Susan Henderson's Blog, page 8

Question of the Month: 5 Things

Tell me 5 things you can see or touch at this very moment that make you happy.

I was having lunch at Panera the other day and found myself seated next to a whole table full of cancer survivors. They were clearly rallying around a woman who was just at the start of her treatment, sharing tears, laughter, practical tips, and a meal. It was an incredibly moving experience—a reminder of what we can and can't control, a reminder of the role of friends and balance in our lives, a reminder to regard the moment we're in rather than looking too far beyond it.

It's a lesson that applies to our writing, as well—staying in the moment and keeping the support system close by—because it's overwhelming to look too far ahead. There are so many chapters to write, so many hoops to jump through, so many people to please, so many opportunities for failure or disappointment. I recently got caught up in this mindset and all it created was a sense that I needed to hurry my writing and seek too-early feedback. A number of things brought me back to my senses, including the women in Panera.

When I forget all that's down the road and remember where I am and what's right in front of me, the joy is there. I am at a stage of writing that I love—time alone in my office with my grandmother's typewriter, scented candles, heart-shaped rocks, rattlesnake tails, creepy research books, and a cat in my lap. I love the privacy of the first draft, the discovery of a new set of characters, the dance of figuring out where I want to take them and where they want to take me. I won't rush through this process.

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So, back to our 5 things. Why not bring them into our writing spaces, or if they're already there, display them more prominently? And maybe it's time to upgrade our 5 things—buy  ourselves flowers, bring the Halloween pumpkins inside, replace the lights with colored bulbs. Who knows? But let's do something that reminds us to honor and find the joy in whatever phase of our writing we're in right now.

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Before I go, I'd like to say thank you to Graeme Daniels and Wayetu Moore for the thoughtful discussions of my book. I hope folks here take some time to check out these fascinating blogs.

One last thing: I'm doing a reading at The Huntington Book Revue, my favorite indie bookstore on Long Island. Wednesday, Dec. 7th, 7pm. Would love to see you there!

Question of the Month: Nuts and Bolts

Does it help you to know the behind-the-scenes nuts and bolts of the book business, or does that make it all seem more depressing?

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I debated whether to bring the nuts and bolts of royalty statements here because so many people are protective of their sales numbers. But I've been pretty transparent throughout the process of trying to write and sell my book, thinking that knowledge of this business empowers writers, or at least makes us not feel so alone. So here goes… nuts, bolts, and numbers.

My debut novel came out the last week of September, 2010.

In April of 2011, I got my first royalty statement. (In the literary world, these statements come every April and October, hopefully accompanied by a check.) The April statement only showed sales from the book's release through the end of December 2010.

The sales page was filled with confusing headings (royalty rate, gross units, reserves, and so on) as well as loads of numbers and percentages. I had to call my agent to decode the thing, but the short of it is this:

From the end of September 2010 to the end of December 2010, my book sold 31,000 copies. Most of those sales were paperback; fewer than 2,000 were for the e-version of the book (Kindle and Nook).

Now for the financial figures, the great humbling for writers…

Here's a sample of a royalty statement (not mine and not my publisher) that I think has some really helpful highlights on it.

Okay, so your book is sold to readers for one price but that's not the amount the author gets per book. You (the author) really get pennies per book. After the pennies are added up, you start subtracting for your advance (the original sale of the book), your agent's fee (15%), returns (there were 157 returns of my book), and something called reserves (which I still don't understand but it's something like a holding fee).

The first statement also didn't include foreign rights sales because those contracts came in late. But, hoorah, there was a check, only much smaller than the already cynical math I'd run in my head. In other words, no one's going shopping; that money goes into the family checking account to pay for such glamorous things as electricity, groceries, and debt.

So now it's October, and while I await another royalty statement and hopefully another check (please oh please I hope the Rosie O'Donnell show in March gave a bump in sales), I know where the real payoff comes from—it comes from you guys. The richest asset for any author is a community of other readers and writers, loving books and valuing the creative process.

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Some thank yous to people who posted about my book: Dear Reader, Beautiful World, Fayetteville Free Library, Girlfriends Book Club, Heidi's Books, Pregnancy Books Review, ALTAFF, Michelle Wegner (What an honor to be in a stack with Heart of Darkness and The Velveteen Rabbit!), and Letters for Lucas. So appreciative of all of you. Word of mouth means everything to the life of a book!

And speaking of word-of-mouth for books, a few regulars here have some exciting new books to share: Nathalie Boisard-Beudin's ON CLOUD 285, Greg Olear's FATHERMUCKER, and Jessica Keener's NIGHT SWIM. Adrienne Crezo has launched LitStack, an online hangout that somehow has the feel of being in an indie bookstore. And the incomparable Brad Listi has a brand new, hour-long author podcast (which is fantastic), called Other People. Please check out all the talented work!

Later this month, I'm going back to my home state of Virginia for an exciting inauguration of Club Read. Hope to see lots of you there!

Question of the Month: Life’s Trials

What have you learned from life’s biggest trials?

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Notice the spurs on the rubber boots?

In 2001, we’d only been living in New York for a year. Our boys started pre-K and Kindergarten that fall. Our youngest (I’ll call him Small) was into costumes and our oldest (T) had started a collection of cicada shells. My husband had just built a clubhouse in our backyard, and I was beginning to find time to write again.

Each year when the 9-11 anniversary hits, I try to avoid the news and the reminiscing. But this year it seemed enough time had gone by that I might go back and see what I wrote when it was still fresh. You’re welcome to read it.

September 11, 2001

When the woman who runs the gym tells us a plane has hit one of the twin towers, I’m thinking a cessna. We all are. Something small. And a sense of queasiness about what the falling debris from the plane might do to a person walking along the sidewalk below.

We’re all on the treadmill in a women’s gym, warming up until our aerobics instructor turns up.

“Strange about the plane,” I say to the woman next to me.

I find out she works at the airport. “Especially on a day as clear as this,” she says.

We’re trying to listen to the radio but it’s hard to hear over the machines. My mind is already on to other things—what to do about the little one’s bedwetting, to step up the night-training or just invest in a rubber sheet—when I think I hear something peculiar. “Did they just say a second plane hit?”

The woman who works at the airport looks ill and gets off the treadmill. We all turn our machines off. No one says a word, we all just pack up and leave.

On the way home, I’m nearly hit by an ambulance going way faster than I’ve ever seen an ambulance go. I turn on the radio and there are call-ins—people saying where they are in the tower and asking the deejay to tell the rescue workers where they’re trapped.

Before long I’m glued in front of the TV. I see what’s happening now, though it’s not registering. I feel far away like I’m under water, like I’m half-asleep or watching from the inside of a balloon. I see the attack on the Pentagon, where my dad regularly visits, and then the TV goes out. We get our signal from the twin towers.

Back to School

I head to my kids’ school. I need to do something. The sky is absolutely clear and bright blue. Why do I keep thinking this?

At the school, I let the administration know I can help look after any kids whose parents don’t show for pick-up time. The parents are beginning to gather in the parking lot. Normally, this is where we all share stories, a common complaint is how we never get a moment’s peace with our spouses because the kids interrupt any grown-up talk with their constant chatter. Today, we’re looking around, doing a mental head-count. Who’s missing?

