15 Minutes for My 2 Cents

In Joshua Tree, California, we have a community lecture series called “Teddy” Talks, a take on the famous TED talks. They’re held at Beatnik Lounge, an art space and JT’s unofficial community center. This month I appeared with two other authors, Rose Baldwin and Gabriel Hart. We had a blast. The crowd was kind and interested, the conversation stimulating. My talk was titled: Rejecting the Rules and Criticism that Derail Writers. The subject is dear to me. I also discussed both my novel Not On Fire, Only Dying and my brand-new, flash fiction chapbook, Swap / Meet.

So if you have fifteen minutes for my two cents, click below.

Thanks,
Susan

Listen for what I don’t say.

Sometimes I wonder if I have the face of a woman who needs help. I am frequently offered advice. I do ask lots of questions, and I can see how that might seem, to some, like I want answers. Probably I’m just being polite. Or I’m after your stories. I want to get you talking so I can watch. I want to hear what you don’t tell me. Keep talking. I’m not listening, but I am.

Now, days before my 50th birthday, I look in the mirror and see a face with deepening lines, silver hair, and eyes that have seen love and marriages and travel and motherhood and shitty jobs and rescued animals and exhilarating art and my own writing published and grief and failure and a second, solo, cross-country move that finally convinced me I might be kind of a badass. I see the face of a woman who has a word or two of advice to GIVE, in fact.

Not that you asked. So go ahead and ignore me. Or listen for what I don’t say.

Lighten Up, Francis. Humor is a survival skill, especially in dark times like these we’ve lived since November 2016. Some of us can’t stay afloat without it. Humorlessness is tiresome. It does not prove your commitment to the resistance. In fact, since humor disarms and draws others in, it can be a useful tool. Not everything is a fight to prove your position is the correct one. Life is hard and brief, so maybe just crack a smile. It’s good for you, and the rest of us, too.

I Would Prefer Not To. It’s okay to say NO, and you don’t even have to come up with an excuse. NO to going to that thing you dread. NO to small talk with that acquaintance you don’t trust. NO to gatherings where you’re expected to play an old role. NO to staying where it’s safe but not happy. You deserve joy in every shade of the spectrum: comfort, safety, friendship, support, bonding, duty, desire, lust. And everything in between. Move towards joy, always. Move away from anything less.

It’s Going To Be A Beautiful Wall. You’re the architect of your life. Get your hands on those blueprints ASAP. Construct your present, add on, renovate, tear it down to sticks and start over. Point yourself in the direction of a future you’d like, but understand it’s like a note added to a dinner reservation: “Quiet table by the window, please.” We regret to inform you that requests are not guaranteed. However old you are, you’ve been hearing it all your life—how things should be done. What you ought to do, and in what order. How you must behave. Has it occurred to you that it might be bullshit? You have one chance to experience life. Take a big bite, a wide view. Be a good enough friend to yourself to build and fortify your boundaries. Make them beautifulopaque, if not transparent. Sturdy.

People Are Strange When You’re A Stranger. It’s not wrong just because it’s unfamiliar to you. We all have a different way of being in the world. Notice your resistance—when you feel defensive, you’re bumping up against one of those “shoulds” you were taught and maybe believed. Breathe, listen. You, too, can live any damn way you please.

orange into GRAPE and grape into ORANGE

My novel, Not On Fire, Only Dying, has been out for two years this fall. It’s increasingly rare to hear from a reader encountering it for the first time, but because I recently moved and found a vibrant and supportive literary community, I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to put it into new hands. Last weekend, as I settled in to watch some performance art among the rocks of Joshua Tree National Park (have I mentioned how much I love this place?), a reader told me she’d noticed a tiny detail in NOFOD that no one else has, at least as far as I know. When she told me, I shrieked in surprise and delight. (Apologies, I know how sound carries in the desert.)

