Under the Honeysuckle Vine

Here it is, the in-depth interview everyone has been waiting for.  Jama Rattigan of plumbs my darkest secrets at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.  Learn why Iva really likes to dig, my secret formula for writing Southern, the exact location of Uncertain, where I got all those funny names, and a little bit about the sequel, Iva Honeysuckle Discovers Her Match.

Truthfully, Jama Rattigan is a crack interviewer who asks excellent questions that made me think.  Writers don’t analyze their work too much–if at all–while a book is in progress.  But things don’t happen in books by accident.  Jama’s questions helped me realize how my tiny little brain put things together.

Enjoy!

It was the roughest five days we’d ever spent.  I brought him home late Saturday.  This is what he missed.

Sitting on the porch.  Fresh air.  Birds singing.

Reading.

The outside cat.

Lemon sponge cake made by Mennonites topped with May strawberries.

Such small things, but huge when you can’t have them.

It was a week of fragmentation:  work that went well, work that didn’t, one lovely lunch in the middle, four hours of hospital pre-op that made me realize if I ever got a tattoo it would be of my insurance card, an overnight trip to western Virginia for a school visit, the very long drive home in rain. 

Finally we made it to Saturday, which felt like flinging ourselves backward in a feather bed after walking a tightrope for five days.  It was the last Saturday, the last free day, before my husband’s surgery.  We piled in the truck and headed east, away from the lawn that desperately needed mowing, away from the sameness of soccer fields and Starbucks.

The band squeezing my chest began to ease with the sight of red clay neatly turned, the green surprise of barely-up corn and soybeans.  Small towns–King George, Montross, Warsaw–were lively with community yard sales, plant sales, bake sales, auctions, and people just standing in parking lots yakking. 

We stopped at our favorite Opp Shop.  I picked up a 1972 Polaroid Square Shooter with case and instruction booklet, a wooden shelf, a James Lee Burke novel, and a brand-new notebook office “system.”  $2.10.  We gave them $5 because anything less felt like stealing.  Then we sat in the cab of the truck, ate Oreo doughnuts (worth every calorie) and read our respective sections of the Wall Street Journal.

In White Oak we stopped at an antique place where the stock never changes, the prices are never lowered, but the man who runs it tells such good stories, I always buy something over-priced I don’t really need just to hear him talk.  I let my husband take a picture of me at the tail-end of my cut and color. 

On we drove.  The land grew flatter (good for growing all that corn).   I noticed dozens of small abandoned houses, isolated in the middle of fields, some lifting shoulders bravely to the sky, others given in to neglect and gravity in a heap of boards.   We passed roadside markets selling geraniums and wineries and hamlets like Lyell and Nomini Grove.   Turkey vultures skated on the bottoms of clouds.

Then we sailed across the high bridge arching over the Rappahannock River and into Tappahannock.   We landed at Lowery’s seafood restaurant.  As I ate fried fish, I noticed the older women had on their white capri pants and bright “tops,” sensible leather sandals, and carried summer-weight straw bags.  Their toenails gleamed pink and they chattered like parrots. 

On our way home, we found what we’d been longing for but didn’t know it:  strawberries.  Not those baseball-sized fakes in grocery stores, but fresh-picked from the patch steps from the roadside stand.  Strawberries, red and ripe all the way through.  My husband picked up a couple of tomatoes and I added three pots of toenail-polish pink geraniums.

At my feet in the graveled lot, I spied a dark brown flight feather from a turkey vulture.  The best gift of the day.  At home, we set the tomatoes on the window sill and hulled the strawberries.  I tried to smooth the torn wing feather, mesh the barbs into the tight, safe structure that enables vultures to soar.  I lacked the skill to zip the barbules together. 

But that’s okay.  I know we can still fly.  

It was the best April plan ever.   I’d use the month before my husband’s surgery to whip up a little book.  Keep myself sane, productive.   

