Lessons of the Road

One Closed Door                         Catherine Al-Meten Meyers

(Introductory note: Since some readers have had trouble accessing this blog through the new website, I am returning to this format. It works and hope it puts you in back in touch with Coasting Along: A Writer's Journey)

Lessons of the Road

Since last August, I have spent most days working on one project. It's not just any project, it's a project that has allowed me to depart from my normal way of writing. It's also a project that is fast becoming a fulfillment of a dream I've had for quite some time. And, as it turns out, it's a new role that doesn't quite make everyone I know happy. Before I get into that, let's just say that living out a passion is something I have never regretted in the past, and I have no regrets now. For as a writer, it is my desire, indeed my calling, to write. And to write what I feel I need to write. The need has very little to do with what other people want or need, but more to do with what is inside me--inside my mind, my imagination, or my psyche somewhere, that wants to have some kind of expression. For that's what writing is. The expression of someone's ideas, dreams, perspective, vision, or desires through their written words. 

For most of the last 50 years my writing has included works written in academia including books on trauma, stress, PTSD, healing and spirituality, and pastoral theology and inspiration. I've written several books of poetry, books designed to inspire, and numerous articles featuring artists, writers, musicians, or some aspect of the artistic community. I wrote a Grandparenting column for over 8 years, and wrote a home organizer column during the same period of time. Recently I have revised my home organizing job via my own blog on organizing for home and office. I did the latter when I realized my home and office were in shambles as a result of my having given up that weekly advice column.

My new project though is something different from any of these. While still living and working in Claremont, California in the late-1980s, I made regular trips to visit my Father who was living on the Oregon Coast. During that period of time, I would stay in a little hotel on the cliffs overlooking the ocean in Nye Beach, a neighborhood of Newport, Oregon. Newport is on the Central Coast of Oregon. While staying there, I began writing a mystery novel, set in a little town much like Newport. Upon returning to Claremont and my work, I put the writing away, and let it sit on the shelf until the next time I went to Oregon or the next time I felt compelled to add a few more lines. Over that time, I continued to build settings and create characters in my imagination. I carried the characters and the places around with me. I also continued to read mysteries, a lifelong passion, with an appetite that was voracious. I read books on "how to write a mystery", my daughter gave me books like Writing a Police Procedural and the Writers Market to spur me on. 

Other things in life became more important, and so for many years, the little idea remained in a three-ring binder. Before word processors were the norm, my writing was done on a manual typewriter, and so the first few versions were typewritten, and then later transferred to a floppy disk. I moved home to Oregon in the early 90s, and within a year or so, had returned to graduate school. For the next 10 years most of my writing related to my graduate work and for the work I was doing in teaching. Throughout each phase of life, poetry remained a mainstay, and my three-ring binder and now growing piles of index cards and handwritten notes about characterization and plot was getting larger. After completing all the graduate work, I began writing for newspapers and magazines, and I wrote poetry and essays. The essays became the meat of blogs I began publishing, and later grew into collections for books or chapters for other books. And still, the three-ring binder and the cast of characters were left hanging in the limbo of my imagination. 

Late last summer, I did a reassessment of some of the writing gigs I was involved in. I began eliminating those that I no longer wanted to continue, and felt it was time to 'fish or cut bait' with the idea of ever writing a mystery novel. As much as I loved reading the novels, I wondered if I was 'good enough' to write as well as some. And then I recalled all the books I'd read that weren't the best writers but which were still entertaining and fun. To decide, I asked a new friend to read the first few chapters of the book, and give me her honest appraisal of whether or not she thought it was at all engaging or worth continuing. I'd lost all perspective by that point, and valued someone who knew publishing to give me some honest feedback. When she told me she liked it, and we worked out a way to work together on the book, I set forth. 

Already in a daily routine of writing, the daily writing of fiction was a new experience that found me lost in a world of imagination and fantasy that I had not experienced before. It was a little like feeling like you could fly or transcend all kinds of boundaries. Which of course, when writing fiction, is true. The need to prove or back up or state the f'acts ma'am, nothing but the facts' was not needed. What was needed was to make the characters believable and the plot line and setting something the reader could get lost in. And I decided early on that I would let myself write and shut the critic out during the first time through what Anne Lamott calls the writing of the first shitty rough draft. My reader/editor person took that burden off my back, and so I wrote and I wrote and I wrote.

When I had to be away from writing for any length of time, I thought about writing. While writing, nothing much got done around the house. I'd come up for air and feed myself, get out to do yoga periodically but not nearly enough, and felt like I was being put upon when I had to take a break to do the dishes or laundry.  About a month ago, I took two trips. One trip was a brief vacation, during which I slept, walked, and wrote three chapters. The other vacation was to spend Easter Break with my granddaughter, so I had a lot of fun with her, read a lot with her, and exercised my imagination and my City legs up and down the hills of San Francisco. We talked about writing, my granddaughter and I because she too is fascinated with being a writer and doing drama. She made the remark when I was with her last, "We've got a lot in common Yaya. You played soccer, I play soccer. You loved to act, I love to act. You love to write and read, and so do I." And so I recognized with her, the common thread that feeds our souls--the longing to live out of our passions to express ourselves.

