Getting Ready for a Book Signing

Next Saturday, I have a book signing for The Loudest Meow at Here's the Scoop in Jamestown, California. The signing is from 11:00 am to 3:00 p.m. Here's the Scoop is located at 18242 Main Street.

I have this opportunity because of the Sonora Writers Group. Jill, our fearless leader, organizes readings at this shop and scheduled me a reading. She also designed a beautiful flyer for me to put up around town.

Last week I woke up every morning and thought, “I really should be putting up flyers around town.” But I had work obligations. I have a home business. I'm an editor and transcriber. I had a lot of deadlines throughout the week. I thought that maybe I could put up some flyers after my dentist appointment on Wednesday. But then I forgot tape. In my past experience with putting up flyers, you need to bring tape with you. If you ask and just leave it, there's a good chance that flyer will never show up in the window. I thought about just going out and buying some. Then I imagined the multiple rolls of tape I had at home. I thought about the three deadlines that still needed to be met. I decided to go out that weekend.

On Saturday, I had to wait until P G & E finished chopping down a dead tree on our lawn. We had set our alarms for 7:00 a.m. so we would be up before they arrived at 8:00. I hit the snooze twice. Then I thought, “I'll just rest here until I hear the beep of the coffee maker.” I could never miss that important sound. But I did. I slept until 9:00, and then I thought,”That's okay. Mike wanted to see the tree come down. I needed to sleep.” It was a chocolate-cake kind of a sleep, deep, delicious, just the kind of rest you want before you venture out into the world to put up flyers.

So we traveled down the hill, Mike and I, first stopping at Here's the Scoop. The owner didn't recognize me from the picture that Jill had sent her. My hair was down. It's longer. I had a hat on, that Mike thinks it's too big, but I like my hats and my T-shirts loose. I was wearing sunglasses. But we joked around. She told me that another author had brought in an ukelele and sang some songs. I told her I wish I had that talent, but perhaps I would read, if the mood felt right. I hung a flyer on the door and set out on the town. (Mike stayed behind and ate ice cream. This was my thing. I was grateful that he was driving me around.)

Jamestown is a quaint historic place with a main street of several blocks. I had never really explored it before. We live in a neighboring town. To my delight, I found a homemade fudge shop. (But the owner was out. The sign said she'd be back in ten minutes, but I was on a mission. I couldn't even wait around for fudge.) I ventured into a bar where I think I might have interrupted a flirtation. But they weren't saying anything! There was just a strong vibe between the bartender and the lady sitting at the counter. He scrutinized my flyer, and after a long moment, agreed. When I started walking with my tape to the front window, he said there was no room up there. But there was! I had visually measured it before walking in. I kept my mouth shut and put the flyer up in the window where he delegated me. The woman at the counter left. Before I exited, I checked out the bar jukebox. Elvis Presley. Johnny Cash and June Carter singing “Jackson.” Could I put up with the bartender's attitude and being in a bar in general to listen to that song? That's a definite maybe.

I found some more bulletin boards and then headed back to my rendezvous point. Before we left, I ordered two scoops of ice cream to go—time was a-wasting—and we headed off to downtown Sonora, where at every shop that I asked, people asked questions about The Loudest Meow. I told them about my calico cat, how she had died unexpectedly, and how I felt that the only way to get through my grief was to write about her and imagine what she was doing in the afterlife. I told them that, in my imagination, the afterlife was populated with our other cats that has passed on. In the story I created, these cats resolved old grievances and made new connections. The people I met listened and nodded. They told me stories of how they had mourned for their animals. They showed me pictures of the cats currently in their lives. It turned out to be a really fun way to spend an afternoon.

The Notion of a Letter

The other day, I remembered something I did while writing my first book. At that point, I felt rather battered and bruised. It was my first book. I didn’t really know what I was doing. (Please know that there are times now when I also feel that I don’t know what I’m doing, but it’s a ta higher level. I can feel that and then laugh. I have that back-up experience now that I’ve done it before. I can do it again. I can feel the story calling to me. But that wasn’t how it felt when I wrote my book.)

At that point, I really didn’t know if I could do it. I felt the wind against my face. I doubted myself. I was full of criticism about my book. And then I stopped and took a breath. I pulled out my notebook, and I wrote a letter to my book. I apologized to my book for putting it down. I told my book that I would show up for it. I promised that I would give my all. I said that I couldn’t promise always to be kind because I wasn’t always kind to myself, but I would try my best. And that changed everything. It made me realize that this wasn’t a relationship with me and others in the world. This was a connection between me and my book, and I had to keep my head straight about that. Maybe this will be helpful to you, too. I hope so.

