Thank you!

T’is the season to be rushed. T’is the season to fall behind. T’is the season to be just a wee bit grumpy.

I was thinking this the other day as I watched the early morning snow falling from the sky, trying its best to remain snow and failing. On the radio doom threatened: strikes, war, misery, all accompanied by the Wagner-esque symphony of possible global financial collapse.

My own season was becoming increasingly a list of things to tick off. And oh, the guilt. Yes, I was now personally responsible for the destruction of the high street by buying 85 % of my presents online.

I was thinking this when the door bell rang. I rushed downstairs, still in my robe, bleary-eyed and wild-haired, and at the door stood a delivery man, delivering yet another package I had ordered online (See? I told you). This package was big and round and he grinned at me—a delightful elf of a smile–and did a little bow as he twirled it into my hands.

And as that package passed from his hands to mine we both laughed. A joyous cosmic chuckle. A bright spark on a cold winter morning. Here we were two strangers, one up driving around in the early morning dark, the other still in her bathrobe, hurrying her children through breakfast. Such different lives and such different days ahead.

But in that split second we became one—sharing an unspoken joke, a joie de vivre on Dec. 16 at 8:05 on a nondescript street in London.

And as I closed the door, grinning, infected with this man’s joy, I thought ‘Now that’s the spirit!’

And I kept it with me for the rest of the day. So I thank him for that.

And I also give a HUGE THANK YOU to my subscribers and everyone else who has read my blog (you know who you are!).

Thank you so much for visiting. I appreciate the time I’m taking up in your head space. There is constant demand on your attention so I thank you for hanging out with me. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy your company.

I’m looking forward to meeting up again in the New Year. But right now it’s time to put down our pens, toss some tinsel and party!

X Nina

photo by Amber B McN (flickr)

Have Guts and Go Dangle Them

I had lunch with another writer the other day. I rarely do that. I usually eat leftovers from last night’s meal straight from the Tupperware, often standing at the refrigerator, at around 10:30 a.m. because I have already run out of things to write.

But on this day, I put on some presentable clothes and moseyed to my local Italian place for a bona fide writers’ lunch. And felt like a player as I swirled my sparkling water in my glass and gazed with wonder at all the other people sitting at a café in the middle of the day. The waiter approached and my eyes grew big at the gigantic pizza placed before me: an ode to tender grilled chicken, brilliantly green pesto, creamy and sweet goat’s cheese…

But I digress.

My friend arrived and we were having a great writerly chat. You know, So what you working on? How’s it all going? What’s your writing schedule…when my writer friend divulged that he was frustrated with how slow his script was going.

There is no flow to it, I can’t seem to get traction, he said.

So we talked Syd Field’s turning points. McKee’s theory of gaps and antagonism. The value of trying to get up early enough so that your critic self is still asleep.

Then there was a pause.

Yeah, he said. I got all that. I don’t think it’s that.

And that’s when the F-word came up. Fear.

Fear of failure? But this guy is a professional. He knows his first draft is going to be bad. In fact it’s no doubt going to suck. But the important thing is just to get it down. To forget the next steps. To write as if it will never be edited or produced. First things first…

He shook his head. Yeah, I know that too.

There was another silence. Longer this time.

This fear is harder to navigate around, to manage. It is the fear of disclosure.

To say what you really think, in a way that will disclose who you really are.

It takes guts. It’s not talked up much these days on agent or editor blogs. More often, writers are encouraged to come up with a great idea and then to tuck in before anyone else comes up with it. And yes, our job is to entertain, or at least honor the reader, by making the experience of reading our text as satisfying as possible.

But guts are what connects writers to readers. Another aspect of our job is to say what hasn’t been said before because no one has had the guts to say it.

So writing is less about design and more about bravery.

We need to dig deep. And reveal so much that we are embarrassed. So embarrassed that if we leave the house we panic, terrified that we’ll suddenly get run over and we will have left our day’s work laid out for all to see.

Oh, the horror.

But it’s that kind of fear, that fear of disclosure, which I would say means you’re on to something. That you are ready to write something worthwhile.

So go for it.

I beseech you.

Write, cringe, and write again.

