on writing: coming-of-age stories

It has been two summers since the publication of The Swallows, and I am finally back at the point where I can consistently write again. Working on The Swallows was pretty intense. I sold the book when I had only finished about half of it and had an outline for the rest. That (one-hundred percent) is an amazing thing to have happened, especially because without the looming deadline, I don't think I would have finished it. Too many overwhelming things were happening in life, and I could have easily checked out from the writing. For better or worse, I used the book as a way to work though all the negative life happenings. This was not easy. Especially with the outline. 

The outline forced me to stay with the plan, to get there no matter what. It did not let me follow my feelings and recent tragedies, it didn't let me mope. It was a sharp-edged sword that forced me to keep my eyes straight ahead. 

Lots of times at dinner lately, Evelyn says, "Mom, are you thinking again?" and it is true-- I am staring out the window over her shoulder, watching the fat tabby from next door navigate the logs over the bog, trying to trace an inner pattern that leads to the character I want to follow.

Tim always tells me I need to write about myself, but I always get hung up on thinking about Pearl. It isn't that I want to write about Pearl again, its just that she is the only hero I've ever written. She is who I wanted to be when I was fourteen.

And this brings me back to the question of who I want to be now. Who I am now. When I was fourteen, I realized I couldn't draw my own face, and if I closed my eyes, I couldn't picture myself. Even then, I knew it was a dangerous separation I needed to overcome. And I did. But how can I write a new novel about myself without unpacking everything? Sometimes I imagine myself in Florida, dumbstruck and aimless, wandering and cruel, and I wonder if I could ever write about her. Even she is someone I've hidden-- the true opposite to who I am now. 

I guess that's probably something. Some understanding. 

And this application of being confounded by the self is nothing new, not even close. It is the basic outline of the coming-of-age story. 

Margaret Atwood's early novels and short stories walk the very personal line of who a woman is as an artist and an adventurer, how she navigates the space between desire and expectation, how she manages social pressures for better or worse, and how she can blow it all up and do what she wants. But there are consequences. Atwood employed this outline again and again (Surfacing, Cat's Eye, Lady Oracle) her characters aging between thirteen and thirty. And maybe she had to write through her own life before she could get closer to the imagined lives and histories she is so famous in foretelling.

Some writers never make that trip.

Even if Pearl is who I wanted to be when I was fourteen, in the story, I am not Pearl. I am the dead mothers. Every one of the them. On the whole, The Swallows is the confrontation and expulsion of my greatest fear, and it could be any old fairytale: like any wicked witch, the crone murders the mothers to get what she wants. Youth. Time. The fear is amplified by how the women are thought of afterwards. How their memories are even less acceptable than their lives were. I know that's pretty dark, but there is some light too (Benny is Langston, and Langston is all light). At least as much light as I've ever been able to write, which I suppose is far less than I thought it was. 

At least that's how it was two years ago. Even with an outline to save me, feelings still have a way of breaking through.

Sofia Coppola recently said, "There's a depth of being really in touch with your feelings and noticing details that I think adults are too busy to notice. I feel this is a superpower that teenage girls have."

I've decided that novel no. 2 will be something different: a complete inversion. It will mostly be light, so distractingly light, so dreamy, with the horror on the edges, like a tide coming in. And the tide always comes in.

I still have the notebook of the first story I ever wrote.

It is black and spiral bound, covered in kitten stickers. Inside, the story is called "The Campout", and it definitely follows too closely to Jason at Camp Crystal Lake, but none of the other fourth graders knew that. They just liked to see their names in print; who would be offed next and how. The best friends and the cutest crush almost made it to the end. And that definitely meant something. 