We try to look cheery for the kids and encourage them to just play with each other as we wait to see if everyone is picked up. Several times I surprise myself by having the peculiar thought of what a beautiful day it is.

It’s hours of waiting, but slowly they come—many covered in white soot who walked all the way here from the Financial District. One of the moms was on the 60th floor when the first plane hit, and had made it to the 30th floor when the second plane hit; another was next door when it collapsed; another took a cab all the way home, though she had no money, having lost her purse in the mad rush. We hear from Alex’s parents who are in Italy celebraing their 10th anniversary that they’re stranded because there’s a stop on incoming flights. And Cammie’s mom (a cop) calls to say she’ll be working overtime; she’s staying to set up a makeshift morgue in Brooke’s Brothers.

When D–’s mom shows up, we ask, “Have you heard from Wade?” Not yet. He was scheduled to give a computer presentation that morning at Windows on the World. “Just let us know if you’d like us to watch D–,” I offer.

I go home with just my two. Driving home, I realize why the sky seems so perfectly blue. We live near two of the busiest airports in the world but there are no planes flying.

That Night

I try desperately to make things normal for the boys and not let them hear  the news on the radio. I’m restless until David walks through the door. It seems to take forever.

After dinner, we sit on the front porch, watching to see who comes home. Our neighbor, Da-woo, made it out of the towers but doesn’t have his sight back completely. We hear that someone who’d just come to Special Friends day at the school didn’t make it. Over and over, we all ask, Any word from Wade? Is he home yet?

Small brings out a shoe box filled with a rubber band ball, army soldiers, wine corks, a dried gecko, and the plastic chess rook he found today. His hair smells like his teacher’s perfume and I know he’s been well-hugged at school. He’s chattering about his birthday, which isn’t until next summer, but he’s already got a good idea for it. He wants a raw egg cracked on his head. I say, Okay. Τ lets me wiggle his loose tooth and tells me what color the Tooth Fairy’s wings might be. The boys talk constantly, and now I have no desire shush them. There’s this rush of birds flying over our house, and no planes flying so the sky is quiet. It’s amazing.

9-12

We decide to send the boys to school. I figure the teachers are in better emotional shape than I am, and I feel obsessive about being near the radio. All day I’m absorbing bad news and ratcheting up my level of fear. I need to do this. These spooky fighter jets are the only planes in the sky, and it feels like we might learn about war first-hand in our privileged and protected country.

After school, we bring D– home with us. Her mother’s down where the twin towers used to be, hoping to hear from Wade. Our neighbor and D–’s best friend, Madison, joins us. And soon the kids are in the back yard in their bathing suits, playing with the hose and cups of water. Everyone is laughing because they don’t know what’s happened yet. And I take D–’s picture because I don’t know if she’ll laugh like this for a long time.

Madison’s parents, who plan to take D– overnight, stop by for dinner. We all sit in my kitchen that night eating macaroni and cheese with no sides. Everyone feels sick.

We Thought We Wouldn’t Tell the Kids

I cried for the first time today. Up until now, I’ve just been throwing up. And hugging everyone. My God, how much hugging everyone’s doing—strangers, neighbors, friends. I cried after I dropped the kids at school. Cried at the traffic light, cried at the next one. I’m driving home and someone’s car is shaving creamed with the message, “Die, Arabs, Die.” I can’t believe what I’m seeing.

Τ‘s best friend is Moroccan (and Muslim) and her family is just as scared and devastated as we are. I’m nervous for them.

It feels like all I do is listen to the radio and listen to stories of friends’ close calls and wait by the phone for news from Wade. It’s my dad’s birthday, and I still haven’t been able to reach him. I leave a message on his machine.

When I arrive at school for pick-up time, D– is sitting on the teacher’s lap, looking blank. I dreamt last night that Wade was at school when I picked up the kids. It’s starting to sink in that I’m not just sad for his daughter and his wife. I miss him.

I haven’t wanted to tell the kids about what’s going on. I like the idea of preserving their innocence and not burdening them, but it’s getting more difficult to keep what’s happening separate from them. As we’re waiting to collect our kids, we’re told one of the dads freaked out today, running through the schoolyard screaming, “She’s missing! Oh, God, she’s dead!” His wife worked in tower 1. (She actually escaped but was too stunned and confused to make it home… turned up days later.)

The second meltdown was my son’s Kindergarten teacher who broke down in class and then decided to explain her breakdown by telling them that “bad guys aimed planes into buildings on purpose.”

It’s also getting hard to explain the kids missing from class to attend funerals for those who had just visited school for Special Friends Day. They are simply picking up pieces of the story around them.

Τ has a lot to tell us about planes and bad guys hiding and smoke and fire all the way home. He makes it sound like there will be bad guys hiding in the toy box in their room. And when we get home, I decide to try to contain the fear by showing them a still photo of one plane heading towards one building. It works. It all seems much less scary and much less related to their daily world. I only wish I could feel, or at least act, like all was fine and safe.

At night Small feels “teeriful” about someone trying to hurt people on purpose. During prayers, he thanks the firefighters for saving everyone. I let him go ahead and believe everyone was saved… and that the firefighters are still alive. He also prays for the men who crashed the plane. He has a bigger heart than I do.

The Games Kids Play

We are learning about some of the games the kids play at recess these days: Τ and two of his friends are building a trap for “the bad guys,” one green to hide in the grass and one sand-colored to hide on the beach. There are lots of cop-and-robber-type games with high-stake punishments. One boy wrote a letter to the president telling him he wanted to help rebuild the towers because he’s a good builder.

Today I’m going to clean my house, really scrub the hell out of it, cook and freeze tons of food. Play music really loud. I have to do something. No more waiting by the phone today.

D–

The neighbors and I continue to take turns looking after D–. Her mom spends most days at Ground Zero. She had to bring a plastic bag to the armory containing Wade’s toothbrush and hair samples she collected from his comb.

The Messenger

I saw Wade two days before the towers went down. He was in his red car, and I was standing beside it in the road. We talked about our kids, their teachers, an upcoming party, and ballet lessons. I have such vivid memories of him sitting on our living room floor, putting together a little track for a wind up car to drive on. At first, I was certain he’d come back. I thought there would be so many rescues in those early days. I didn’t know yet that everything, even desks and computers, had turned to dust. It’s been three weeks. 

D–‘s mother, Roxanne, is not a crier. Not really a nurturer, that was Wade’s job. I haven’t seen much of her because she’s been down at the site every day. When I finally do see her, I ask her what she’s told D–. What on earth do you say to a four-year-old?

“I told her, Daddy’s coming home soon,” she says. “When she asked about him again, I told her he hurt his shoulder and he can’t come back just yet.”

“Oh, Rox,” I say.

And she starts crying. She doesn’t know what to do, and now D– says she hates her dad for not coming home.

“Do you think he’s coming back?” I ask.

She used to. But all day, she’s around the other family members with their plastic-wrapped signs asking, “Have you seen my mother/my uncle/my son?” She’s seen on the news how not one victim was rescued. And she knows that Cammie’s mom has moved from the Brooke’s Brother’s morgue to Staten Island, where she searches through the debris for body parts. (Cammie now stays late with the After School program.)

“You have to tell D–,” I say.

