It did not hit me that my son's first year of preschool was really ending until yesterday afternoon, when I took his art projects and papers out of his cubby. There it was: the letter Z. I felt the floor drop away from me as I stared at that final worksheet. My hands actually shook. I marveled at how neatly my son had traced the dots to form the Z and then how he'd copied the letter beneath it. At the smiley face sticker to reward his good work. I thought back to A, B and C back in the fall. The wobbly lines, the tentative pencil. This Z, in comparison, exuded confidence. Z may be the last letter, and underutilized, but it should never be underestimated. It's fierce. Zounds.

I remember the middle of the alphabet, which hit in the dead of winter. M, N -- what awful letters. How to tell them apart? They're like close-in-age siblings who look like twins, dressing up in each others clothes, fooling people.  O is Okay, I guess. But  P, not so much. And Q  . . . Q! That maddening little tail! And don't get me started on R -- so hard to distinguish from its cousins B and P.

There were dark days this year when I didn't see how we would make it to Z. The end of the alphabet, like the spring, seemed elusive and receding. Even when W and X appeared in the cubby several weeks ago, I was in denial.

But here we are at Z. Even preschoolers get to enjoy a sense of completion and a sense that goals can be attained. They made it through the alphabet. They are LEARNING TO READ AND WRITE. This is big stuff, people. This is where it all begins. 

I have my own receding Z to look toward right now. The next stage of my novel revisions. Back to work I go, fueled by my son's amaZing final letter, now proudly tacked above my desk. 

Labels: goals, revisions, writing and parenting

Cleaning is the first thing to neglect when I'm on a writing or revising binge, as I am these days. For the sake of my family's safety and sanity, I keep a semblance of order by scooping up clutter and throwing it into boxes or bags, to be sorted at some future date. Lately I've been looking at these boxes and bags in horror, wondering when I'll ever have time to deal with them, hoping I don't someday appear on the TV show "Hoarders." But I'm trying to reframe the way I look at this stuff. I've realized that all the strange odds and ends I'm accumulating, the flotsam and jetsam of my daily life, might make for fun writing prompts some day. (Assuming I someday finish my edits, and that my son stops getting these weekly colds and ear infections, and that I will one day write something fresh again).

So today I'm picking a random bag -- which happens to be my "purse" -- and listing some of its contents, for a future writing exercise. At the very least, it's a fun exercise in noticing details, and makes me feel like my clutter-gathering is actually productive. Feel free to swipe any of these bizarre items if you are so inspired:

1. A one-inch foundational layer of spilled pretzel sticks. (My son loves these pretzel snack bags for the car, but never finishes a bag. I put them in my purse. They spill. We open another bag. The cycle continues).

2. A toy double-decker bus from London. (Not that I actually went to London. It was a gift. For the pretzel guy -- see item #1).

3. A silver dinner fork, nicely weighted, from Brasserie Jo, a hip bistro in downtown Boston where my husband and I ate a few weeks ago. Disturbingly, I have no memory of dropping a fork in my bag, nor does he. (An excellent writing prompt here . . . does it contain DNA evidence for some crime, and was it planted in my bag? Or am I prematurely embarking on an elderly person's penchant for stealing cutlery from restaurants? What's next -- dinner rolls wrapped up in napkins?) (More disturbingly, I found the fork several weeks ago, and then . . . PUT IT BACK IN THE PURSE. Oh my God. Who does that??)

4. A prescription of Paxil for my cat.

5. Three mismatched mittens. (From three little kittens?)

6. Six straws from Starbucks. (Not really straws. They are Units of Time. My son can sometimes ride out a long wait in a line by playing with straws. However, they do devalue).

7. Four hand sanitizers -- gels and sprays. (Note: none worked this winter).

8. Coupon for the Big Apple Circus. (Good times!)

9. Small bag of Halloween candy. (Bribe for pediatrician office yesterday).

10. Five receipts with notes for my novel revision scrawled on the back. (Valuable).

Individually, any of these items could become the seed of a story.

