Dear Reader,

Word Raccoon is watching me with a mixture of alarm and amusement, because there should be a little spinning wheel above my head this morning: Brain Processing Error. Please Wait…

And this time, she says, it’s not her fault. 

Task: Do laundry.

Simple enough.

Except… towels or my clothes?

Well, that depends.

Am I staying home today?

Or going to the café?

Because if I’m going to the café, I shouldn’t start my own laundry and leave it running. That’s irresponsible.

But wait.

I need to get dressed first.

Gym clothes?

Water-the-plants clothes?

Café clothes?

Well, if I’m going to water the plants, I definitely shouldn’t put on café clothes because I’ll probably end up with dirt on my shorts.

But wasn’t it supposed to rain?

Should I even water the plants?

I should check the weather before getting dressed because the weather decides the clothes, which decide the schedule, which decides the laundry.

Obviously.

And wait… am I even going to the café today?

Didn’t I decide to stay home because I have too much to do?

Except…

Didn’t I do most of those things last night?

Printer upstairs.

House tidied.

Dinner made.

Dishwasher run.

So maybe I am going to the café.

No.

Laundry first.

Towels and workout clothes.

If I wear one set of gym clothes today, the world will somehow continue rotating even if they don’t get washed until tomorrow, won’t they? So it’s fine to wash a load now, worry about today’s gym clothes later.

Excellent.

Decision made.

Except…

No.

Focus.

Towels.

But lifting the laundry basket made my arm complain.

I should take a pain pill.

Later.

Laundry first.

I carry the towels downstairs.

Victory.

I start the washer.

Success.

Wait.

Was that enough detergent?

Should this load get one pod?

Or two?

It’s a fairly large load…

No.

Too late.

And suddenly, with absolutely no logical bridge whatsoever, it becomes critically important that I sanitize the laundry basket.

Why?

I have no idea.

Apparently headquarters issued a memo.

While I’m holding disinfectant…

I should sanitize my phone.

I find an alcohol wipe for doing that.

Then.

Breakfast.

I want peanut butter and a banana.

Is that enough protein?

The bananas need to be used anyway.

There’s also a peach.

The peach should probably be definitely used for or before lunch because otherwise it’ll become one of those peaches that goes from “perfect” to “archaeological specimen” while you’re looking at it.

It’s close.

But later.

Coke Zero.

Which cup? A Red Solo, one of my pink lidded ones, or, gasp, a regular glass?

Which reminds me…didn’t I wash dishes? I need to unload the dishwasher.

I could use a disposable bowl for breakfast and then I won’t have to wash another load right away.

Why is choosing a bowl suddenly a life philosophy? Just eat.

Breakfast accomplished.

Except now I’m watching a SpaceMaker Method video. Oh no, will I be able to make myself turn it off? Those are long and even though I got up early, it won’t be if I keep messing around.

Now it’s warm.

Why is it warm?

It’s cool outside.

Should I open the door and let porch air in?

No, because the porch windows are closed.

That won’t accomplish anything except making me stand there wondering why nothing changed.

Fine.

Ceiling fan.

Perfect.

Actually…

Now I’m cold.

Wasn’t I going to take a pain pill?

I think I have a poem coming out today.

Wait.

Did it already come out?

Did I miss it?

Did they postpone it?

Should I check?

No.

Yes.

Maybe.

Friends, that was only a sampling of what was going on in the brain. I am happy to report, though, that caffeine and some writing cleared the musty old thing and allowed the thoughts to roll after all.

P.S. Earlier I went out to the sunporch to write and schedule this post. While sitting there, I videoed a “suspicious” cat lurking nearby. At first, I thought he was stalking wildlife, but he was actually just visiting the neighbor’s cat!

It took that gentleman over three minutes of slow, careful maneuvering just to get within ten feet of her. He acted like he was hunting in the jungle: carefully approaching, backing up, and then extending his paws.

