Sandi Kahn Shelton

My daughter Allie is a member of a book group consisting of moms with babies. They call themselves the Dead Tired Society and they meet whenever several conditions can be met: (1) they have all read the same book, or nearly all of them, at least; (2) they can agree on a day when a majority of them don’t have anything else they MUST DO; and (3) their babies are in relatively decent health, or at least good enough so that they won’t be the one blamed when two days later, the entire group is throwing up.

I think they’ve been together nearly a year, and they’re up to three books. My hat is off to them. It’s been a bad year for babies and flu.

Last week they invited me to come and talk to them about my book, What Comes After Crazy, which was the novel that took me 17 years to write. (I wrote it while I, too, was raising kids, and thus had to wait for conditions to be perfect). I told them I LOVE going and talking to book groups.

“Wellll…” said the hostess, whose name is Sam. She’s the mother of Esme, who has just turned 1. “There may be more crying at this group than you’re used to at most book groups you talk to…”

I said I was familiar with crying at book groups. Usually somebody has to go and get tissues.

But then there wasn’t any after all. We all sat in Sam’s wonderful Brooklyn apartment, while babies climbed over us, poked fingers in our eyes, played with rattles and balls, tried to climb over partitions so they could get to Sam’s valuable computer system (how is it that all babies can sense immediately where computers are located and just what button to push to dismantle them?) A very energetic toddler named Zane–admired by the others for his ability to actually WALK–went down the hall to the nursery and managed, with great difficulty, to come out with the entire floor covering for the nursery, a rubber puzzle mat consisting of the ABC’s, I believe. This was a very time-consuming project for him, but he was definite that it had to be done, and all the other babies were impressed.

It was lots of fun sitting on the floor, passing babies around. Young moms have such an incredible ability to do such things as breastfeed, wipe noses, change diapers, search out hidden pacifiers, tie shoes, soothe tears, and save a baby from leaping off a couch–all at the same time and ALL WHILE CARRYING ON AN ADULT CONVERSATION.  They don’t even break a sweat doing it. It’s always a pleasure to watch them. I think women in their twenties and thirties could run the world without any trouble at all, even on the limited sleep most of them get.

Because the book is about a woman raised by a mostly crazy, fortune-telling, narcissistic mom, book groups always love (and I love) to talk about our own moms, for good and for ill, and what they forced us to cope with and how we managed to grow up. Everybody always wants to know whether the book was really about my mother.

“Sort of,” I say. My mother wasn’t a fortune-teller, and we never lived in a trailer, and she didn’t get married seven times…but let’s just say there are certain qualities that she shared with Madame Lucille. When my publisher asked me if Madame Lucille was essentially my mother but just “exaggerated a bit,” I had to admit that she was partially my mother but actually TONED DOWN some.

That made the group laugh, and then they started telling stories about their moms–all except for poor Allie, of course, who had to sit there, smiling and insisting that she had a perfectly normal, sane childhood with a loving mother and no problems whatsoever.

I think I owe her, big time.

For those who don’t know what the FAFSA is, I say to you: bow down right where you are at this minute and kiss the ground. Pat yourself on the back, shake your own hand–and then take yourself out for a nice dinner and drink.

The rest of us will just sit here, gnashing our teeth.

The FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and it consists of, oh, about 103,000 questions designed to make you examine your entire financial situation. After all, you are asking the government to kick in a few bucks so you can send your child to college–and that help doesn’t come cheap.

They want worksheets from you if they’re going to think about doing something like that. And not only worksheets–they’d like to see your tax return, hear about your checking and savings accounts, and ponder with you how they might make use of your retirement funds before you get to them. They throw around inexplicable terms like “credit for federal tax on special fuels” and “foreign income exclusions.” Occasionally they mention the word “perjury” if you should fill out the forms wrong.

And they have STRICT DEADLINES. The kind of deadlines that mean you have to get your taxes done way before you would normally think of such a thing.

But all those are not even the worst things about the FAFSA.

The worst thing is that they want to operate the world on a system of PIN numbers.

Which you have to apply for in advance.

And everybody in your family has to have a different one.

And you are supposed to guard it with your very life and know where it is at all times.

Because if you forget yours, then you have to wait a long time while FAFSA thinks whether they will help you find it in their voluminous vaults where they store such things. Don’t even think about trying to get them to give you a new one. They won’t hear of it.

