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Three Lessons for the Traveling Writer

Even though we knew we couldn’t get into the onsite events at AWP, Victoria Flynn and I went to Chicago last weekend anyway. We had a hotel. We had ambition. And, my goodness, we had a great time.

Lesson One: Whenever you can, take the train.

There’s something romantic about boarding the train, about climbing the narrow, metal stairs, suitcase in tow. About following the pull to your left and turning into a cabin full of rows and promise. You take your seat, gaze out the window, and float along with a landscape enveloped by the season. On this day, by a heavy snowstorm; the city streams by in a soft, white glow.

Quiet. Like a dream.

The conductor asks for your ticket. He punches twice, smiles once, nods and moves on. You take a picture to mark the moment.

Lesson Two: Whenever you can, take a friend.

Certain bits and pieces of life are best experienced in the presence of someone who puts you at ease, as you move through new spaces. Someone who’s traveling that same journey with you, who shares in your excitement about the future, about the things you want to do and the stories you want to write. Someone who looks you straight in the eye after you’ve said there’s no way you could apply for that two-week writing residency. Ever. Life would never allow for such extravagance, you say. To which she says, Maybe not right now. Reminding you that now isn’t the same as never.

Lesson Three: Whenever you can, take risks.

Say Yes to a late-night dessert. Order the gelato drizzled in salt and olive oil and find yourself saying, “Oh, my. Who knew.” Stay up until two-thirty in the morning, even though you know what “tired and over forty” feels like.

Soak up the fancy of a hotel you might never have visited before, except by the random choice of an online reservation site. A hotel dressed in straight lines and sharp angles and silver and lights and – somewhere in your room – hidden disco balls. A hotel with mirrored tiles that fracture your image and make you believe for a second that you really are living out a dream.

Make a list of all the things you will do this year, ignoring the committee in your mind that presses you with “impossible” and “come on!” and “who do you think you are?”

Write about “gasp-able moments”, sage advice learned from a writer friend’s young son.

And on the ride home, when you realize the train will travel backwards the whole way, sink into your seat and take in the irony of it all, how you’re being pulled out of the dream and back into the day. As if to say, Grab hold: of the energy, of the inspiration, of the call to take risks. Why not, you think. Here we are, only once, There’s no guarantee you’ll succeed just by trying, but there’s promise to fail if you don’t.

 

 

 

 

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Santa and the Grinch and Well-loved Books

Santas on Cycles

They traversed the city in packs all day long on Saturday. I saw them first in the morning, and I figured, a Jingle Bell Bike Ride or a fundraiser of sorts. But after running errands for a good part of the day and then finally heading home, I caught glimpses of Santas still peddling about in clusters, nodding to passers-by. I tried following them, but just as I pulled up to a stoplight, they rounded the corner and disappeared down the block. A mile later, they showed up again, only to slip down a side street. Santa. Always elusive, but ever present. And tough to capture on film.

Fizzle, fumble, drop crack spill

Sounds of my Christmas season so far. The lights on the Christmas tree went out minutes before I hung the last ornament. The garland let loose two days after I tucked its ends nicely into a corner. It continues to taunt me, shifting and slipping and inching its way to unruly. Cleaning the bathroom last weekend, I broke a tiny snow globe with a miniature Santa inside, who waved to me as he went down the drain. That was not a good sign.

Then, when a simple sewing project turned into a thread-breaking, table-banging, curse word-slinging ordeal, I looked around for the Grinch. He’s out there, snickering, and now he’s messing with my sewing machine. I wonder, do you think he likes Sugar cookies? We have a few freshly decorated (during which the bottle of sprinkles suspiciously got knocked over), and there’s a hot little number of the Gingerbread kind who might capture his attention. At least for the next few days. She does have green hair, after all, and she’s smothered in chocolate sprinkles.

Felicity and Paolini

What brings me back to center, even after several Holiday blunders is reading. Our bedtime ritual with the kids consists of time together with a good book. That’s not necessarily different from any other parent. But as my kids both grow older (my son is turning ten soon!), sharing a book together becomes even more special.

Right now, my daughter is into Felicity, the independent and spirited American Girl who grows up just before the Revolutionary War. The name Felicity means happiness, and I am happy we are reading about someone other than Barbie.

My son and I are reading Eragon. This particular book came from the library and was a magical find. We had talked about the book, searched the online catalog for it, hunted the shelves to find it, and didn’t see it anywhere. Just after we settled on a substitute and were ready to leave the library, he saw it on a random shelf, the cover barely hanging on. We snagged it, and I said, “This book has been well-loved and well-read. Or, dropped in a puddle.” Either way, it carries an air of mystery. He’s loving the story, too, and recently said, “It’s too bad we can’t stay up all night and read the whole book at once.”

That’s good stuff.

What’s your story this week?

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Taking it all in on a Sunday.

From The Forest for the Trees:

“Everything you put on the page is a deliberate manipulation of what happened, written to keep the reader entertained, moved, sympathetic, horrified, scared, whatever. You are never writing what really happened. Instead, you are choosing words, building images, creating a rhythm, sense, and structure through which to move your characters and unfold your story. You are making a thousand minuscule choices that you hope will add up in such a way that your readers believe what they’re reading is real. And this is why, when the writer is successful, the best fiction reads like nonfiction and the best nonfiction like a novel.” ~ Betsy Lerner

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What did you take in this weekend?