When Writer’s Retreats are Hard: There's More Than One Way to Skin a Muse

The main Writer's House at Ragdale

Process is not for the faint of heart. I’ve emerged from my latest residency without coherent pages in my hand—nothing tangible, nothing new to read on my last day where we shared what we’d been working on. My time there was all about process, and I feel scattered. Does thinking count? Did I waste three precious weeks or take a big step? It’s been making me ponder this question: how do you judge your own “productivity” when it comes to the creative arts? Is it the thickness of the manuscript in your hand, or the heaviness in your heart from the wrestling you’ve done to get it there?

I could always write at Ragdale

We often talk about “writer’s block” (I believe that comes just before The Crack-Up), and I’ve certainly had it in spades, but never at a residency. On the contrary, I’ve been to a variety of writer’s retreats over the past twelve years, primarily at the wonderful Ragdale in Lake Forest, Illinois. And it’s always been a great experience, miraculous actually. Ragdale is where I’ve written about 90% of my novel, The Fourteenth of September, most of the time in a delightful nook with a sloped ceiling and French doors named after one of the historic building’s original inhabitants, my “lucky” Sarah’s Room.

My "Lucky" Sarah's Room

I learned a lot about process at Ragdale. I came to my first residency having just made the decision to turn a series of linked stories into a novel. I’d been focused on a modest but formidable goal—write the first chapter. I knew I wrote best early—could ONLY write early. I got up the first day at 5:30 am, pounded out a rough draft by noon and then wondered what to do. For the rest of my two-week sojourn, I “taught” myself about how to write when you’re not in the mood, when you have no idea where to go next, when you’re just filling up the hour before dinner, even when you’re frustrated waiting for the ancient toaster oven to do its job on your breakfast before the ideas you woke up with have left your head. It’s a story I tell a lot.

The well-worn rug

Over the years, however, I’d become increasingly hard on myself while working on the novel. I started the book and a business simultaneously and felt the little time I had for writing had to be so highly focused I wouldn’t let myself work on anything else until the novel was effectively out of my hands. At a residency, I usually hit the computer like a bat out of hell churning out page after page—the objective being the latest draft. It’s often been tough, with circles worn threadbare into the rug of Sarah’s Room as I paced when I was stuck, circles other writers before and after me no doubt walked as well. There were many anxious calls to brainstorm with my editor. But I’d reliably return home each time with a great fat stack of paper, covered in type. It was a satisfying ritual and I became addicted to the pileup of pages, and perhaps more than a bit superstitious.

I could only write at Ragdale

This time, with that novel finished and a publisher interested, I looked forward to a new experience. I had a list of projects and a lot of advice.  I brought folders of research for a new novel about expats in Mexico and background for another set during WWII. I had two essays in development, blog posts to stockpile.

The Chaos of Week Two

As writers, we idealize process. We use words like “flow.” My favorite is to get to the point where a draft “sings.” As I packed, I did romanticize it all, imagining how it would be to just let my mood and creative juices take me wherever they wanted. If I got stuck, I figured I’d bounce from project to project, rather than obsess. I was confident I’d enter that delicious “zone” where it seems people talk in dialogue, book titles spring from everywhere and you get incredible ideas walking from the desk to the shower, not to mention lounging on the porch, or strolling in the beautiful prairie. I wanted to let my relentless bat out of its cage, and for the first time just enjoy it in flight.

At the very least I was confident that, like every other residency, I’d rise with the birds before 6 am, make strong coffee and run to the computer, inspiration rising with the sun. I’d “create” until 3 pm, then dash off to use my short-term pass at the health club or take a long walk before getting ready for dinner. There, in the only daily gathering with other residents, I’d talk about my journey of the day and learn about what other fascinating people were doing, sharing ideas and motivation, making lifelong friends with other artists.

I’d also just closed my business, so I approached this latest residency with massive expectations. Not only would I get three months of work done in three weeks as usual, but I would break through and become, as author Christine Sneed wrote, “a writer, not someone who occasionally writes.”

I was so psyched.

Until I wasn’t.