Please.

photo by Matzehielscher (flickr)

Good and Sick

I woke up yesterday with a honking, gooey hooter of a cold. Eyeballs packed with shrapnel, lungs occupied by phlegm activists, a nose so runny I reached for the cheese biscuits. (Ok, that last one was gross.)

I haven’t been so knock-down flat out sick in a long time.

I spent the morning listening with one ear as the children were corralled by my husband into eating their breakfast, getting dressed for school and stepping out the door. And then I heard nothing blissfully for hours.

The world out there continued on, working, rushing, living, while I dozed and hacked and snorted.

I was so devoid of energy that I thought if the world came to an end, well, shit happens.

Not enough oomph for fear or horror.

On my bed I lay all day, legs sprawled, my arms curled around my aching sides, my splitting head pressed against my pillow. In the afternoon I watched the light fade on a day I spent doing absolutely nothing.

Downstairs, the kitchen counter grew stalagmites of food droppings. The production line of laundry fell silent. My computer never even got turned on. Decisions and errands and even a meeting were postponed. I listened to the world go on, busy, busy, busy, and smiled.

If I didn’t feel so awful I’d really be enjoying this.

photo by Joeywan (flicker)

Is that a catastrophe I hear or am I just trying to get out of writing?

OK, I don’t know about you but I can’t get any writing done. Especially with news headlines like this:

Latest: KING WARNS BANKS TO PREPARE FOR EURO STORM
Sam Fleming Economics Editor
Updated 27 minutes ago
The Bank of England has urged banks to bolster their defences so they can withstand an “exceptionally threatening environment” brought about by the euro crisis. Sir Mervyn King, the Governor, said in a press conference that the rapidly deteriorating conditions in the financial markets bore the hallmarks of a “systemic crisis” as he urged banks to shore up their cash and capital reserves. The interim Financial Policy Committee, chaired by Sir Mervyn, is instructing banks to impose limits on their distributions of dividends and bonuses, as they conserve capital in response to threats such as a possible euro breakup. Lenders should also give serious consideration to raising capital from outside sources. Sir Mervyn had earlier told a news conference…

And so on….

I am fixated. I know, another excuse. But really, I can’t decide. Is this all tempest in a teapot? Or are we all going down the drain? Should we be grabbing on to the drain plug as we swirl by?

When I went to dinner with a banker friend the other night, he advised: Buy land and guns.

Ok.

Really?

Really truly?

Because I’m having trouble enough not concentrating. So please don’t give me something else to obsess about that is not my manuscript.

So tell me straight. Should I really be stocking up at the grocer’s and pulling up my gardenias and peonies to make way for potatoes and tubers? Hopping down to the local drug dealer and perusing his set of Saturday night specials?

Anyway, I won’t look anymore today. I promise. I’m getting 500 words written today. No matter what. Even if the currency explodes.

Oh, wait a minute….

 

photo by MyEyeSees (flickr)

Thanksgiving Nostalgia (Yes We Can)

As an American living in London for the past thirteen years, I still get nostalgic when Thanksgiving approaches.

I begin to yearn for my mom’s home cooking: canned sausage and beans, canned tuna casserole, canned spaghetti from Chef Boyardee with a can of mushrooms tossed in for show.

My particular favorite was her curry: a can of mushroom soup mixed with cooked ham or turkey and a pinch of madras curry powder. Poured over rice and you had ambrosia.

Yes, in my childhood, cooking was warming up. The sound of dinner being made was the sound of an electric can opener.

Of course, we know things are different now. Most people wouldn’t admit to knowing where their can opener is. These days the ultimate status symbol is fresh produce. Fresh enough to slap you if bit.

We insist on bright green beans still trembling with life. Fragrant ruby tomatoes. Pert button mushrooms. And to scramble a useful American idiom I admit that I jumped on the bandwagon whole hog. I spent some time as a fresh food snob.

My counters groaned with baskets of perfectly color coordinated fruit and vegetables. I insisted on cutting corn kernels straight from the ear. I ravaged fresh coconuts for their milk. Yes, I even tossed side-glances at other trolleys in the supermarket and smugly compared fresh food ratios.

But thankfully, I’ve returned to my roots. Fresh is not what it’s cracked up to be. Those baskets of produce melted into mush when I wasn’t looking. I spent too many hours chopping my way through dinner.