Now, they are both just sitting there. She is refusing to look at him, and they’ve been frozen like that ever since. It is so sweet.

They look almost like friends. So cute. I wish I could get WordPress to post the video so you could see his dramatic approach! I suppose Ms. Cat was just happy to have the company.

Maybe I can get a screenshot of the video to upload?

The Bestiest of Weekends,

Drema

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Dear Reader,

One of the things writers must learn to do is observe. If only we could see ourselves as clearly as others do, Word Raccoon says, holding a magnifying glass in her left hand.

I remember riding in a van on the way to an art museum with a college class when another student began talking about philosophy. 

At one point he said “The eye cannot see itself.”

“Wait,” I said. “Wait. Let me get my notebook.”

I wrote it down immediately into the tiny tablet I had shoved into my pocket along with a short pen for the trip. 

Later that year, it became the first line of the first short story I ever had published.

I’ve been thinking about that sentence again lately.

The eye cannot see itself.

Not without a mirror, WR says.

Human beings possess two curious traits that are equally odd, equally frustrating, and, in their own way, oddly endearing. We can think far more highly of ourselves than we ought to. Or we can despise ourselves for imagined shortcomings, or for faults that are nowhere near as important as we believe.

We cannot see ourselves, sometimes. 

WR says that’s evident, by the way some people dress. That’s rude, my furry friend! I assure you, she’s affectionately joking.

Anyway, that’s where generous observers become invaluable. 

Sometimes someone notices a strength in us that we had never even imagined was there. Sometimes they laugh affectionately at a flaw we’ve worried over for years, revealing that it isn’t nearly as defining as we’d thought.

And when that happens, something changes. We change.

It becomes easier to notice the hidden strengths in others, too, when we have received that grace. 

We begin seeing qualities they may not recognize in themselves. 

Not flattering people. Not seeing them as perfect. 

But seeing them whole. Caring about them flaws and all.

I like nothing better than to tell people the things I observe and enjoy about them. (The positive things, I mean.) 

The eye cannot see itself.

Perhaps that’s as it should be. 

Wait, I have strayed from my premise. Forgive me. It is late and WR is tired.

Being a curious, careful observer is crucial for writers. We need to remember that our characters can’t see themselves, either. Remember how in most novels we need our characters to change? (In real life, we accept people, but in novels, an author must, in most instances, bring about change or why is there a novel?) We need our characters to change, and that is by helping them see themselves.

WR, does any of this make sense?

Yes, WR, I miss poetry, too.

Drema 

Now Listening to: You’re the Top by Cole Porter 

Dear Reader,

I think Word Raccoon is getting into writing the novel now.

I say this because this morning, after I insisted she needed to do a recyclables run (we had a carful of cardboard!) and wash the car, she insisted we were going to the café to work on the novel because, get this, she wasn’t happy with how much we didn’t get to do yesterday.

“But I squeezed a couple of hours out of yesterday after my hair appointment to take you to the café and revise.”

“Yes,” she said, “but we didn’t go to the gym at all, and we didn’t write much and you know we go to the gym.”

“We couldn’t do both.”

She raised an eyebrow.

I had planned to go to the gym after the musical we saw last night, Anything Goes. It was a stunning production. This morning, while watering the flowers, we halloed our neighbor to tell him how much we enjoyed his performance.

WR wants to learn how to dance like those dancers! And she was thoroughly entertained by Cole Porter’s music, especially You’re the Top.

By the time we got home, though, I was no longer feeling the gym, and WR scolded me.

What is happening to this raccoon? Caring about the novel and the gym? My, my…

(She has been writing a bit of poetry in strawberry jam on her breakfast plate lately. I suspect she’ll continue.)

Yesterday we made it through the novel thread we’d expected to be the knotty one. It turned out not to be so bad, though it still needs work, and we cut some pages.

Today, though, we tackled the dreaded Rebecca Pages™.

We made it through all 149 of them.

