Liz Michalski's Blog, page 4

Space

I’ve finished a project.  It feels odd to type those words, because I’ve been working on it for so long. And of course it’s not really finished — it’s just resting with someone else for a bit.  I’m nervous and anxious and a bit at a loss for what to do with all this mental space.  I finish a freelance project and turn around to poke some words on my manuscript into place and remember that I’ve sent it off. I pick up a book to read and don’t have to put it down because it’s 10 p.m. and I haven’t made my word count for the day.  I can read my favorite authors again without worrying I’ll be influenced by their voices.

What will I do with all this head room?  For now, I’ll let it be.  I’m organizing my physical space — I promised myself if I finished writing this month I’d clean my office and closet (how sad is that for a motivating goal?) — and in a bit I’ll organize my brain,  too.  I’ll read plotting books, research the idea for a story that’s whispering in my ear, and maybe take a few workshops.  But for now, I’m trying to let my brain be still, let the writing muscles rest so that they’ll be ready when I need them again.

What do you do with the space between projects?

A Day Late and a Post Short

It’s Wednesday, isn’t it, which means this post is a day late. But I really wasn’t slacking off — I was working on a post for Writer Unboxed.  What’s that, you say?  You don’t know about this terrific resource for writers?  Then hie thee over there now and check it out. (Feel free to  leave me a comment, too.)

Oh, Tuesday, How Do You Appear So Quickly?

So yesterday was a holiday here in the states. Which means my children had the day off. They are mostly very good at entertaining me — they build snowmen, they make up crazy dances, they try and explain their electronic games to me — the upshot of which is that I have a hard time doing any work in their presence. (I did hide in my study during the late-lamented football game on Sunday, because  I personally feel that if I am going to waste perfectly good brain cells there ought to be alcohol involved, and everyone else in my family HAD to watch it and it was too early for wine.)

And tomorrow they are saying may be a snow day, which at our house involves pajamas and popcorn and movies and reading and everything but WORK.  Because I only have my children and their childhood for a brief time and work is forever, ya know?  Except that I am only really working two days this week, because my daughter also has off FRIDAY.  Which means … I am screwed.

So, in lieu of a REAL blog post, I am leaving you a very pretty picture of what snow looks like near me. (Without the Slobbering Beast this time, because the day I took the picture he was curled up on his bed, completely over the white stuff. As am I, come to think of it.)  Enjoy, and if you want a longer blog post next time pray for school next week.

Burn Brightly

There are days when I wake up and turn on the news and think, How did we come to this?  When I watch people interact with each other, when I see what passes for entertainment, and know that we are following in the footsteps of Rome, a long slow sad decline.

The last few days have been like that. Blame it on the rain, blame it on missing vacation, blame it on this manuscript that is trying to kill me.  It has been gray.

But the lovely thing about being part of a community of wise and thoughtful writers is that there’s always someone with a hand outstretched, virtual or no.  Yesterday the wonderful Therese Walsh (author of The Moon Sisters, which you ought to go and preorder now, because I got to read it in advance and it is a fabulous book) posted a quote on Facebook which I’ve been pondering ever since.

“There is darkness in the world but we don’t have to give way to despair. One of the best themes in The Lord of the Rings is that despair is the ultimate crime. Winter is coming, but you can light the torches and drink the wine and gather around the fire and continue to fight the good fight.” - George R.R. Martin

There’s always been strife and craziness. I look at histories set in the Wild West, I read biographies of men and women from the World Wars, I read about the Inquisition and the Black Plague and I think holy crap. What has always pulled us out of the those times are the people who refuse to bow to them, who stand with their backs to the darkness and toast the light, who become a beacon themselves if need be.

So cheers, my friends.  On this rainy afternoon, burn brightly.

For Best

My daughter is blessed to have people in her life who love her and enjoy sending her beautiful things to wear. We spent lots of the holiday at home on the couch, reading and watching movies. I mostly did that in jeans (sometimes pajamas) but my daughter often chose to wear her new clothes. She came down one morning in a gorgeous print dress someone had sent her, for a day that involved little more than eating, napping, and possibly eating again.  I was all set to send her upstairs to change when something made me bite my tongue.