“Tell me how. Tell me how you crush a child like that?”

“You say it like this,” and I make something up that sounds simple and comforting. It’s not that hard when you don’t have a little girl in front of you about to get crushed.

“I’ll tell her that tonight,” she says. “Will you meet with us at school and talk to her afterwards? You’re good with talking to kids.”

I say sure.

The next day, I pull D– out of class—her teacher’s expecting me—and we walk around and eat Cheez-It crackers and wait for Roxanne.

When Roxanne joins us, we all sit at a picnic table outside of the classroom. The kids are giggling inside. D– doesn’t like to sit.

“I hear it’s been different at your house,” I say. “Someone’s not been coming home.”

“My daddy.”

“And your mom told you what happened?”

Roxanne whispers to me, “I couldn’t do it.”

“You didn’t say anything?”

“I read her the book, Freddie the Leaf.”

Freddie the Leaf is a great book. It’s about a leaf dying. It’s different than being told your dad’s dead.

“Do you want me to tell her?” I ask.

“Please? Would you?”

“Yeah. I can do that.” I turn to D–. “D–, I know why your dad hasn’t come home. Would you like me to tell you?”

“My dad?”

“I know you’ve been waiting for him, and you’ve been upset. And your mom has been waiting and looking for him too. Because she knows that if he could come home, he would.”

I’ve lost her. She’s four and she’s bored, even with this. It’s too much talking. But she’s still sitting, so I keep going.

Her mother stares at her. “D–, pay attention. Do you know what Mrs. Henderson’s saying to you? She’s telling you where your daddy is.”

She’s listening again. I’ve already been told she knows nothing of the accident, that she isn’t to know that a plane’s involved (as she has to use planes often to visit relatives), that she believes in heaven and says prayers at night.

“D–, your mother has been looking for your daddy and she asked the police to help. The police said, there was a terrible accident at the building where your daddy works. Many people got hurt and some people died. D–, your daddy was one of the people who died.”

Too fast. I didn’t give her time. I didn’t create a cushion. I look at D–. She looks like she’s not paying attention.

Roxanne has now moved beside her and is holding her hand. “Did you understand that? Daddy has died.”

“It means he can’t come home again, D–,” I say. My body language is tender, sorrowful, but the words are too hard.

“He won’t come to my house?” she asks.

“He can’t come home anymore.”

“Can I still wear my Barbie slippers?”

“Yes,” her mom says. “You can wear the Barbie slippers he got you, dear.”

“Can I have a playdate at your house?” she asks me.

Then she’s up again, walking back to her classroom. I had more to say. I wanted to tell her the good news, that her mother is here, that she is safe, that her Daddy is watching over her. But she’s eating Cheez-Its and turning the knob to her classroom.

“D–!” Her mother is embarrassed. Her child isn’t grieving like we expected her to. She isn’t giving us a chance to hug her while she cries—something we know how to do. Roxanne carries her back, but D– won’t sit.

I put my hand on her to get her attention. “Remember when you say prayers? Do you put your hands together like this?”

“No. I put them this way.” She weaves her fingers together.

“Do you want to know something very cool?” I ask.

She’s interested.

“Do you know how when you want to talk to God, you can put your hands like this, and he hears you? Even if you make just a tiny whisper?”

She’s looking straight at me.

“And you know how God can hear you and help you, even though he lives in heaven and you can’t see him?”

“You know that, don’t you D–?” her mom says.

“Your daddy lives with God in heaven now. And guess what?”

Looking.

“When you want to tell him something, when you miss him, you can put your hands together, and he’ll hear you. He can help you even from heaven. And he loves you just like before.”

“What did the police say again?” she asks.

She’s heard. It’s going in. I tell her again about the police, and the terrible accident at his work. I tell her how her mother’s been looking for him, and how the police found out he was one of the people who died and that he can’t come to their house anymore.

“What did the police say again?”

And I tell her again about whispering to her daddy, and I tell her how she can show him things, and she bolts up and runs over to a pile of leaves. She asks me to help make the pile bigger because she wants to show him how high she can jump. Then she shows him how she can lodge a Cheez-It the tall way between her back teeth and crunch it from the sides. For that moment, I’m not thinking about how my world is shattered, though it is. And it’s not.

Memorial Mass

Wade’s service is held on October 13th at the Church of the Advent.

Small Vampire

In the back of everyone’s mind as we choose Halloween costumes, we wonder, will this be the next terror attack? Are they going to go after our children? Should we stay inside tonight?

We try a party first. It’s the weekend before Halloween. The boys go to a party at their Kung Fu School. Their instructor has them line up along the wall. “Are you going to have fun?” he asks. They say, “Yes, Sir!” All activities at the party require that they remain in that line. Kids are asking to go home early.

Halloween night, a small vampire knocks on the door. He opens a pillowcase and I drop in a Rice Krispie treat. He just stands there. I drop in another, but he doesn’t't move. I say, “Have a happy Halloween” and he says, “Thank you,” but still stands there. I put another Rice Krispie treat in his pillowcase when I realize I’m standing on his cape.

The boys call their grandparents and tell them about their costumes and their loot. (We decided to take the risk and leave the house afterall.) Grandpa tells Τ how to eat candy corns stripe by stripe but his attention span is short when it comes to phone calls and he simply sets the phone down and walks away. Besides, he’s not into candy corns; he’s into Milky Ways.

Girls’ Night Out

Once a month for the next year, the other moms and I go out for Mexican food and mixed drinks with the goal of helping hold Roxanne together. For the most part, we don’t talk about what happened but we talk about who ordered the best-tasting drinks and we realize it’s not just Roxanne we’re trying to hold together.

Orange Alert

We have color-coded alert days now and today is orange because of the anthrax scare. On the news, there is talk that our mail may be tainted with poison.

When Artie the mailman arrives, he says, “Crazy world. I’m going to have to quit if things don’t change.”

Once I shut the door, I inhale the stack of mail and wipe it along my inner arms like those magazine perfume ads. It’s the waiting and the fear that’s making me crazy. If something bad’s going to happen, I wish it would go ahead and happen.

At night, when we lie in bed, David and I have started to talk about moving further from the city. It may be a false security but the idea is starting to take hold.

The End of the School Year

By the end of the year, so much more has happened than the fear and sorrow of 9/11. The boys had tea parties; took apart broken machines; learned to whistle and tie shoes; played Lego and The Beatles; tried sushi and curry; read Rowling and Tolkien and Dahl; and the June morning when Small turned four, we cracked a raw egg on his head.

It was not, by any means, a terrible year. We’ve learned to be thankful for the small and ordinary pleasures—the boys giggling and waving from the window, walking into a warm home, the smell of dinner cooking, the sound of the boys talking to each other from one bunk bed to the other when it’s time to sleep. But as the school year comes to an end, we can’t help but notice that the teachers look ten years older than they did at the beginning of the year. So do I.

Drives

We’ve been casually looking for our dream house these last few months. We thought our first house (this is our third) was our dream house. It had hardwood floors, exposed ceiling beams, bay windows, stained glass, a stairway so wide you could lay sideways in it, built-in china cupboards, picture rail, crown molding. It was breathtaking but it felt like we were pretending, playing house. It was too big. It had too many bedrooms. It swallowed our furniture, and we kept finding ourselves hanging out with friends on the floor of the kitchen or on the crumbly back steps.

