This Thing Called the Future made the ALA 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults list! Whoo-hoo! Party tonight!
Madeleine L’Engle was one of my favorite writers as a child, and I remember being startled by an excerpt in her memoirs when she remembers the time her family gave her a standing ovation when she actually cleaned the kitchen floor.
This made a huge impression on me–the knowledge that one thing (writing) could be more important than another thing (a clean house). It was Madeleine L’Engle’s ability to prioritize and let some things go that allowed her to write through years of rejection letters when she had three kids and she and her husband were running a country store. She worked full-time, she was a full-time mom, and she wrote. Her husband was the one who got up early with the kids and got them off to school so she could stay up late and write.
I could tick off a whole list of things I’ve given up, partly for my writing career and also partly because these things happen naturally when you dedicate yourself to a life of the mind, to a life of creativity. It’s all part of carving out more time for myself and also carving out a life of stillness amidst the noise of modern life and motherhood.
- Without a doubt, housework suffers. While I would love to be more organized, I am not willing to spend my writing hours keeping the clutter at bay or cleaning toilets. My house isn’t a wreck but Martha Stewart would definitely have a heart attack.
- I do not go to parties. I will not use the word “never” here but it is just about. The last party I went to was over a year ago, and it was a gathering of writers, so I can justify it as work. But I am selective about those types of parties, too. Networking is important, and having good writing friends is also important, but most good writing friends understand when you beg off the party in order to write.
- On the weekends, when my husband is home and hanging out with the baby, I catch up with writing–not with housework and not with friends.
- I watch very little television and we don’t go to the movies.
- Most significant, I have given up a full-time job with health benefits, job security, and a good salary. I might add that, until this year, my husband didn’t have those things either.
The hardest thing I’ve had to give up is more recent, and it has everything to do with being a writing mom. A nightly glass of wine has been my habit for the last decade but recently I have given it up. Why? Because I need to work after my son goes to bed, and I don’t feel like working after a glass of wine.
Most of this happened gradually. I used to go to parties, but over time, it got easier to say no, until that was just second nature. I used to be more organized, but then I married Chris and he isn’t the most organized of people. I quickly decided that I could spend all my time picking up after him…or I could let it go. I chose the latter. This has translated into laxness with housework overall, and it has bought me more time to focus on writing.
I don’t think you have to give up everything to be a writer. And I don’t think everybody has to give up the same things. This is what has worked for me. But what about you? What have you given up for your art? Or what is one thing you are willing to give up?
Before I became a mother, I had carved out a pretty cushy writing life for myself. I teach college writing classes online and I do freelance writing and editorial work, so my job was extremely flexible. In the morning when I woke up, I made myself some coffee and sat down to write for four or five hours. Then I would go for a walk or the gym, take a shower, and spend the afternoon grading papers or doing other bill-paying work. If the morning’s writing session had gone particularly well and I didn’t have a lot of pressing “other” work, I might spend the afternoon writing as well. I took weekends “off” but usually spent a couple of hours on the weekend writing anyway.
Writing-wise, I got a lot done. And I could justify the small amount of money the writing actually brought to the household budget because I was getting published and was becoming recognized as a young adult writer of some talent. Costs were minimal and I brought in enough money through teaching and editorial work to make up for what I wasn’t bringing in through writing.
Enter the birth of my son 15 months ago and I was ushered into an entirely different reality. When I wake up in the morning, I still make coffee–but now I hang out with the baby while he plays. I work hard to check my email and get a shower before his morning nap so that I can hit the ground running as soon as his head hits the pillow. I’m still juggling the bill-paying work with my writing career, and it seems like that money doesn’t stretch as far as it did before, so I’m always drumming up new ways to make money, which eats into the writing time even more. I do have a babysitter, but I need her to get the bill-paying work done, especially since my son is a poor sleeper and rarely takes naps longer than an hour. (Hour long naps happen only when I’m lucky!)
I’ve lost the luxury of time, something any mother knows all about.