We read every page, made light revisions, and, perhaps most importantly, cut thirty pages devoted to a plot point we finally admitted we didn’t like.

Cutting those pages will help us find the novel underneath their weight.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to change Rebecca’s sections from close third person to first. I know, I know, but third person feels prophylactic somehow. It keeps me at arm’s length from her, and I don’t think that’s where this story wants me to stand.

(A fly is crawling around the outside of my water glass. I briefly considered pouring a little water onto the table for it. Is that ridiculous?)

Later today, I’m hoping to spend some time simply mulling the novel. Having seen all of it again, I’ve seen the good, the bad, and everything in between. Tomorrow I’ll figure out my next steps. I assume that will include deciding how to replace the plot point I removed because…well…it included the ending, and now I don’t have one.

We’re not skeered. 

Dear Reader, surprise, I think these surprise lilies are making me sneeze.

If time allows (tomorrow’s to-do list is looking rather ambitious), I’d like to spend some of that mulling time on the café porch again. ‘Tis the season, and it won’t last forever. But we’ll see…

Word Raccoon enjoys watching the traffic and speculating about the lives of those who pass by. Stories are everywhere. 

And now let’s see if I can do some of tomorrow’s tasks now. 

Drema

Dear Reader,

I know I said I was going to blog less while working on this novel draft, but I can’t. I just can’t. 

Word Raccoon, half helper, half menace, will not listen to me. She just keeps typing!

Tuesday is booked solid (with good things) so I have added a writing day to my September calendar to make up for it.

(We would’ve worked more on the novel than we did today if only we had managed to get more sleep and hadn’t wound up at the gym before dawn. One other person was there, and another came in a bit later, but please tell me why we were there before five? I didn’t ask. But I’m paying for it with tiredness now.) 

The café where we wrote today has new red chairs, and WR gushed to the owner that she LURVES them. They’re taller, which helps with the writing, and they’re super cute.

We’re only 15 pages into a third thread of the novel, one that is currently 105 pages. We hope to work on it at the salon tomorrow while our hair is processing, although truth be told we are feeling blinky about this section, too: some fine bits, some that are melodramatic and making WR gag. 

But it’s sequenced correctly so now I just need to combine the scenes that I wrote more than once. (Why?) I need to add scenes where I have too much narrative summary. But that’s just it…how to fix this? Word Raccoon is currently striking for an editor. She wants, please and thank you, a mythical committee of critics to descend from on high and sort these 105 pages from chaos to progress, at the very least. We miss the days of workshop critiques where a single non-red pen could point you toward the exit.

Anyway…

The glare at the café was so intense today that my laptop screen turned into a literal mirror. I spent half an hour just staring at my own blinking silhouette, mistaking reflections for reality. WR says when the sun gets that high, your eyes start playing tricks on you. Best to look down at the keyboard and ignore the street. We brought out our sunshade for the Macbook, which passersby deemed “brilliant.” 

But at least one kind woman said WR and I looked like sunshine today. Must’ve been all the yellow.

WR says a hundred pages is too long to wander without a compass. (Hell, she thinks a day is too long, greedy animal.) It turns out that writing, even at its most vibrant, still feels a bit hollow when you’re the only one who knows how the story is supposed to end. 

Word Raccoon says she will be fine if I promise to order her some Asada fries if the food truck is back just outside her hair salon as it so often is on her appointment days. WR won’t admit it, but I suspect she times her appointments to coincide with Taco Tuesdays. 

Oh my foolish but funny WR. She just won’t give it a rest. 

Drema 

Dear Reader,

Having been so disappointed in reading the first few pages of my “James” section yesterday, I spent the afternoon with a research book and my thoughts.

I sat for a long time thinking through details, description, scene setting, and the various perceivers/perceptions, the highlighted items in fiction and those merely set down, as an empty vase.

It was the flowers on the windowsill and how they came to be there that prompted this example today. (Word Raccoon became enthralled when she saw we were/are going to do some Deep Thinking. She loves that!)