What we’ve learned is we like any place we are together, and we like cozy nooks. But we’re also craving a little more space outside, something woodsy, more tromping grounds, not so many wires in the sky.

We have these dates where we grab sushi and tea and just drive. We’re looking for something not so big, not so perfect, and tucked into the woods—something we can fix up, but only a little, so it stays small and the grounds stay wild and unruly.

The Move

I’m cleaning out the boys’ room and on the tops of the dressers, way up where I can’t reach, there’s all this peed-on underwear, which I know is Small‘s because he’s the one who wets the bed.

All day, as I pack for the move, I find evidence that I haven’t been watching them all that closely. Dental floss is knotted around doorknobs and handles, attaching one thing to another. And of course, there’s the “secret laboratory,” which I found shortly after our house went on the market: a hole the size of a softball they dug through the plaster in the wall. We’ve patched it but it’s not pretty and it looks like the boys have tried to scratch their way back in.

We’ve talked about the move, how it’s a good thing for our family. And the boys seem okay with our frenzied 30-second cleans and being shooed to the lawn as strangers go through our house. Still, I wonder if Τ remembers his face pressed against the window of the car as we left our last house, or understands the hard truth that when a grownup tells him he can always call or write his friends, it means those friends are gone forever.

Under a stack of magazines I find a t-shirt that’s been cut up with scissors. The cuts have been patched with Scotch tape, as if I might not notice the damage.

I carry the shirt around until I find the boys. They’re in the living room in a fort they’ve made out of packing boxes. Small‘s in costume, wearing only underpants with two undershirts tucked into them, one in front and one in back to look like a loincloth. He’s standing in a box holding a pretend-spear over his head.

Τ sees what’s in my hands and quickly tells me, “That’s Small’s shirt,” as if that frees him from responsibility.

“And it’s cut because—?”

“Werewolf attack.”

Τ casts a suspicious look at his brother, who’s busy stabbing something with his spear, and seems to wait for the verdict. He’s hoping I’ll punish the little brother and not notice who did the skillful scissoring.

I fold the shirt and hand it to him.

“Better find a box to pack this in,” I say. “I hope you have as much fun in the new house.”

New Starts

We were not the only ones to move a little further from the city. In fact, every one from our Girls’ Night Out group did the same by the end of the year—some all the way out of state. We’re all looking for ways to shake off the fear and to have a fresh start.

And maybe the move wasn’t about false security after all. We’re busy making this space feel like our home, finding good spots for the rock and seashell collections, making good use of the empty boxes, and finding all the best climbing trees.

A new school year has started, and when I look at the class photos, I’m glad to see there’s still innocence there. And bright futures ahead.

Question of the Month: Life's Trials

What have you learned from life's biggest trials?

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Notice the spurs on the rubber boots?

In 2001, we'd only been living in New York for a year. Our boys started pre-K and Kindergarten that fall. Our youngest (I'll call him Small) was into costumes and our oldest (T) had started a collection of cicada shells. My husband had just built a clubhouse in our backyard, and I was beginning to find time to write again.

Each year when the 9-11 anniversary hits, I try to avoid the news and the reminiscing. But this year it seemed enough time had gone by that I might go back and see what I wrote when it was still fresh. You're welcome to read it.

September 11, 2001

When the woman who runs the gym tells us a plane has hit one of the twin towers, I'm thinking a cessna. We all are. Something small. And a sense of queasiness about what the falling debris from the plane might do to a person walking along the sidewalk below.

We're all on the treadmill in a women's gym, warming up until our aerobics instructor turns up.

"Strange about the plane," I say to the woman next to me.

I find out she works at the airport. "Especially on a day as clear as this," she says.

We're trying to listen to the radio but it's hard to hear over the machines. My mind is already on to other things—what to do about the little one's bedwetting, to step up the night-training or just invest in a rubber sheet—when I think I hear something peculiar. "Did they just say a second plane hit?"

The woman who works at the airport looks ill and gets off the treadmill. We all turn our machines off. No one says a word, we all just pack up and leave.

On the way home, I'm nearly hit by an ambulance going way faster than I've ever seen an ambulance go. I turn on the radio and there are call-ins—people saying where they are in the tower and asking the deejay to tell the rescue workers where they're trapped.

Before long I'm glued in front of the TV. I see what's happening now, though it's not registering. I feel far away like I'm under water, like I'm half-asleep or watching from the inside of a balloon. I see the attack on the Pentagon, where my dad regularly visits, and then the TV goes out. We get our signal from the twin towers.

Back to School

I head to my kids' school. I need to do something. The sky is absolutely clear and bright blue. Why do I keep thinking this?

At the school, I let the administration know I can help look after any kids whose parents don't show for pick-up time. The parents are beginning to gather in the parking lot. Normally, this is where we all share stories, a common complaint is how we never get a moment's peace with our spouses because the kids interrupt any grown-up talk with their constant chatter. Today, we're looking around, doing a mental head-count. Who's missing?

We try to look cheery for the kids and encourage them to just play with each other as we wait to see if everyone is picked up. Several times I surprise myself by having the peculiar thought of what a beautiful day it is.

It's hours of waiting, but slowly they come—many covered in white soot who walked all the way here from the Financial District. One of the moms was on the 60th floor when the first plane hit, and had made it to the 30th floor when the second plane hit; another was next door when it collapsed; another took a cab all the way home, though she had no money, having lost her purse in the mad rush. We hear from Alex's parents who are in Italy celebraing their 10th anniversary that they're stranded because there's a stop on incoming flights. And Cammie's mom (a cop) calls to say she'll be working overtime; she's staying to set up a makeshift morgue in Brooke's Brothers.

When D–'s mom shows up, we ask, "Have you heard from Wade?" Not yet. He was scheduled to give a computer presentation that morning at Windows on the World. "Just let us know if you'd like us to watch D–," I offer.

I go home with just my two. Driving home, I realize why the sky seems so perfectly blue. We live near two of the busiest airports in the world but there are no planes flying.

That Night

I try desperately to make things normal for the boys and not let them hear  the news on the radio. I'm restless until David walks through the door. It seems to take forever.

After dinner, we sit on the front porch, watching to see who comes home. Our neighbor, Da-woo, made it out of the towers but doesn't have his sight back completely. We hear that someone who'd just come to Special Friends day at the school didn't make it. Over and over, we all ask, Any word from Wade? Is he home yet?

Small brings out a shoe box filled with a rubber band ball, army soldiers, wine corks, a dried gecko, and the plastic chess rook he found today. His hair smells like his teacher's perfume and I know he's been well-hugged at school. He's chattering about his birthday, which isn't until next summer, but he's already got a good idea for it. He wants a raw egg cracked on his head. I say, Okay. Τ lets me wiggle his loose tooth and tells me what color the Tooth Fairy's wings might be. The boys talk constantly, and now I have no desire shush them. There's this rush of birds flying over our house, and no planes flying so the sky is quiet. It's amazing.

9-12

We decide to send the boys to school. I figure the teachers are in better emotional shape than I am, and I feel obsessive about being near the radio. All day I'm absorbing bad news and ratcheting up my level of fear. I need to do this. These spooky fighter jets are the only planes in the sky, and it feels like we might learn about war first-hand in our privileged and protected country.