So I’ve been learning to write in increments. The best advice I’ve received all year came from another writing mother who also juggles a demanding full-time faculty position at a community college. Her kids are older but she knows what writing moms deal with. I was making an appearance at a literary festival and fielding audience questions and her question was this: “How do you balance it all?” I laughed and said, “Not very well!” Afterward, she came over and told me that the year before, she’d started her new job and was wondering how she would keep writing and still keep up with her workload. She’d noticed–as I’ve noticed–that many of the other full-time English faculty “used to write.” She didn’t want her writing to be a casulty of the job. So she asked another faculty member with a strong publishing record in poetry how he managed.
And this is what he told her: “Do a little bit of everything every day.” Do a little bit of grading…do a little bit of writing…do a little bit of committee work…
Her advice hit me like a ton of bricks. My strategy up to that point had been to clear my plate of everything else and then try to get a morning to write. I was always frustrated, though, because I’d get my grading done (it had to get done, after all) and I’d get the editorial work done (I was on deadline, after all) but when I sat down to write, inevitably, that would be the morning when my son wouldn’t take a nap. Or he’d be sick. Or I’d sit at the computer with nothing to write because I wasn’t in the mode for it. I’d never had that problem before–the writing always flowed. And it always flowed because I sat down every day and what I was working on was always in the back of my mind. Take a week or two weeks off and then try to write for several hours–uh-uh, wasn’t happening. The juices take a while to flow and you have to keep them flowing. So writing just a little bit every day makes total sense. If all you have is 15 minutes, do it. If you’re lucky enough to have an hour, take it.
That advice isn’t just for writing, by the way. If you’re anything like me, you battle daily with Creep and Clutter. I’m learning to attack one thing every day. That means I’m not trying to keep everything bright and shiny, but if I can clean one drawer in 15 minutes, at least that one drawer is better. I’m hoping that this will help me get and stay organized over all.
And as for the writing, it’s happening. It’s just a whole lot slower than it used to be….
14 months ago, I became a mother, and the sleepless nights began. Every other baby I know has gone on to sleep through the night, but not my son. He gets up at least 3 or 4 times a night, and frequently gets up 5 or 6 or even 7 or 8 times a night. He wakes screaming and it can take more than an hour for him to go back to sleep. (I learned the hard way that if you leave him in the crib, he’ll just keep crying.) And sometimes he’ll just be awake–wide-awake–for a long time, like last night, when he was up for close to two hours.
I’m not writing to complain. Though I’ve noticed the perpetually dark circles under my eyes, and though some mornings I have to drag myself out of bed, and though some nights I get super mad at him (like last night, where I finally said, in a firm, almost cruel voice, ”Play time is over, my friend,”), I’ve learned to deal.
In fact, recently, I decided to use that time to write. Obviously, I can’t write write. But I can write in my head. I can think about my current novel-in-progress and work out plot problems. Or think about my dreams (which are dramatic and spell-binding and memorable, especially since they get interrupted in media res) and how they could translate into a story. I’ve never been the type of writer who would drag myself out of bed at 3 a.m. to write because I had to get an idea down, but now I’m dragged out of bed most nights at 3 a.m. so at least I can think about things, and then take notes come morning.
I’ll let you know if it works.
It’s been a couple of busy months. November’s highlight was speaking at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conference and the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) Conference in Chicago. The difference was striking! At NCTE, my audience was 3 people; at ALAN, several hundred (possibly up to 600, as the number of attendees was 600 but who knows how many were in the room when I was there.)
I was surprised that fewer authors stuck around to “watch” ALAN. Most of them arrived 15 minutes before their talk with their “handlers”–a publicist or an editor–in tow, and then left as soon as they were done. But I enjoyed watching the show for most of Monday and all of Tuesday.
I heard a great talk by Matt de la Pena and then, later, I was passing through the room when he was on a panel and he quoted his father: “If someone who has nothing tries to give you a gift, always accept it.” Absolute gold, that piece of wisdom; if somebody who has nothing offers you something, they are offering you their love and their heart, and you never reject that, never ever, no matter how humble the gift even if you feel like you shouldn’t accept it because you have “more” than the person giving to you.
Thank you, Sara Zarr, for not falling prey to the fact that you were on the “romantic panel” and for reminding the world that there is a huge problem with the message we receive from, basically, everywhere that we don’t “matter” unless somebody loves us romantically.
