Can you handle your own truth? A FREE book for one lucky writer.

Oh would-be writers of memoir, rejoice. Beth Kephart, National Book Award Finalist and U of Penn memoir professor has gathered all kinds of advice for you in her new book. Leave me a comment here and I might pick your name and mail it to you. (And leave a link to where you've reposted my blog entry and get special consideration.) Or just buy yourself a dang copy here. and get started pronto!

Gardening vs. Writing

We don't have a garden. Shame, shame, a yard and no garden. My vegetables are purchased and my flowers run wild along the stone wall, like dirty, colorful, unwatched toddlers. I tell myself this is because I write, because I staked my claim of how my time will be spent, how priorities are seized on free mornings and afternoons. But I also *bites fist* don't like to garden. I don't mind the dirt or the digging. (That's like writing.) It's the sunburnt wheelbarrow-y repetition. It's the dull tedium of the rows. (That's like sending out queries.) And it's the waiting. (Argh, like going out on submission!)

Reading and researching.

While I'm taking it easy this month, I have a lot of reading research to finish up for my next novel. Since this novel involves approximately a bajillion subjects I know nothing about -- farming, sailing, genealogy, Afghanistan, amputees, and interfaith marriages -- I am making excellent use of a color-coded filing system given to me by my research Jedi master, novelist and memoirist Beth Kephart. I don't know if her new book about memoir, Handling The Truth, covers her crackajack organizational skills or not, but I'm sure looking forward to its debut this week.

Horseshoes, clovers, rabbits feet.

Next week, I'm having surgery, the start of months-long treatment for a wee spot of bother. (Let's think like that, shall we? It's just a blip.) As I was leaving a pre-op appointment yesterday, I decided to stop and buy a couple of lottery tickets. Very unlike me, as my friends know. But why not? When something is caught early, you feel lucky. As the clerk handed me my change, he said, "Good luck with everything." As if he knew. When my eyes met his, he saw the first watery veil of my tears. It's always a good idea to wish people luck. I accept. Thank you. And the same to you and yours.

Yum.

Yesterday, this is what I devoured for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tempted to call it a "perfect light summer read" -- but that's doing it a disservice. It's a "fall in love with these characters and not let them go" kind of read.

Vocabulary.

I keep a list of words I love, and want to use in my writing. In the last few years, I've used frisson and anodyne. Lacunae is still up for grabs. Yesterday I used an old favorite, akimbo. And I remembered the thrill of discovering it for the first time, in a Nancy Drew mystery, about a day after learning another exciting word: Coupe. And I wonder, how old are you when a new word becomes a chore, and not a thrill? Is it 11? 12? I see my daughters groan when I say, "Look it up." But there is an age at which you do not groan. There is an age at which you hold it tight like a shiny coin, wondering when you'll get the chance to spend it.

How to play solitaire.

I love being the first person up. I hate being the last person up. One is alone and the other lonely. Waiting for the moon to make a sound. Listening for a teenager's midnight tiptoe. Holding my breath as the ambulance flashes its candy lights across the street. My entire life, I've found myself awake while other people sleep. And that must be why the daydreams come. The writer's gift, notions as compensation.