I don’t know about you, but I have had it with PIN numbers–especially PIN numbers that other people pick for me.

And so every year, despite the fact that I store the PIN numbers in folders which I mostly know the location of but not completely because too many things live in this house, I get heart palpitations just at the very thought of locating these PIN numbers and remembering whose is whose, and then entering them in just the right spaces, and worrying what if they’re wrong because I’ve waited until the very last minute ONCE AGAIN, and what if the government says these are the wrong numbers and they have to take a couple of weeks to go into their vault and look for my numbers, (which has happened in the past) and then we won’t get financial aid and it will all be my fault and March 1st is coming, which is the DEADLINE. The absolute DEADLINE for “priority consideration,” whatever that is.

I tell you, it could make a person delirious.

But last night, FEBRUARY 28, I sat down with all my trepidation and the online FAFSA, filled it all in, and typed in the PIN numbers.

Wrong, said FAFSA.

So I had the requisite minor heart attack, possibly a small stroke, began developing an ulcer and possibly some kind of tumor.

Retyped them, this time very carefully, so as not to transpose any numbers.

WRONG!

Then, through blurred vision, I realized that, ha ha, I had switched our numbers by accident. I had used MINE when I needed to use Stephanie’s. Ha ha ha.

I re-entered all the data. Filled out all the rest of the thousands of pages. Pressed the button to file my E-SIGNATURE, which is a hocus pocus thing so you don’t have to wait two weeks for them to process a piece of paper with your actual signature on it.

The FAFSA said NO.

Had another minor heart attack, several small strokes, noted that my ulcer was in full bloom now.

So I called them up! Yes, it turns out they have a phone number. And human beings. A HUMAN actually talked to me, and at first the human was as mystified as I was. I thought this was going to be another one of those times when machines have defeated us, like when you try to get your bank balance online and your bank pretends not to know you and says you didn’t type in your name, but YOU DID, it’s RIGHT THERE, but the machine says it isn’t, so you just have to leave the internet and go drink something alcoholic.

But then, when all seemed lost and there wasn’t going to be any financial aid this year after all, the human said, “Aha!” and explained that there was one teeny tiny question, one way way down at the bottom of the screen, which due to my hysterical blindness caused by the major illnesses I was contracting, I hadn’t noticed.

So I answered it, and palms sweaty and heart palpitating, pressed the SEND button–and the FAFSA left my computer screen and MAY HAVE GONE TO WHERE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO, that part remains to be seen, but it left at least.

I printed out all relevant documents, slumped over the keyboard, and promised that never again would I wait until the Last Possible Minute to do this, even though really there wasn’t any other way.

It was then I noticed that–hey, we have a Leap Day! March 1st is still technically waaaay off. We were awarded another whole day for the FAFSA this year.

I’m actually ahead of the game for once. AND, best of all, because Stephanie will be a junior next year, I only have to do ONE MORE FAFSA in my whole life.

One more to go. I might even be able to remember where I put the PIN numbers.

Here’s a poem sent to me by my friend Karen, and sent to her by her friend Charlie Harper. It’s called ‘The Puppet’ and has been attributed to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Some say he wrote it when he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer and that it was a farewell poem that he wrote to his friends. Others say that it was, in fact, written by an obscure Mexican ventriloquist named Johnny Welch, and not Marquez at all, and in fact, that Marquez has never claimed credit for the poem.

Neverthless, it’s beautiful.  

“The Puppet”

If for an instant God were to forget that I am rag doll and gifted me with a piece of life,
possibly I wouldn’t say all that I think,
but rather I would think of all that I say.
I would value things,
not for their worth but for what they mean.
I would sleep little, dream more,
understanding that for each minute we close our eyes we lose sixty seconds of light.

I would walk when others hold back.
I would wake when others sleep.
I would listen when others talk,
and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream!
If God were to give me a piece of life,
I would dress simply,
throw myself face first into the sun,
baring not only my body but also my soul.
My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice,
and wait for the sun to show.
Over the stars I would paint with a Van Gogh dream a Benedetti poem,
and a Serrat song would be the serenade I’d offer to the moon.
With my tears I would water roses,
to feel the pain of their thorns,
and the red kiss of their petals.