Yes, it was a fancy dress. But shouldn’t all our days together rate as special occasions?

We did the math this weekend, my husband and I, over a bottle of wine. In a little more than five years, she’ll be winging her way toward the start of a new life. Five years worth of weekends, of vacations, of Friday family movie nights. Less if you factor in high school, when I’m told those family nights become scarce. Suddenly 52 multiplied by five doesn’t seem like much.

I want every day with my kids to be special, to have meaning and weight and be a joyous occasion.

In my china cabinet I have beautiful cups and saucers that belonged to my grandmother. They’re fragile, they have to be hand-washed, they always seem like a little too much work to bring out and use. So they sit there, except on special occasions. My children have few memories which include them, which is a shame, because my grandmother loved those cups. She would have loved seeing us use them.

I think my daughter has the right idea. Our ‘best’ — best selves, best lives, best hearts — ought to be on display every day.

(Confession:  I did ask her to change out of her white ‘fur’ vest when dipping chocolate, however. There are some limits.)

What do you save for best these days that you ought to be squandering?

I Have News For You

I have news for you

(9th century Irish)

I have news for you:

The stag bells, winter snows, summer has gone

Wind high and cold, the sun low, short its course

The sea running high.

Deep red the bracken; its shape is lost;

The wild goose has raised its accustomed cry,

cold has seized the birds’ wings;

season of ice, this is my news

(More Celtic poetry here)

Silent Night

We had snow today. And a Christmas concert. And did I mention poison ivy?  (That would be me.) And I have finished an entire draft of my novel and am now laboriously working my way through revisions. (Shhhh. Don’t tell anyone.) Which all goes to explain why this post is late. And also, why it is probably the last one of the year, because around the holidays, the days are just packed. 

But, if you are like me, you might be able to use some gift ideas right about now.  I of course have some EXCELLENT suggestions, most of which involve books. Ready?

I had an early Christmas this year — I purchased Alice Hoffman’s Survival Lessons and Joshilyn Jackson’s Someone Else’s Love Story. Completely different books, both beautifully written. For that hard-to-please person, for the person who has had a tough year, or just for yourself, buy these books. I promise they will not disappoint.

Have a teen who tore through the Diversity and Hunger Games books?  Try the Wake series by Lisa McMann. Spooky and tightly written, they’re impossible to put down.

Does someone in your house love the Narnia books and A Wrinkle in Time?  Check out No Passengers Beyond This Point by Gennifer Choldenko. (She also writes the excellent Al Capone series.) Or try A Drowned Maiden’s Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz, which is just spooky enough to keep you turning pages. (Both these books also have excellent audio versions.)

Tired of the Wimpy Kid and Big Nate series? Get your reader to branch out with the Dragonbreath series by Ursula Vernon, or Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder (Joe Nesbo, and worth it for the title alone).  Or for a stretch, have them try the False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen. The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy is also quite popular around here.

What would I like to find under my tree?  I’m intrigued by Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages by Phyllis Rose; Chasing Alaska: A Portrait of the Last Frontier Then and Now by C.B. Bernard; and A Story Lately Told by Anjelica Huston.

What do you hope to find under your tree this year?

Tis the Season to Overdecorate

When I was a little girl, it wasn’t Christmas until my mother dragged up the nativity music box from the basement.  It was a big plastic replica of the manger scene, complete with cow. When you wound the key in the back it played Silent Night, and it smelled like a cross between a new Barbie and the dank cool air of the cellar. I loved it dearly. My mother put up with it for probably 10 years, and then one day in a fit of purging it disappeared.

I was remembering that nativity scene as I looked around my house today. These days when I close my eyes and picture Christmas, I see white walls, a simple green tree with pine cones, maybe a burlap skirt. A few plain green wreaths scattered about. One or two starfish. Something like this:

When I open my eyes however, that is not what I see. I see holiday throws on every surface, a flurry of hand-cut snowflakes dangling from the balcony, an overabundance of nutcrackers dancing across my mantel and a talking chipmunk, a dragon/egg warmer and a mouse holding a holiday tete-a-tete.  This is not a harmonious mix.

The talking chipmunk and friends.