Oh dear, I can’t write at Ragdale

The first day I read three books, enjoying my cozy room. That was okay, a warm up, I told myself. Don’t worry that you’re not actually writing. You’re reading like a writer. This what we do. Just chill.

And then it rained, and rained. Usually that’s great writing weather, but it made my head throb with migraine and the prairie too muddy for walking. I found myself waking at 3 am--a sound from a forest animal, a need for more Advil, or the deep sigh of the century-old house as it settled another quarter-inch into its bones. I was up so early… but in no condition to write, or work out, or socialize at dinner.

The second week it let up a bit, some sun, but my internal clock had reset to its annoying new rhythm. Up again at 3…always 3…was this some type of crazy writing menopause? I’d toss and turn, as characters and phrases gnawed at me and I’d finally have to get up and dash off a paragraph or a few lines. And then, each time I’d get back under the covers I’d have to jump back up to capture another phrase. I finally gave in. This was what I was here for after all, right? But why does it have to be in the middle of the night? I wondered, so irritated. I’m an early-rise windup, not a late-night wind down girl.

Grrr... I’d grumble to myself, playing around at my keyboard until the birds began to sing around 5 am, and then try to get an hour or so of shut-eye before the doors start banging on their old frames or someone talked in the kitchen just below my room and I was up again, exhausted. I just wanted a good night’s sleep and a non-throbbing head. If so, I was sure I’d welcome all this. I was wasting valuable time.

Should I Embrace Chaos as Part of Creativity? Or Am I Just Talking to Myself?

Week Three with its piles of paper

I worked in fragments: messy notes spread out over spiral-bound notebooks and yellow legal pads. While trying to focus on one project, others crept in, demanding attention. Is this what I asked for? I could neither shut it off, nor turn it on in any predictable way. My story about Germany during WWII was infecting my expats in Mexico, even my own backstory I was trying to plumb in my essays. With my first novel it had been logical, scene by scene. I’d had more control. This was an avalanche of scattered ideas—from character descriptions, to plot points, to dialogue (lots of it—they were talking like crazy!). One day, wardrobe even appeared--one character would arrive in a linen suit, another a cornflower blue tunic. Wait, this was too soon for these details. I was mixing everything up in the same notebook. How would I ever sort it out? The circles I was following were no longer just on the rug. They were on the back of my eyelids, rotating to the rhythm of the monkey noise in my head. This wasn’t “flow” it was chaos.

But then, late one afternoon, something happened. I’d just ripped another page out of a notebook and cut it into pieces, putting each into its appropriate subject pile on the floor. This was ridiculous, I told myself out loud. Just let it go, it was winning anyway. After that, I wrote stream of consciousness, sketching possible characters and plot ideas for the Mexico novel. I started and gave up on an outline, it was just coming here and there anyway. I wanted to stay with it, but after a hot shower to soothe my still aching head, up popped an idea for the WWII novel --a different setting, unity of time, place, and action. Yes, a better way to tell the story. I mentioned my dilemma briefly at dinner (I didn’t want to share too much of my bad juju) and someone suggested the shower might be my muse—if only. But I did try it again that night and after that I doubled down. Write any which way, hot water on the head, repeat. It was flow, after all.

The Upshot

So, after three weeks the Mexico novel has a voice, the draft of a promising opening scene, key settings, a really great plot twist late in the book and characters that make me cry. I know this because I remember writing it all down—somewhere. I also sent my researcher off to check out a potential new setting  for the WWII novel. I'm certain that in all this paper, there are insanely rough three-quarter drafts of two essays, a completed blog post and notes on two others. I think I got my money’s worth out of this time off the grid, just nothing I can carry home to show for it. As I packed, I filled my suitcase with random pages along with the dirty laundry.

The suitcase "unpacked"

Before I left, I took a last look at Sarah’s Room and wondered if I should buy Ragdale a new carpet…and maybe a toaster. Better karma for the next time?