What she found is a tiny “Easter egg” I planted in honor of the poet Muriel Rukeyser, who I happen to be related to but would revere for her words and example regardless. As a kid, I knew of her but didn’t spend time with her, and she was gone before I could express my appreciation. I reread her poems often, taking inspiration and reassurance from her wise, bold, precise language.

I nestled a reference to her poem “Ballad of Orange and Grape” (from Breaking Open, 1973) into Chapter Nine of NOFOD. Marko, the main character, is in New York City, stalking Daniel, a man who hurt his beloved Lola and may have answers Marko intends to demand. Marko and Lola are equally reviled in their mid-Hudson Valley hometown. They both have sketchy pasts, questionable appearance, bad habits. They are barely tolerated. How we judge and label others—how we consider them “others,” in fact—are questions that developed into themes for NOFOD, and which I find addressed in Muriel’s work.

So I sent her a tiny, belated thank you, knowing it might go unnoticed. I am so grateful to the reader who noticed my tribute and I remain grateful to every reader, especially those who have mentioned something, however small, that resonated with them. That is, of course, the best moment for a writer: making that connection.

Please take a couple of minutes to hear “Ballad of Orange and Grape,” read by the poet:

Unsettle that dust.

I move in 30 days. The house I’m moving to is quite small, less than half the size of this one. So far I’ve culled mountains of STUFF: donated most, tossed some. It is glorious, that unburdening. The more STUFF you shed, the more easily you see what might be shed next, and next! Space opens up and, as you move what hasn’t moved in years, you literally shift the air. You release swirls of dust and complacency you hadn’t noticed accumulating beneath furniture, behind books, in the crevices of knick-knacks that used to mean more. Suddenly, STUFF is hindrance: literal weight on a truck you will pay for. Ask: Does it serve me? Do I love it? It seems like a lot to ask STUFF to “spark joy,” but, sure, ask that too.

In the back of one closet I found a box of books and papers, mostly research for Not On Fire, Only Dying: the Ashokan Dam, New York State sentencing laws, missing child procedures, the Romani people, psychiatric meds and diagnoses, strains of marijuana. Bus schedules. A Hudson Valley street atlas. Poems and paintings that inspired NOFOD from its beginnings. I’m getting rid of more than you might think and holding onto more than I should.

The box also held a binder of stories and miscellaneous literary efforts I’d published in online journals, printed out as if I’d worried the internet might suddenly, permanently crash (not gonna lie—sometimes I do worry about that.) I came across a tiny list I wrote for Treehouse Magazine:I hadn’t known, but I’d needed to find and re-read this. I needed to be reminded of the Susan who wrote it. I needed to remember that I’ve found inspiration after long silence before and I will again. In the midst of this move, people sometimes ask, “Are you writing?” and I want to kill them (maybe not all the way dead) because NO—of course I’m not writing. I am cleaning and sorting and packing and getting my only child off to college and changing my whole life—but no, I’m afraid I am not writing. Some writers write through everything—storms much worse—and many more panic when they can’t. For me, occasional silence is expected and necessary. I still absorb material and dialogue and formulate ideas, but for now it’s a one-way process. Maybe I’m okay with breaking rules like “WRITE EVERY DAY” because I’m finally old enough to see how many rules are bullshit.

In any case, I’ve given myself permission to fall short.

“Five Paintings” accompanied a flash piece published by Treehouse Magazine: “Just Like Lily.” I went online and re-read it. I liked it, a few years on. That’s always a relief. It was a departure of sorts—something about the tone. It was also one of my most openly feminist pieces. I think I need to write more of those.

This got me thinking about Treehouse Magazine, which I hadn’t seen anything from in a while—years, it seemed. A quick search found a recent announcement of their relaunch this October! I am thrilled. Who doesn’t love a comeback? What’s better than a return to words? I look forward to mine. And if yours are also somewhat out of reach at present, please take a look at one or all of those five paintings. Anywhere is a good place to start. The words will come when you’re ready.

