Closer, closer, closer...

I am at the last stages of the book. This is what I keep telling myself. However I seem to be nearing completion in a geometric progression. Once I was a hundred miles away, then fifty, then twenty five....... four inches away, then two, then one, then a half...a sort of sisyphus of the written word.

On a positive note, I did get out and run this morning before the deluge hit. It is raining right now, likely won't stop for days, but on my run I managed to jog some ideas loose and am ready to remedy a few snags in the novel. Sometimes running works that way for me, I solve problems. Sometimes I run and the only thing that goes through my head is how slow I am and wondering if I could just turn around and go home now. Here's to problem solving and that half inch closer to finishing a book.

Surfing Stress Away

A friend of mine, when stressed at work, surfs a site that has pictures of cute animals. I sometimes window shop at e-bay. Typing in some odd combination such as "vintage metal carrots" and seeing what comes up. But lately I've found another stress reliever-hitting the next blog button on blogger.com. You never get to the same blog twice and the blogs are so happy.

People post photographs of birthday parties or the new car, Grandma's perm or the beach vacation. Today I found a Japanese surfer on the driving range with his Dad and walking his dog, a guy in Ecuador cutting a hole into the ceiling so he can use the attic for a room, and The Vetrans de Catluya who have their futball pictures posted with captions like "Vamos Chavales!" "Nooooooooooo!" "Uuuuuuuuuuuy!" and "Autografos? Venga trae ese papel"

On the Mamalaya site you can see the baby dresses she makes with thai silk, fully lined in chiffon, net slips, lace headbands- while in Indanapolis Ayden is having a dinosaur egg pinata and a dinosaur cake at his birthday.

I read that Wyloozka means cool in Polish, and a Greek woman traveling in Malaysia with a Croat met up with some German guys who told them if you eat Durian and drink alcohol it could kill you. The world is suddenly close and familiar while at the same time fantastic, huge.

And while tool use was once the thing that separated us from other animals, I think a nice human trait is that people from North Africa to Iceland take pictures with friends, arm in arm, smiling for the camera, throwing hang ten, peace signs or bunny ears.

Spring hopes eternal

I keep saying the next book will be a comedy. Spending so much time in the one I am currently writing- "The Kandee Widows"- set in North Dakota right after the first world war, I feel down. I want an escape. I want to escape.

Maybe the real trouble is that it is almost springtime. Having made it through winter, one wants the world to look different, be different. Warmer, better, a different challenge than those failed before. A challenge suffused with hope. Most emigrants left their countries in the spring hoping for something better. They would settled down in a false hopeful green of that season; believing the grass will always be this high, this lush, the freshets ever flowing, the winds balmy.

We've been in our house for almost nine years now. I have never lived in a single house this long. I wish we could move. Plan a new garden, tear a wall out, paint. It would be a better place where I'd grow sweeter tomatoes, I'd have space to plant more fruit trees. The house would be filled with light. My office would be warm. The geese would have their own pond instead of a bright blue wading pool.

It is warmer this week. Almost seventy degrees yesterday. I should be glad I only visit the North Dakota February in the novel and I get to step out into California sunshine and the days' lengthening light. I think it is the season, however, to be dissatisfied. It is time to travel, to look beyond, to hope for something better and to believe it exists.

Happy Valentine's Day!

celebration

I want to send a big YAHOO! out to friends of mine who have been lately smitten with success. I will dance the happy dance for Shawna Yang Ryan who was given the Carp(e) Libris Award for "Locke 1928", John Lescroart whose novel "The Suspect" won Best American Novel of 2007 from the American Author's Association , A.L. Kennedy who received the Costa Book Award for her novel, "Day," and friend Alex Webb, who has his work in this month's National Geographic Magazine. Celebrations abound! Further cause for celebration, that these are excellent people as well as excellent artists-- skill and heart don't always keep such good company. Cheers!

DENTIST

Reading the informed consent forms at the oral surgeons was the grown-up equivalent to sitting in the pediatrician's waiting room listening to some kid screaming their lungs out, obviously getting the world's most painful shot, the brother of which was waiting for you.

Every line on this form ended in "and/or death." And the middles weren't so good either. "...may hit a nerve causing nerve damage to the lip and cheek which may result in permanent disfigurement...and/or death."

I asked the surgeon how he was going to pull the tooth. The tooth had broken, so what was there to pull? He said that 'pulling a tooth' was actually a misnomer. Really, they do everything but pull. They pry, they push, they crack, they drill, they twist, anything to result in getting that tooth out..(and/or death)

He told me dry socket was a possible complication of tooth extraction, and if I had pain continuing past 2 days, I should come in again. I asked what IS dry socket anyway. It turns out dry socket has nothing to do with dry anything at all. It is a nerve reaction; the nerves become inflamed and cause a great deal of pain. Sometimes one loses the clot that was lodged in the hole the tooth left.

Ten minutes was the time an extraction usually took. I figured all I had to do was count to 600. I could get through practically anything if that's all it took. 600.

When I was all numbed up he took up a wicked looking, not quite miniature, prybar and I took up counting. I only got to 278. But I figured I counted to 278 about four times. "78, 79, 40, 41..."

I left the office a little more than an hour after going in, went home and slept all afternoon. "Pry, crack, twist, clot, socket', never reaching 600.

A NEW YEAR OF WRITING, begun

Yesterday I was pulling together images of the covers that never were for a presentation I will be giving for the OLLI group in Davis. I think that one of the surprisingly difficult things I've encountered having a novel published is trying to keep up a writing schedule while keeping up a publicity schedule as well. I would not want to let either go, but the two pressures feel sometimes like children with sibling rivalry. As soon as I get busy with one, the other demands attention.

Eileen Rendahl (chick-lit writer extraordinaire) and I took a writing weekend to try to catch up on the writing part of things. We went to Richmond. Got a room at the Marriot. Ate at Chevvy's one night, and ate chocolate almonds, cheese, crackers, roasted and heavily salted almonds, Good and Plenty's (that's me, Eileen doesn't share my love of licorice), bread and drank wine the rest of the time. We got a lot done.

I enjoy writing with friends. Shawna Ryan (Locke 1928) and I often write together, more often in writing sprints (see her blog for a wonderful description of a writing day for Shawna in particular and just a great blog generally)

Eileen and I usually write in a marathon. Every time I slow and think I can't type another word, I hear her tapping away and I sigh and keep at it. She says the same goes for her, but I think, in actuality, she is a robot. Nothing stops her.