman can have it all.

Q. What prompted you to create a main character who is a coffee buyer? Do you have any experience in that field?

The weird thing is that, before I wrote the novel, I didn’t even drink coffee! But I was looking to dramatize the conflict of a mom with extreme work/life balance issues, and thought of a friend of mine who traveled the world setting up coffee franchises for a major chain. She loved the job and was the family breadwinner, but the incessant globetrotting meant she was missing her kid’s childhood. So she quit.

Initially I kind of ran away and hid from the idea as I knew nothing about coffee at all, and it seemed like such a vast subject. But I did find it interesting, and then, as I started the research, I quickly became infatuated with the stuff. The first time I drank a proper cup of coffee, I literally heard angels singing and had this insane moment of euphoria – baristas call it the “Godshot moment.” I was like: So this is what all the fuss is about. Now I’m hooked just like everyone else.

Q. Amy O’Hara, your protagonist, is definitely flawed, at times to the point where we want to slap her silly because she makes such dumb mistakes. At the same time, we’re rooting for her to succeed. That’s a tricky balance in fiction, creating a character who isn’t always likable, because you risk alienating your readers. What inspired you to create this compelling character?

I’d like to say that I purposely set out to create a character who was flawed-yet-compelling, but Amy just kind of happened all on her own. She’s got so much more sass than I have, and I think it’s just fun to watch someone do and say things that you never, ever would. For me, fiction’s all about having an emotional experience without having to physically go there and get dragged though the experience. I get as much pleasure from writing books as I do reading them, and writing fiction is simply me getting to live an alternate life where I can see what happens when I say and do things I’d never get away with in the real world. It’s funny, because I never really realized that Amy was a bit of an anti-heroine until there was something of an uproar about her slightly wild choices.

Q. It isn’t often that you find a novel like this one, with a first-person narration that zips along with so much energy and humor, then delivers a one-two emotional punch that you never see coming. Congratulations! What made you choose to write in this particular voice? Is it close to your own natural speaking style?

Oh thanks! My friends and family say the narration is pretty much like me talking to them after about half a bottle of wine, so I guess Amy’s voice is very close to my own natural speaking style! I had the morbid thought the other day that, after I’m dead and gone, if my kids miss me they can read the book and it’ll be like their crazy mother’s back in the kitchen talking at them.

I had a bit of a breakthrough writing-style wise when I started writing in the first person. Before that, what I wrote always seemed to have a bit of a formal streak that got in the way of what I was trying to say. I started journaling for a bit and everything got much easier and livelier. And then when I went back to fiction and jumped into the body of Amy, the awkward style seemed to melt away and stuff started getting fun.

Q. What have been your biggest influences as a writer?

My grandmother was a librarian, and my parents are both voracious readers, so all my life I’ve been surrounded by stacks and stacks of novels. The women in our family trade fiction like some women trade recipes. My mother’s also a big storyteller. Doesn’t matter if the story isn’t completely true, just as long as it’s entertaining enough to keep whoever’s around paying attention. Over the years she’s learned to twist the most banal stories, about the most banal subjects, and create these crazy tales with outrageous conclusions. I think it’s just how she sees the world. And why not?

Q. I know that you spent many years training as a dancer. Was it always your dream to become a professional dancer? Was it difficult to give that up? And does any of the discipline you brought to dance apply to your writing process?

As one of my dance teachers said: You won’t give up dancing, dancing will give you up. So I don’t think I ever made the conscious decision to give up dancing as a career, it just kind of dropped out of my life. I had a brief career as a professional dancer and though I traveled the world and it was amazing, it was definitely a tough gig and I wasn’t sorry to move on to other things. Mind you, I gave up on it earlier than I could have in order to pursue a certain romantic relationship, and looking back I don’t know if that was a good choice. That’s actually one of the themes of my next novel: letting love get in the way of achieving your dreams.

I think being a dancer has made me approach the rhythm of dialogue and text in a slightly more varied way than I might otherwise. As a dancer, you are always working within, and against, rhythm and I think a lot of that finds its way into my writing. A background in dance has actually been a great grounding for writing novels. Training to be a dancer is pretty grueling, and you learn to push yourself through exhaustion and keep dancing on bloodied toes when you’d really rather just sit in a quiet corner, eat some chocolate and go to sleep. Of course, these days I’m allowed to eat all the chocolate I want, and no matter how much I type, my fingertips never bleed!

Q. What advice can you offer to other debut authors hoping to launch their first novels as successfully as you’ve done?

I think the most important thing when publishing your first novel is to have something out there that you feel really great about. And then, whatever reaction comes your way, at least you’ll know you’ve got something out in the world that you’re incredibly proud of.

