Yesterday someone hit a young deer and left her dying and alone on a rainy road in the forest. A friend of mine came along, and instead of driving by, stopped. Seeing how badly the deer was injured, she went for help. She called me since I live within a few hundred yards of where this happened, and then found her husband and his gun, in case that was needed. I agreed to meet them, but instead beat them there. 

The baby and I were alone for a few minutes. It was clear she was dying and I will spare you how I knew. Her beautiful large eyes saw me, her dainty legs tried to run. I spoke to her, trying to keep my very human voice from terrifying her. ‘It’s okay baby, it’s okay to let go, I’m sorry this happened, I’m sorry for your terror, it’s okay to go.’ 

No one should die alone. 

And she didn’t. I saw her death, seconds before my friend arrived. She and I waited in the rain, but there were no more heartbeats, no more breath. My friend bent to touch her side, to make sure. I think it was a touch of hope because we knew the signs. And yet she touched, just in case. A warm, caring hand over a still warm body, a still heart.

Together, we took hold of the baby’s legs and pulled her to the edge of the road, back to the forest she’d come from. Dragging her left her head cocked at an unnatural angle. My friend gently lifted the head to a more natural position. A more comfortable position. We stayed with her a moment longer, then hugged and went to our homes. 

I cried. A lot. And called my oldest sister to ask her to speak to the deer for me. I needed to know that my presence had not terrified the animal more, hastened her death. I needed comfort. As all big sisters do, mine knew exactly what to do and how to help dry tears.

Both my friend and I can’t lose the sensation of touching the deer. I hope my friend writes a poem about it because she is a beautiful poet and I know her words will be healing. 

When I came home I could smell the deer on my hands. The musk, the wild, the fear. I washed immediately and now wish I’d held that remaining scent of life a little longer. I can still feel the roughness of her hair against my fingers. And the weight of her, so slight, as we pulled her off the road. 

I have never touched a wild animal. I’ve been close to them, to bears and cougars in particular. But not to touch. It’s not the same thing as a petting zoo, this touching one that is truly wild, in its own home. It’s so wrong that it happened this way. 

I understand accidents happen, that this driver came around a corner on a narrow forested road, probably going too fast, and didn’t have time to stop. But the driver made the choice to keep going, to leave a living being to face death alone. Yes it would have been scary and I get that the person may not have been able to deal with it. But they left it to others to deal with it, to carry that touch, that smell, those dark eyes, forever. So for that, I have one word for the driver.

Karma.

One thing that whetted my fascination with the trail was reading Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, which is about his trek along the Appalachian Trail. While he can be a bit hard on the forest service, the book made me laugh.

So when my sister gave me Cheryl Strayed’s new book, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, I was excited to read it. Unfortunately the excitement didn’t carry through many pages.

The author hiked the trail to deal with a life that spiraled out of control after the death of her mother. The book took loss, and put it in a unique setting. The writing is polished, the pace moves right along, and the people she meets on the trail are interesting. And in one case scary.

What seemed to be missing, for me, was balance. Meaning by about two-thirds through, I decided I’d had enough navel gazing (and I have to admit, what felt like whining) and not enough of the trail. When the author finally had her breakthrough in dealing with her mother I felt relieved, as if I could now get on with the business of hiking. Unfortunately the book remained on the same path. I wanted more details than just how heavy the pack was or how many toenails remained at the end of the day.

There are a lot of uncomfortable passages and one scene with a horse that is terrible. None made me think or question or grow. They just made me squirm. And I think the analogy Strayed tried to draw with the memory of the horse didn’t work.

In the places where the author did talk about the trail, she did okay with descriptions. I could see the views and feel the weather. But it felt like a tiny snippet of trail, which then segued into a large hunk of grieving. The problem for me, then, was a lack of balance between outer and inner worlds. Plus the fact that, to be honest, the inner world got a bit tiresome.

If you want a book on moving forward after loss, on a life that was self-destructing and slowly pieced back together, then this might be worth reading, though I found it more self-centered than similar memoirs. If you want a book on hiking in the wilderness, read the Barefoot Sister’s books, or Bryson’s.  His may not be about the PCT but when he realizes his friend just chucked all the toilet paper over the cliff because it was too heavy, you’ll find yourself standing right next to him.

In Wild, I never found myself on the trail.

The cynical side of me spoke up. Along the lines of how authors must still feel a tiny bit of shame that there isn’t a publishing house listed under their title. My friend explained the business sense behind having a press, and I get that. I’m even considering it, talking to another friend about starting a small local press.