Behind our house I discovered two what I will call Surprise Lilies because it is one of the names they are known by and if I say I found two Naked Ladies in my back yard, well, that would be an altogether different thing.

Indulge the slow build here, please. I hope the payoff will be worth it. WR says she thinks it will, though she’s rolling her eyes at the ponderous tone the following takes. It’s for EFFECT, silly raccoon. Geesh, you’d think she’d understand theatricality. She’s dramatic enough.

The lilies had fallen over, too heavy, it seemed, to hold themselves up. I thought them too pretty to leave to rot, so I fetched some garden shears.

Before I did, I imagined which vase they would look best in, so I would know what length to cut them to. I hoped they would fit together in my newest vase acquisition, one I cherish because it has a sort of cuff or ring, I don’t know the term, and thus holds my flowers without benefit of a frog or floral tape, neither of which I can be bothered with. I want to gaze at flowers, not fuss with them.

Since they grow in clusters, I wasn’t sure both bunches, if you will, could be convinced into the container, but my vision was to cram them side by side, a profusion to stare at while I write.

I planned to cut them to a height I was fairly certain would be just right, with the plan to split them into two vases if need be, although I had not retained a bud vase, and realized one would have to go onto my thrifting list. (WR is tired of the “almost right” in her life. She says she’d rather do without than have a vase that does not please.)

You’ve seen them, likely, if you live anywhere lilies bloom. They’re the flamingo of flowers: tall “legs,” pink (although considerably lighter), a trumpet-like shape with a golden yellow stamen in their centers.

Perhaps they are a mix between flamingos and storks. Yes, that’s more like. A hybrid.

If they were dance, they would be ballet.

So coming upon these poor, dejected ladies who did not look so bare to me at all, just long-limbed, I declared that I wanted to study them while I wrote.

Alas, bending over to rescue them from their bent stems, I immediately knew why they aren’t used in funeral flower arrangements. How to describe their odor? It’s distinctly unpleasant, somewhere between rotting fruit and three-day-old garbage.

But they fit the vase perfectly, and I was glad to carry them out onto the porch where I was the only one who had to bear their scent, which I judged every half hour to see if they were still worth it.

They were.

As you can imagine, I put them by an open window, and as so often happens with less than pleasant odors, my nose grew numb to their smell unless I drew close. My eyes did not grow insensate to the gentle pink that hid their bolder innards.

And so in their presence I pondered for a very long time (if an hour can be said to be a long time) details, scene setting, the selection of facts and objects, the omission and the why of it all in fiction. In writing.

For instance.

Here I am the one giving you facts in a post, so I am able to tell you why I chose some facts and omitted others, to show why writers do what we do. I won’t bore you with all of the reasons, and some I will keep to myself, but in fiction, as in all writing, the details matter. 

(I am writing a much longer essay on this, of which this is an offshoot. I have no idea what I will do with it, but I was surprised to discover last night that I have much to say on the subject, and my Notes app is filling with material that is teaching me what I need to know.)

What interests me is that details rarely arrive from nowhere. They drift in from whatever has lately occupied the writer’s mind, often before the writer realizes it. Maybe that seems obvious. Details can also, however, come from the storehouse of the mind.

Again I say, for instance: when I mentioned the flowers’ scent likely precluding them from being used in funeral arrangements, that is because someone in our life has lost a brother and we need to send flowers. I wasn’t consciously looking for an example of how details enter the page. The example was already waiting.

And yet as writers, it’s sometimes more deliberate than that, as it should be.

But the flowers.

I mentioned the flowers also because it was the perfect non-emotionally loaded topic with which to discuss details, or so it initially seemed.

And because flowers and their ilk are on my mind because of my novel.

Also, a photo of the vase makes a convenient illustration for this post.