My mom came with me–she flew from Texas, I flew from California–and she took care of Nesta for me while I spent time in my publisher’s booth, gave my talks, and generally schmoozed around. They had a great time and Nesta apparently charmed all the ladies who cleaned our hotel room, the concierge, and the bell hops.
Awesome poet and interviewer Marissa Bell Toffoli interviewed me last month and that interview is now live on her website. A highlight: “I want to have the world be tilted a little, to have it look a little bit different to people than before they came into the book…” Please check it out, vote for it, leave comments. Thanks!
The Assembly on Literature for Young People (ALAN) did a fantastic conversation/review of This Thing Called the Future on their blog, Under the Radar. Also a place to post comments! Here’s an excerpt from one of the participants, Bucky: “I like that while it is realistic, there are so many elements of the spiritual and supernatural too. Readers might enjoy deciding for themselves if some of the more mystical elements can be explained by science or something else. Does everything have to have a logical explanation? Subjects or themes explored include sibling and family relationships; conflict between ancient cultural practices and contemporary society; puppy love; coming of age, and more. While the story is a bildungsroman, it bridges the space between literary realism, magical realism, and the more metaphysical “fever dream” element of many vision quests.”
Beverley Naidoo with Jessica Powers at Mission High School
Last week, Beverley Naidoo, the acclaimed children’s writer from South Africa, was in the United States as the keynote speaker for the USBBY conference. I was lucky enough to do several events with her in the Bay Area after her talk was through. We presented at two high schools in San Francisco–Mission High School and George Washington High School. We presented on animals in Africa and animals in our books–which is more complicated than you’d think. Animals in my book, This Thing Called the Future, are all presented on a spiritual level when Khosi encounters witchcraft. For Beverley, she refused to write about or think about animals for so long since she remembered how Africans were presented as animals in children’s picture books when she was a child (Babar being a famous example). But recently, she realized that Aesop must have been North African rather than Greek, that his tales are stamped with African-ness, and so she has begun re-telling Aesop’s tales.
On Thursday, we had a presentation and discussion at Stanford, co-sponsored with the Center for African Studies and the Education Department. We talked about the way that stories embed ideas in children, both negative and positive, and we discussed the possible ways books can be used, and the way that both of us awakened (through childhood and beyond) to the social realities around us that have caused both of us to write books that we believe really matter.
This past weekend, I was on a panel about children’s literature and war at the United States Board on Books for Young People’s bi-annual conference. The talk went well and I met with lots of great people who love kids and love books. Couldn’t ask to be among better people!
I always have a hard time coming home from conferences. For one thing, just getting my suitcase unpacked always seems hard to do. It shouldn’t be, right? I should be able to throw the clothes in the dirty clothes hamper, put my makeup bag and hair dryer in the bathroom, shut the suitcase, and be done with it. For some reason (sigh), it never seems that simple. I’m always overwhelmed with the sheer amount of paper that one conference generates. These include pamphlets, business cards (often with notes scribbled on them), postcards, and receipts (since these are always business trips and I need the receipts for tax purposes). All the paper usually means that I don’t get “unpacked” for one conference until the next one rolls around and sometimes not even then. Right now, for example, my desk is a sheer mess of papers, some of those papers dating back to the Texas Library Association’s annual conference from last April. Geez louise.
But I had a great time on my panel with Nancy Bo Flood, Lyn Miller-Lachmann, Juanita Havill, and Marge Pelligrino. I loved meeting Alma Flor Ada and Beverley Naidoo, catching up briefly with Ed Sullivan and Uma Krishnaswami, and meeting lots of great other folks.
This week, I’m doing two school visits in San Francisco with Beverley Naidoo, giving a reading at Stanford’s weekly Africa Table, and giving a talk with Beverley Naidoo at Stanford. Feels hectic….and great!
For a lesson about how you should behave if you are nominated and then un-nominated for a major literary award, such as the National Book Award, check out Lauren Myracle’s Vanity Fair interview.
Day #9 on the blog tour: What books do my characters love over at Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing…
