Liz Michalski's Blog, page 14

Peace and Quiet

Like many New Englanders, we lost power over the weekend. I'd heard we might be getting a storm, but hadn't taken it seriously. After all, how much snow could we possibly get before Halloween? But I'd forgotten where I live. The weather in New England is nothing if not a continual surprise.

At 8 p.m., the movie we were watching flickered, then faded to black. The lights went out. And suddenly, it was quiet. (Aside from the shrieking of two small children, that is.) No rumble of the heat, no hissing from the hot water tank. We lit candles, handed out flashlights, and walked around the house, seeing it differently because of the shadows.

We're fortunate to have a generator, a hold-over from when we lived in the country and lost power frequently. After an hour or so we started it up to keep the house warm, but we shut it off before bed, and once again were surrounded by silence. The phone lines were down, too, so it was as if we were marooned. The streetlights were off, and only a few houses on the street had their own generators running, so the road was swathed in darkness. It was lovely, at least for a little bit, and reminded me again of how connected we often are to the world outside, with the pinging of e-mail and the ringing of the phone, and how rare it is to be able to have full minutes of peace and quiet. We went to sleep hearing only the howl of the wind.

Of course, hot showers have their place too, and so in the morning we started up the generator again. : )

[image error] [image error]

MP900432828

How it felt during the storm

[image error]

Soft Eyes

The very last horse I ever owned was a beautiful, giant chestnut who had spent too much time in the show ring.  We worked out a very good deal:  I agreed not to show very much, and to spend the majority of our time together outside in the fresh air.  He agreed not to try to kill me.  Everybody wound up happy.

The only flaw in this contract was that Cen hadn't actually spent a lot of time outside.  At first, it didn't matter.  He was kind of miserable and just plodded along with his head down.  Then one day, around the third or fourth month he'd been with me, he picked his head up, looked around, and essentially went "HOLY $#!T!  Look at all these giant scary things!" and put it in reverse.

This was a problem on oh so many levels, starting with the fact that the scary things were trees, and sometimes rocks, and that we lived in New England where trees and rocks are prevalent. The going in reverse wasn't so much fun either. And of course, I made it worse: We'd be bopping along, having a fine ride, and then a very large odd-shaped tree would appear on the trail bend.  Since I was frantically scanning the horizon for just such a tree, I'd see it before Cen and tense up.  He'd feel me tense up, look around  and see the tree, and be all "WHOA!  That's a big tree!  Obviously it's making her nervous — now I'm terrified!  Let's get out of here!" It was clear a new strategy was called for.

My instructor made me reread my Sally Swift.  Sally, for those of you who don't do horses, was an amazing woman who taught riding for decades, and rode until she was a very old woman.  She came up with a theory called Centered Riding.  One of the tenants of Centered Riding is Soft Eyes.  It's hard to explain without too much detail, but basically, instead of staring at an object (such as the tree that is terrifying you) you relax your field of vision, encompassing not just the object, but everything around it.  You are still aware of it, but your awareness has expanded, and has put the object in perspective.  This relaxed viewing changes everything, including your breathing.

When I started using Soft Eyes again, oftentimes Cen never even noticed the horse-eating tree or rock — since my breathing and tenseness hadn't alerted him that there was a problem  – and we were able to slide right by it.  Eventually, we slid by so many of them that they were  no longer scary, and he turned his attention to other threats, such as the stalking barn cats and the deer that used to love to crash out of the woods at us.  But trees and rocks?  No problem.

Are those trees I see?

I bring all of this up not just because I like to remember Cen and those days, but because I think Soft Eyes has writing applications, too.  Too often, when there's a problem with our story, we try to beat it into submission, forcing the plot, making the characters behave a certain way.

Instead, I'm practicing Soft Eyes this week. I know there's something I need to improve in my story, but instead of letting the problem be the center of attention, I'm going to relegate it to the outskirts.  I can still see it there, hanging about, in my peripheral writing vision, but it's not scaring me anymore.  It's not making me tense. And with my attention focused on writing, not on fixing, I'm pretty sure the issue will resolve on its own.

How about you?  Can Soft Eyes make a difference in your writing?

Of Ghouls, Ghosts, and Gingerbread

I'm a creature of habit.  Every few years I reread The Lord of the Rings series, along with The Hobbit.  I hit Emma and Pride and Prejudice in the winter.  Fall is reserved for comfort reading — and a few good scares.

For the first, there's nobody better than Laurie Colwin.  I first discovered her years ago in Gourmet Magazine, and loved her so much I went to the library and searched out all the back issues in which she appeared.  When she died – the same year I discovered her, I think — I felt as if I'd lost a friend. Every year, just when it starts to get cool, I reread her cookbooks/memoirs — Home Cooking and More Home Cooking —  then bake a gingerbread in her honor.