Finally (not finally, but all I’m going to discuss about them. Maybe. Probably. We’ll see.), I am unaccountably attached to that vase which I discovered at our local thrift shop last month, and I just want to show it off. I don’t imagine it’s worth anything, but it’s just perfect for my purposes, and I also like that while it’s filagreed, it’s clear glass and so doesn’t compete with the flowers.

To where am I directing your eye? You, as the reader, ought to ask that. Why the flowers? Why the color? The vase? Together, what impression do they give? What words did I use to describe them? Did you feel surprised, melancholy, intrigued? Challenged? Bored?

I need to ask myself that too when reading to see if my images land.

Writers are forever arranging vases. The world offers us an untidy garden of impressions, but we bring only some of them indoors. Which ones? Why those? Why today? Both readers and writers need to ask themselves that question. First the writer. Obviously. 

Writers ought not heap details onto a piece as if a scene is a storage room for every sentimental or remarkable object from their childhood until now. They need to curate, and that curation will not only shape the story, it will shape the reader’s perception. 

This is what I’m trying to learn, anyway. This is not how I intended to spend the third day of my novel month, and yet mulling is writing, too. I’ll reapproach the opening pages of the James section and ask myself what would his father be wearing, and why, even if I don’t write all of that into the scene.

(The problem is, I can enter the scenes fully in my imagination, and because of that, I don’t know what to describe and what to leave out. There is simply too much from which to choose. Too often I default to the choreography, or, depending on the POV, I stay in the character’s head too long. Because that’s where I do so much of my living, I suppose.)

This little post is but a sampling of my thoughts on the topic. WR says she’d rather sample the flowers. Judging by their scent, WR, I wouldn’t.

Drema

Dear Reader,

This morning (Day 2) I was looking forward to yet more writing and revision time on Novel Three when, alas, I realized that a number of reviews were due. I had simply failed to notice the deadline.

Merde.

Either way, the novel had to wait while I turned my attention elsewhere.

Word Raccoon sighed dramatically, flopped over on the nearest stack of manuscript pages, and declared that this was not the adventure she had been promised. 

Also, she wanted to know why I was giving her iced coffee rather than Coke Zero. 

Unfortunately, my left wrist had other ideas. After several days of scraping and painting, followed by pages of handwritten notes yesterday, it had become decidedly stiff and sore. I did a few wrist exercises, took some medicine, and then decided that today would be the day my right hand received a promotion.

So my right hand learned to Write. Copy. Paste. Navigate. Click.

Slowly.

Awkwardly.

But it learned.

Before long, I had finished the reviews. Not the writing morning I had envisioned, but at least the work was done.

Afterward, I decided to read aloud the first three pages of the James section, the section I had been so proud of. Not polished, certainly, but in good shape, or so I believed.

Dear Reader, do not read your work aloud unless you are prepared to hear it.

Really hear it. 

Not only did I stumble over the gaps I had already noticed yesterday, but I discovered entirely new ones. The timeline needs tightening. The opening needs more grounding. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what James and his father actually look like, considering this is our first time meeting them? And because I have invented a religious sect, I suddenly realized that I need to know its rules. Do the men wear beards? What expectations shape daily life? What details would James have taken for granted?

Three pages, and suddenly I had a page full of questions.

I went from feeling quietly confident about this section to realizing how much work still lies ahead. I wanted to cry, but Word Raccoon warned me I’d make my mascara run.

Thankfully, I have lunch plans later today, which means I will have a few hours in which I am not allowed to think about the novel.

Word Raccoon insists I am being far too hard on myself. She points out that reading the pages aloud did not make them worse. It simply showed me where the next layer of work is waiting.

She’s probably right, although I’m not yet prepared to admit it.

My writing process hurt my feelings. 

How dare it not be perfect from the get-go! 

How dare it so obviously show me that I am not a delicate genius! (Never said I was, but it would be nice.)