My publisher, Lake Union, helped me pull Life After Coffee into shape without changing its spirit, but there really is a kind of nebulous balance between making edits and decisions based on what those who are more experienced than you have to say, and maintaining the original feel of a book. That’s one of the hardest things about being pretty new to all this, knowing when to stick to your guns on any topic, and then knowing when to shut up for a minute and listen to what people much more knowledgeable than you are trying to tell you.

 

 

The post Debut Author Virginia Franken Talks about Flawed Characters, Her (New) Addiction to Coffee, What Dance Taught Her about Writing, and More appeared first on Holly Robinson.

I Used to Be a Traveler. Am I, Still?

When I was a high school student, I had the opportunity to study abroad and chose the most distant, most exotic destination on the list of possibilities: Argentina.

I had never been on a plane before. I only had a vague idea of what was actually in Argentina, other than some weird cowboys called “gauchos,” according to one of the lessons in my Spanish textbook. Yet, I was not afraid.

In Argentina, I discovered my host family lived in the back of a garage in a poor suburb of Buenos Aires, but I was not afraid. Even when I got caught in the middle of a riot in the city and was tear-gassed, and even when I nearly fell down a the side of a mountain while climbing in the Andes with a school group, I was not afraid.

Homesick and bewildered, yes. But not afraid.

That study abroad trip to Argentina transformed me into a traveler. In college, I chose to travel and study in Spain, where I rapidly ran out of money and took a job as a nanny to three obstreperous Spanish children. My boyfriend was a Basque who with a motorcycle and had a habit of running guns for the rebels trying to separate their region from the rest of Spain. I was not afraid.

I was not afraid in Spain even when a friend and I hitchhiked along the coast with nothing more than oranges and cheese and bread to eat, and about eight dollars between us, or when I went to Morocco and a man tried to pull me into a car. (My biceps, strong from shoveling horse stalls in my mother’s barn, came in remarkably handy, as did the fact that I had two brothers.)

My next trip abroad was to Mexico, where I spent a year teaching in an American School. I was not afraid when a pair of armed men—yes, I do mean armed, with rifles—tried to “persuade” my roommate and me to go to a disco. We climbed out our hotel window and escaped. We laughed about it later. I was not afraid, either, when I rode my bicycle through the clogged streets of Guadalajara and was hit by a car. My bike was totaled and so was my face, but I was not afraid.

Nor was I done traveling. I went to Nepal, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore in the last year of my twenties, and if I’d had any more money, or even another $50, I would have kept going. I lived on rice and fruit and carried my worldly belongings in a backpack; I was once hijacked on a bus by a gang of Javanese men trying to knife me for my wallet, but again, I fought my way out of that. I was not afraid.

I was not even afraid when I hiked up the side of a smoking, stinking volcano in Java, nor when I was trekking in Nepal and too stupid to know that I should have had real boots and, for God’s sake, an actual down jacket, because the snow was up to my armpits. I simply kept walking and made it over a mountain at nearly 18,000 feet.

Okay, I’m lying, a little: I was afraid in the mountains of Nepal. I really thought I would die there.

Since then, I have gotten married and had children. The moment I held my firstborn son in my arms, everything changed. I learned to be afraid. Not for me, but for my children. I was afraid they would fall when they were learning to walk and terrified they’d get hit by cars while biking. I was afraid of pedophiles and drugs and bad teachers and guns and car accidents.

They grew up anyway. Now they’re having adventures of their own, off to Europe and South America, Asia and Africa. Miraculously, just like me, they get on planes and just go.

Today, for the first time since my children were born, my husband and I are traveling again—really traveling, not just going on a vacation. We’re traveling first to Senegal, to tour the country with our oldest daughter, who is finishing her Peace Corps service there—and then we’re traveling to Spain.

Am I afraid? You bet. I’m afraid of plane crashes and parasites and terrorist attacks. I’m even more afraid of the things that might happen to our loved ones here while we’re gone—the children and elderly parents we’re leaving behind.

Yet, as we learn a few words of Pulaar and pack our bags, I’m happy not to be just an armchair traveler anymore. I’m about to have an adventure. Going out of my comfort zone makes me realize how many things I don’t need. My husband and I are traveling with just one carry-on bag, and in that bag our clothes must fit along with solar lanterns and many other gifts we’re bringing as gifts for the villagers who have taken such good care of my daughter. In other words, I will be limited to three outfits for 18 days, and not much else. It is more liberating than I ever dreamed possible.

I have no idea what it’s like to travel as a woman in late middle age, but I’m about to find out. Seeing my daughter and the work she’s been doing in Senegal gave me reason enough to get on a plane to a faraway place. The rest of this is just a bonus life lesson.

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