After school, we bring D– home with us. Her mother's down where the twin towers used to be, hoping to hear from Wade. Our neighbor and D–'s best friend, Madison, joins us. And soon the kids are in the back yard in their bathing suits, playing with the hose and cups of water. Everyone is laughing because they don't know what's happened yet. And I take D–'s picture because I don't know if she'll laugh like this for a long time.

Madison's parents, who plan to take D– overnight, stop by for dinner. We all sit in my kitchen that night eating macaroni and cheese with no sides. Everyone feels sick.

We Thought We Wouldn't Tell the Kids

I cried for the first time today. Up until now, I've just been throwing up. And hugging everyone. My God, how much hugging everyone's doing—strangers, neighbors, friends. I cried after I dropped the kids at school. Cried at the traffic light, cried at the next one. I'm driving home and someone's car is shaving creamed with the message, "Die, Arabs, Die." I can't believe what I'm seeing.

Τ's best friend is Moroccan (and Muslim) and her family is just as scared and devastated as we are. I'm nervous for them.

It feels like all I do is listen to the radio and listen to stories of friends' close calls and wait by the phone for news from Wade. It's my dad's birthday, and I still haven't been able to reach him. I leave a message on his machine.

When I arrive at school for pick-up time, D– is sitting on the teacher's lap, looking blank. I dreamt last night that Wade was at school when I picked up the kids. It's starting to sink in that I'm not just sad for his daughter and his wife. I miss him.

I haven't wanted to tell the kids about what's going on. I like the idea of preserving their innocence and not burdening them, but it's getting more difficult to keep what's happening separate from them. As we're waiting to collect our kids, we're told one of the dads freaked out today, running through the schoolyard screaming, "She's missing! Oh, God, she's dead!" His wife worked in tower 1. (She actually escaped but was too stunned and confused to make it home… turned up days later.)

The second meltdown was my son's Kindergarten teacher who broke down in class and then decided to explain her breakdown by telling them that "bad guys aimed planes into buildings on purpose."

It's also getting hard to explain the kids missing from class to attend funerals for those who had just visited school for Special Friends Day. They are simply picking up pieces of the story around them.

Τ has a lot to tell us about planes and bad guys hiding and smoke and fire all the way home. He makes it sound like there will be bad guys hiding in the toy box in their room. And when we get home, I decide to try to contain the fear by showing them a still photo of one plane heading towards one building. It works. It all seems much less scary and much less related to their daily world. I only wish I could feel, or at least act, like all was fine and safe.

At night Small feels "teeriful" about someone trying to hurt people on purpose. During prayers, he thanks the firefighters for saving everyone. I let him go ahead and believe everyone was saved… and that the firefighters are still alive. He also prays for the men who crashed the plane. He has a bigger heart than I do.

The Games Kids Play

We are learning about some of the games the kids play at recess these days: Τ and two of his friends are building a trap for "the bad guys," one green to hide in the grass and one sand-colored to hide on the beach. There are lots of cop-and-robber-type games with high-stake punishments. One boy wrote a letter to the president telling him he wanted to help rebuild the towers because he's a good builder.

Today I'm going to clean my house, really scrub the hell out of it, cook and freeze tons of food. Play music really loud. I have to do something. No more waiting by the phone today.

D–

The neighbors and I continue to take turns looking after D–. Her mom spends most days at Ground Zero. She had to bring a plastic bag to the armory containing Wade's toothbrush and hair samples she collected from his comb.

The Messenger

I saw Wade two days before the towers went down. He was in his red car, and I was standing beside it in the road. We talked about our kids, their teachers, an upcoming party, and ballet lessons. I have such vivid memories of him sitting on our living room floor, putting together a little track for a wind up car to drive on. At first, I was certain he'd come back. I thought there would be so many rescues in those early days. I didn't know yet that everything, even desks and computers, had turned to dust. It's been three weeks. 

D–'s mother, Roxanne, is not a crier. Not really a nurturer, that was Wade's job. I haven't seen much of her because she's been down at the site every day. When I finally do see her, I ask her what she's told D–. What on earth do you say to a four-year-old?

"I told her, Daddy's coming home soon," she says. "When she asked about him again, I told her he hurt his shoulder and he can't come back just yet."

"Oh, Rox," I say.

And she starts crying. She doesn't know what to do, and now D– says she hates her dad for not coming home.

"Do you think he's coming back?" I ask.

She used to. But all day, she's around the other family members with their plastic-wrapped signs asking, "Have you seen my mother/my uncle/my son?" She's seen on the news how not one victim was rescued. And she knows that Cammie's mom has moved from the Brooke's Brother's morgue to Staten Island, where she searches through the debris for body parts. (Cammie now stays late with the After School program.)

"You have to tell D–," I say.

"Tell me how. Tell me how you crush a child like that?"

"You say it like this," and I make something up that sounds simple and comforting. It's not that hard when you don't have a little girl in front of you about to get crushed.

"I'll tell her that tonight," she says. "Will you meet with us at school and talk to her afterwards? You're good with talking to kids."

I say sure.

The next day, I pull D– out of class—her teacher's expecting me—and we walk around and eat Cheez-It crackers and wait for Roxanne.

When Roxanne joins us, we all sat at a picnic table outside of the classroom. The kids are giggling inside. D– doesn't like to sit.

"I hear it's been different at your house," I say. "Someone's not been coming home."

"My daddy."

"And your mom told you what happened?"

Roxanne whispers to me, "I couldn't do it."

"You didn't say anything?"

"I read her the book, Freddie the Leaf."

Freddie the Leaf is a great book. It's about a leaf dying. It's different than being told your dad's dead.

"Do you want me to tell her?" I ask.

"Please? Would you?"

"Yeah. I can do that." I turn to D–. "D–, I know why your dad hasn't come home. Would you like me to tell you?"

"My dad?"

"I know you've been waiting for him, and you've been upset. And your mom has been waiting and looking for him too. Because she knows that if he could come home, he would."

I've lost her. She's four and she's bored, even with this. It's too much talking. But she's still sitting, so I keep going.

Her mother stares at her. "D–, pay attention. Do you know what Mrs. Henderson's saying to you? She's telling you where your daddy is."

She's listening again. I've already been told she knows nothing of the accident, that she isn't to know that a plane's involved (as she has to use planes often to visit relatives), that she believes in heaven and says prayers at night.

"D–, your mother has been looking for your daddy and she asked the police to help. The police said, there was a terrible accident at the building where your daddy works. Many people got hurt and some people died. D–, your daddy was one of the people who died."

Too fast. I didn't give her time. I didn't create a cushion. I look at D–. She looks like she's not paying attention.

Roxanne has now moved beside her and is holding her hand. "Did you understand that? Daddy has died."

"It means he can't come home again, D–," I say. My body language is tender, sorrowful, but the words are too hard.

"He won't come to my house?" she asks.

"He can't come home anymore."

"Can I still wear my Barbie slippers?"

"Yes," her mom says. "You can wear the Barbie slippers he got you, dear."

"Can I have a playdate at your house?" she asks me.