Everything in writing always means something.

things I miss about florida:

 

[ ] my grandma

[ ] roadtrips with grandma all over Florida, where we would get lost and still be happy, laughing at our good fortune for the sun being out and finding our way home

[ ] the sunsets

[ ] the green light of everything after a good rain, how the green light is the sky and the grass

[ ] all the flowers

[ ] all the birds

[ ] driving my old VW to all the little beach towns and river towns, on all the backroads grandma showed me

[ ] the rainbow at lowry park zoo and how on the other side of it was a ton of amusement park rides

[ ] longboarding everywhere

[ ] biking everywhere

[ ] kayaking everywhere

[ ] dance clubs

[ ] how everyone always dresses / dresses up

[ ] la terisita at the end of the night

[ ] the psychic cafe in Ybor

[ ] the long walk to get the best slice of pizza after the clubs close

[ ] booty jam dance classes

[ ] falling asleep on the beach

[ ] falling asleep by the pool

[ ] the sound of heavy, heavy rain

[ ] vintage shopping

[ ] malls

[ ] movie houses

[ ] the Tampa Theatre

[ ] feeling grounded and connected to the history around me / my parallel history

[ ] weekee watchee (the mermaid show)

[ ] grouper sandwiches 

[ ] cuban sandwiches

[ ] cafe con leche 

[ ] The University of Tampa

[ ] Plant Hall

[ ] museums (Tampa Art, Ringling)

[ ] aquariums

[ ] boat rides

[ ] manatees and dolphins

[ ] riding a motorcycle across the bridge to Clearwater

[ ] St. Pete

[ ] Jannus Landing

[ ] live music everywhere

[ ] everyone is in a band

[ ] playing pool with Amanda at the bowling alley

[ ] late nights visiting different friends at different hours when they got out of work

[ ] bookstores

[ ] record shops

[ ] having a tan all the time

[ ] being outside all the time

[ ] screened in porches and damp patio chairs

[ ] rich friends of friends houses

[ ] Bayshore Blvd at night

[ ] Gasparilla

[ ] Aunt Myla's house (both of them)

[ ] playing cards (Skipbo and rummy)

[ ] Granny's back porch

[ ] my Donald Duck fishing pole

[ ] photo dark rooms

[ ] the old oak trees

[ ] the sounds of frogs

[ ] drinking a pot of coffee and reading an entire novel in an afternoon

[ ] long walks

[ ] boardwalks

[ ] Rainbow Springs

[ ] my dad's laugh

Picnic Print Top + Pants

 

before Tim and I met, eloped, and hit the road, I spent years and years dedicated to fashion design and making my own clothes. I've tried to continue over these last fist-fulls of years, but with living in tiny apartments and moving so often, I was never able to have another permanent sewing space. then when we moved to Maine and started cheer, I broke both my sewing machine and serger altering cheer uniforms. that was about two years ago. then, this last Christmas, Tim surprised me with a new Brother sawing machine, and he had the idea that I could turn the sunroom (my favorite room in the house!!) into a sewing room. I'm so excited! and today, I spent the last few weeks building the space 😊.

 I am so excited to get started again and teach Evelyn along the way. Yesterday, we went to the fabric store and picked out fabrics and patterns. Shes been really into wide collars and long-sleeve tees lately, and she really loves the sailor pants I always wear and has been asking for her own. 

Today was the inaugural sewing project day, and I made Evelyn a pink and white picnic check boat neck top with long sleeves. I definitely felt a little rusty (esp bc i was learning a new sewing machine at the same time), but it was also a super instinctual and fun project (though little kid sizes are tough to sew on machines). 

Making clothes is so fun because you get to figure out better ways to do things as you go. After I finish making the pants, I am going to start on a vintage-pattern dress. I have an idea to find all the vintage patterns I can and make all the clothes (just on the sewing machine and no serger), so I can learn all the techniques. It'll be fun to hunt down vintage patterns too. (Do you remember the nonfiction book about the woman who learned to cook by making every recipe in The Joy of Cooking?).

Happy Birthday, Tim, you're the greatest.

Tim Snyder's birthday is on Monday, and since he's the greatest and my favorite person in the entire world, I thought it would be a good gift to hunt down as many of his old college and high school basketball articles that I could. I started about a year ago. It was a fun research project, especially his high school years, because I didn't know him then. He sounds exactly the same, though he may disagree. These are my favorite of the bunch, and they're all in chronological order. I may be partial, but the ones at the end (from Charlotte High) are my favorite. 

on ghosts

Yesterday was a strange day for me. I drove to Bangor to attend my first ever book fair as a writer, sitting behind a table, talking to people about my book. I don't know what I was thinking when I signed up. Maybe that I would be a different person, one who is actually pretty okay at talking to strangers, which I am not. I've never been. I remember one of my first times in New York, my friend David threw a party at his apartment so I could meet all of his friends and what not. I think I lasted 45 minutes before I disappeared into a dark room to watch movies, spending half the time trying to will myself back into the party and the other half of the time asleep. The party lasted a long time. I have no idea what happened.