Proserpine, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

 

Be Brave; Live Now: a New Year’s Wish

2016 can’t show itself out soon enough. Aside from all the lost icons and heroes, the contentious, too-long U.S. election ruined any sense of unity on the Left, killed the dream of a woman president, and ripped off a bandage to reveal our festering, misogynist, racist mess. And then there’s my personal life. I won’t get into that.

In 2017 my only child will leave for college. That’s a good thing, the best. He is whip-smart and thoroughly kind and will improve the world just by living in it. He’s a straight white male who gets it. Yes, I’m writing this through tears but I’m not sad, really.

In 2017 I will move to California’s Mojave desert, where I’ve dreamed of living since I first encountered it years ago. Immediately, it felt like home. The silence, so complete, is precious comfort. I am running toward it, laden with baggage. Okay, not running. But I am moving, inexorably.

I am moving toward the only things I know for sure: I must be somewhere I can write and edit and make art and be myself and think. I believe that California will be a safer place for women than any state that went for Trump, as did the state I’ve lived in for a decade: Georgia. Georgia, I will remember you like an ex-lover: with some fondness, but completely sure that we are done. Goodbye, good luck. Surprisingly, my county, north of Atlanta and traditionally conservative, went for Hillary. A small, bright spot of blue in a sea of angry red. I take comfort in that, and some pride. For years I stuck my neck out in hostile territory, despite knowing I was surrounded by concealed, loaded guns. I won’t miss that.

I am running away to California as I did once before, in 1990. So many adventures began for me in San Francisco. So many heartbreaks. I have no illusions that California is a perfect place, not at all, or immune to the destruction that will be wrought by Trump & Co. But California is a hopeful, forward-looking place. That’s where I want to be.

In 2017 I will finish (?) my current novel-in-progress, which I love and can’t wait to share but I’ll have to write it first, won’t I? Too much of it still lives in my imagination but you can’t see that. You can’t hear what I’m trying to say unless I say it. So in 2017, I will try.

I wish everyone moments of joy in the new year, and moments of blinding outrage, too, because without that how will we stay motivated to fight? Gather your strength; we will need it. Say what you mean. Go where you want.

Move inexorably toward whatever you know for sure, even if it is only one small thing. Be brave. Live now. I am writing this through tears but I’m not sad, or not only.

Born and Dying: My First Book’s First Year

cvrIt’s not like I had no idea what to expect. As a bookseller I assisted with author events both swanky and huge (Pat Conroy at a Connecticut yacht-club brunch) and tiny and spare (local writers at my used bookstore in Kingston, New York). As a book buyer for the wholesaler Baker & Taylor, I bought everything from small press titles to kids books to some of the largest adult trade lines (all of which have since folded into Random Penguin–yes, I know they prefer the names reversed.) Book promotion is an enormous challenge at every level. Even backed by a corporate publisher’s PR machine, many books struggle to attract interest. Every year, thousands of excellent books are published and ignored. It’s an honor to reach any readers. And if you hear from a few who loved your book and got what you were trying to say–well, let that wash over you, because that connection is everything. You get used to the non-responses from places you’d hoped to appear. You get used to leaving readings with unsold books. To empty seats in the audience. To other books getting more attention and praise. You stay grateful throughout.

So, to celebrate Not On Fire, Only Dying‘s first year, a multimedia look back. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: thank you for hearing me.

Pics or it didn’t happen: proof it wasn’t a strange, beautiful dream with too much public speaking:

[slideshow_deploy id=’1025′]

Original music composed by Naomi Hamby for Not On Fire, Only Dying:

“Marko’s Theme” was used for the book trailer. Here it is accompanied by the previously unreleased “Lola’s Theme.”

Speaking of the trailer:

Maybe you’d like another listen to Marko’s mixtape?