One unexpected bright spot came from all of this. Since handwriting was making my wrist complain after pages of notes yesterday, I experimented with voice-to-text for today’s notes. I think it may become part of my process, at least on days when my joints are staging a protest.

The novel, however?

I cannot imagine dictating fiction.

Perhaps one day necessity will persuade me otherwise, but for now I still want the sentences to arrive through my fingertips, one word, one digit, at a time, even if they take a little longer than they used to.

Then again, so many things seem to take longer than I think they ought to. 

Can I do this? 

Can I complete this novel? 

Am I being overly ambitious, as usual? 

This all on Day. Two. 

Le Sigh. 

Trying not to mistake “revision needed” for failure, but failing at the moment. 😞 

For about two seconds I wondered where the “delete novel” button on my keyboard is, not the first time I have asked that question.

Even Word Raccoon, who is much more in favor of poetry, is bristling at the very suggestion. 

Besides, I think my wrist is limbering up. 

Back to the novel. 

For now. 

WR, I NEED THE POM POMS! 

If she starts doing cartwheels, I’ll never get her to settle down.

Drema 

Dear Reader,

The writing day has begun with too many choices, even though I thought I had cleared the way. Apparently there are still many if/then’s to be figured out. 

For instance, I printed about 225 pages last night, but one of the threads wasn’t the file I should have printed. It’s fine, but it’s not the one that had been sequenced. 

Rookie mistake. 

But even before that, too many choices. Writing likes choices but not about everything but itself.

I woke before six, eager to get to the page. 

But should I go to the gym before or after some writing/reading/revising? That would affect what clothes I chose. 

Going to the kitchen to take a pain pill to loosen the wrist meant deciding whether I should take an acetaminophen or one of my stronger prescription pain pills. (It’s not that serious.) 

Once in the kitchen, I spotted the open dishwasher asking for me or Word Raccoon to empty it. WR laughed at its request. Behind her back, I have gradually been putting things away all day.

I had to decide if I was hungry (I wasn’t), if I should prep for brunch later (I didn’t), whether I should drink Coke Zero or tea or coffee or just water for now (WR demanded CZ, obviously). 

MORNING NOTES: I am blogging right now because I am on the porch and it’s too dark to bring my pages out here, and I don’t want a light yet. 

While the solar lanterns are still going, sunlight is filtering in. The neighbors’ house (which received a mention in a library parking lot direction: “Look for the purple house”) is framed by deep velvet blue sky. I wish they could see it. 

Blogging is a way of clearing the mind, of reminding myself that there’s a world out there beyond this novel that both delights and scares me (the novel, and sometimes the world, I guess). 

One thing is certain: if I don’t try to finish this novel that’s been living in my mind for too long now, I simply won’t. 

And that’s not something I’m willing to live with. 

End-of-the-day update:

A novel thread which is 40 pages long is auditioning for a larger role. I’m thinking that would be fantastic, but it means quite a bit of writing. And, it seems like it’s a fresh take on this topic, so I like it even more. (I’m really excited for it, but my brain has been busy all day and zzz…)

I made it through the thread I just mentioned (let’s call it E.) AND I made it through the James thread. That’s still my favorite thread. There are gaps, some development is needed. But it feels right, and I’ve managed (I think) to use details to reveal more than just the objects, something I struggle to do.

I’ve made pages of notes of additions, subtractions, reading to do if I’m going in this direction.

This is the part I desperately wish I could talk about, the E thread. If you know me in real life, feel free to ask when you see me next! 

Maybe I DO know what this book wants to become. 

So all told I read and revised and identified holes in close to 100 pages. That’s only because both drafts are clean. The other two threads are going to be nightmares, I fear, to revise. 

Still, I’m delighted to imagine the novel with these add-ons, so it will be worth it. 

“Delighted, you say?” Word Raccoon mocks. 

Don’t mind her. She’s just cranky because I’ve had her on task since 6 a.m., and it’s now 7 p.m. She shouldn’t complain; I gave her breaks! I also gave her all the snacks. 