Back in my home office the folders and notes from what I felt was a "rough" residency remain stacked on the table where I unpacked. The piles are fat and thick. Now, a few months later, as I've begun to organize them, I've also reassessed my interpretation of the residency. It was only “rough,” if my definition remains rigid. It wasn’t a block, or a crack-up. It was simply an alternate experience, perhaps just a blip, or maybe a new creative process going forward. Will I be more open if it happens again?  All I'm sure about is that I now know, there’s more than one way to skin a muse.

Process is a heavy thing—it can fill up so much more than a suitcase.

 

What a Mini-Skirted Watergate Prosecutor Represents about Relevance

This is the second blog post in the series #Re-Radicalized, spotlighting inspiring individuals who are newly recharged by the current political environment to change the world.

The Re-Invention of Jill Wine-Banks

The Mini-Skirted Prosecutor

When I first met Jill Wine-Banks about five years ago we were both writing books about topics we’d been told repeatedly were no longer of interest—me about the Vietnam War and she about the Nixon White House. We both felt we might have missed our windows, but I was much more skeptical that hers was ready to be put out to pasture. After all, she was the one who interrogated Rosemary Woods, the White House secretary responsible for the notorious missing 18½ minutes of the Watergate tapes. I felt Watergate was right up there with the Nazis in terms of perpetual interest—the creative gift that keeps on giving.  How could she doubt herself?

Let me back up. First of all, to meet Jill you need to do a double and triple take and think, no way could this woman have been around and in her prime back in the early 1970’s Watergate days. She looks way too young and still so striking that it’s easy to imagine her in the mini-skirt she got so much flack for back in the day. (She was dubbed the "mini-skirted prosecutor,” and eventually auctioned the garment off for charity it had become so famous).

I certainly hadn’t realized, as the Watergate hearings played on television in the background of my waning college hippie years, that there was a young woman in such a spotlight. It was still relatively early in the feminist movement and many were suspicious of her appointment as simply a coy legal strategy—bring in a woman to question a woman, rather than a big bad guy. And here was this very young woman, with blond hair and (apparently) really great legs, please!

Boy, she showed them.

I’m reminded of the words of a former client, the late great Jewel LaFontant, the former head of Refugee Affairs for Bush 41 and often both the lone woman as well as person of color on the 17 corporate boards on which she served-- a “two-fer, not a token,” as she called herself. “I have never NOT walked through a door that’s been opened to me. But once you take that step it’s all you.”

Going to Court

With Watergate Jill (then Wine Volner) burst through that door with a bang that resounds through today. The steps she took were giant, as she parlayed her success into an incredible list of achievements: first woman General Counsel of the Army, Illinois' first Solicitor General and first female Deputy Attorney General of the state, first woman EVP/COO of The American Bar Association, Executive at Motorola and Maytag. After an equally impressive list of not for profit/social advocate positions she has championed causes in education and social services, most recently serving on the US Department of Defense Subcommittee investigating sexual assault in the military.

Jill never stopped fighting, particularly as an outspoken critic of sexism. An early iteration of her book was as a memoir contrasting what it was like to be at the pinnacle of success and attention, yet still facing sexist attitudes and practices in both professional and personal circumstances.

The book was to be her point of view on Watergate and its legacy, a perfect coda to her impressive career.

And Then Came Trump

Today, legacy is no longer the issue – Jill's mission is to prevent history from repeating itself, and she is driven.

As aspects of the new Administration’s political situation grew progressively more familiar, Jill knew she had the credentials and a unique voice.  She honed her messaging by participating in the Op-Ed Project which encourages new voices on world issues. The resulting editorial, “Comey’s Firing is as Bad as The Saturday Night Massacre,” was published with dazzling speed within days by The Chicago Tribune, and Jill has spent the months since fielding media calls and making regular appearances on MSNBC, CNN, ABC, Politico, The Huffington Post, Canadian and Australian television and more. And it’s only the beginning. On July 5 she made her debut as an official MSNBC contributor. As she puts it, she's been "re-invented by Donald Trump."

She also has a new working title for her revised book: From Watergate to Trumpgate.