Yesterday's book fair was kind of like that, except the only room to hide in was the author's break room, and it was full of delightful writers who were wonderful at speaking to others, so it wasn't really the same as a dark room to watch movies. I spent most of my day at my table, writing in my journal. It was at the book fair that I really started working on my new writing project. I don't know if that sounds more romantic than it actually was. 

If you went to undergrad or grad school with me, you know I read books in public places to avoid talking to people. Writing in my journal was equal to that. I was on the third floor of the library, under very bright lights, next to a very kind author who gave me tips on how to do the selling part of all of this. 

I left the book fair having sold a few books and a plan on a post-it note for how to better handle the weird space of the book fair. Have you ever read Kafka's "The Hunger Artist"? It sounds dramatic, but it felt like that. Maybe I wasn't the Hunger Artist himself, but I was definitely part of the show, and I did not like it. I want to learn to like it though, or at least make friends with other writers in the area, so it isn't so much of being a stranger.

Anyway, I left the book fair with:

• having sold a few books
• a plan on a post-it note (I've already sent an email to my local library, ordered businesses cards with QR codes, and a large matted poster of the book cover-- I am heeding all advice)
• and a few pages of writing about the house I grew up in

When I spent the two or so hours writing at the book fair, I stayed on topic, but my mind wandered through the space of all these old memories. I remembered Bunky and JR, Fran and Candy. The pink trailer, the burned down walls, the dog house castles around the yard. The swamp and skinned rattle snakes, the legs of my crib in bowls of water to keep away the ants. I wandered the space, paced the rooms in my mind, all while in this incredibly uncomfortable physical space of the book fair. 

At the end of the day, the roads were bad. The state police closed the interstate between Bangor and home. I drove the state roads home, which ended up being the very, very, very best part of my day. It was like driving through a silent snow globe, through all those small towns covered in snow. If you grew up in Florida and closed your eyes, imagining what Christmas in New England would look like, it was just like that. The road took me all the way to my front door, which seemed unbelievable. 

I should have know all these remarkably disparate spaces would come to something, and here it is. A dream:

I was at a baseball game with the cheerleaders. It was summertime-- everything was green and gold and humid. We were in an open-air stadium with metal bleachers and an awning. The cheerleaders were spread throughout the stands. I called for the "Hello" cheer twice, but there were so many people in the stands, munching popcorn and excited to be there, that it was too loud to hear anything. We decided to leave the stands and head down to the field. I walked down the aluminum stairs and waited at the pass to get to the field. There were a lot of people still coming into the stands. That's when I saw my dad. He was in the sunshine, about to come into the shade of the stands where I was. He was wearing one of those old Clanton Welding t-shirts that my mom made when he first took over the shop. The writing on the shirt was gold-stitched and slightly crooked. His face was turned away from me, but I knew he was smiling. He had a big belly and really long, golden brown hair. He was holding a little blonde baby. I was stunned. I reached out to touch his shoulder, but right when I did, I realized it wasn't him. It was a thin man with short, thin hair. He was wearing a black shirt. It was like right when my dad left the sunshine, he wasn't there anymore.

That was the end of the dream. When I woke up this morning, I read what I wrote yesterday. I should probably come to expect these visits in my dreams because I am now letting my mind go into rooms I've pretended weren't there. Its like the old stories of the old families who only lived in one-room of a castle. 

on writing

Ever since I was a little kid, there has been a distinct separation between the inside and the outside. And at some point the world of the inside and the world of the outside switched places. 

The outside used to be the dark parts. The outside was things that happened, most of which I did not have language for. The things on the inside were arts and crafts, my friends and pets, girl scouts, making up dances. On the inside, I was all kittens and rainbows. 