My God, if I had a piece of life…
I wouldn’t let a single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them.
I would convince each woman and each man that they are my favorites,
and I would live in love with love.
I would show men how very wrong they are to think that they cease to be in love when they grow old,
not knowing that they grow old when they cease to love!
To a child I shall give wings,
but I shall let him learn to fly on his own.
I would teach the old that death does not come with old age,
but with forgetting.
So much have I learned from you, oh men…

I have learned that everyone wants to live on the peak of the mountain,
without knowing that real happiness is in how it is scaled.
I have learned that when a newborn child squeezes for the first time with his tiny fist his father’s finger,
he has him trapped forever.
I have learned that a man has the right to look down on another only when he has to help the other get to his feet.
From you I have learned so many things,
but in truth they won’t be of much use,
for when I keep them within this suitcase,
unhappily shall I be dying.

~GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ~

One of the most fun things about writing a blog is checking the statistics page and figuring out how people find me. It’s great to see what people type into their google searches that lands them right smack on my blog. Mystifying how that google works, actually. 

For instance, here are a just a few recent ones…

Say come to crazy

I have never, as far as I know, said come to crazy. But I’m thrilled that google sends people to me who are interested in ordering around crazy.

Do psychic reading tell the truth

Hmmm. I have often wondered this myself.  

Explanation subprime mortgage humor funny

We’re all looking for a little humor funny lately over the subprime mortage explanations.

Ultrasound pictures of baby picking nose

See? I didn’t even know there were such things!

Ivory snow detergent and dinosaurs

You could go a long time without linking these two objects in any kind of coherent way.

What funny things people say when they are having a colonoscopy

You mean like, “When is this going to be over, and is my insurance really going to pay for this?”

Belief that inanimate objects are out to get us

Well, sure.

Is the word fixin to really a word?

Well, yeah. Where I come from, “fixin” is one of the main words you need to get through the day. It means something that hasn’t quite happened yet, it’s “fixin” to.

Banging a unicorn

Some things you don’t even want to think about…

Man woman this life is short wake up one day on a day everything wish for gone just like people get old and situations changing feelings for you look right now gone just like that

This is obviously a person who doesn’t know that with google searches, you don’t have to type in every word you’ve ever heard of. But how did this lead anybody to ME?

Solid lump under dog’s tail.

Yuck.

Show me a saltfish head

Okay, I haven’t wanted to talk about the saltfish thing, because–well, I don’t exactly know what a saltfish IS. But at least 20 percent of the people who want to find salftish pictures end up coming to sandishelton.com. And why? And why do scores of people every day want these photos?

The love of a good colonoscopy

Ah, yes. It used to be we desired the love of a good man or woman. But once you’re over 50, all anyone craves is the love of a good colonoscopy.

I haven’t been writing much lately because, like the rest of the country apparently, I have gotten just a tiny bit addicted to politics. I am reading politics online and in the newspapers and watching politics on television and following every last “he said, she said” waaaay too much. If Obama ever gets tired and doesn’t want to deliver his well-worn speech, I am ready to jump in and deliver it for him. I think I could do it verbatim, even without the teleprompter. (”McCain can’t say I supported the war…because I didn’t. And he can’t say I gave George Bush a blank check, because I wouldn’t.  … I was born to a teenage mother. My father left when I was two, and I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents…”, etc., etc.)

Don’t get me wrong: I LOVE this speech! It plays in my head day and night. I could listen to it for ten more primaries if necessary.

Luckily I had some major distractions come to visit me this weekend. And Mike (he’s the one on the left) put my camera on a chair in the dining room and then had us all face forward (how we got babies to face forward was a minor miracle, and then he ran and jumped in the picture–and this is what we got. Amazing!

Here is just one of our runner-up pictures…before we got the main one to work.

And what is a day without a little puppy love? Jordie, who normally runs when he sees anyone under five feet tall coming toward him, was patient and submissive for this kiss. I’m sure it didn’t hurt that Miles had his nose in a vise grip.

I am pleased to tell you that I have yet another person willing to come on my blog and entertain you. I am always seeking fresh voices to amuse you.

She is Eileen Cook, who clearly knows how to use a vintage typewriter to great effect. She has written Unpredictable, which has been called “laugh out loud funny” by Romantic Times. And she also writes a blog, called Just My Type, which has led to me not getting work done on many mornings. I have also spit tea all over my keyboard quite a few times, just because I don’t have the sense to read her blog before I take a big gulp of tea.