Of course, fall's the time for Halloween, too.  And though Colwin does offer up a chapter entitled Kitchen Horrors, I still feel the need for something slightly more spooky. My favorite is Haunted, by James Herbert.  It's a slim little volume, and I'd never heard of it before I stumbled across the movie by the same name.  I was in London, jet-lagged, and looking for something soothing on television to help me sleep.  Instead, I wound up sitting up most of the night, completely terrified.  When I got home I searched out the book, figuring it could never be as good, but it is quite chilling in its own way.

Here's a link to the movie Haunted:  It's a slow start, but worth it. (Plus, it stars Aidan Quinn and Kate Beckinsale — more reason to hang in there.)

What are you reading and watching this fall?

[image error] [image error]

The Cost of Being an Expert

I'm taking fencing classes.  It's good exercise and it makes my brain work in different ways.  I will never, ever be good at it.  Part of it is I just don't have the right physical gifts — my hand-eye coordination is lacking, for one, and I don't have the speedy reflexes you need to avoid being skewered, for two.  I'm doing it for fun, and it is fun, even though I got whumped by a nine-year-old last week.

But my instructor has been to the Olympics several times, and was at one point ranked number one in the country. He'll demonstrate a move, or take a few quick steps, and you can see the passion and grace and talent, the sheer skill that makes him a joy to watch.

What you don't see are the hours and hours of practice, the time he spent living overseas away from family and friends, to train with the best. You don't see the bruises and injuries and missed parties and celebrations and birthdays. Those hours, put in when I was a teen and hanging with friends or watching Star Trek reruns, are the main reason that at my age, I'll never be good.  There just aren't enough hours left.

I read recently that an expert who is someone who has made all the mistakes possible within a narrow field. It's a line that made me laugh, but I've been thinking about this all week, since Steve Jobs died.  He wasn't afraid to make mistakes.  He made lots, and learned from them, and failed better, as the quote goes.

But he also put the time in.  To be an expert takes time — time to make those mistakes, to recover from them, to apply what you've learned, to fail again and fail better.  Whether you're a fencing champion, relentlessly practicing in a cold country thousands of miles away from home, a baseball player who throws and bats well into the dark, a writer who puts down a sentence, removes five words, adds two, and does that again and again, there is no expertise without time.

And when you choose to specialize, to become an expert, you're choosing to spend your days on this, but not on that.  On an Olympic medal, but not your best friend's birthday.  On a championship, but not on a family dinner.  On a handful of glittering sentences that hold a book together, but not on an afternoon with the kids at the beach.

There's no right choice, just a hard one.  What do you choose?

A finite amount of time

Three Random and Unrelated Things

1) Moo and Writer Unboxed are running a contest in which five people will be given a free pack of mini-moo business cards, and everyone who enters will get 25 percent off their order.  (I love my moo cards.) Even if you have no plans to enter, go and read the entries — they are funny and amazing.

2) You know how, when you are out driving, you sometimes see people dragging their dogs for a run?  And you feel bad for them, and want to stop the car and give the poor animal a drink of water or something?  Harley is not that dog.  Harley is the dog who, when I take him for a run, other dogs hang out their car windows and yell "Yo, stuuuuud!  Keep on truckin'!"  We ran 3.5 miles together yesterday (or rather, I ran, and Harley kind of ambled along ahead, breaking into a trot only when I sprinted at the end) and when we were done, he would have been happy to do the whole thing again, only without the 115 pound weight attached to him.  I want people to stop their cars and give ME a drink.

Mid-stride, with a halter on to prevent me surfing along the pavement.

3) I am writing again, slowly.  I find I can write entire sections in my head, but then when it comes down to getting them on paper, I have to write all this other stuff to get to where I want to be first, before I can write those scenes.  And then I wind up cutting most of the other stuff anyhow.  Does this happen to anyone else?  Or am I just exhausted from all this running?

What Do NYT Best-Selling Authors Have in Common? (Or, How Surreal is This?)

The Salem Lit Festival was this past weekend and yours truly got to go.  It was a fabulous event that managed to be both high-powered and intimate.  The panels were smart and informative and well run, and down the street there was a brand new candy shop.  I listened to Julia Glass and Brunonia Barry and my new favorite author Katherine Howe talk about writing strong female characters, and then I meandered a few buildings down and bought a mango chili fruit slice.  (I should have bought more.)