First Drafts: From Beginning to Middle

I'm currently in the middle of a first draft of the second book of this talking cat fantasy series, tentatively titled The Sharpest Claw. I thought I would share with you some overall thoughts on the process so far.

First of all, when I talk about writing a first draft, I'm referring to the linear act of writing a book. This is after an idea has whispered in my ear and characters have danced around in my head, after notes, scene lists, and arrangements of moments to make up a story. When I hunker down with my notebook to write chapters, that to me is when the first draft officially begins.

For people who are interested in time and writing, I started on this first draft on August 13th. I write an hour a day. At this moment, October 14th, I'm in the middle of things. The fur is just about to fly. As with everything else, all writers are different, but this is a fairly consistent pace for me.

This will be my fourth book. I'm noticing now certain emotional processes that seem to occur with each first draft. So here they here are. Spoiler alert: I'm ending this post with where I am right now, the middle. I will write more about the middle to end later on. So here goes:

Exuberance: When I start a first draft, it seems effortless and fun. This is the “piece of cake” phase. I try to enjoy this as much as I can because I know it's not going to last.

Confusion: Characters start to “misbehave.” They act outside the confines of the outline. This is when I pace around the house in my bathrobe muttering, “Something is wrong.” At this point, I need Spock ears because I need to seriously listen to what my characters have to say.

Enlightenment: A realization of what to do often occurs right after I wake up, or I'm in the shower, or I'm in the middle of a walk. A sentence will float into my head that is the answer to everything. That idea is generally followed by a Snoopy dance.

Reassessment: Often, a few days later, I see that the answer wasn't entirely right. It needs to be tweaked. Flap B actually needs to fold under Flap D in order for everything to work.

Ennui: I am just getting out of this phase now. It's like being in a swamp, where I feel like I know what I need to write, but it seems like drudgery, like if I lift up my pen, my head will nod, and I will fall off into a Rip Van Winkle-style sleep. It's all a trick. The characters are just about to get into some serious pain. Who wants to venture there? But once I realize that's what's going on now, I'm wide awake again, ready to dive deep.

So that's where I'm at. If you would like to comment on your process of first-draft writing, please do so. Again, I will write more about this once the draft is done.

On Being Late, Showing Up, and Figuring out the Story

I'm late this week!

We took a road trip on Sunday. And then I thought I could make it up on Monday, but I found myself submerged in my day job (editing and transcription obligations).

Later on tonight, I'm taking a medication so that when I go to the dentist tomorrow, I will not be afraid. Then an hour before the procedure, I'll be taking another round of this drug. I have no idea how this medication is going to impact me. I just know that Mike has to drive me, and I've told him to make sure that when they do the procedure, there's a dog on my lap. (There are two dogs that work at my dentist's office.)

The world feels weird this week.

So let me just share one thing.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about a character who I knew had to be in the story, but I was having trouble figuring out where. I thought she was going to show up early in Book 2, but she asked to come in later. I thought we were talking about Book 2, but I later figured out she meant Book 3. I think that's right. For a while, in this first draft, I was writing two versions of chapters because I couldn't figure out whether she was meant to be here at this point or not.

I confided my process to Mike.

“No,” he said, “That can't be right.”

“I have to do it,” I told him, “until I can figure out the story.”

I have to say that I'm still glad that I spend my time brainstorming and outlining before I start writing my draft. Sometimes I have to laugh because when I start writing linearly, I always think I have it figured out, and then my characters rebel. But it still anchors me, even when I have to change it.

And then it became clear. How did I know what to do? I'm not quite sure. I think my other characters told me that they needed more room to sing. It's funny. When I originally envisioned this character, I imagined her connected to one of the characters, and then I changed it. In Book 3, she'll have her original affiliation. Thinking about it now, it makes complete sense. At least right now it does. I reserve the right to change my mind.

This process reminds me of something I went through with Book 1 of this series. In that draft, I struggled with the ending. I actually sent the draft off to my beta readers and then realized it wasn't right. I had ended it on a note that didn't was mid-stanza. I needed to finish the song. I fought it. I felt that it would slow down my schedule, as now my beta readers wouldn't be able to finish what I had written because I hadn't written it yet. That felt embarrassing to me. And it felt like I had to write a lot more, and I wanted to be done, and it wasn't coming out easily. So how could it be right? I had to rewrite it many times.