She is hilarious and so much fun, and I have ordered her book and cannot wait to read it. In the meantime, here is the great cover, and the picture of Eileen herself, and if you can’t see either of these because of my lack of skills at moving things around on the internet, (they’re showing up here NOW, but by tomorrow, the internet, in its wisdom, may snatch them away from here)…well, if they’re not here, just do yourself a favor and go to her blog. And now, scroll down to the bottom, beneath these pictures, and read Eileen’s guest post. Enjoy!

And now here is Eileen:

There is debate on some writer discussion loops as to when you can call yourself a writer. Some believe anyone who has the dedication to write, to focus on their craft, should be able to refer to themselves as writers. Others believe that the term writer should be saved for those that have reached publication.

Here’s my theory, you can call yourself anything you like. Heck, you can call yourself Wonder Woman and run around in your red white and blue bathing suit with go-go boots if you like, but it doesn’t mean other people are going to go along with your idea.

Transcript of an actual conversation.

Other Person (OP): What do you do?

Me: I’m a writer.

OP: Really? What have you written?

Me: It’s a romantic comedy called Unpredictable.

OP (looking distrustful): I never heard of it.

Me: It just came out.

OP: Is it going to be on Oprah?

Me: Um, well she hasn’t called yet.

OP: What about on the Regis and Kelly show?

Me: No plans for that either.

OP: You couldn’t even get on with Kelly Ripa? (should be said with a slight sneer that is insulting to both Ms. Ripa and myself.)

Me: I’m really more of an Ellen fan when you get right down to it, but before you ask she hasn’t called yet either.

OP: (looking around the room for more interesting people) Well good luck with your little project.

Some people are going to say you can’t be a writer unless you publish, or only if you publish with a major house. Someone else is going to weigh in and say it depends on your print run or if you hit any of the major lists. Others are waiting to see if you show up on Oprah (or Ellen or Live with Regis and Kelly) before deciding if your accomplishment should count.

Defining yourself isn’t limited just to writers, I hear the debate about who should get to call themselves a good mom, about who owns the right to say they’re an artist (versus a mere crafter), who is an athlete, who is a success. What would happen if we didn’t wait for others to approve our definition and we decided for ourselves? What if we decided what we wanted to be and pursued it with our whole hearts without waiting for someone to say it was okay?

If you feel like a superhero, then I say throw on the cape and get going. The world could use more saving and you look fabulous in Spandex.

eileen@eileencook.com

• News

  The first review for Unpredictable appeared in Romantic Times.

  “Cook’s debut novel seems destined to climb to the top of the bestseller lists. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, and readers will immediately fall in love with her style. This book reaches a new level of comedy with its hilarious heroine, exhilarating plot and fresh new approach to this well-loved genre.”

It’s time for a recipe. Lately, between playing free rice and writing my novel (I’m actually using my outline and writing five pages a day), I’ve been been reading recipes and trying to come up with the perfect white chicken chili.

I’m ready to share this one, although if you make it, you should feel free to make alterations to it. Every time I make it, I love it more than I did the last time, and I suspect that’s because I never  make it the same way twice.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon canola oil

2 pounds cubed boneless, skinless chicken breast

2 chopped onions

2 cups of chicken broth

3 cans of chopped green chile peppers (when I gave this recipe to my friend Leslie, I mistakenly said “3 cans of chopped jalapeno peppers, and nearly killed off several of her family members, for which I apologize) 

3 14.5 oz cans of cannellini beans

clove or so of minced garlic

1 tablespoon of ground cumin

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1 tablespoon of smoked paprika

2 teaspoons chili powder

cream of chicken soup

bag of frozen corn (if you can get the Trader Joe’s roasted corn, that’s the best)

some dollops of sour cream (I like a lot of it)

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown the onions until translucent and then add the chicken, stirring occasionally until all the pieces are evenly brown. Set aside.

In a Dutch oven, over medium heat, bring the chicken broth and green chile peppers to a boil. Stir in the cans of cannellini beans, corn, garlic, cumin, crushed red pepper, smoked paprika, and chili powder. Stir in the chicken and onion mixture. 

Let cook for a long time, at least a half hour, and then add the cream of chicken soup.