But let me be brutally honest here. I would feel more like a ‘real’ author if I had a publisher’s name behind me. Heck, even a small press that I started would make me lose that tiny seed of shame when someone asks me, ‘who published your book?’ I could say the name of the press rather than ‘me’.

Dang that makes me mad. That tiny seed of shame. Why am I less of an author, in this day and age, because I am not under a contract, signing my life away to a big name? The truth is, I’m not less of a writer. My stories are just as valuable. Well, I may need a lot more editing than most, but that’s a previous blog post.

Now that my dander is up and I’m continuing the honesty theme, I think even using the phrase ‘I’m an indie author’ is covering up for that seed of shame. Otherwise I’d say ‘I’m self published’. Yes I know there’s a difference between self publishing and self publishing through a vanity press. Yes I know all the arguments for publishing free of an agent and big name. After all, I researched all the pros and cons before I chose which route to go. But still, there’s that ingrained sense of not being a truly published author yet.

You know what I think the problem is?

Age.

Think about it. I grew up when an author’s dream was to land an agent and get picked up by a major publishing house. All the resources for writers explained in detail how to market yourself to an agent.

These days, younger writers are growing up free from that. They are like my teenage son, who amazes me with his computer skills. Compared to me, growing up with a manual typewriter. These young people haven’t had those publishers held in front of them as the only path to being an author. Options and alternatives are more acceptable.

Guess I need to get with the times.

Think I’ll go start a small local press.

He’s also skilled with engines. Not that I’m bragging.

You know what I mean. How dare you take time to sit and write, when there are dirty dishes in the sink? When dinner has to be made, eggs collected, dogs fed, etc., etc.

If it wasn’t the specter of chores slapping me with guilt, it was a little voice whispering that my writing would never benefit the family, that I needed to do something to help out more.

Then of course there’s the guilt for taking time to write ‘when you know you’re really not any good’. That’s the nasty inner guilt-slinger again.

Today is a very wet day in the woods. Raining, after days of rain. A perfect time to build up the fire, put on the kettle, and write. Right? Until guilt reared up. So first I went out into the rain and planted several things that were gasping in too-tiny pots. Into bigger pots, and some into the ground, went bell peppers, thyme, marjoram, parsley, costmary, lovage, sage, golden bush, forget-me-nots, beans, peas, and…well you get the idea. I came inside in late afternoon soaked.

Don’t get me wrong. I love that feeling of coming inside cold and wet, knowing you’ve accomplished something. There have been many, many times I’ve worked out in the rain. In the Pacific Northwest, if you wait for good weather, you’ll never get anything done. I remember days of climbing up into the woods with my father to repair the pipeline that brought water to a water wheel and generated electricity for us. Coming back down covered in mud, soaking wet, hauling a soggy backpack full of tools, smelling like pipe glue. I loved coming inside, where my mother would have tea waiting. Or hot chocolate and cinnamon toast. A reward for the work.

And that’s what I realized today. Writing is my reward for work. I have to ‘earn’ the words. If I do something first, I am then justified in taking time for myself. It’s stupid when I spell it out like this because no one puts that expectation on me. My husband is the first one to tell me, leave everything and go write. Matter of fact, he’s doing the dishes right now.

If the only way I can silence guilt is to buy it off by doing some chores first, then I guess that’s what I’m going to have to do.

Now what I need to learn is how many chores is enough. Because I also have a tendency to do so much that I end up too tired to write, or with no time left in the day. But oh well. One lesson at a time.

The fire was stoked and beating back the chill in the old house.

Okay, easy to fix. Even I could see that without looking at editor comments. Well, after the fact of course. I didn’t see it when originally writing it. The sentence quickly became:

The stoked fire beat back the chill in the old house.

And then I got stuck. The editor suggested ‘of’ rather than ‘in’. I spent so much time going back and forth that I came here  instead.

Really, is such a small word worth such indecision? It appears so.

‘Of’ makes me think of an old house that’s always cold, even in summer. Damp maybe, with that smell of something closed up too long. It speaks of a house not lived in, not loved, or maybe lived in once by a nasty old lady with binoculars.

When I think of ‘in’ I imagine there is an outside force making the house cold at this particular moment. Which is the case here as it’s winter, the protagonist is alone in a home she doesn’t belong to yet, and her mother is back making demands.

So I’m going to stick with ‘in’. It feels right to me.

And I’ve now spent half an hour debating between two-letter words. I do believe though, very strongly, that it’s this level of detail that makes a story. Just the right word in just the right place. Or at least what I perceive to be just the right word.

Dang, here’s another two letter word.

Cody opened up the journal. That just became, Cody opened the journal. Why didn’t I make that simple change while writing the story initially? Who knows. At least it was pointed out to me before going to print.