My Mother never emphasized the need to keep a perfectly clean house. Time was better spent singing while she played the piano. Time was meant to be spent discovering what adventures there were by reading Swiss Family Robinson, A Tale of Two Cities, Captains Courageous, or Little Women before bedtime. Life was meant to be lived from the  center of our curiosity, not from the end of a broom or from the observation of dust or grime on the stove. Nevertheless, my Virgo Moon (ruler of emotional balance) can't stand a mess. I can overlook my early childhood programming (as wonderful as it was) long enough to spend an afternoon cleaning the stove top or clearing out clutter so I can think again. I am glad that my upbringing allows me to feel free of the constraints of having to be on top of things when what really matters to me is getting the writing written down.

However  there are those among our friends and family who will always throw a wet blanket over whatever new path you set out on. I was in a marriage with a man who used the white glove method to determine if things were 'clean enough'.  After not seeing one another for 20 years, the first thing he said when he walked in my house is, "well you never liked to do the dishes, did you". For some time, I thought it was important to put a higher priority on such things. But I am glad that my ability to focus and to prioritize according to my own passions is in alignment with what really matters to me. So no, the house isn't as clean as it could be, but I manage to keep some semblance of order and cleanliness. It might mean I sweep at midnight or clean the dishes once a day instead of right after a meal. It might mean I drink my veggies instead of spending time cutting, chopping, and dicing. But I am happy and satisfied, and in relatively good shape, body, mind, and spirit. 

And when I've told people what I'm doing, I have gotten a variety of responses. Some say things like "I can hardly wait to read it". That's the good stuff. Then there are those who look at me with disdain and disapproval, and say things like, "So you mean you're not going to write anything serious again?" A if writing a mystery novel was about as low as you can go for an academic or theologian?  This wet blanket stuff does have an effect on me, but since I've chosen the life I'm living and not been forced into exile or something, I figure I'll just chuck it up to someone not being able to see their nose despite their face...although in this case, not being able to see who I really am in my present incarnation.

Leaving the world of academia and not pursuing a more traditional and clerical path in theology (I choose to do personal spiritual counseling with anyone who comes to me), is exactly the right path for me. It's the one I was born to be on, it's the one I've always traveled....just outside the bounds of traditions, just over the hill from the bulk of the crowd, or just off to the edge of the room, looking for the exit. Not having needed reassurance before setting off on some wild hair, "lame brained idea", I have been happily finding Nirvana all along the way. The real battle has been within. Whether to listen to and the make changes in my life based on what someone else, no matter how brilliant or well meaning, thinks rather than what I believe is right for me, or not. Well, at this point, it's no longer a battle, just a bit disappointing when someone seems to think I've lost my mind again. 

Writing can be very solitary work. And in addition to writing, authors have other responsibilities and obligations. For the new breed of writers known as indie writers, there are many aspects of our work that remain a bit mysterious or hidden from what people think we spend our time doing. Indie writers and in my case and the case of a growing number of us, may also be running small presses. All writers are definitely involved in the marketing and sales of their own books. And the design and pre-publication processes that authors who publish with both traditional publishing companies or indie publishing options (self publishing, small presses, kindle or e-publishing) require a lot of time, energy, and ongoing learning and updating of skills and knowledge. All that is related to the publishing process itself is over and above the time and energy spent in writing. This is the part that few see and understand, and it certainly is an aspect of who and what a writer is that remains a misconception to people who think all there is to writing is the writing and the luck of finding a publisher. Even the most successful writers will tell you that the whole business of publishing has changed, and require more and more of writers.  So as solitary as the work can be, it also is demanding. I was astonished to find that one very famous prolific crime mystery novel author had a full time staff of 26 people working for him. Some  of us wish we had one or two people to help us once in awhile, and that's another lesson of the road...learning what it is we need, and then asking for help. Just like we might have learned in running a business or a department which we managed, learning to delegate some of the work we have to others, is a crucial step in becoming more professional about our work as authors. 

For the last 8 months I've been writing almost daily, and am now coming down to the last few chapters. I'm near the finish line, and in a state of bewilderment and a kind of panic. The whole experience of the last 8 months has been one of great joy. I love writing fiction, and to be so focused on one project has been a learning experience that is unlike anything I've experienced before. And that's why this morning I was reflecting on what I've learned over this span of time and through this experience. The next part of this book is the editing, polishing, and getting ready for marketing phase. And already, a new book or two have made their way into my imagination and have taken some form or another on index cards, spiral notebooks and outlines in a file for a new book. And how my characters arrive at their final destination in this book, is still revealing itself to me. They're calling. "C'mon, we're ready to go...", so I must say so long for now. When you hear the music blast from the car radio or from my home, and you see me out walking and dancing along the riverwalk, you'll know I have put the Finis at the end of something that has made my heart and soul happy. The harder work is ahead, but that's good because I love all aspects of this process of being a writer and author. There is so much to learn. There are so many lessons of the road. The journey and the process of writing are constantly allowing for a living a full and joyous life.