Then she's up again, walking back to her classroom. I had more to say. I wanted to tell her the good news, that her mother is here, that she is safe, that her Daddy is watching over her. But she's eating Cheez-Its and turning the knob to her classroom.

"D–!" Her mother is embarrassed. Her child isn't grieving like we expected her to. She isn't giving us a chance to hug her while she cries—something we know how to do. Roxanne carries her back, but D– won't sit.

I put my hand on her to get her attention. "Remember when you say prayers? Do you put your hands together like this?"

"No. I put them this way." She weaves her fingers together.

"Do you want to know something very cool?" I ask.

She's interested.

"Do you know how when you want to talk to God, you can put your hands like this, and he hears you? Even if you make just a tiny whisper?"

She's looking straight at me.

"And you know how God can hear you and help you, even though he lives in heaven and you can't see him?"

"You know that, don't you D–?" her mom says.

"Your daddy lives with God in heaven now. And guess what?"

Looking.

"When you want to tell him something, when you miss him, you can put your hands together, and he'll hear you. He can help you even from heaven. And he loves you just like before."

"What did the police say again?" she asks.

She's heard. It's going in. I tell her again about the police, and the terrible accident at his work. I tell her how her mother's been looking for him, and how the police found out he was one of the people who died and that he can't come to their house anymore.

"What did the police say again?"

And I tell her again about whispering to her daddy, and I tell her how she can show him things, and she bolts up and runs over to a pile of leaves. She asks me to help make the pile bigger because she wants to show him how high she can jump. Then she shows him how she can lodge a Cheez-It the tall way between her back teeth and crunch it from the sides. For that moment, I'm not thinking about how my world is shattered, though it is. And it's not.

Memorial Mass

Wade's service is held on October 13th at the Church of the Advent.

Small Vampire

In the back of everyone's mind as we choose Halloween costumes, we wonder, will this be the next terror attack? Are they going to go after our children? Should we stay inside tonight?

We try a party first. It's the weekend before Halloween. The boys went to a party at their Kung Fu School. Their instructor had them line up along the wall. "Are you going to have fun?" he asked. They said, "Yes, Sir!" All activities at the party required that they remain in that line. Kids were asking to go home early.

Halloween night, a small vampire knocked on the door. He opened a pillowcase and I dropped in a Rice Krispie treat. He just stood there. I dropped in another, but he didn't move. I said, "Have a happy Halloween" and he said, "Thank you," but still stood there. I put another Rice Krispie treat in his pillowcase when I realized I was standing on his cape.

The boys call their grandparents and tell them about their costumes and their loot. (We decided to take the risk and leave the house afterall.) Grandpa tells Τ how to eat candy corns stripe by stripe but his attention span is short when it comes to phone calls and he simply sets the phone down and walks away. Besides, he's not into candy corns; he's into Milky Ways.

Girls' Night Out

Once a month for the next year, the other moms and I go out for Mexican food and mixed drinks with the goal of helping hold Roxanne together. For the most part, we don't talk about what happened but we talk about who ordered the best-tasting drinks and we realize it's not just Roxanne we're trying to hold together.

Orange Alert

We have color-coded alert days now and today is orange because of the anthrax scare. On the news, there is talk that our mail may be tainted with poison.

When Artie the mailman arrives, he says, "Crazy world. I'm going to have to quit if things don't change."

Once I shut the door, I inhale the stack of mail and wipe it along my inner arms like those magazine perfume ads. It's the waiting and the fear that's making me crazy. If something bad's going to happen, I wish it would go ahead and happen.

At night, when we lie in bed, David and I have started to talk about moving further from the city. It may be a false security but the idea is starting to take hold.

The End of the School Year

By the end of the year, so much more had happened than the fear and sorrow of 9/11. The boys had tea parties; took apart broken machines; learned to whistle and tie shoes; played Lego and The Beatles; tried sushi and curry; read Rowling and Tolkien and Dahl; and the June morning when Small turned four, we cracked a raw egg on his head.

It was not, by any means, a terrible year. We've learned to be thankful for the small and ordinary pleasures—the boys giggling and waving from the window, walking into a warm home, the smell of dinner cooking, the sound of the boys talking to each other from one bunk bed to the other when it's time to sleep. But as the school year comes to an end, we can't help but notice that the teachers look ten years older than they did at the beginning of the year. So do I.

Drives

We've been casually looking for our dream house these last few months. We thought our first house (this is our third) was our dream house. It had hardwood floors, exposed ceiling beams (real ones, not decorative), bay windows, stained glass, a stairway you could lay sideways in, built-in china cupboards, picture rail, crown molding. It was breathtaking but it felt like we were pretending, playing house. It was too big. It had too many bedrooms. It swallowed our furniture, and we kept finding ourselves hanging out with friends on the floor of the kitchen or on the crumbly back steps.

What we've learned is we like any place we are together, and we like cozy nooks. But we're also craving a little more space outside, something woodsy, more tromping grounds, not so many wires in the sky.

We have these dates where we grab sushi and tea and just drive. We're looking for something not so big, not so perfect, and tucked into the woods—something we can fix up, but only a little, so it stays small and the grounds stay wild and unruly.

The Move

I'm cleaning out the boys' room and on the tops of the dressers, way up where I can't reach, there's all this peed-on underwear, which I know is Small's because he's the one who wets the bed.

All day, as I pack for the move, I find evidence that I haven't been watching them all that closely. Dental floss is knotted around doorknobs and handles, attaching one thing to another. And of course, there's the "secret laboratory," which I found shortly after our house went on the market: a hole the size of a softball they dug through the plaster in the wall. We've patched it but it's not pretty and it looks like the boys have tried to scratch their way back in.

We've talked about the move, how it's a good thing for our family. And the boys seem okay with our frenzied 30-second cleans and being shooed to the lawn as strangers go through our house. Still, I wonder if Τ remembers his face pressed against the window of the car as we left our last house, or understands the hard truth that when a grownup tells him he can always call or write his friends, it means those friends are gone forever.

Under a stack of magazines I find a t-shirt that's been cut up with scissors. The cuts have been patched with Scotch tape, as if I might not notice the damage.

I carry the shirt around until I find the boys. They're in the living room in a fort they've made out of packing boxes. Small's in costume, wearing only underpants with two undershirts tucked into them, one in front and one in back to look like a loincloth. He's standing in a box holding a pretend-spear over his head.

Τ sees what's in my hands and quickly tells me, "That's Small's shirt," as if that frees him from responsibility.

"And it's cut because—?"

"Werewolf attack."

Τ casts a suspicious look at his brother, who's busy stabbing something with his spear, and seems to wait for the verdict. He's hoping I'll punish the little brother and not notice who did the skillful scissoring.

I fold the shirt and hand it to him.

"Better find a box to pack this in," I say. "I hope you have as much fun in the new house."

New Starts

We were not the only ones to move a little further from the city. In fact, every one from our Girls' Night Out group did the same by the end of the year—some all the way out of state. We're all looking for ways to shake off the fear and to have a fresh start.

And maybe the move wasn't about false security after all. We're busy making this space feel like our home, finding good spots for the rock and seashell collections, making good use of the empty boxes, and finding all the best climbing trees.

A new school year has started, and when I look at the class photos, I'm glad to see there's still innocence there. And bright futures ahead.