I usually put the sour cream in it after it’s cooked, although if it seems to need thickening, I add more. I apologize for the can of cream of chicken soup. I usually hate recipes that call for canned soup, but once I made this recipe and left it out, and…well, it didn’t taste as good. I’m sorry to say this, but it’s true. I suppose a more ambitious person could create their own cream of chicken stuff that would be just as good, but this recipe has the advantage of being quick, easy, and tastes wonderful on a cold evening. And it’s even better the next night! And by the third night, it’s the best thing you ever put in your mouth!

You  might not think those two topics have anything to do with each other: haircuts and writing fiction.

I wouldn’t have either, until yesterday.

Yesterday was the day I suddenly couldn’t stand my hair another second. You know what this is like. It was either go to the hair salon or get the pinking shears out of the sewing box and have at it myself. The night before, my hair had been subpar but acceptable, and then Tuesday morning, it was unbearable. Go figure.

Luckily I see a haircut person who is not only wonderful, but she works a million hours and seems always to be able to get a person in if she hears that pinking shears might become involved. So I called up, got an appointment for 2 o’clock, and then spent the morning writing my novel.

By the time the appointment came around, I was lost in the book, totally immersed in the story–but, hello, this is a haircut we’re talking about. You have to go to a haircut! So I went.

“What are you working on lately?” asked the hairdresser, whom I will refer to as R, for her own protection. She took me over to the sink to be shampooed.

So I told her about my book. (I have to stop here and say that I knew this was very, very bad to do. Writers are not supposed to discuss the plots of their books with anyone, not even kindly, interested hairdressers. I have never understood this rule, but all the other writers will tell you this. It has something to do with spending the energy of your book in your excited retelling of the plot, when actually all that energy belongs on the page. Or something like that. You  just have to trust me on this: all your better writers won’t discuss their books.)

But there I go, blabbing away about my plot, which involves (here I go again, telling) a massive, almost unforgivable infidelity between a couple who has been married for a long time. The infidelity took place at the beginning of their marriage, and has been…well, smoothed over. So I’m telling her this story as she’s taking out the scissors and the combs, and she’s nodding and looking very, very interested, and so I’m telling more and more.

And then she says, “My father left my mother after 30 years of marriage, when I had just gotten married and was pregnant with my first baby. It turned out he had been having an affair, and he just left.”

Now is that fascinating or what? We got into such a wonderful conversation then–all the gory details of love affairs and how people find out, and how my characters find out and what happens next, and what happened to her mother, and how she wouldn’t speak to her father for years, and yes, he’s still with the other woman, but it’s very awkward, and how her mother tries hard to forgive him but can’t really, she’s broken now and has no self confidence…and we talk all the way through my haircut. By the end of it, we are so overcome with emotion that we have to HUG before we can go our separate ways.

And I go home and sit down and work on my book for the rest of the afternoon.

But then last night, as I was combing my hair before I went to bed, I noticed that…well, there’s a big chunk of hair that’s simply missing. On the right side. Like, ridiculously so. I can’t pull  my hair back anymore because on one side I seem to have  a pixie haircut and all the other sides are kind of regular…longish, even.

I have no idea what to do. The obvious lesson is: I should stay home and write my book, quietly, until my hair grows back in again. And when I go back to her later (as I will), and she asks me what I’m working on lately, I’ll say, “Ohhhh, nothing really,” and open a magazine. With a yawn.  

Today was rainy and raw. The wind seemed to be throwing water against the windows all day long, and the sky stayed twilight-dark.

This is, obviously, Weather to Outline A Novel In. And just in time! I settled myself down with the intention of plotting the last half of my novel. I had done the first half with great exuberance yesterday and the day before…but, well, there’s something about trying to tie up the end of this unwritten book that just made me want to curl up in the fetal position and take a nice long nap instead. Either that, or hyperventilate for a while after which I would look for a real job on monster.com. (Perhaps something involving only physical labor, nothing to do with words.)

I mean: how the heck do I know what these characters are going to do at the end of a book I haven’t written yet? All I know is that I am planning piles and piles of love and trouble for them, and now I’m also supposed to know how to get them out of it, without making it seem too cheesy or unrealistic?