Forgive me if this is ragged. It’s been a productive day, but I’m, as my Southern kinfolk might say, plum tuckered out. 

At least we were able to watch the town’s parade from our perch, and WR cheered for the three-tier cake float. It gave her eyes something fun to watch while doing all this work. 

Drema 

Dear Reader,

What a perfect morning prepping for All Novel, All August. (Do we like that title? Maybe not.)

Word Raccoon and I arrived at the café only to discover they’d placed tables from the porch onto the lawn, something I’ve long hoped they would do on chilly mornings. I’d much rather retreat to the porch only after the day grows warm.

The tables were there for a noon concert, so I don’t know whether they’ll become a regular feature, but I did notice other outdoor tables tucked around the property that I may try in the future. WR says she’ll just drag tables anywhere she pleases, and she might try, but I will ask her to show some restraint. Alas, that is not her strong suit.

I settled in with a cold drink and a freshly printed manuscript: my neighbor’s prologue. Soon I was immersed, with WR perched on my shoulder, reading along.

My neighbor has voice.

That is something you cannot teach. That is what sets a writer apart.

As I’ve said before, his genre isn’t one I typically read, so I don’t know its conventions well enough to be the ideal reader. But I found myself genuinely invested in the story. Before I slipped the envelope with his marked pages into the holder beneath his mailbox, I wrote, I hope you will keep writing. Word Raccoon wanted to offer him a Coke Zero as well, saying it’s the best writing fuel ever, but I said no.

As for saying my neighbor should write more, I meant it.

Since I don’t have his permission to discuss his novel, that’s all I’ll say about it.

Reading someone else’s work is the perfect lead-in to reading your own. Now I’m eager to reacquaint myself with my story, to give myself the same encouragement and grace, to read it first with a reader’s ear.

There’s nothing quite like placing your work in trusted hands. But before that can happen, it has to pass through your own. And, if you’re me, Word Raccoon’s paws.

Read generously.

Keep going.

In other news, WR printed three of the four threads of her story to begin combing through.

She also bought a month’s (and then some) worth of writing snacks.

She has terrible, terrible taste, like a frat boy. 😂 But she knows what works while she’s writing. See that stack of protein bars in the back? Those will be her staples, along with plenty of fresh produce.

She even made a sign to commemorate the occasion.

(I’m writing this on July 31, but let’s call it August 1. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be writing a day ahead this month.)

Cheers to August, Dear Reader! I like to imagine that you’re creating what pleases you most. I hope you are.

Drema

Dear Reader,

While Word Raccoon does not mind sharing most things, she does not like sharing her chariot and is glad to have it back in her possession. She just reminded me that we have all the things to do to get ready for August!

(If I’m not much mistaken, I also saw her tuck our neighbor’s prologue into her basket to read tomorrow at the café.)

The garage door is painted, as is the trim at the front of the house. Now WR has officially declared a House Gorgeous Strike until September.

“Maintenance and administrative tasks only,” she says.

You might be relieved to know that WR has cleared her calendar for August to protect the novel.

Except for a hair appointment.

And our neighbor’s appearance in a musical.

(Both on the same day.)

Lunch with family.

Another lunch with friends.

But we are protecting our time, we promise.

Except for a medical appointment.

Also the rheumatologist.

And a weekend trip.

Then there’s a benefit.

Other than those things, the month is pretty much free of nonwork, nonwriting tasks.

(Eye roll.)

Am I tempted to reschedule some things?

I am.

But I won’t.

Instead, I am promising myself that if life gets messy (and it will), then I’ll simply put a little extra novel writing time on September’s calendar.

Although WR prefers poetry, she seems to be getting kind of excited to finish a rough draft.

A very rough draft.

Left to do?

Finish summarizing and numbering the scenes. (It’s taking longer than we imagined.)

Print the novel’s current pages.

Lay in a stock of Coke Zero and WR’s favorite snacks. Meal prep.