I’ve realized my mother had it right. Food should be out of sight in the cupboards, serving friendly, until I need them, not uselessly ripening into pulp in my way. I know now that deep down it was all a front. Fresh food was a password, a visible sign that we will spend the time and the money to make up for life’s ever increasing ease. I think, bottom line, we feared losing our usefulness. If we personally cut our way through two pounds of fresh plum tomatoes, we could still consider ourselves center of our domestic universe.

We caused head shaking amongst the older generation. When a London friend of mine went into long self-congratulatory diatribe about how she made all her baby food from scratch, my mother leaned forward sympathetically and asked “Why? Don’t they have jars of baby food here?”

Lately, I’m increasingly proud of the fact that my family lived on canned vegetables, bottled salad dressing, frozen fish and lived to tell the tale. I used to blame my mother’s cooking on my tardy interest in vegetables. (My children will no doubt blame my serving everything lightly sautéed in extra virgin olive oil on theirs.)

Now I appreciate that my mother knew a good thing when she saw it. Have I told you about her auspicious use of boxes too? Cakes, brownies, muffins, even breads. No messy need to sift flour or melt chocolate or, heaven forbid, squeeze a lemon.

Tear open a box and you created a masterpiece. As a Foreign Service wife overseas my mother often had to fess up in front of local dignitaries who clamored for her “deliciously moist cake” recipe. “The shock on their faces was delightful,” my mother grins.

And now that most British supermarkets sell Betty Crocker mixes I am set. My children and I have often reenacted the ritual of what my mother and I used to do on a rainy afternoon. My children stand on a chair and stir with tongue-chewing attention while I rip open the plastic bag of ready-made mix, crack open the egg and measure in water and vegetable oil.

It used to be that you could lick the spoons. Truthfully, it was the whole reason you made the damn cake in the first place. But you can’t now. If you do you’ll fall flat on the kitchen floor with the runs, salmonella bacteria organizing rave parties in your intestine. But that’s modern life.

And lest you think my mother and I were complete culinary barbarians, we did make our own frosting. Milk and powdered sugar. Drop of green coloring and mint extract. Frosted over the cooled chocolate cake, it was, mmm, deelish.

So for this Thanksgiving I’m going to get super nostalgic and prepare the meal just like Mom did. I’ll mix a can of sweet potatoes with a can of sectioned mandarins in juice, a bit of brown sugar and butter and chopped walnuts. I’ll tip my hat to modern convention and even chop the walnuts by hand.

Naturally, we’ll have roast turkey. I yearn for the self-basting pop-up timer Butterball turkey of my homeland which practically opened the oven door and called out when it was ready.

I will not forget the canned cranberry jelly which retains its perfect tin shape in the dish. And then we’re going to invite a couple of friends, a few of them Brits who for some reason think Thanksgiving is hilarious. Especially the parts about the wild Indians sharing their food with the Pilgrims. I think it’s our cornucopia paper napkins that just sends them over the edge.

We will say grace. I know, so quaint, but it’s either that or the Pledge of Allegiance. And then we’ll tuck in. And eat too much and complain. If we were in the States we’d have a football game to slouch in front of and complain properly. Here we’ll probably turn on loud music and watch the rain fall. And when the first wave of over eating nausea passes I’ll rummage through my new stash of cans and make turkey curry and remember how things were in the good old day…when we could.

photo by ipickmynose (flickr)

It’s Snowing!

A quick little post today.

Because I’m busy. Very busy. Can you hear that clickety click? No? It’s because I’m on yet another coffee break. But believe me, I’m a busy busy bee. I’m trying to nail down this first draft.

But I wanted to tell you about my new toy. It was passed onto me by a friend (thank you, Meike) and I checked it out and it has been so helpful in organizing my thoughts as I work through this first draft.

It’s called the Snowflake Method. You might have already heard of it.

I spend a lot of time writing. I have reams and reams of writing. But this method has made me think a bit more about the structure of my story. I’m using it to retweek and make stronger my character’s motivations as I go through the novel.

So I leave it with you. Tell me what you think.

Slurp. Ah. Good coffee. (Not.) Now back to work….

photo by Brookeduckart (flickr)

What do you mean, you didn’t write an international bestseller today?

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.” – Ernest Hemingway

When is enough?