But instead of heading back to bed, I built a fire in the fireplace and lit all the IKEA candles because it was DARK and cold. And then I sat down with the dog and my laptop…and, well, the next thing I knew, all these possible endings for the end of the book just started unfolding before me. It was quiet in the house, except for the dog’s breathing and the rain flinging against the windows, and the fire crackling away. That probably helped, the quiet.

I typed out all the possible endings, trying them on. Some I had to reject because they were dragging the story out too long, unnecessarily.  One ending seemed sadder than I wanted. And still another tied the loose ends up too neatly. I hate books that end with the feeling that you’ve just wrapped up a present with a big red bow, don’t you? I like something meaty to chew on after the book is done. And, like in real life, I think we have to work to find meaning in a set of circumstances. Novels need to give that feeling of possibility at the end.

It was actually hard to stop thinking about this when it was time to go cook dinner and feed the dog. When I looked up at six, the fire had died and the rain had stopped, and I was writing by the light of the laptop and the candles, which were down to almost nothing. Clearly it was time to turn on lights and music and cook the Jamaican chicken and rice…and to stretch.

All this evening, though, I’ve felt somehow suspended between two worlds, my own and the one I’d been living in all afternoon. It’s a wonderful feeling, like maybe you get two lives for the price of one.

And it reminded me of this great quote by the writer lee Smith, which I have taped on my writing desk: “When stuff in life gets really rough, I would just die if I was not writing a novel. Once you think it up, it’s like a whole other city with a little door and every time you sit down to write, you just open the door and there you are–a wonderful vacation for two hours.”

Or maybe eight.

It should be easy, starting a novel. This one is due in September, so it has the advantage of having very little time to incubate. (I posted a quote by Leonard Bernstein recently in which he said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.”)

I definitely don’t have much time, and until today, I didn’t have a plan either.

That’s because my usual way of starting a novel is to meander around with the character, as if I’m in a Polaroid picture that is slowly coming into focus. 

That’s what I’ve been doing. 

I know the main character, Cate. And her husband Grant. And I know what is going to happen to them. I know what Cate had for breakfast this morning and what she said to her daughter on the phone last night, and what she emailed to her son at college…and I know the unspeakable thing she did twenty-five years ago that she can’t forgive herself for, the thing that Grant won’t ever let her talk about.

Cate rides along with me all the time these days, a little companionly voice in my ear. If a song comes on the radio, she’ll say something like, “Oh, that song played the day that Grant and I got married. I listened to it on our way to the hotel, and it’s always reminded me of the way I suddenly looked over at Grant, frowning as he tried to sing along to the words, but he kept forgetting where he was and singing the same verse over and over again. That’s when I realized how distracted he always was, and it hit me what I had just signed on for. I looked at him closely and saw that the pants to his wedding suit were too short, his ankles stuck out…and he’d forgotten to shave on one side, and he was lost in his own little world, squinting one eye and then the other as if he were trying to decide if the whole world was all an optical illusion. I had always thought that the whole Grant shtick was just so adorable, the way he couldn’t be bothered to care about so many things. But now, at that moment, I remember there was this little chill, this one little nagging thought in my head: that this was going to be the thing about him that drove me absolutely insane. The way he was always solving math problems in his head, even on his wedding day.”

Sometimes Cate tells me so many things like this that I have to pull over in the car and write down what she’s saying. I have a whole little notebook now, filled with Cate’s opinions. And I have about twenty pages of the novel that contains her.

Meanwhile, September is like a speeding truck bearing down on us.

THE BOOK, I told her today, HAS TO BE WRITTEN.

And so I am going to try something new. I am going to simply sit down and outline the whole plot of this book, from beginning to end, the way I used to do with nonfiction books.

I am actually going to decide in advance what is going to happen, not just wander through the book waiting for the plot to settle on it like a nice blanket warm from the dryer.

There will be order. And chapter headings. Page numbers. Story arcs.

I have to admit that I am not a huge planning kind of gal. The truth is that I have lived a seat-of-the-pants kind of life, which has been my favorite way to live… but, well, now that it looks like writing fiction might actually become something of a career for me, perhaps I need to figure out a way to do it on my own terms, not just wait for characters to tell me stuff.

It’s going to be interesting. All you writers out there, please tell me if this is how you do it! Do you wait for inspiration, or do you outline and then stick to it? Which way causes the least amount of angst?

Maybe Leonard Bernstein really is on to something: a plan and not enough time. Key to getting anything done.