Tidy the house. (This will be ongoing, obviously, but starting out tidy seems like the right approach.)

Reserve a table at the local cafés most days and REMEMBER TO BRING pens, Post-it notes, page flags, laptop, and research books. (Not too many. It’s far too easy to disappear into those.)

While painting, I listened to one research book and part of another, in addition to A Gentleman in Moscow. That turned out to be exactly the right move.

Now WR is hoping the town leaves her a parking spot in front of the café. They’re having a weekend of events, and sometimes they block off half the street.

WR says she’s run over orange cones before with her car, and she’ll do it again.

Let’s…not make that part of the writing routine, WR.

I think we’re both getting excited to go back to Noveland.

It’s been waiting patiently.

And, between you and me…

Anything beats using a paintbrush.

Drema

I’m exhausted today but I’d like to say a few words in remembrance of Glen Hansard.  I surprised myself by bursting into tears when I learned of his passing, though why should I have been so surprised when he affected my own work?

If you’ve never seen the film Once, you’re missing one of the rawest musical performances I’ve ever witnessed. His passionate performance, the way he opened his chest and let it all out when he sang, the hole in his guitar that could only have been born of relentless strumming, made me want to write about someone with that kind of artistic courage. Made me want to be that person. 

It was those rawest parts of Glen I had in mind when I wrote my second novel with a guitarist in it at the Bluebird Cafe:

Then a determined strum grabbed my attention, followed

by a host of down-tuned bass notes.

The man who had been in the back of the place now sat

onstage; his hair glimmered as he tossed his head backwards

like he was doing a shot of air and he sang from a depth I didn’t

even know existed. His soul was all jagged glass expelled into

the dark that would have to find a new name, because when

he sang, darkness dissipated.

The muscles of his face contorted as he catapulted syllables

from some unidentifiable place in his body. The protracted,

terrifying primal scream slowly softened into a vibrato-laden

whisper: the pain was still present, but bearable. It was

possible to live through it, the notes said, if you sang it away.

The door to my right opened and closed but I barely

registered the escape as the father, apparently not wanting his

daughter to witness,…what exactly was this? – hustled her

out.

The musician’s battered Martin had the beginnings of a

second hole beat into its face. His thumb and the part of

his hand below it must be bruised, the way he attacked his

acoustic. Even though his guitar wasn’t plugged in, twice the

music came from it than should have. With no overhead

mic, no less. My eyes couldn’t find any other source of

amplification. 

How were his fingers capable of the force that

guitar must have taken to be so battered? Surely afterwards

his fingers would be bloody? The man gulped for air, didn’t

even try to recover before going again.

Then the air grew silent abruptly, but the muscles in his

arms remained rigid, and I knew then that he was the song.

No one clapped. No one said or did anything, which seemed

fitting.

My shoes carried me out the door after him where I clumsily

tried to explain to him and myself what I was feeling with,

what were they, words.

I’d been cold and hungry forever, his music had said, and

not known it. Now, I didn’t have to be.

Without warning to either of us, my lips attached themselves

to his as if I wanted to suck his music right from his mouth.

After I kissed him, he stood there with his worn Martin

dangling from its homemade rope strap across his chest,

eyes downcast, hands in his pockets. Though I apologized, I

wanted to kiss him again.

“Aren’t you going on?” he asked, nodding at my instrument

I hadn’t realized I had carried out. He wiped at his lips with

his shirttail.

The snow fell onto our hair and shoulders.

Still embarrassed I said no, no, of course I wasn’t going on,

not now. Maybe never.

From Southern-Fried Woolf, all rights reserved.

I don’t know what else to say except that I’ll miss the songs he never got to write, the performances none of us will ever get to witness. But I’m deeply grateful he was here long enough to remind me what artistic courage could look like, what accessing the soul directly can be. 

I’m so glad I was introduced to his music. I know my own art is different because of his.