Even when i was a kid, I knew there were shadows at the edges of things, but I tried to ignore them. It's like when you were little, and you knew there was a monster in your bedroom, but you were too scared to move. So you pulled the blanket over your head and tried to be so, so still. That totally works for the monsters that aren't really there, but it never, ever works for the ones that are. Even if the inside and outside have switched places, the monster is still the same. 

Ever since first grade, the bridge between the inside and the outside was writing. When I was small and I didn't have the language for my experiences, I wrote scary stories about camp outs. I wrote about haunted houses. things like that. 

But when I got a little older, and I had the language for my experiences, everything changed. The things that happened on the outside were now on the inside. I stopped writing stories and started hiding everything in the abstract space of poetry. And the weird thing about poetry-- at least the thing I think is weird about poetry-- is that it can pull a person in and push them away at the same time. It mirrors the dichotomy of the inside and the outside. 

Writing is the expression of the outside pulled in. It is a way to name, to braid the parts that unraveled. To tell the story of what it looks like to be in those dangerous spaces when you have nothing but a blanket to pull over your head. 

This expression is safer-- for me -- in poetry. Fiction demands that a writer be brave. In poetry, you can "tell the truth but tell it slant," just like Dickinson said. But that's transparent in fiction. 

Whenever anyone talks to me about The Swallows, I instantly get weird. I don't do it on purpose, but the book itself feels like I accidentally said all of the things I'm most afraid of. 

When I wrote the book, my main goal was to get Pearl through it. To see her and Benny through to the other side, as safe as I could make that happen. It was more than I had ever done for any of the other heroines I had ever written into my stories. If you've read my other stuff, you know this. My girls never get through anything. They're always devoured by the circumstances of their poverty, of their family lines, of the things that pushed them out onto the road.

I thought Pearl was different, and in a lot of ways she is. She is probably a fuller version of who is meant to be there. 

I finished The Swallows last Thanksgiving. I remember waking up at 3 am to write and being done with it. I didn't write for a year. and even now, I don't feel like a writer. I'm in this strange place where I'm collecting ideas, but I haven't been able to put them anywhere. Part of it, of course, is the way I feel I am bulling though the happenings of my life. My best quality is my ability to recover and keep going. I'm not sure if this is a quality of youth or an actual part of my personality. I will know soon enough.

One year to the day that I stopped writing, I started journaling again. I think the journaling is helping me to put down some things I haven't wanted to write about, but none of it is creative. Not even close. 

Tim thinks I put the idea of being a writer on the mantel and look at it, like I never see it as a part of who I am. That might be true. It's that dichotomy. He says that I need to write about myself. He says I need to write about my childhood, growing up, those kinds of things. 

I don't know. He's probably right. For a while I thought he wasn't. But after avoiding writing for a year and finally coming back to it, I am seeing that I am already writing about it, and it is probably what I am supposed to do. Right now, I am reading this really wonderful book called The Playwright's Guidebook, and Spencer has this part at the start about how some playwrights he has worked with have lost their minds over working on a play they were forcing. They were writing the thing they wanted to write and avoiding the thing they needed to write.

Maybe the need comes to nothing. But you have to get through the need in order to write the want. 

I guess, in the end, Tim is probably right. I need to write it out, even if it means nothing. 

However, tonight I came up with an idea on how I am going to do this. And I think it is the structure and strangeness I need to balance out the dark parts and the beautiful ones. 

dad

 I feel really sad tonight. its always there, it just crashes back and forth, depending if I can turn the sadness inside or not. when I have to think about other people so much, its easy to turn it inside, to feel it knocking around in my brain and heart, sinking into my belly. it's easier to focus on other people, other problems. thats always been easier for me. I don't know. my best, most full-bellied memories of my family are from when i was a kid, and we were so poor, and he was the easiest person to talk to. if I were to wish anything were different, I'd have to wish he were different and me too, and I don't wish that. If I could wish anything, I'd be in my dad's truck at the bus stop in seventh grade, and he'd be telling me how everything is going to be okay, and I'd reluctantly believe him.