Occasionally oblivious.

Sometimes we writers wander around in a beautiful place and don't see anything, because we're so tied up in the worlds we're creating in our heads. And then there are the other times.

I'd been down that path to Carmel Beach a million times, but today I saw this.

Dear twentysomething . . .

I was asked recently to contribute to a series of letters written by writers to their younger selves (and their younger brethren everywhere.) Here's what I had to say.


Dear twentysomething,

Maybe these aren’t the best years of your life. Maybe you miss college, the hug of a dorm room, the hush of a library. Maybe your obnoxious, preening professors don’t seem nearly as dangerous as your stupid, scheming bosses. Maybe you know too many people who have more money in the bank and more clothes in their closet and more stamps on their passport than you do.

Maybe you are walking a tightrope. That thin moon that hangs between being a self-starter and a go-getter. Being a lot of fun and being a bit too much. Between being ready and being there already.

The thirties await you on the other side, with all the shiny gifts and promises they seem to bring.

But know this.

You are the age when you are always lit from within.
Older people see it like a golden lamp when you walk into a dark room, your skin still plump like a baby’s. Your source of energy now, if you don’t mute it, is endless.

Strip away the cocktails and the Red Bulls, the all-nighters at the office. Walk past the 24-hour carbohydrate palaces, and lay down on a pillow with a flannel case you washed yourself. Rest. Heat up some soup. Listen to the music people make fun of you for liking. Build an altar of your favorite books, a toy, a card your grandmother gave you.

These are not the years to burn up and grind down. To scratch or claw or pound.

These are the light years. The weightless ones, the lily-pad days.

I won’t say enjoy them; everyone says that, no one listens.
I will say: Use them. Use them not to move and jostle and scheme. Use them to be still enough to learn what you truly want.

Read the whole series of “Dear Twentysomething” letters all this month, on Melanie Goodman’s book blog, reclusivebibliophile.com.

On Broken Things. (Again, no links. Not about buying today, at all.)

"Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in." ~ Leonard Cohen



I guess I could just stop right there, with Leonard Cohen. Damn, he compresses everything into rich antioxidant juice.

But since it's the holidays, I feel inclined to share that I didn't spend Black Friday in line at Best Buy. I probably should have, though, because my dryer door is duct-taped. Every ten minutes or so, the tape comes undone if the load is too heavy. And some days, damn, that load is way too heavy. The dryer is not that old. I reluctantly bought a new one three years ago when my garage-sale one died. I have paid to fix this new dryer twice. Paid to have the door replaced, then turned sideways. Paid by staying home and waiting when I could have been out trying to get new clients. And paid now, in ten minute increments, and by hanging up everything that fits on the line, everything that likes catching sunshine.

My life is a tad duct-taped.

Three kids, two dogs, two cats. Nothing stays nice for very long. I've learned to not even start out with nice. If you start out with used or borrowed, you don't feel as badly when you have to mend it. Or steam-clean it. Or ignore it. Ignoring works.

Right now, after 10 years in one place, everything small is falling apart. We fixed the big things. Now the small things, one on top of another, snowball. The oven, the fan, the toaster, the dryer, the bed frame. It's okay knowing the sofas have holes but now the slipcovers hiding the holes have holes. Can you duct-tape a sofa? I believe you can.

My middle daughter is still traumatized by the year that my husband duct-taped her down parka. But we all know how much parkas cost. And how, when you sew them, the feathers still sneak out around the slash of your stitches.

This morning when I let the dogs out in the dark, there was a light welcoming me. Was it the star of Bethlehem? No. Our car, headlights left on all night. (Should teenagers be allowed to drive at night, let alone vote? Discuss.) The teenager is awakened. In pajamas, we juggle owners manuals, keys, flashlights in our teeth. Electric principles, positives and negatives, remnants of science classes gone by, are discussed. The car does not turn over. It does not spring to life.

The cost of a battery, deducted from babysitting earnings, is silently calculated in my daughter's eyes as the sun comes up. She has seen how big that battery is, how much larger than "C" or "D". She has already paid for a flattened tire, a dented bumper, a small accident when she hit a friend. She is young, and already exhausted with paying, of replacing, with comparison shopping, with time away from homework and friends, with making new again.

I see it in her eyes. And I know: This is how duct-tapers are made, not born.

Just A Little Early Holiday Story. No Links. Nothing to Buy.

It's too beautiful to sit inside writing all day. The bike must be ridden a bit. What else are 66 degree November days for?

I weave through the trucks up and down the street, the trucks driven by the foremen, the stone masons, the plumbers, the roofers, the plasterers, the kitchen designers, the marble cutters, the mural painters who replicate the Sistine Chapel in the breakfast nooks.

Our neighborhood, once divided equally between lush woods and modest homes, has been under construction for 10 years. Wooded lot by wooded lot. McMansion by McMansion. Truck by truck. The noise some days requires headphones indoors. Outside, riding my bike, it's even worse. As a little girl in one of my not-yet-published novellas says, as she stares at a wood chipper: "Is that the sound of the tree screaming?"

Yes. Yes it is.