Select blog posts written through acceptance, publication, and promotion. Short and honest:

Thank you for hearing me. (12/31/14)
Cats get in the way. (1/23/15)
No big deal, but…MY BOOK HAS A COVER. *swoon* (3/26/15)
Blurbs and Preorders and THANK YOU. (5/4/15)
Presenting my book trailer! And insecurities… (7/3/15)
Brooklyn, beginning. (9/5/15)
Have I mentioned I have a new book out? (9/29/15)
But is it art? On book reviews. (10/18/15)
More than chocolate? (2/4/16)`
What do you want? (5/11/16)

Thank you to everyone who read this book (and to those who have a copy and might yet get around to reading it–no worries. Trust me, I know how that goes. Maybe once in a while something small and unrelated will remind you of Not On Fire, Only Dying.

Happens to me all the time:

Thanks, I failed better.

This July I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo, my first crack at this sort of writing “sprint.” I failed spectacularly.

The original NaNoWriMo, held every November, challenges writers to bang out a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. The “Camp” allows writers to set their own word count goal. The time was right: Finally, after countless outlines, isolated scenes, and false starts, I had a few thousand words of a new novel. I didn’t hate them. That weren’t completely wrong. I knew the story I wanted to tell. I knew the characters well enough to trust where they led me. I set a modest goal: 15,500 words, just 500 a day. I had a lot going on, personally, but I figured I’d work around it. I was determined to try.

I did try, and I failed. fail-better-red-5251

I did not come close. Life interfered, as I feared it might. In all the ways that feed and distract a writer. I wrote a fraction of what I’d hoped. I failed but I wrote 4,349 words. 4,349 new words building on those already written, pointing me more clearly in the direction this novel will take. 4,349 words that brought my characters to life and sent me into fits of deep planning. 4,349 words is not much. Not enough. But it’s a lot more than I wrote the month before.

If I want to finish this novel I’d better return to this manuscript every single day, give myself increasingly ambitious word count goals. I know I can do it. I’ve completed and revised (and revised) two novels and rewritten one word by word. That one, Not On Fire, Only Dying, was published last year.

I will return to it (what a relief!) when I appear at the Decatur Book Festival‘s Emerging Writers Stage at 2:20 PM on Sun Sept 4. I’ll give a very brief reading, followed by a signing. Not On Fire, Only Dying will be available for purchase throughout the festival.

Now I should get back to work. I’ve got lots more failing to do.

What do you want?

9th birthday 1977Today I am the youngest I’ll ever be again. And I am older. Birthdays aren’t so exciting anymore, are they? Not like when you’re nine, the age I am in this picture. What a great age to be–a kid, not a child. A BIG kid. But not yet ten which is SO OLD, a DECADE!

We were in Jacksonville, Florida, with my dad who was there to give a speech. He gave speeches all the time, but this one was special because it was MY BIRTHDAY and some wonderful stranger made me this DOLL CAKE. I wish I could say I’m grinning because I’m taking a knife to the Patriarchy but that is genuine joy on my face because I LOVED DOLLS. They had everything to do with making me a writer. But on that day in 1977, it was just about that DRESS which I hope you realize is made of FROSTED CAKE.

And the doll really was beautiful, you can’t see that in this picture. With big blue eyes like I wished I had.

cvrOn my ninth birthday I knew what I wanted: that cake, that doll. Now? Well, my characters are my dolls. And I can eat cake whenever I want although I try not to because ugh carbs and sugar and but f*ck it–it’s my birthday. I’ll never be this young again. What do I want, this birthday? The best gift I could receive is support for my novel, Not On Fire, Only Dying, which came out last fall. NOFOD is the truest part of me, the most eloquent conversation I’ve ever managed. If you get it, you get me.

