An Introvert Steps Out...of the Comfort Zone

 

A few months ago, in a moment of very atypical INFP behavior, I reached out to Capital Books, a lovely independent bookstore in downtown Sacramento to set up a book signing event. Said event took place yesterday, and I'm happy to report it was a success. It was also a lot of fun. The store holds their events in the Flamingo Lounge, an inviting space on the second floor with a picture window that overlooks K Street. It's the perfect space to sip tea and talk about books.

I organized literally hundreds of events at Tower, many with local authors, and a good number with big names, including favorites like Robert Crais and Sue Grafton. Just the idea of being on the other side of the table was a bit surreal. Even after the date was confirmed and I began promoting the event, it still sort of felt like I was talking about someone else's book signing.

Right before the owner (with whom I'd crossed paths many years ago at Tower) introduced me, I had a moment of, "Am I really doing this?? Who thought this was a good idea?" Then I took a breath, looked around the room, and saw the friendly (masked) faces of those who had come to support me, ranging from a childhood friend, to my Tower tribe, to my new work family. What an amazing feeling. I read an excerpt, then answered questions, and instead of freaking out over the fact that I was speaking in public, I realized I was just talking about a book with a room full of friends—right in the middle of my comfort zone.

It's been quite a while since my Tower days, and the road to finally finishing a book and getting it published was long and winding. But I did get there. And there has been no shortage of people rooting for me along the way. Getting a book published and having an event was certainly a dream come true, but staying connected with my tribe? Priceless.

Paperback Writer—for Real

I've been waiting SO freaking long to use this title in this way, and I finally can. I wrote a book. Then I edited, scrapped part of it, rewrote other parts, edited some more, and then it was finally done. And someone published it. Just typing those words is downright surreal. I've purchased thousands and thousands of books, as both reader and buyer, but to hold one in my hand, with my name on the cover, is completely mind-blowing. Telling people where they can buy my book is even more bizarre.

So now what? Good question. Now comes the phase that strikes terror into the soul of every introvert: self-promotion. A thing I am not even a little bit good at. Sure, I can crow about it on social media and tout it here, as I am doing. But what I should do is talk to the buyers at local bookstores and ask if they'd consider putting my title in their local authors section. I might also ask if they'd consider doing a book signing event. As the very thought of that makes me break into a cold sweat, my brain shrieks, "Why would they do that?? No one would show up!!"

And then I think about how many local authors I set up events for at Tower and realize it's not about how many people show up, or even how many books I sell (but yes, I DO want to sell books) it's about believing in the story enough to read through countless drafts, slog through every last edit, turn over the final version, and say, "Here it is. Here's this thing I conjured from my imagination." So, dear readers, here it is...

Wonderous Stories

 

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"In the end, we'll all become stories." – Margaret Atwood

Humans are storytellers, a fact I've mentioned many times in this space. As English Professor, Jonathan Gottschall, explains in The Storytelling Animal, stories make us human. We love make-believe, shape everything from sporting events to criminal trials into narratives, and Gottschall theorizes that we use stories to prepare us for real life events. Is all the world really a stage? Maybe so.

What about your story? Would you live your life differently if you knew someone was going to write about you? What would you want as the lede in the story of your life? Thanks to social media, we’ve all gotten used to posting what I think of as our highlight reels (and ignore or pretend the outtakes didn't happen). What would you want captured by a skilled writer, or what would you submit as your greatest hits?

That likely depends on how you define success. Is it a great job with financial security? A beautiful house, or health for you and your family? How do you define happiness? Does what made you happy twenty years ago look the same or different today?

It's an odd thing for a writer to contemplate being written about (for me anyway). But asking myself the above questions, I can say how I define happiness has definitely shifted over the years. As far as my highlight reel, getting paid to write is certainly part of it. But what has become even more important is settling into a comfort in my own skin and truly being grateful for all I've been given.

Maybe it's as simple as leading with kindness and gratitude, and then you can be sure your story will be a good one.

Word Forward

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As I was thinking about this post, I was going to use yard work as a metaphor for writing, in that planning and thinking is all well and good, but nothing happens until you stop thinking and start doing. And that's where the metaphor fell flat, because that's true of literally everything. Duh.

I tend to spend much more time on this blog in the fall and winter, because there are fewer reasons to be outside, and my publishing schedule can be somewhat regular. Then spring comes, the outdoors beckon, the yard needs attention, and the schedule falls apart. I remember reading that Dilbert creator, Scott Adams, said he published on his blog "approximately whenever I feel like it."