First, I’d pick out a pattern for my new book (Simplicity!).  Next I’d go shopping for material–something chapter-bookish, maybe light blue gingham or a little sailboat print.  Then I’d come home, pin the pattern to the fabric, cut them out, baste the big pieces together.

While wisteria bloomed, I’d stitch up the chapters.  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.  Maybe eight.  I’d sew on a row of pearly buttons to close those chapters fast.  At the last minute, I’d decide to add a pocket with the scraps.  Embroider the main character’s initials on it.  That would tickle her.

But the plan unraveled before it hardly started.  Today is the first of May and I’m frantically ripping seams.  There is no April book.  There is one revised-ten-times frayed Chapter One.  And that’s it.

I know, I know.  I was rushing.  But I wanted a new book so bad.  It was like ninth grade when I was dying for a Villager shirtwaist dress.  I might as well have asked for a Dior ball gown.  Then lo! our home ec sewing project was a Village-style shirtwaist dress!  I picked out a tiny turquoise floral print I adored.  In no time flat, I’d be sashaying down the halls of Woodson High in my new fitted-to-me dress, just like the cool rich girls.

A Dior ball gown could not have been more complicated.  Invisible side-zipper, button-front placket, buttoned cuffs, Peter Pan collar, pintucks.  Every day, I sewed feverishly on our class sewing machine.  Every day, the vision of myself sashaying in turquoise grew dimmer, especially after I sewed the dress to the skirt I was wearing.  I took the bungled mess home to my mother, who nursed it back to health, though it failed to thrive (my mother was an excellent seamstress, but not an exorcist). 

Some of the girls’ finished dresses could not be distinguished from a real Villager, their pintucks were that straight, their zippers truly invisible.  Mine wasn’t ready for the ragbag like my friend Sandy’s, but it radiated homemade.  It didn’t really fit.

This book plan didn’t fit either.  I can’t write a book in four weeks (though I used to, all the time).  Especially since I had a meltdown every week, zigzag-stitching my terrible mood right over my hapless characters.

So I’ve gathered up the loose threads of that story and packed it in my bottom drawer with all the other half-finished projects.  It’s May.  I have the Iva sequel to revise.  That will be like darning socks, lapwork I can do sitting in a comfortable chair with good light coming over my shoulder.

There’s a little iPad envy over here.  All those smart-looking people with their paper-thin tablets, swooshing.   Who wouldn’t want to swoosh and have magical things happen? 

If I had an iPad, that one neat square-ish package would let me swoosh from e-mails to birdwatching apps to “Mad Men” to my grocery list to Anthropologie  to Facebook to Etsy to my blog to an e-book . . . I could do this stuff on my phone, too, plus take cool pictures.  (Don’t think I haven’t considered buying an iPhone just for the camera, Instagram and Hipstamatic.)  I could do so many things.  So so so so many things. 

But not much work.

It’s the same with the Net on my clunky old desktop computer, really, only without the swooshing.  I only mean to check my e-mail.  Or Google a fact.  Click, click, click.   Fifty clicks later–book reviews, a meatloaf recipe, gorgeous turquoise shoes I couldn’t wear in a million years–I don’t know where I am or what I was looking for originally.  I may have even blacked out.

Similar situation with the computer I only do my writing on.  Type, type, type.   That sentence looks good.  No, wait.  Fix the ending.  No, move the back to the front.  No, get rid of it.  What about the paragraph above it?  It’s looking a little puny.  

Sit, sit, sit.  At the end of the day I’ve advanced my book a whopping two sentences.  My neck hurts.  My butt died three hours ago.  Some days the writing goes great–I barely notice the time flying by.  But many days are like this one, tedious, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.   I feel tethered to the keyboard.  Switching to my laptop is no help.  I’d still be prone to chopping and channeling.

My work asks me to write and write and write and if I sneak over to the Net to play a little, the work gets peeved.  Something is wrong.  Is it me?  The work?  The fact there’s no swooshing?  An iPad is not the answer.  If I got one, I’d be tethered to the iPad.