Coming Soon…

I have so much I want to tell you about what I learned during my internet-free sabbatical and all about Africa and various things my family is up to these days. I think I'm going to save it for next month. I've decided, instead, to really take this 9/11 anniversary to heart, and I'll be posting about it soon.

Glad, as always, that you're here.

The Internet-Free Summer Vacation

So I got a big talking-to from a couple of the people who care about me the most. The gist of it: I take on too much at the expense of my own work and family. There are only so many hours in the day.

Say a writer is supposed to meet a deadline and that requires focused work as well as tons of in-depth research. And let's say that that writer's kids are growing up before her eyes, and she wants badly to spend all of her free time enjoying the summer with them.

The problem? It's saying those are the priorities but spending time interviewing authors, reviewing newly published books, blurbing galleys, trying to read and promote everything her friends write, and basically saying yes to things that can only happen if she pulls time from her family and gives up on the idea of making her deadline.

You know I'm talking about uncomfortable stuff when I start writing in the third person.

I'm learning to say no to requests from other writers and publicists and publishers, but it fills me with stress, and saying no takes more time and headspace than you think. Imagine you get twenty, fifty, one hundred such requests a week… that's a lot of delicate, guilt-ridden conversations with people who are disappointed in you!

And so the radical solution is that one of those people who cares about me the most plans to take custody of my laptop for the summer and will keep it safely locked in a drawer at his office. All writing will be done by hand or by typewriter. There will be no email, no FaceBook, no Twitter, no blog.

But there will be a birthday party for the now-14-year-old, there will be a music tour for the 15-year-old, there will be a trip to Africa, there will be barbecues, there will be teenagers playing music in the basement, there will be dogs chasing after balls, there will be weeding in the garden, and there will be walks in the evening when the weather has cooled.

The more I think of unplugging, the more I love the idea. Maybe some of you will decide to do the same. Until then, I wish you all the very best of summers with family and friends and the pursuit of your passions. And I look forward to catching up with everyone once my kids are back in school this fall. xo

P.S. If you're in Brooklyn Wednesday, July 13th, I'll be reading for the LargeHearted Boy Reading Series at WORD bookstore with the amazing Caroline Leavitt. I would be thrilled to see you there!

P.P.S. Many thanks to Suzanne Beecher for featuring my book at Dear Reader. I am beyond honored to be included.

And with that, I am closing the laptop and unplugging.

Question of the Month: Work in Progress

How's your progress going? Are you outlining? Winging it? Do you set mini goals for yourself? I'd like to hear how you're approaching your work in progress.

As UP FROM THE BLUE continues to have a life of its own (that's the cover of the Dutch version that was just released in May), I am busy with the next book.

I'm taking a different approach this time. I'm outlining and focusing on the plot, working out all the knots that are easier to spot when the action is condensed. I'm doing this to avoid the kinds of trouble I had editing the last book so that I don't have to unstring it once I have scenes and sentences I love.

This is where I am in the process. That mess to the right is research.

The voice for this book is starting to pipe into my head with real clarity, and this character wants badly to begin narrating the story. But I'm not allowing that just yet. I'm determined to nail the twists and turns of this plot before I let myself  loose to do what I love the most: dive deep into the human heart, find the language to describe what I find there, and discover the many surprises that, despite all my planning, won't reveal themselves until my characters lead me to them.

So I'm here in my office (the awesome quilt is from my mom) and working away. Can't wait to hear how your projects are going!

*

In other news, I had a great time at the Backspace Conference on a panel with my editor and my agent, where we discussed literary fiction and the chemistry required to work well as a team. UP FROM THE BLUE had nice reviews in both The Daily Mail and The Sun (the two biggest-selling papers in the UK), as well as the Dutch magazine, Libelle. And closer to home, thank you book bloggers Stacyknows and BookBelle for mentioning my book—cool sites worth checking out! Finally, not to leave out my kids: They just finished their final exams, played a killer talent show (guitar and keys on Dream Theater's Dance of Eternity), and are now enjoying a much-needed summer break.

Ooh, one last thing: If anyone is looking to redesign their websites, I can't recommend Shatterboxx enough! I asked them to simplify my site and make it match the colors of my book and make it easy for newcomers to find their way. Check out their page and you'll see how varied and uncluttered and truly artistic their ideas are. (They also have a design blog!) And if you're interested in what you see, tell Jamie and Nicole I sent you so they treat you extra nice!

Question of the Month: That Urgent Voice

What is the urgent thing you need to say that's at the core of the story you're currently writing?

You don't have to answer here, but see if you can distill the idea into a single sentence. And then read that sentence every time you sit down to write.

*

In March, I took a trip to San Diego to speak at Writers, Ink, and later at Amy Wallen's Savory Salon, both fabulous experiences for writers. One of those talks turned out to be surprisingly emotional, and the tears had to do with the idea of this urgency at the core of our work.

You know I like to keep my posts short, but it's going to take more words than usual to tell this story right, so get yourself a cup of coffee, and stay a while. I think this trip helped to clarify a lot of the anxiety and sorrow and desperation that many of us have experienced as we've workshopped our stories and submitted them for publication, and I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Have your coffee now? Good!

So I land in beautiful San Diego with all of its color and Craftsman architecture, and I'm so glad to see my friend, Amy, who will be interviewing me at SDwink as well as hosting the Savory Salon at her house. We spend the afternoon walking around her town and end up at her friend, Carolyn's, who makes us kumquat mojitos.

I never had a kumquat before this trip, but now I'm obsessed with them, especially when they're soaked in rum.

Okay, so that night, we go out for phở with Frank DiPalermo, and then I stay at Frank's house and fall asleep with his dog, who's usually not allowed on the bed. I wake up to a full breakfast—scrambled eggs with onions and sundried tomatoes, and we spend the day at the zoo. I threw my back out right before the trip so this is like the geriatric version of hitting the zoo, but wonderful catching up with each other and talking about the books we're writing.

In the evening, we head to San Diego Writers, Ink, where I'm surprised and so glad to see my friend, Shauna McKenna, as well as folks I've known for a long while but have never met in person—Richard Cooper, Bonnie ZoBell, Andy Roe, and Heather Fowler (both pictured below).

We get started, and Amy begins by asking me to tell the story of getting my book published. Regulars of LitPark know it was a long and winding road full of rejection letters and waiting and editing temper tantrums, and I worried, as I was telling the story, that I'd totally killed the audience. Strangely, many were inspired by the very story I consider so embarrassing and depressing.

The next morning, Frank cooks the most fabulous French toast in the world, and then we head to Amy's for what we don't know yet will become a 10-hour literary salon with many, many tears and so much nurturing.

We go around the room for introductions—folks say what they're are working on, where they are in the process, what other workshops they've participated in—and right away I hear the hurt and the frustration that was so much a part of my own process. So when Amy asks me if I'll re-tell my publishing story, I tell something very different than the night before, something much closer to the vest, a grief I was only beginning to be able to put into words.

All the while, I should add, Amy is guiding our discussion and serving the pies she baked. There is a Lemon Shaker Pie with a Whole Wheat Crust; Chicken Pot Pie with Thyme Cream Sauce and Lemon Crust; mini Orange & Lime Cream Pies with Macadamia Crusts; and my favorite, the greatest thing I've ever eaten in my life, a Persian Beef Stew Pie with Eggplant, Lime, and a Seedy Lavosh Crust. (Amy, can you send the recipe… or maybe just move in?)