At this rate I’m going to spend all day on the first paragraph in this chapter. But at least I’m not at work, and the tea is still hot, and the next paragraph will be there tomorrow. For today, as they say, the devil is in the details.

I wonder how that expression came in to being. I refuse to google it and research it and delay my next two-letter word stumbling block.

Back to work.

My writing companion watching chickens

“Well, think of it: there used to be whole libraries full of books like this, copied out by hand…all the time and effort those poor buggers the monks put into each one. We take it for granted now, don’t we – the printing press, the copy machine, the Internet. I mean, words lose their value, in a way, don’t they, when you’re drowning in them?”

So many things jumped into my poor brain. How computers have reduced penmanship for one. But we are drowning in words and I think that has cheapened them. Look at how we contract into slang for twitter and texting. Look how fast and easy it is to share a quick post on Facebook rather than writing out a letter, addressing the envelope, going to the post office for a stamp.

Then there’s the old debate among writers about using a keyboard or paper and pen. Obviously we use what works best for us. Personally I love the computer because I type faster than I write and when those words are flowing that’s valuable.

Sometimes though, there will be a need, an urge, to slow down. To pick up a pen, place it to paper, and watch each letter form. To see the birth of a word slowly, trailed in ink.

I prefer to take notes by hand because the material sticks in my mind. If I type notes, the information doesn’t seem to fix onto the brain cells. It’s as if that slower formation of words gives my thoughts time to absorb.

So now picture those ancient illuminated manuscripts. Think about the time each and every letter took. And not just the time to form the letter but also the time to make the paper, gather the nuts and herbs and bark to mix and create the ink. All that work before being able to even dip the quill and create an individual letter, a whole word, that became art.

As a writer, I strive to make words into story and am happy if it comes out readable. A much lower level of standard than those monks, for whom each individual letter was highly valued.

So what do you think? Do we undervalue words now? Have they become cheap? Or maybe it’s not the words that are cheap these days, but our time to write. We carve out a few seconds in the day to type out a quick tweet, rather than sitting down on a Sunday afternoon with pen and stationary to answer letters.

My oldest sister still sends out cards and letters. With note cards she sometimes makes herself. I value those.

Even though (I’m ashamed to admit) I rarely take time to answer.

I’ve been working hard since. 

I seem to have a love of the passive voice. In particular those pesky ‘had’ and ‘was’ words. In my defense (read excuse), I struggled with this story. It was the first thing I wrote after three years of radiation fallout. You can see where I started getting into the rhythm of writing again, when the story started to smooth out. Right about the same time it was ending. That’s a good excuse but I’m still writing the same way. In this paragraph alone there are two uses of ‘was’ that I could have done without. I could have gone back and edited, changing ‘was ending’ to ‘ended’. But I wanted to show what I’m talking about.

What I can’t figure out is how those words managed to stay invisible when I did all the editing work over the holidays. I mean, I know what to look for. I do know how to use the ‘find’ tool in the Word programs. And yet I never did that because I never saw the words. So because they weren’t popping out, they didn’t exist and I didn’t need to search for them. All I needed to do was pat myself on the back for doing such a good first draft.

It’s a mystery how they all showed up after I got the revisions back. Maybe my editor friends added them in to keep me humble.

If so, they did an awful lot of work. I imagine my word count will have dropped in half by the time I’m done.

Well, maybe it’s not quite that bad, but still, I’m shaking my head. One editor gave up suggesting changes and just started highlighting every usage. You should see all the yellow. I now have a very sunny manuscript.

I need to figure out a way to rip off that invisibility cloak on the next story. Otherwise my two editing friends might run screaming when they see me coming with pages in hand.

Years ago my mother decided she swore too much and switched to flower names. Not too long after, she was caught with a swear word passing her lips. My father said, ‘what happened to ‘petunia’? My mother responded, very firmly, that sometimes petunia just didn’t do the job.

I understand that a bit more now. During all the radiation fallout a few years ago, my emotions were erupting. My doctor told me if I wanted to cry, to cry. If I wanted to scream, to scream. So I did. Well, maybe not screaming. But I slammed doors and started cussing.

So a few years ago I pitched a story idea to an agent. During the pitch, he asked if there were swear words in the story. One character did cuss. He told me if accepted, I’d have to change that. His readers expected books with no profanity. I passed on the agent. Swearing was part of the character. Plus, that personality trait served to emphasize the protagonist’s opposite traits of tentativeness, dominated by a parent, and naive about life. (Rachel and Cody for those who have read The Memory Keeper). I decided Rachel was a cussing kind of girl and needed to stay that way.