It’s the shape of my day.  I’m giving too much time to my work (yes!).  I’ve let it off the leash and it’s running wild and dragging me behind it.  My favorite writing instructor, Heather Sellers, says writers need structure to contain their work, a shape.  Instead of stating, “Today I’ll write chapter three (or else),” say, “Today I’ll go over my notes for chapter three and write the first scene.”   Put a square around the work, let it know it has a fence to deal with.

Last week, after one of those endless keyboard sessions, I dreamed of a clipboard with a box-like thing beneath to hold my work.  Do they even make such a critter any more?  Yes, they do.  Staples had mine in blue and in purple.  Also one in aluminum that would make me feel like the UPS man (not a bad thing).  Another with a calculator on the clip, though I didn’t like the idea of staring at numbers. 

Inside there’s room for my tablet, my journal, my pen.  That’s it.  I can pick up this square-ish clipboard and carry it everywhere, iPad-like.  To the sofa.  To my favorite diner.  With my trusty clipboard I can write by hand!  I’m less inclined to fix and fiddle and more encouraged to follow one slow deliberate sentence with another and see where things go.  

Plus I don’t have my entire book with me.  Not all those computer files to flick back and forth between.  Not all my three-ring binders or research folders.  Only what I need to do the writing within the square.   

My blue clipboard writing-box never needs charging.  Doesn’t need updating.  If I drop it, it’s not the end of the world.   Yeah, I love my homemade iPad.  Even if it doesn’t swoosh.

Saturday turned out to be a gorgeous, very special day for Iva Honeysuckle’s launch book signing at bbgb bookstore in Richmond.  (bbgb stands for “bring back good books”–Iva and I are doing the best we can!).   

Iva, look at the balloons.  The exact blue and green on the cover of your book!

Iva:  Do you think the bookstore people will let me have that bunch?  I’d like to fly over Richmond!  Hey, what’s that other book doing in the window?

Inside we were met by Jenesse Evertson and Jill Stefanovich, who between them have more energy  than the Old Dominion Power Company.   I was immediately impressed by titles you don’t see in regular bookstores . . . and some I’d never seen.  I set out the plate of preacher cookies Iva and I had made and soon the children came. 

Iva:  All of ‘em my age! 

I read not one, but two chapters from the book, and those kids were the best listeners.  They asked excellent questions.  We got into a discussion about what time period Iva’s story is.  I told them that it’s modern-day, but I never mention cellphones or computers because I didn’t want to date my story.  It wasn’t that Iva’s family didn’t have those things–they just aren’t mentioned.  Iva’s into the old things her great-grandfather left behind, like the 1930s National Geographic magazines I showed the kids, and the tire pressure record book.

Iva:  Yeah, old stuff is way more cool.  What’s a cellphone, anyway?

Then our day got even better.  As I was reading, two people slipped in the door and stood quietly against the wall.  I glanced over and saw blogger extraordinaire and fellow children’s author Jama Rattigan and her husband Len!   Jama and Len came all the way from Centreville (at least a two-hour drive!) to celebrate Iva’s launch. 

We haven’t laid eyes on each other in person since 2009, when we both attended the Kidlitosphere Blog Conference.    

Iva:  Miss Jama brought Cornelius, the cutest little bear.  I wanted to take him home for Sweetlips, but Cornelius has an important job and besides, he’s Miss Jama’s best friend.

Cornelius gave Iva a present–this red-trimmed bag filled with treats from Hawaii, where Jama is from.  I have to say, Hawaii’s macadamia nuts have it all over Virginia peanuts!

We couldn’t have had a better launch signing–excited kids, a store full of books and booksellers who became instant friends, the surprise of old friends, preacher cookies–

Iva:  And macadamia nuts, the perfect discoverer food!  Can I have those balloons now? 

Iva, settle down.  I think you might be getting spoiled from all this attention.  You may be going away sooner than you think.

Iva:  Good!  On my next adventure, I want to go to Hawaii and discover a volcano!