But in the end, I was really glad I had listened to myself, even though I hadn't wanted to. I think the ending is my favorite part of Book 1. I really don't like having favorites, but I do have a soft spot for those moments at the end.

And this is what I think writing does. It trains you to listen to yourself, to trust yourself. It allows you to make “mistakes.” It lets you know that you can circle around as many times as you need until it feels right all the way down to your bones.

When we took the road trip, I didn't know if I would be able to write the blog on Sunday. I probably should be more disciplined to make sure that that happens, but right now, I'm not there yet. But I do have to say that I did a double writing session on my draft on Saturday. I told Mike that I would so I wouldn't feel cranky on a day we went out of town.

“But aren't you always a bit cranky?” he asked.

He teased. A bit.

But I knew that I would be seriously off if I didn't get that work in. And this week, although I'm late, and I thought of just not writing a post because we took a road trip and I'm about to take drugs so that I don't freak out at the dentist, and I'm going through a procedure tomorrow, and there's always work to do. But in the end, I had to do it. It just doesn't feel right not to. So I thank you for reading, and I'll see you next week, hopefully on Sunday. That is my plan.

Cemeteries, Water, Cats, Black Squares, and Loneliness

I'm sorry to post late this week. Things happened.

On Saturday, we had a big event at the Sonora Odd Fellows Cemetery. I am an Odd Fellow. As an organization, Odd Fellows care about cemeteries. It's part of an Odd Fellow tradition—honoring the dead, wanting those who passed to have respectful burials. When Odd Fellows lodges were first founded, they often bought cemetery plots nearby. Our Sonora lodge, the tenth oldest in California, established this cemetery in 1865. Now, as members of this lodge, we have a responsibility to maintain it. We conduct research to find out the stories of the people who are buried there. Once a year, we hold tours where actors tell some of these stories to raise money for our cemetery. This year, I was one of the guides. One of the actors lent me me this great dress complete with petticoat, and I had a straw hat with flowers. As a shy person, it was a big deal to do. I was outside of my comfort zone, but it felt good to stretch.

But in the early morning hours after the event, I woke up to a very painful headache. It hurt so much I couldn't read. In my world, that ranks as an emergency. I felt in too much discomfort to sleep. Both the black-and-white cats cuddled up near me. The two times, I had to run to the bathroom to throw up, they accompanied me and stayed by my side.

During this experience, Mike woke up and questioned me on symptoms and began Googling things. We ended up deciding it was dehydration. We had been at the cemetery since two o'clock that afternoon. I had felt particularly parched when I got there and drank a bottle of water once others arrived with the refreshments. Then I got distracted and didn't drink anything else until I had some more water at dinner after the event. It apparently wasn't enough. Once that mystery was solved, I took two aspirin, borrowed an audio book from Libby, one that I had read before and enjoyed, Eleanor and Park, and eventually dozed off.

The next day, I felt better but not 100 percent. And I had messages from some of my women friends. Apparently there was a call for women to stay off social media today. We were supposed to post a black square as our profile picture and keep our voice off the Internet. I never did change my profile picture. To tell you the truth, I had mixed feelings about the entire venture. Weren't women's voices erased enough? But I ended up staying off social media, primarily out of love for my friends who messaged me. Is that a good enough reason? Maybe it is.

So it threw me off my blogging schedule. I thought that, as a tribute for my cats, who seemed to really be attuned to when I felt sick, I would post this article about Oscar, a cat who is more reliable than the doctors on who is going to die.

Also, right before I went to write, I saw this piece on loneliness that hit my heart. At the core of many of character's problems is this feeling of isolation from the world. I have felt it often in my life, too, particularly when I was young, and I didn't understand how I ticked. (The recipe for my current workings: I need a lot of time to myself. I need a lot of time for my work. I love to work and to walk. In other moments, I like to hang out with Mike and my cats. I love my friends dearly, especially when I can have one-on-one conversations where we really talk. Groups can give me the willies. If I'm in a group, I often need time-outs. You might wonder why I'm constantly going to the bathroom. It's a place I can go where I can escape from a crowd and just be for a moment in my own locked stall. That probably sounds weird, but it is enormously comforting to me.)

Anyway, that's the update on my world. If you would like to tell me about yours, please comment below.