That’s the hard thing about being a writer. Rarely are we ever completely finished. In drafting, in editing, in revising.

There is always something more to be done.

Tell me, at the end of the day, do you find yourself thinking: “Funny, I didn’t write an international bestseller today.”

Or more explicitly: “Man, am I a failure.”

It’s a low grade fever. That Didn’t Do Enough Today feeling.

As a writer, you can have very long periods between any closure or sense of accomplishment.

So sometimes I have to tell myself. Well, you did do an outline and two loads of laundry. Or well, you wrote 500 words and listened to your son’s rather long opaque story about his creation on Minecraft. Or well, you read half a book for research and bought your daughter that face scrub she wanted. Or well, you revised three chapters and didn’t snarl at your husband.

And maybe, just maybe if I’m very lucky I’ll be able to say, Well, I wrote one sentence of that international bestseller.

And that is enough.

Writers tend to think in whole pieces. In the image of the whole book or story or play or screenplay. In symphonies.

But as symphonies are made up of notes, books are made up of sentences. And you have to write each one down and that takes time.

And yes, I know—bleeding obvious—but what we know intellectually is very often forgotten emotionally.

Novels take time. They take focus. And they take compassion for yourself when things are going slow.

So if you wrote one good sentence–a true one, as Hemingway would say–and smiled at a stranger today. Well, I for one, would call that a very productive day indeed.

NB: I do realize I’m being slightly disingenuous. Your average sentence probably runs 7, 8 words. Your average book, say, 70 – 80,000 words.  So that’s going to take a while. So I suggest one good paragraph. A long one.

photo by jugbo (flickr)

Stop Reading My Blog

Ok, this is a weird one. I’m going to ask you to go away.

Why?

Because I want you to go back to what you were doing. Which is creating.

And what you are doing being here is not creating. It’s screwing around.

Now if you’re here for company and for a hello, that’s great. I love hanging out with you and I appreciate (slobber over) every comment.

But if you’re here because you got caught on a word or lost your train of thought or you got bored with working and your finger reached out on its own accord and pushed at that firefox or internet explorer button and you surfed your way here, stop.

Go away. Go back to what you were doing. Stick with it.

And I say this because I know.

Oh, how I know.

When I pause while writing at the computer, even a second, it’s enough for my finger to click on the button and suddenly I’m surfing that internet wave until I crash and emerge with fish flapping from my mouth.

Yesterday, I was checking out the fashions on X Factor. Then I swung by housepricecrash.com to see if it’s actually happened yet. Then I took my daily cruise around The Guardian, The New York Times and the FT to see if anything new occured in the world in the last, oh, five minutes since the last time I checked. Until reluctantly, very reluctantly, I returned to my poor patient manuscript.

Can someone please tell me exactly when I lost my mind?

Focus, people!

The biggest gift you can give yourself is to read Leo Babauta’s Focus (you can even download it for free—because that’s the kind of guy he is)

So consider this blog a gentle hand guiding (pushing, prodding, shoving) you back to the task at hand.

Because the internet is addictive. No doubt about that.

Now go. Create.

Shoo!

photo by Pixies and Pixels (flickr)

Mormonism for Women

A couple of years ago when Mormon polygamy marriages were top news I wrote a short story. As the campaigns of presidential candidates heat up, I thought I’d share it with you. It’s in the form of a newspaper article and offers a different take on polygamy called polyandry.

Mormonism for Women

by

Nina Killham

Newtown-Utah. The real problem about polyandry, says Jennifer Lind, is managing so many husbands. “It’s exhausting. They can get pretty rowdy.” She should know. Lind, 39, has five of them.

On a sunny October day, she sits in the immaculate living room of her ranch house and discusses how her religion, which allows multiple marriages, is misunderstood. “People have this impression that I’m some sort of dominatrix standing over my husbands with a whip or something. It’s not like that at all,” she says, sipping tea handed to her by husband number four, J.J., 23. (His real name is Jeffrey but there already was a Jeffrey, husband number two.)

“We’re a family. Yes, I’m the head of the family but we all participate, we all belong.”

Her men agree. “People ask us about this all the time. They’re fixated,” laughs Kevin, 25, as he socks co-husband, Jeffrey, 28, playfully on the arm. Jeffrey grabs Kevin in a headlock. The two men glance adoringly at their wife who smiles at them then asks for another cup of tea.