On my way back, I saw Joshilyn Jackson, who was blinking in the late afternoon sun like a baby owl, so of course I immediately accosted her, because of the enormous fangirl crush I have on her.  She looked a little panicked for a second, then graciously invited me to have coffee with her.  Since my hands were already shaking just a teensy bit, I decided to forgo the caffeine and in true New Englander style have a raspberry lime rickey.  Brunonia Barry joined us with her husband and friend, and they sat around discussing dialects and the fact that I apparently swallow my consonants when I speak.  If you are a writer or a reader in any way shape or form, you totally get based on those last two sentences that for a moment I was completely convinced I was dreaming.

Joshilyn spoke at the author's dinner that night, and the entire crowd was completely mesmerized.  (Joshilyn does not swallow her consonants.  She lives in Georgia, and they go on for a country mile.) The table I was at was madly in love with her, when they weren't crushing on Erin Morgenstern, who I have been crushing on for years because of her Flax Golden tales, which I have repeatedly advised you to read.  If you've ignored my advice, you are still in luck, because she's written a little book called The Night Circus which debuted at something like number two on the NYT best-seller list. (That would be writerly irony right there.) Hop it and get a copy.

So there I was, surrounded by all these best-selling authors, and it occurred to me — damn, they're all tall.  Erin is a petite little thing, and even in heels I barely made it to her ears.  So, I checked under the table, and sure enough, she was wearing a pair of ginormous boots.  Joshilyn Jackson at the podium? The same. (In the interest of full disclosure, I  did not check Brunonia Barry's feet.)

It may have been that I was under Salem's spell, but truly, I've decided I need a pair of these.  For the sake of my writing.  Really. 

What We're Missing

Every summer, my family rents a beach house in Connecticut. The cottages have changed over the years, but they are always within the same three block radius.  The past two years we've rented the same place, and in my eyes, it's a keeper.  It has old, faded furniture neither the kids nor the dog can do much damage to.  It  has an adequate supply of wine glasses and a wide front porch.  And it has books in every single room.

It's the first house we've ever rented — in over twenty years — with such a big supply of reading materials.  The owner's taste seems to run toward mysteries, but every year we find a new treasure — a wonderful children's book, a magazine we haven't heard of, a small collection of poetry — and I get a small surge of pleasure from just holding it.

I've met the owners, but even if I hadn't, I could guess quite a bit about them based on their book stash.  They're well-read, intelligent people. (Economic magazines and the New Yorker.) Someone enjoys tinkering.  (Back issues of Popular Mechanics.)  They're less into popular culture than most. (Not a single fashion or celebrity magazine to be found.)  Their books definitely aren't decor statements, as they've been in some cottages we've rented.  (None of the book bindings match, and all of the books are well-thumbed.)

Browsing through the mysteries stacked by my bed, it occurred to me one night how much less personal my experience in this house would be if the owners had an electronic reader.  Books tell so much about those who read them, and I've really enjoyed 'getting to know' these people, discovering that they are of my tribe. (That would be the  tribe of people who read too much and don't dust enough.)

But on the beach itself, my experience was the opposite. I noticed more and more people with electronic readers.  There was no way to tell what they were reading, no way to strike up a conversation over a copy of The Help or The Affair or a sense of kinship over a quiet, less well-known book.  No way to be surprised that the distinguished looking older gentleman is absorbed in Twilight, and the young, bleached blonde preteen is devouring The Sun Also Rises.  No way for the lifeguard to approach the babe in the bikini with a pickup line about the novel she's holding. If reading is a solitary experience, the anonymity of the E-reader's cover makes it even more so.  Depending on your point of view, that can be a good or a bad thing.

What's your feeling on E-readers? Do you relish the privacy they provide, or see it as a loss?

Fierce

Fierce!

I used to be fierce.

Not as fierce as Linda Hamilton in T2, although I coveted her biceps.  Just fierce enough.

It took me a long time to get there, and didn't really happen until I was in my twenties.  I'd been shy as a kid and a teen, but a combination of factors pushed me over the edge:

I landed an exciting job, with a boss who was tough and expected me to be too.  The first time I came back with a story that didn't have the hard questions answered, he made it very clear that what I had wasn't good enough.  If I wanted my story to run (and wanted to get paid) I need to call back my source.  And call again.  And again, until I got the answers I needed.  It was difficult and terrifying and somewhat exhilarating, and I had more than one person hang up on me.  I don't think it ever got any easier, but it changed me in a good way.

I also fell in with fierce friends, women who thought nothing of hopping on the back of a thousand pound beast and sailing it over a four-foot fence, of galloping DOWN a hill with a broken arm, of marching into the boss's office and demanding a promotion.  If you wanted to hang with them, you needed some backbone.  And while I can't honestly say I cleared too many four-foot fences, I managed to hold my own.