Tomorrow Iva greets her public at bbgb bookstore in Richmond, Virginia.  bbgb stands for “bring back good books,” a motto we can all get behind!

Iva and I will be there Saturday, April 21, from 1:00 p.m to 3:00 p.m. at 3100 Kensington Avenue, near the Museum of Fine Arts.  Oh, and there will be preacher cookies!

Iva:  Be there or be square!

You never know what you’ll see in diners around here!  The minute we entered Frost Diner in Culpeper and I saw these re-enactors, I asked them if I could take pictures even before I ordered. 

I was impressed by the young girl.   You don’t find many girls doing this.  Re-enacting is time-consuming and expensive (to get the authentic look).  She was not wearing a hoop-skirt, which was correct.  Girls did not wear them until they were a certain age.  I was also impressed by how most of the men had cultivated a genuine look.  The man in the kepi cap and goatee could have stepped from an daguerrotype. 

Every December, the Battle of Fredericksburg is re-enacted.  Years ago, I came upon “Lee,” “Jackson,” “Longstreet,” and “Stuart,” on their horses, re-creating the famous ride through the bombed streets of Fredericksburg after the battle.  “Stuart” gallantly doffed his plumed hat to chat with me.  I was thrilled.

These living history actors spend long days in the heat (their uniforms are wool), talking and demonstrating, reminding us that the war may have been orchestrated by famous generals, but it was fought and endured by ordinary people.

The last two weeks have been terrible.  Breakdowns in grocery stores.  Crying at 6:30 in the morning.  Overeating.  Not walking.  Not exercising.  Whining, weeping, wailing, and much gnashing of teeth.  And why?

Because my novel is being rejected.  Yes, even after over 100 books published, I still get rejections.  My agent would tell me somebody has passed on a project and normally I’d go, Well, okay, and move on. 

But not this novel.

Not the book I worked on for a year.  Not the book that challenged me every day, every step of the way.  Not the book that changed my life and there is no going back, not ever.  How could they pass on this book?  Pass!  Like, turning down a piece of fruitcake?  No, thanks.  I’ll pass.

Not this book.

And so for two weeks I let these rejections take the real me hostage.  Meals were marked with slammed pans and cabinets.  The bed wasn’t made until ten or eleven or even noon.  I stopped sleeping.  My heartburn came back.  My husband got tired of seeing my dreary face first thing in the morning and last thing at night. 

Worse, I didn’t write.  And that is the real source of the Spring of My Discontent.  I don’t like being in the my-book-is-being-shopped-around place.  I want to be in the Storyplace, where I can lose myself in my work and not worry about the rest of the world.

This weekend, while I was slamming and banging around, I heard “Boondocks” on the radio.  It’s an older song by Little Big Town and I’d heard it before.  (It could be my anthem).  Near the end of the song the tempo picks up and the singers take different parts.  On the video, everybody burns the house down. Nobody is mewling or cringing over rejected novels.

 [I can't embed the video, for some reason, mainly I don't know how, but here's the link.]

Suddenly I knew that’s what I wanted to do.   I want to work like I’m burning the house down.  Not care about rejections or what other people think.  Work each day like it’s my last. 

Burn the house down.

Apparently I’m only allowed to pitch one hissy fit a week.  I’d already used up my meltdown allotment by Monday.

So yesterday I went on a lilac mission.  We can’t get a lilac bush to grow in what General Braddock (French and Indian War, not Civil) called “Virginia jack clay.”  But there’s an empty house down the road with the biggest lilac bush in the back yard just sitting there.

I packed my clippers and a plastic bag and brought home an armful of lilacs.  My husband said I’m not only trespassing but stealing.  I told him the lilac bush is neglected and needed pruning.  The bush felt much better after I gave it a little trim.

It’s hard to stay in a rotten mood when you have lilacs in the kitchen.  You walk by and the scent just reaches out and taps you on the shoulder.  I want to wear lilac cologne every day.  It just might improve my disposition.