So tell me if you read it. Tell me what you liked about it (I will squirm with discomfort but I’ll love it and be grateful.) Ask me questions. Tell other people about it. Review it. Show it off in your hands. If you have a blog, invite me to contribute. Mention it to your book group or favorite bookstore. I’ll read from and discuss it, wherever I’m asked! You’ll make this birthday girl as happy as a DOLL CAKE once did. And that is VERY happy.

xSusan

5 WAYS HELP AUTHOR

 

 

Talk Talk: news about interviews

I recently found myself in the completely new (to me) position of being interviewed while at the same time I interviewed someone else. Everyone involved is a writer: MaryAnne Kolton, who had wonderful things to say about Not On Fire, Only Dying, is conducting an interview with me. I hope to be able to share news of its publication soon. Her perceptive, thoughtful questions send me into deep memory and contemplation. I find it thrilling and terrifying. It’s a challenge for this introvert, stepping out from behind the veil of fiction.

Of course I am wildly grateful for the opportunity to discuss the book, which I always believed in, even when it seemed it would never find its home. I never expected it to have a huge audience, but I believed–and have since had it confirmed–that some fine people would read it and get it and love it hard.

At the same time I interviewed Grant Faulkner. He is a fascinating contradiction: co-founder of the journal 100 Word Story and author of Fissures, a collection of his own spare, exquisitely crafted 100-word stories. He’s also Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), that month-long marathon in pursuit of a 50,000-word novel, however rough. This happens to be an exciting time in Grant’s emerging career. The interview was published at Necessary Fiction, where I serve as Reviews Editor.

All this Talk Talk-ing about myself reminds me of the 80s (honestly what doesn’t? I’ll use any excuse.) Gwen, you’re fierce and I love you, but you almost ruined this song for me. The antidote is listening to the original. And for a few minutes: no talk.

 

Hudson Valley writers! Let’s read.

Writers: Is your work set in the Hudson Valley? Is it your home, present or past? I want to read there this fall and I could use some company. Maybe yours?

Not On Fire, Only Dying is set in the fictional town of Schendenkill, NY, on the west bank of the river in the mid-Hudson Valley. The search for a (possibly?) missing newborn also brings the characters down to NYC’s East Village. Not On Fire, Only Dying was inspired by the years I lived in Kingston, in Ulster County, NY, in an apartment above my tiny used bookshop. It’s where my son spent his first years. For now I live in the South, but my heart and this book belong to the Hudson Valley.

My book tour feels incomplete. It doesn’t feel right, with all the places I’ve gone to promote it, that I haven’t read from NOFOD in the place it began. (And I want an excuse to be there when those colors hit.)

Last fall, when NOFOD debuted, I think I failed to communicate how much this is a book of that region. Now, when I approach bookstores and libraries, I’ll include this wonderful review, which said, among other lovely things: “The author’s poetic, laser-focused empathy unmasks life on the urban edge of Ulster County as Steinbeck’s did Cannery Row, revealing ‘normal’ as a shoddy sham.”

Maybe I’ll also include a tiny excerpt like the one below.

If you’re interested, please get in touch. I want to know the connection between your work and this area. I want to know that our fiction makes sense together. Maybe we’ll meet in the Hudson Valley this fall, sell some books. Maybe we’ll hear each other’s words and swoon.
__________

Excerpt (from Chapter Three):

This week is the ecstatic pinnacle of autumn. The entire valley is aflame. The hills on both sides of the Hudson burn crimson and tangerine. In the weeks to come, the leaves will starve, then drop. Fall is about endings, Marko thinks. Death.

This isn’t the right attitude for a Schendenkill native. Schendenkill has long relied on seasonal visitors, or “leaf peepers.” This is the time of year to hike to the highest point you can: maybe Sam’s Point. From there the Shawangunk Ridge stretches endlessly, punctuated by glassy, sky-mirror lakes. The views are almost too much, too intense. Colors swim as with the onset of a hallucinogen.

His mother, always too sick to go herself, let him hike these trails so long as he was with his sisters, who were older. Hiking alone is discouraged. Someone must be nearby in case you swoon. Someone must remind you that the land you see is not on fire, only dying. Gently, as it’s meant to.

Overlook Mountain Sunset