I've always liked that...it works for me. Although it might be more accurate to say I publish when I have something to say. Self-promotion is a daunting task for an introvert, and social media a necessary evil. I started this blog to have a place to point potential freelance clients who might want to see for themselves that I can in fact string words together in a coherent fashion. But one can't launch a blog in a vacuum, so then comes the sharing on social platforms, and it starts feeling less and less like what I really want to do. It also takes away from what I think of as actual writing time.

I want to write stories, not write about myself. And yet...why do any of us write? Are we all writing about ourselves in some way because it all comes from our perspective? Is it possible to completely leave your personal point of view behind? Who knows? I don’t. What I do know is that I'll keep writing as long as my muse sees fit to appear. And that will be my way forward. 

Box Full of Letters

 

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"A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise." - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

This quote caught my eye because Zafón's The Shadow of the Wind hooked me with the first beautifully-written sentence: "I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time." This literary mystery introduces Daniel, son of an antiquarian bookseller who finds solace in a "forgotten" book that leads him to discover one of Barcelona's darkest secrets. If you love books and mysteries, this one will captivate from the start and stay with you long after the final line.

Beyond admiring the author's work, I'm intrigued by the idea that in writing a story, the author is writing herself a letter. The more I've thought about this, the more I like the concept. I can sit down to write, and whether it's a short story, or a longer piece, I invariably take some detours and make turns I didn't plan on, and in fact didn't know were there until I was upon them. When rereading earlier-written parts of a longer piece, they can sometimes seem a bit unfamiliar. Perhaps that’s a result of the muse taking over.  

I exchange actual handwritten letters with a few friends. Writing those letters is like creating a story each time in that the pleasure is in the telling. And invariably, between answering questions posed in a letter I'm replying to and telling the recipient what I've been up to, I'll take a turn I didn't anticipate. Humans have always been storytellers, from the days of scrawling on cave walls. Turns out, we often tell those stories to ourselves.

Beyond Expectations

As a reader, you form a unique and intimate relationship with the author of a beloved book, especially one you fall in love with as a child. Norton Juster, author of the book of my childhood, The Phantom Tollbooth, passed away at the age of 91 on Monday. Learning that fact left me a little sad. I never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Juster, and yet I feel as though I lost a family friend.

Besides further cementing my lifelong love of reading, the adventures of Milo and Tock the watchdog ignited my imagination and first planted the idea that writing could be fun. What an incredible gift. I'm guessing other writers and voracious readers felt the same way: graduating from picture to chapter books was a big deal. We were really reading, and we felt ready to take on anything.

For those unfamiliar with this charming, enduring story, Milo is a little boy bored by everything, until the day he finds that a tollbooth has mysteriously appeared in his room. (For the record, this SoCal kid had no earthly idea what a tollbooth was). Because he has nothing better to do, Milo sets off to the Lands Beyond, meeting wonderfully eccentric characters along the way, including Tock, the watchdog who ticks, the Humbug, a witch named Faintly Macabre, and the warring Kings of Dictionopolis and Digitopolis.

The book was published in 1961, but not everyone in the publishing world embraced it, claiming the ideas were beyond children and the vocabulary was too difficult. Seriously? Juster's reply to such ridiculous criticism was to say, "There is no such thing as a difficult word. There are only words you don't know yet — the kind of liberating words that Milo encounters on his adventure." Well said. Rest in peace, Mr. Juster, and enjoy your journey to the Lands Beyond. 

Show Me the Way

 

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"Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's." – Stephen King

"Show, don’t tell" is advice often given to aspiring writers. It certainly makes sense, as the writer wants to paint a picture in her readers' minds. But when you sit down to write, to tell your story, it's easy to fall into just that—telling.

What's an aspiring writer to do? Learn from the pros. I've mentioned Master Class in this space before, and am still of the opinion that it's worth every penny. I just finished David Baldacci's class on writing mysteries and thrillers, and am once again walking the line between being incredibly inspired and convinced I have no idea what I'm doing. At least I'm consistent.

I do take some solace in the fact that even my favorite author, Robert Crais, often faces a blank page with uncertainty. I recently reread an interview in which he said that every time he sits down to write a new book he thinks, "Can I pull this off?" And that's after numerous awards and more than twenty novels. Some days I wonder if I can pull off a blog post.

But back to showing. In his class, Baldacci walks would-be thriller writers through his outlining process—emphasizing that it's ever-evolving, creating compelling characters, crafting dialogue, writing action scenes, and much more. Good stuff. His readers definitely see his stories unfold. And while it's clear how hard he works at his craft, it's also clear how much he enjoys it, simply stating that "he can't not write."

So where does that leave me? Starting to play with an idea for a new story, coming up with new ways to summon my muse, and knowing I'm not alone when I think I can't possibly write another book. But I think I can. I'll show you.

