The Right Word

No, not the choice, not the thing delivered onto the page. This is the right word offered to a needy writer at the right time.

I’ve been lucky. In the past few weeks, two friend-readers finished the most recent work, offering me gifts of reactions as wonderful as I might have hoped (thank you, Mary, and thank you, Donna.) Then yesterday—a day that, as friend-reader Jo Bryant observed—as I was laying low from blogging but not from writing, came another right-reaction-at-the-right time.

Canadian Susan Rocan is a writer of YA fiction. A crafter. A writer who works with special needs children and talks with schoolchildren about writing. A reader who reads like a writer. And it was this writer’s eye that she applied to The Spiritkeeper.

A pivotal moment for any writer, I’m guessing, is when she realizes that a reader is taking away the writer’s exact intent of creation. Susan did that big-time. Her reaction to the characters (“I adore your writing style and the way your characters are so alive they practically jump off the page”), to the love scene, to the haven’t-seen-this-subject-presented-in-quite-this-way approach that drives the plot: all, observations that could not have been more spot-on if I had scripted them. And all at the right time.

A new book is a leap of faith. And the view from the cliff’s edge is a scary one. In this work, as in the last two, the entire premise is balanced upon a suspension of disbelief…perhaps in this new work most of all. The new work is based in a real-world cultural phenomenon, with a major left-hand twist. The moment the reader says “preposterous”, the deal is off; and yet, the book cannot exist without it. That twist is the reason for the book’s being. We are Tinkerbelles in our heads: Without the applause, we die.

David Byrne observed, with endearing candor, that artists have big egos. I suppose that’s true, even for those of us who try to bury ours under the tonnage of frailty and ever-striving vulnerability that is who we really are. As she faces down the insecurities of a new undertaking, the writer believes that she can muscle even a dicey premise past objections by sheer force of ability and will. She hopes that the story will not collapse in on itself like the house of cards that any new idea is. And she hopes the reader will feel for her work what she has felt.

In this hope, one is even more grateful for the support of those who read and approve. This shoring-up, this buttressing, of any writer’s self-worth is an invaluable thing, as much an act of faith as the writing is.

So thank you, Susan. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Donna. Thank you, you who are yet to get back to me. For wading through X-hundred pages, for the encouragement, for the praise, thank you. Words never found a more grateful ear. Approval never came to anyone at a better time.

Two Thoughts that Fill the World

In theater, music, dance, the artist knows where she stands. Writers…we’re different. We dwell in a land of isolation. And instinct. And belief in the moment. We strive and we worry. In private. In silence.

We are, in our work, voices that cry unheard in the wilderness of our heads. We shout, and listen for the echoes to come back. We have no way to know whether we’ve succeeded in what we’ve tried to do, except through what we feel.

Until someone reads us.

Today, I heard the echoes that came back out of the silent darkness–and the voices, for once, were not my own. In e-Salon this morning, two reactions from people whose critical eyes I trust implicitly. One came from Donna, the first reader to finish Everything first page to last; the second from a longtime friend whose reading is in progress. Two reader-colleagues from whom I can count on for frank and honest opinions.

Two sets of impressions shared. Two raves.

I am still smiling.

I never expected that our artists’ discussion hour would turn into, as Marc later called it, “Lynnapalooza”, an hour of unqualified praise. I never expected their follow-up…tough questions about the nature of writing, asked, I was told, because I’d better get ready for the kind of questions the NPR interviewer will ask (Marc, from your mouth…)

To have the labor of so many solitary hours referred to as “world-class writing”…to have a new and cherished writer-friend call it “a book I wish I’d written”: I could not have hoped to hear better.

The writer is never quite free of doubt. For us, inner balance is a shaky and unreliable thing. We cannot know with certainty that our intentions of plot and craft will be realized in what we do. When the hard-won elements of style and rhythm, the length of chapters and the formation of sentences and the complex nuances of characters are read back to us conveying exactly what we meant…when the comments come from people who have read them carefully and attentively…I don’t believe that there is anything better in the world. It is the moment of love realized.

The writing begins and fills us. It ends and empties us out. Into the emptied space, readers’ reactions fill a world; they put an energy back into a space where only hope lived. And the gratification, the gratitude—it’s fleeting.

We love what we heard. We wanted it. Needed it. We hope to earn more of it. And here’s the truth: The lovely, terrifying, confounding thing that is our work is a slate erased by finishing. Our quest will ask us again to summon the same dedication, worry, effort. As soon as the next book starts.

A Shameless Self-Indulgence

I’m on the road today–getting stuff done in SGF, spending time with Glorious–so it might be a while before I can post anything substantial, if at all.

But I checked my emails this morning…and in response to yesterday’s post was this from Kiwi/Aussie Jo, a new friend and one of the folks who have been kind enough to read The Spiritkeeper. The comment felt so good, I hope that you’ll forgive my sharing it…

“I hear the call that The Spiritkeeper sends out. It is not a tale that is meant for a drawer – it is meant for the big wide world. And it will be published. I have great faith in that – nothing this good will go unnoticed. And when it is – are you ready for that??? Because this book will touch people, and it will spread, and be read, and read, and read. And it will become a book people will not lend  – in case they don’t get it back !”

Thank you, Jo, and thank you Kristina, for making my life a joy.