Collectively, these things give a pretty accurate snapshot of my personality and life these days. I keep a semblance of order, but it's illusory and temporary -- chaos threatens to erupt from the neat-looking boxes and bags. I have zero spare time, and am desperate for any snatch of time I can grab. I spend much of my time caring for a small child and facilitating a distressed cat, but fight to keep my identity as an individual person and as a writer. I crave a classier lifestyle at times (Brasserie Jo, London) but don't always get there (I'll be using that Big Apple Circus coupon next week).

What's in your bag? What do the tiny, random objects from your daily life say about you, or about a possible character?

Labels: writing and parenting, writing prompts

I've always loved writing about adventures abroad. I spent my 20's and early 30's with a suitcase constantly packed, and brought home more words about the places I went to than photos or souvenirs. But what's a travel writer to do when she's grounded? When she has a family and can't fly so far?

I've been wrestling with this issue because my current work in progress is partially set in another country. Wondering if my journals and photos were enough to jog my memories and provide the details to bring scenes to life, I thought about returning. It might be good to check some facts. Update my information. Smell the diesel fumes again, eat the local food. Record the sights and sounds anew. Then I remembered I had a three-year-old. And not the most adaptable sort of three-year-old either. The kind who loves to curl up on the couch with his beloved Pixar movies, and who won't eat unless his particular brands of mac n cheese and sliced cheese squares and cheesey chicken nuggets are available. (Hmm . . . is Wisconsin in our future?) Well, in other words, I have a very typical three-year-old. I hear mythic, romantic tales of people who travel the world with their toddlers, strapping cheerful babes to their backs and setting off for a lengthy hike, or zipping around Europe with them babbling contentedly in a bicycle trailer. Right. Not happening here.

                                          Source: www.freedigitalphotos.net

And leaving my family to jet off on a research trip? At this stage, it's unimaginable. I've never left my son for more than one night, and the one time I had to board a plane without him -- for a one-day business trip to Washington, D.C. -- I was consumed with visions of a plane crash leaving him motherless. 

Yes, I'm grounded for the time being. It's a temporary state; I know I'll travel again, both solo and with my family. Just not in the next six months. This has left me with decisions to make about how to update my information about the setting of my work-in-progress.

Fortunately, so much is available online now. Travelers post photos and videos daily. Travelers write blogs. Local news stations broadcast online around the world. Webcams show the weather as it's actually happening. And guidebooks, both hard copies and online, can provide a lot of the basic information I need to stay current.

What I was craving, I realized, was a sense of the mood of this region these days, since the political and economic climate has altered. I also wanted to get a sense of the pulse of life for young people there now. Where they hang out, where they avoid. Where they meet locals, where they meet expats. How their perceptions of the country have been challenged or changed. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that even if I dragged my family there for a week, I wouldn't necessarily get that information. Not sealed up in an air-conditioned Marriott drinking our bottled water. I had a sense of youth culture and the pulse and pace of life by actually living and working in that country, years ago. If I went there now, it would be a different trip altogether.

It occurred to me that an avatar would be useful. Some ability to send a version of myself to walk those streets and absorb the culture there today, without leaving home. But wait -- couldn't technology make that possible? I got to work.

I designed a three-page questionnaire for people under 30, living and working in that country. I got in touch with schools I had worked with in the past and organizations that cater to young expats. I offered Amazon gift certificates in exchange for thoughtful answers to my questions about life there today. I got a fair number of respondents, and the surveys are flying back to me now, with useful and insightful information -- exactly the kind of word-on-the-street stuff I wanted to absorb. Collectively, the responses are giving me a picture of the place right now; they also jog more memories of my own experiences there. Everyone so far has offered to be available to answer further questions. At some point in the story I'm writing I'll need to figure out a certain type of travel route, and I hope one of my avatars, or ground troops there, will be willing to test it out for me.

I'd love to hear from others who set their works in distant places: how do you jog your memories or take virtual trips? How important do you feel it is to actually visit the places you write about?

Labels: novel-in-progress, research, travel, writing and parenting