Some of these homes are beautiful beyond measure, filled with fine people I have loved getting to know. But two of them, the ones built later, at precisely the wrong time, sit empty, in limbo. Too expensive to sell. Too big to rent. Too showy to do anything but attempt to keep up appearances. Raked, trimmed, tidied. Chin up! Last weekend a service came and put up Christmas decorations and lights. Part of me finds this absurd, and part of me is grateful that someone is trying. Someone is staying cheerful, showing up, lighting the light. Fighting the fight.

Surely these homes would sell faster if they knew an author lived in the neighborhood. ;-) Or knew, perhaps, simply that someone who cared was home, and listening for them. And hoping all would turn out merry and bright.

Autumn Rules: Collection #2

Autumn Rules:

1. You're not really a parent until someone drops a pumpkin on your toe.

2. Somewhere in a dark warehouse, all the ROAD WORK AHEAD signs are loaded onto trucks for use on the exact SAME DAY.

3. Recipes in all magazines shall contain either maple syrup, bacon, or butternut squash.

4. If you have no trick or treaters, it's a sign from God that you deserve to eat candy.

5. As leafblowers descend like Hell's Angels, you will mourn the sound of a rusting rake against a drying leaf.

6. Pecans toasting on a closed fire. Jack Frost nipping at the Pinot Noir.

7. It ain't over 'til it hits 68 degrees one. last. time.

8. You will be expected to be thankful at the precise same time you have to remove mountains of dead leaves from your lawn.

9. Someone very short will ask you what the pilgrims ate, and you won't remember.

You Are A Writer. You Know You Are.

Being a writer has nothing to do with being published. Or wearing glasses.Or having a nice author photo that looks younger than you are. No.

You know you’re really a writer when . . .

1. Your clothes are not easily distinguished from your pajamas.

2. Your friends ask for help writing their wedding vows, their resumes, and their Netflix complaint letters.

3. On vacation, you walk into a hotel with a beautiful view and think, “ooh I can’t wait to write here!”

4. Your laptop is worth more than all your furniture combined.

5. Your primary criteria for viewing real estate is: Where will my desk go?

6. You spend more money on books than clothes.

7. You have paid a babysitter to take your children out for the night.

8. Your idea of a spa is Breadloaf.

9. You refuse to share your bookshelves.

10. When you take your child on college visits, the only thing that excites you is the library.

11. When people ask you what you want for Christmas, you say “an agent.”

12. When your kids have puppet shows, you urge them to work on their dialogue a little harder.

13. You have a backup to your backup to your backup.

14. Your children have never said “Sssh, Mommy’s sleeping,” but “Sssh, Mommy’s writing.”

15. You have written a tender and compassionate acknowledgments page for each unpublished work.

16. You have had paper cuts on your palm, not just your finger.

17. The idea of going to jail just . . . does not seem that bad to you.

That's my list -- feel free to share yours!

On My Mind: One Word Tips. NaNoWriMo. Cajones.

Saturday at Montgomery County Writer's Conference (which was a beautifully organized event on a gorgeous campus with great food -- how often does THAT happen?) I taught a 75 minute class called Do's & Don'ts for Writing. I adapted it for the Thriller genre,as they requested, but it's a good primer for any plot-based fiction, and I worked really hard developing the material and the point of view, culled from all my how-to books and working knowledge as an author.

Afterwards, a gentleman came up to me and said, "Great class. The best of the day." I thanked him, and then he said something so bold I didn't even understand it: "Can I have that paper you're reading from?" I asked him to repeat himself. He pointed to the stapled outline in my hand. "The notes you taught the class from. Can I have them?" And I burst out laughing. "No," I said. "Why?" he asked. "Because it contains trade secrets," I whispered.

Given my overall openness at sharing writing tips on my blog, and on twitter, and helping complete strangers who write to me and ask, maybe I shouldn't have been that shocked. But I was. If he had been a man with no hands, or a blind man, or a deaf man, I would have given him the world. "Take notes!" I wanted to scream at him. "Bring a pencil or a laptop, you knucklehead!" He walked away and I was still shaking my head over his nerve, when he walked up a few minutes later with a copy of my first novel, STANDING STILL and asked me to sign it. This was surprise number two, that he wasn't angry with me, and was willing to buy it abook. Then he unleashed surprise number three, as I bent my head over the title page. "Just write your phone number down," he said.

Sigh. Apparently, "Can I have your notes?" is a pick-up line.

I know slides are turned over in the corporate world all the time. But a lifetime of writing advice? Weigh in, guys, go ahead. Tell me I'm wrong.

In the meantime. . . in the spirit of "handing over my notes" -- here are my twitter writing tips from the week:


Today's #NaNoWriMo Tip: STUCK? Maybe someone new needs to knock on the door. Or someone needs to travel to a new place.

1-Word Tip for #NaNoWriMo: SENSES. As in what does your character smell, taste, hear? Use the senses to show.

1-Word Tip for #NaNoWriMo: DESPERATE. If desperate to up the word count, add a dream, flashback or prologue.

Today's 1-Word Tip for #NaNoWriMo: WHY. As in give every character a concrete reason for their actions and desires.

1-Word Tip for #NaNoWriMo: CONFLICT. As in inner conflict. Two paths to take. Two lovers to choose. Creates tension!

1- Word Tip for #NaNoWriMo: DESIRE. Your lead character must want something badly and have obstacles in the way.