But back to the grief. It's not the one I expected—not the wear and tear of trying to get a foothold in this business. It has to do with that initial and urgent impulse to write and finding how far our work has slipped away from it.

So I tell my publishing story with much less emphasis on the business side of things and much more on the actual process of writing. Maybe this story will feel familiar to you.

It begins with something that haunts you, taps at you from the inside, or simply won't let go of your subconscious. For some it's the memory of a specific event, for others it's a build-up of many events or simply a strong feeling with no particular sense of why it's there. But this is the place where your urge to write comes from—that place inside of you that cracked, or nearly cracked, that place that is at the root of your fears and vulnerabilities, but also your compassion and wisdom.

Fast forward through several drafts, and we feel our poem or story or novel now has a shape to it and speaks to something we've needed to say, and so we take it to a workshop for feedback. And here is where the tears flow, talking about what happens when we invite others to critique our work… and it's not what you think because none of us our delicate flowers who get defensive about tough feedback or believe our work can't substantially improve.

So we form a critique group, whether it's online or in real life, whether it's with people we know or strangers we paid to be in the company of; and we pass them this story that we've edited and re-edited. And, of course we know there is much work to do on this draft, but something begins to happen as we receive all the marked-up copies of our work, all the ways it's not right, not dramatic enough, too lazy-paced, how it doesn't begin with enough of a bang, and how this part has too much internal monologue, and how you can cut this other part entirely and really speed up the scene.

We start fiddling—cutting, moving scenes, adding action, changing points-of-view and so on—because, well, because many of these comments are on the mark, and also because we feel like stupid failures and because we suck and no wonder we've never made it.

We turn in a next draft to this critique group, and we're told it's much improved—it's more groomed, faster paced, a much tighter and more exciting read. Except…

Something doesn't feel right in the gut. We can't place the feeling, not at first, sometimes not for a very long time about why this groomed, faster-paced, more exciting thing doesn't interest us anymore. Or why we wake up in the morning and can't make ourselves write. We numbly move sentences around or maybe we don't get out of bed at all. And what the hell happened?

What happened to the story we were so obsessed about? How could it be so much better, and with input from successful and famous people, no less, and yet we've completely lost interest?

And then we make the terrible discovery: we've edited out the story's beating heart. That urgent thing that made us need to write it in the first place, that thing that was so present in our messy first drafts, is gone. And this is what we talked about, and cried about. What was that urgent thing we had to say, and how do we find it again?

And maybe the answer has to do with what Amy taught us—to have a day built around comfort and nurturing and pie. I'm honestly not sure how she did it, but I think most of us left transformed, and I hope all of you sign up for one of her salons and experience the magic. (Amy's story of our Savory Salon is here.)

A number of us went out afterwards and spouses came along. I was literatured-out (can you tell from that special look in my eyes?), so Amy's significant other, Eber, and I talked a lot about football and music. And here's a tip, if anyone gets the bright idea of asking the entire table to go around and tell a story about your best and worst job ever, I will always win the worst job contest, and no one will really feel like eating after I tell it.

*

A few announcements: UP FROM THE BLUE launches in the UK this month. And I'll be on a panel with both my agent and my editor at the Backspace Conference on May 27th.  I also have a number of links to share… here's video from the BookMania conference (click on the link called "FIVE @ 4: The Grand Finale" to see my panel discussion with authors Elizabeth Berg, Joyce Maynard, Martha McPhee, and Michael Morris); Rosie O'Donnell's blog talks about my appearance on Rosie Radio; I did a Rhode Island radio show called Reading with Robin with Robin Kall on 920 WHJJ; the San Francisco Book Review had some very kind words about my book, as did the book blogger at More Than It Seems; I have a small piece over at The Laughing Yeti, where Shome Dasgupta is compiling quite a collection of reading experiences; and someone brought this very old slide show on NPR to my attention.

In other news, Mr. H is busy designing the set for Oscar Wilde's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST and just signed on to do sets for CAROUSEL; and last month he and his students (he's Chair of the Drama Department at his university) played some Vietnam era songs for the vets. The boys and I volunteered at TEDxTeen, and here's some of the music they've been involved with: My 9th grader and the other School of Rock All-Stars played Pink Floyd's THE WALL in its entirety at B.B. King's in Times Square; my 8th grader did a workshop and got to play the song "Welcome Home" with Travis Stever, the guitarist for Coheed & Cambria; and the boys and I are in this School of Rock ad (my 9th grader is playing keys on the soundtrack, which he recorded in studio with Rocky Gallo and Dave Tozer).

That's it for May. Looking forward to your comments!

I'm on Rosie O'Donnell's radio show tomorrow!!

So tomorrow, Rosie O'Donnell is "sending a car" to pick me up and take me to her radio show, where we'll talk about UP FROM THE BLUE. I can't even tell you how grateful I am that my book spoke to her.

I talked for an hour with the show's producer, Shoshana Kraus, who is lovely and told me not to be scared. Of course, I'm remembering that Brady Bunch episode where Cindy did the game show, and the moment the red light went on, she froze.

Hopefully, I won't have a Cindy Brady moment, but it's live so you never know!

If you want to catch the show, Rosie Radio is on channel 815 on Sirius XM from 10am-12pm, NY time. (You can click that link and sign up for a 30-day free trial so you can hear the show.) I should be on air around 11:15, and you can call in at 877-94-ROSIE.

Thanks to everyone who has believed in this little book and talked about it enough to bring it to Rosie's attention! xo

Question of the Month: Spooky

What is your favorite spooky story, and in what way do you enjoy being afraid?

I'm on a spooky, gothic reading binge these days… Daphne du Maurier, the Brontë sisters, Shirley Jackson. And I've been gobbling up gothic movies, too: Phantom of the Opera, The Haunting of Hill House, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, and all things Hitchcock. Are you getting the idea of my new book?

I have so much to talk about but no time to do it because I'm in the middle of judging a fiction contest; and in May, the UK version of UP FROM THE BLUE launches so I'm busy with interviews, magazine articles, and whatever the UK team asks me to do. Here is the UK cover, by the way…

Some links to recent interviews: Michael Kimball (author of the beautiful heartbreak, DEAR EVERYBODY and the brand new US, which I'm reading right now) interviewed me at The Faster Times; Juneau and Xena interviewed me for their Adam Lambert-focused radio show; and Tim O'Shea interviewed me over at Talking with Tim. The Ocean City library posted a nice blog about my book here, and A Certain Book posted one, as well, but there's a big spoiler in it so don't click if you haven't read the book. I also have an article in this month's American Book Review , and I'm doing something very exciting this week that I'll report when I'm certain I won't jinx things. Soon, maybe next month's post, I want to talk about my trip to San Diego. It involved lots of Kleenex and turned my head around in the best of ways, but I want to really take the time to tell the story right so you can benefit from it.

Let me end with a big thank you to Sally and Christie at the Gallery Bookshop who wrote to tell me they sold 70 copies of my book just from talking it up to their customers. Yay for indie booksellers!