Lind lives with her husbands and ten children in a five-bedroom home filled with bunk beds and sports equipment. “Yes, it can get cozy,” she admits. “but good cozy.”

To accommodate the crowd, they share three cars, stagger their bed and rising times, and eat and watch television in shifts. But they pray in one shift, congregating together in the living room and thanking God for her blessing.

Their religion, called Lessingism after their prophet Anna Mae Lessing who set up a commune in the area in the mid-1900’s, preaches that man must submit to woman because she is the source of all sustenance. She is provider of love, of education and, most importantly, of food.

“To be frank, it’s all about breasts,” says Lind. Lessingers believe woman to be the source of all good, a miniature God on earth, and instill in their children a reverence for the power of a woman’s body. Breastfeeding is the pinnacle of achievement.

It’s a distinction that some men in the church are uncomfortable with, suggesting that their orthodoxy is too narrow. “Well, they can fuss all they like,” says Lind “but if they don’t got ‘em, they don’t got ‘em. It’s biology, and you can’t argue with biology.”

As a result, men take a back seat in the leadership of the religion. But not in the donkey work. In 1955, Lessing took on another husband to help her with the care of her children. It was so successful she took on another and decided to write it into the covenant. Lessing died in 1997 at the age of 72, her sixth husband, 25-year-old Brandon Vier, at her side.

Lind turned to the little known religion when she was 26 years old. “I had been searching to find something that gave me a sense of community, that had values that were in keeping with what I thought was an ethical way to live. When I finally found it I had a sense of homecoming. Life suddenly made sense. It’s a belief system I hope to impart to my children.”

Her children, Tanya, 13, Jeff, 11, Jilly, 10, Rachel, 9, Bruce, 7, Billy, 6, Sarah, 5, Karen, 3, Ken 2 and Alicia, 4 months, are the product of her marriage to the five different men. When asked how she can tell who a child’s father is, she explains patiently about DNA testing. Before the tests, she says, husbands just had to take their wives’ word for it. And though technically speaking it’s illegal in this state to marry several men, Lind maintains that she is only exercising her freedom of religion.

“It’s not like we’re hurting anyone,” she says.” It’s all completely consensual.”

Kevin’s parents disagree. They were uncomfortable with their son’s decision to marry Lind and tried several times to talk him out of it. His father has gone as far as to bring a civil suit against Lind. “I think she is a corrupting factor,” Mr. Rogan says. “She gets them young when they don’t know any better.”

But Kevin is staunchly behind his wife. “My parents just don’t understand,” says Kevin who married Lind when he was a 20 year old college sophomore. “They think I’m living in the dark ages or something.” Kevin was a high school buddy of Jeffrey’s and was intrigued by Jeffrey’s marriage. “He just kept hanging around so much I finally decided to make an honest man out of him,” laughs Lind.

She met her last two husbands, J.J. and Richard, through their mothers, also Lessingers, who offered their sons as excellent marriage material. “They see the value of this system and so they brought up their sons to think accordingly.”

Lind marries her men in a private ceremony at home, attended only by close family, the co-husbands and the church’s leader, Mary Ann Garnett. “It’s a happy affair, Garnett says. “We make a big batch of chili and then the boys play tag football. Jennifer and I watch.”

Garnett, 45, who has been an elder in their church for 10 years, believes the polyandry is good for the children. “And that’s what’s important here more than any personal satisfaction.” She believes the practice lessens the burdens and frustration of the nuclear family. “It’s not that we have anything against nuclear families, we just think this is a better way to live.” Garnett herself has only two husbands. “They’re just about all I can handle.”

According to Professor Sarah Standish at City University, polyandry is a humane way to live. “When you think that one of today’s social problems is the rise of marginal men, it’s perfect. The practice incorporates men into strong families and gives them something to do. I think it’s the future of society.”

Lind sets down her cup of tea and readjusts baby Alicia at her breast. Her fifth husband, Richard, 22, is playing in the corner with the three toddlers. An ex-Sunday school teacher, he takes care of Ken, Karen, and Sarah and teaches them simple psalms and songs. Their little minds lap it up, he says smiling. “They really want to know their place in the world.” When asked if the boys are disappointed by their future as one of many husbands, Richard looks puzzled. “No. I certainly don’t teach it that way. And the girls, their sense of responsibility must be instilled as soon as possible.”