And then I had kids.  With my first pregnancy,  not much changed.  I still made the tough calls, rode until I was about eight months pregnant, power-walked two miles a few days after the emergency c-section (Can I tell you what a bad idea that was?).  I took my baby on interviews, hired someone to watch her a few mornings a week so I could write, took care of the horses with her strapped to my back.

With the second child, I rode for about five months — much more cautiously.  I'd fallen in love with baby breath and fat baby knees by then, and since I couldn't bring two kids on interviews, and hated to leave them, I found other writing jobs I could do around their schedules.  The horse died, and I didn't get another.  I traded hanging out at the barn for hanging out at preschool. I stopped asking the tough questions.

The other day, I was at school for pickup and another mom and I were kvetching about the parents who always cut the pickup line.  "I'm waiting there patiently for my turn for like 15 minutes," she said, "And then they just zoom in front.  It makes me so mad."

I agreed, and we talked about how we'd like to say something.  How we'd like to honk the horn, even, but we won't, because it wouldn't set a good example.  It wouldn't be polite. It would be too fierce.

It's a dumb small thing, but it got me thinking.  Those friends of mine, the ones I made in my twenties and love dearly, are still fierce. They (mostly) have chosen not to have children, and are doing well in their careers. They are lovely women, all of them, but you cross them at your peril. You might cut them off in line once, and they'd let it go.  Twice, they'd say something.  The third time, you wouldn't have to worry about driving, because you wouldn't have any knees.

It's not that my mom friends aren't fierce in their own ways. They're fabulous women and I'm lucky to have found them. Hurt their kids, and they'd kill you without thinking.  But on a day-to-day basis, they're like me — busy making sure everyone is getting along, everyone is happy, everyone has friends.  Too busy being civilized to be ferocious.

Last year, I reconnected with my old boss.  He threw me a few softball assignments, and I loved it — a part of my brain that had been unused for too long kicked into gear.  But after those articles were completed, I decided to hold off on doing more for a while.  The deadlines were a big part of it , for sure, but there was something else, something I couldn't quite put my finger on.  And then it came to me — I was getting a big old adrenaline rush from chasing down sources and asking a few tough questions.  I was feeling fierce, which isn't always compatible with raising well-behaved children.

I'm speaking for myself only here — I'm sure there are plenty of moms who are still just as fierce as they ever were.  For some reason, the few I know have only one child, and manage to keep a balance between the challenging careers they have and the quality family time they need.  More than one child, and something seems to have to give.

It's a luxury to have time to think about something like this, but it's come up a lot recently in stuff I've been reading.  Justine Musk has done a few posts that made me think, like this one, and this one here.  And John Scalzi recently wrote about the different ways male and female bloggers are treated – in part because there is the perception that women are too gentle or nice or not fierce enough to fight back.

I've passed a few barns recently and thought hmm.  I could take a quick lesson, and nobody at home would be the wiser.  I've held off on getting back into riding for a bunch of reasons, (the money!  the time!) but one is that I'm not sure I want to watch my daughter take the chances I did, both stupid and smart.  I don't want to put her at risk.  I want to keep her safe, and if I start riding again, she'll want to too.

But what message does it send to always play it safe, to (almost) always be polite, to avoid asking the hard questions?   Is being fierce a good thing, or a bad?  Does it change as you get older?  What do you think?

A Plan

So it appears that I need some structure.  Without the kids here, demanding to be fed on a regular basis, I'm just wandering around the house, getting distracted by dirty socks and trying to keep them out of Harley's mouth.  Order is called for. My new schedule — just so you know — is to blog every Tuesday.  I can't tell you how many times last week I sat down to write a post, clicked on some random link, and two hours later was all whoops!  Where'd the time go?  I have all kinds of plans to become the next Martha Stewart, or at least clean out the hall closet, but I'm not even going to get to my list of potentially procrastinating activities that keep me from writing my next novel UNLESS I step away from the internet periodically. (And how's that for a run on sentence?)

So.  The plan.  Blog entry every Tuesday, unless something so exciting I can't help sharing it occurs.  (My mom's still e-mailing Oprah, so ya never know.)

In the meantime, if you've liked me on Facebook (and you have, haven't you?  And made all your friends and relatives do the same?) you'll have heard about the gaping loss several libraries are facing due to the recent flooding.  I can't imagine not being able to take my kids to check out books — the library is the first place we visit in any new town, and we've met  life-long friends doing so.  If you'd like to help, author Kate Messner has pulled together the information on her web site.  My kids chose to donate toward a purchase of Where the Wild Things Are, which seems particularly fitting since my house is Wild Thing free most days lately.  Except for Harley.  And even he's depressed.