Some days I long to open up that Pottery Barn catalog and disappear into that faux serenity, that magical lifestyle where toys stay in their tastefully monogrammed bins, champagne glasses are always full and sparkling,  and singing chipmunks cannot be found. But then my kids build a manger out of magnatiles, or hijack baby Jesus and leave a ransom note, or pore over the Christmas books, reading favorite lines aloud to each other, and I think those perfectly decorated rooms look just a little bit lonely.

Christmas, at least here, is about the plastic managers. It’s about loving the imperfect items for what they represent. It’s about an electric current of joy so strong that it powers the whole holiday season, waking us all with the excitement of possibility, making the house shine more than any tinsel or lights ever could.  And that’s so much better than any catalog still-life.

Thanksgiving Gift

I spent 45 minutes in line today to get my turkey, and another few minutes at the garage getting air put in my tires, and I cannot tell you how grateful I was to be able to do both things. Sometimes in the rush of the holidays (shopping! baking! and my ‘favorite,’ cleaning!) it’s easy to lose track of just how fortunate I am. Fortunate to have the time and the money to be able to afford a turkey, fortunate to have a farm down the street that raises birds with care and humane practices, fortunate to have a car that’s safe and reliable to get there and back — the list goes on and on. I’m afraid, sometimes, that if I list all the good things in my life the wicked fairy from Sleeping Beauty will come to curse them, so I’ll whisper the rest of my blessings to myself.

I’m lucky too that both my children’s schools run food drives during the holidays, making it easy to help out others who might not be that fortunate this year.  Demand for assistance is up since a temporary boost in the nation’s food stamp program came to an end.  If you have a moment, try to catch this Diane Rehm show on hunger in America — it is worth listening to. (And if you can’t find it to hear, at least check out the comments listed below the description.) States from New Hampshire to Texas are seeing more hungry people, and oftentimes the biggest sufferers are the smallest — our children.

Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not, I wish you a bountiful holiday season.

Don’t Think. It Can Only Hurt the Ball Club.

We had a chance to take a last-minute trip last week, to Ireland. When we were lucky enough to go two years ago, I had plenty of advance notice. That meant I checked out the six-disc audio book on Ireland’s history, signed us up for online Irish lessons, collected movies on Irish culture, and basically created a home school Irish program with which to torture my children.

This trip, there was no time for any of that, so I tried a quick review.

Me to Boy: What do you remember about Irish history?

Boy to Me: Hmmm. Well, when they weren’t fighting everybody else, they were trying to kill each other.

Me: Good enough. Let’s go!

So with that and a Dia dhuit, we were on our way. And you know what? We had a great time.  Maybe we didn’t see every castle and museum in a 25-mile radius of where we were staying, but we saw enough, and we had fun.

My husband booked a trail ride for me. The day I was supposed to go, it poured. Absolute buckets. So the instructor suggested we do a private lesson inside.  She asked if I’d ridden before (I had) and wanted to know what I’d done.  And about fifteen minutes later, she was saying things like

Instructor: “Okay!  Pick up the canter at the letter F!”

Me: “I haven’t cantered in years!”

Instructor: “That’s great!  Canter now, please!”

And so it went.  Every time I said I hadn’t done something in years, she would give a perky reply and tell me to get on with it, and in no time at all I found myself facing a two-foot jump.  Which doesn’t SOUND very high, but when you are sitting on top of a large animal and you’ve just realized there’s no seat belt, it’s more than high enough.

But here’s the thing:  My brain was making little gabbling noises in the back of my head, but my body remembered.  My body was saying things like “Shut up. We can do this,” and shortening reins and lifting my butt out of the seat. And when I shut down my brain and just moved, didn’t think, everything went surprisingly well.

As writers, we live a ridiculous amount of time in our heads. For me, that means not just when I’m writing, but when I’m living, too — I’m always analyzing everything, teasing apart whatever meaning could be hidden in a conversation, a glance, a silence. This habit can get in the way — of creating, of relationships, of simply living. Sometimes, we need to tell our brains to shut up and get out of the way.  It’s a lesson I need to be reminded of again and again, and when I am, whether by design or by accident, I’m always amazed at how present I feel, how sharp everything seems, and often, how much fun I (and those around me) manage to have.

Tell me — how does your brain get in the way? And what are your tricks for shutting it down?