There will always be arguments for and against swear words in books. There will always be readers who choose books based on those particular words rather than all the other words that make up a story. Which is fine. But writers must be true to their characters and their stories rather than writing to a particular audience.

Swear words also seem to be a cultural thing. Back in the early 20th century, it would have been hard to find books with swear words. Books reflected the times, and you didn’t hear cussing very often on radio shows or television. Whether you think it’s a good change or not, swearing is commonplace now, and art forms reflect that cultural change. Though some swear words are more socially acceptable than others.

It makes me wonder what people think of swearing, in the books they read.

Finally, I just have to say that this evening  I was outside in the dark and rain, with my head lamp as the only light, chasing two ducks named Larry and Curly, in circles around the coop, slipping in mud and duck-do. Shouting out ‘you f***ing birds!’ at the top of my lungs felt a lot better than if I’d said, ‘dang it, you stupid birds, why can’t you figure out the ramp like Mo does?’

I swear. Doubt that makes me a better person, but it lowers the blood pressure. And I’m keeping the character of Rachel and her cussing around for the sequel.

Larry, Mo, and Curly before they started leading me on the merry coop chase.

The same friend (I’ll let her identify herself in comments if she wishes) told me she’d be uncomfortable house sitting for us because she’d be afraid to go outside. I assume it’s the lack of any light, the surrounding woods, the wild animals. Those things that I rarely give consideration to. But this is the same friend who managed to walk a lonely road through the woods late at night with no flashlight, because she had no choice. So she has the courage to function in spite of fear. I still wonder though, what is at the root of that fear of the dark. The unknown? The unseen?

This same friend lives in the city and thinks nothing of standing at a bus stop late at night. Now that would scare me. Why? Strangers, noise, crowds. And what is the root of that? Unpredictability, lack of control.

Thinking more about this I realize we also fool ourselves into thinking we are safe. Like the following scenario, which happened to me.

You’re in a tent on a camping trip with your husband and small child. It’s late in the season, few campers, cold at night. Your food is stored in iron ‘bear boxes’ with padlocks to keep the bears out of your food. It’s late, pitch black. You’re cozy in the tent, snug in your sleeping bag, safe. Until you hear the clanging of something banging on the bear box. And hear loud snuffling. And see the wall of the tent bulge inward. At that moment you realize that the safe ‘home’ is simply canvas material, easily ripped. And your snug sleeping bag is simply a trap you cannot get out of fast enough. Finally, you realize that by locking all your food in a bear box, the hungry bear must look elsewhere. And now you’re terrified.

In our case all worked out well, of course. But what was terrifying? Again, at the very root, vulnerability, lack of control. And for me, the sudden terror that I might not be able to keep my child safe. Which could be interpreted yet again as lack of control.

So in this story I’m working on, it doesn’t seem to matter what the character is afraid of so much as why they are afraid. If I figure out the why, then maybe the reader will feel that same fear.

So what are you afraid of, and have you ever wondered why?

The photo below is a bronze maple leaf that hangs in a yew tree. My son says it’s creepy because the eyes ‘follow’ him when he walks by. A fear of something inanimate acting like something animate? Who knows.

And okay, I added a spider for my friend. Couldn’t resist.

Do the eyes follow you?

Peppermint – looking spider on a peony.

Here’s what I meant to write about though. On the radio this evening a man talked about a rare disorder where a person feels like they have ceased to exist, that the things they see and touch are not real. It’s possible that something in the brain between our thoughts and our perceptions disconnects for these people. I found that so creepy. Which is the real reason I locked the door. One patient thought she was dead. Think about that.

And then think about how, in writing, the story world, the imagination, the dream, become so real.

This past December we went to Wallace Idaho. I wanted to get winter photos of Nine Mile Cemetery for possible cover art for The Memory Keeper sequel. While there, we wanted breakfast, and I suggested a particular café.

And then remembered that the café doesn’t exist outside of the story. Oh, I based it on a similar one that does exist, but in a different location. In those few moments, my reality was actually my story. It was quite disorientating. I had to actually pause to discern which was real.

The light side is when we fall in love with a story and become immersed in that world so deeply that our stresses and disagreements and worries disappear for a short while.

The dark side is when we forget which is real and which imaginary, when the story becomes the truth. I sometimes think that is what has happened to a young man who lives near here and carries on conversations with people who only exist in his mind. Yes, I know the medical diagnosis of his condition, but sometimes I watch him talking to them and have to wonder.

 Who decides what’s real?

 Okay, I’m very glad the door is locked. Wonder if my husband can leave work early…