Next year Sarah will step up into Grant’s care. Grant, 35, is Lind’s first husband who she married when he was 23 and she was 27. He was a high school teacher at the time but gave up his work when Jeffrey joined the household. He now homeschools the eldest six in the old master bedroom which has been converted into an old fashioned school room complete with desks and white board. Grant teaches the older children the Notebook, which is the word of their prophet. “We are fundamental. We go strictly by the Notebook.”

While Lind feeds the children, her husbands support her by cooking, shopping, cleaning, babysitting and earning money outside the home. “I provide the grub,” she says, “and in turn they do their service.”

J.J. takes away Lind’s cup and retreats to the kitchen where he begins his daily task of cooking a wholesome lunch for sixteen. “Around lunch time things can get pretty hectic what with the kids’ play group schedules and some of the guys’ sports schedules. I try to anticipate any problems.”

He slides on his apron and gives a quick tour of the kitchen, showing off industrial sized pots and pans, a humongous salad bowl and a grill large enough to sear a horse. He is also in charge of the family’s laundry. He proudly shows off his late model washing machine that Lind bought for him last year. He twirls the bottle of bleach around his finger like a pistol. “Mess with my detergent and you’re dead,” he jokes.

Kevin and Jeffrey both work outside the home. Kevin as a computer analyst, Jeffrey as a pilot. As Jeffrey is away from home a lot he tries to make up for his absences by taking extra “marital satisfaction” shifts. “I read up on the latest orgasm techniques. And so far Jennifer seems pretty pleased. I like the lifestyle. I look at men in regular marriages and I think what pressure they have. They have to be on call every day. I get all this free time and yet I know I contribute to the whole. The guys and I have a really good time. And Jennifer, she’s great. Really relaxed, caring. She makes me feel…good about myself. Like I’m a valued member of the team.”

Richard, however, is a bit moody these days. Jennifer has decided to marry again. Her choice is Byron, 21, a male model, who will be joining the household next month.

“I figure we could use the extra income and well, he’ll certainly be easy on the eyes,” grins Jennifer who plans to have Byron continue his career. Richard frowns. Jeffrey nudges him playfully, explaining. “It’s always hardest for the last husband. You take it hard at first but then you lighten up.”

Because in the end, Lind says, their union works. If they didn’t like it, she maintains, her husbands wouldn’t stay.

The men nod philosophically.

“Whatcha gonna do?” says Kevin. “She’s the boss. It’s the way God intended it.”

Jeffrey gives him a high five.

photo by Bob auBuchon (flickr)

Longing to Long

Last time, when I mentioned I was writing a love story, one of my commenters (thanks, Sarah W!) made a very interesting point about the place of longing in a love story.

She wrote “Durrell’s work reminds me of Rumi’s poetry — they both seem to believe that the truest love, eros or erotic, is in the longing, and the prolonging of that longing . . .”

And apologies to my husband who is a cutie and a sweetie (mostly) but, frankly, I do not walk around town in an exquisite state of longing. I’m a married woman, fully conscious that the fish I hooked is pretty damn good.

So how does a middle-aged, married novelist get in that mode? That longing state of mind that is based solely on imagination. Because, face it, in our daily lives, children, laundry,making a living and just trying to get a good night sleep, fill all that time needed for exquisite yearning.

Now my 12-year-old daughter would be a perfect longinger. She melts around the house, especially on school mornings. She glides upstairs in a dreamy state, gazes in the mirror, her mind floating on vast superior and romantic thoughts than her mother who is at the foot of the stairs, in a stained bathrobe, screeching that said daughter has one minute to get out the door before she is officially late.

So I’m trying to learn how to float again. To long. When I get everyone off to where they are supposed to be, I close the door and float to my desk and try to think longingly. I hold an imaginary daisy and silently pluck: does she love him, does she not, does he love her, does he not…

Of course, the exquisite slab of dark chocolate I unwrap is very helpful too.

For Ten of the Most Famous Love Stories click here.

photo by RellyAB (flickr)