In the Pocket

 

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I'm late to the party on this one, but I just found out about kangaroo words. According to dictionary.com, a kangaroo word is a "word that contains its own synonym, with the letters to spell that synonym already placed in the correct order." WHAT?? Maybe it's a side effect of it being month eleventy-five of the pandemic, but I think this is so cool!

The letters can be consecutive, like act within action, or spread out, like male in masculine. And to continue with the word play, those shorter synonyms inside of a kangaroo word are called joey words. Methinks Kanga and Roo would be pleased.

I'm a bit dismayed that I didn't learn about kangaroo words in grade school. Had I been made aware of this bit of language nerdiness around the time I discovered The Phantom Tollbooth, my eight-year-old head surely would have exploded (in a good way). Kangaroo words were popularized as a word game in the 1950s, in The American Magazine, and later appeared in Reader's Digest. Then, I suppose, they just faded away.

For you serious word geeks out there, a twin kangaroo contains two joey words, such as container, in which both tin and can appear. Want more? An anti-kangaroo (is it just me, or does that sound like a political party that would appear in a Monty Python sketch?) contains its own antonym, like overt in covert. And the finale? A grand kangaroo contains two joey words, one of which is in the "pouch" of the other, such as alone, which contains lone, which contains one. Mind. Blown.

Word play will always be fun for a certain segment of the population. I just hope that enough of us are passing that sense of play along to future generations. Wouldn't Kanga want us to?

W is for Where

 

Writing fiction is an interesting endeavor. The writer creates a world in which to tell her story, but it must have elements of truth—things that will be relatable to the reader. Walter Mosley said he writes fiction so he can "make stuff up." And yet, the Los Angeles of Easy Rawlins is vividly gritty and instantly recognizable. Done properly, the setting of a novel becomes a character. Sometimes, the principal character.   

So, how does a writer decide where to set a story, in cases where the setting isn't a given, like Raymond Chandler's LA? In the early stage of a story I recently finished, I considered going the Sue Grafton route and making up a town, like Santa Teresa, so it wouldn't matter what I put where. But as the story progressed, I realized I'd need to stop and map everything out or be at risk of continuity errors. Does my protagonist drive into or away from the morning sun on the way to work? How long does it take her to get to said job? How far away does her best friend live? Ultimately, I decided to set the story in Sacramento, and had Google maps open on a browser tab while I wrote.

Julie Smith, author of the Edgar Award-winning New Orleans Mourning, sees the fiction writer as a reporter when setting the scene, recording the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells, then taking readers on a tour. And, bearing in mind Elmore Leonard's rule about never opening a book with weather, the right detail, from nerve-jangling Santa Ana winds to the silence of snowfall, can place readers in the story like nothing else. Hello, Sacramento valley tule fog.

Sacramento may not have the romantic allure of San Francisco or the contrasting glitz and grit of Los Angeles, but there are plenty of features with which to anchor a story. Stately trees and homes in Land Park, the American River bike trail, little towns on the delta that seem stuck in time. If a writer takes care in setting the scene, readers will notice. And they'll hopefully want to come along for the ride.

Ten Things I Learned Last Year

 

Introvert that I am, my social habits didn't change all that much during the pandemic-driven quarantine last year. But forced solitude is a different matter, and I had to adjust to not seeing friends and family in person. I had to rely on phone calls (I've never been a big phone talker, even as a teenager), texts, and emails more than ever, and at times, just retreated from everything.

It would be easy to paint the entire year with a broad tar-filled brush, but there were a few unexpected bright spots, along with more time to just be with my own thoughts. So, in no particular order, here are ten things I learned last year:

1. My cats sleep at least 18 hours a day.

2. Never underestimate the power of a sky break.

3. My day job doesn't belong in my house, but I can make room for it without losing my muse. In fact, the two can complement each other.

4. I rediscovered the simple joy of writing a letter and anticipating a reply.

5. Forced solitude is different than chosen, but it's okay.

6. Social media is even more annoying during a pandemic.

7. Good lighting is your best friend on Zoom.

8. A 15-minute department phone call is good for at least 1500 steps.

9. "If not now, when?" is a very powerful question.

10. Never underestimate the power of going for a drive and listening to music.

This year didn't begin well, prompting some to wonder if it's the thirteenth month of 2020. When will things begin to look up? No one knows, but I do know that I want to respond to chaos differently this year. And I don't want to forget last year, because I want to continue to learn from it. I want to continue to practice bending without breaking, and I want to feel lighter. I can't change what's going on around me, and in the world at large, but I can change how I react.