With Justice Breyer and Bob Woodward

Jill’s message is clear: We learned lessons back then. We know better now. It can’t be allowed to happen again. She, along with the others on the prosecuting team, had felt that Watergate was a perfect storm of circumstances, an anomaly that could never recur, even as they watched as the laws that passed to protect us from another Watergate, including the Special Prosecutor law and campaign finance reforms, were undone by The Supreme Court or left to expire

She’s appalled yet clear eyed about the parallels between Nixon and Trump in terms of what we were unaware of then, and must be aware of now. Others may point out the differences, but her role is to point out the similarities. As she said of a recent, and remarkable, ABC 20/20 special in which she appears, Truth and Lies: Watergate “substitute the word ‘Trump’ every time they mention ‘Nixon’ and you’ll be astonished.”

Nothing is Irrelevant

The Authors

What I say is that Jill will never be irrelevant. An early feminist pioneer, today she's a leader who understands the obligation we have to learn from the painful lessons of history to keep from repeating the mistakes of the past. That’s the only way to  move forward and change the world.

I asked Jill several years ago if she ever considered running for office. “I’m too thin-skinned,” she said.  My response? “Please!” I asked again recently, given her new profile. She thinks maybe local government. In her seventies, it’s not a start… it’s not even a re-invention for a lifelong fighter...it’s a renaissance. Bravo, Jill.

PS. My favorite part of Truth and Lies: Watergate is learning that the burglars were caught because their lookout was watching television—the program was “The Attack of the Puppet People.”

Need I say more?

I hope YOU will. Please engage and comment.

Marching In Solidarity, But Not “In Fashion”— Why Didn’t Vogue Call Me?

On January 27 I wrote a blog titled “A 48-Year Déjà Vu” about the similarities between the post-election Women’s March and the march to end the war in Vietnam in Washington DC on November 15, 1969. I’d been at both and have just finished a novel about the latter.

I commented on the longtime gap between issues that were compelling enough to get me back on my feet, and the “wake up” from my “radical sleep.” To illustrate my argument, I’d carefully combed through a circa ’69 photo of me in a protest march and lined up a corresponding shot from today.

The post was heartfelt. I received many comments (yes, a few about my hair) and reestablished connections from long ago. We were still all in it together.

Out Of Fashion, But Not Out Of the Question

Recently, in the May issue of Vogue magazine, of all things, I turn to a page labeled “Nostalgia” and see an article titled “March With Me,” comparing the author’s dual experiences of marching in DC long ago against the war, and this January against the potential loss of women’s rights. Great minds, yes?  

Photo credit: Vogue

However, next to the article was a photo of what can only be called a Yardley girl from the ‘60’s. She’s what we all wanted to look like—doe-eyed, with long, stick-straight hair and hip clothes of the moment. Though the caption indicated she thought her “protesting outfit” was the essence of cool—bell bottoms and turtleneck—I was incredulous. This shot had all the benefits of professional hair, makeup and lighting, as well as a stylist who hung those sunglasses so insouciantly low on that skinny circumference of a hip. And the arch of her wrist as if she’d just flipped that glossy hair—seriously? She wouldn’t have lasted a mile marching in that getup.

But I read the article anyway and was surprised at how much our experiences had in common. The author, Pilar Crespi, had participated in the anti-Vietnam War March on Washington of 1967. That was two years before the one I attended and prior to the outrage of the Tet Offensive, The Democratic Convention and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy that jolted my class out of high school at the end of 1968 into a truly frightening world.

As I read her story, and as I’ve recounted in previous blogs, I kept thinking about how so little changes, so few lessons are learned and the hamster wheel of history just keeps going around. Pilar’s (I’ve now forgiven her photogenic self) experiences were spot on with my own. Despite the photo caption, her actual ’67 march outfit consisted of “genuine” bells and a blue work shirt—I had one of those, but marched in ‘69 in a fatigue jacket found in a Salvation Army resale shop in the small town where my University was located.

Like Pilar’s mother, mine had also been appalled by my evolving radical appearance, pointing how much more flattering my previous stretch pants and mohair sweaters had been versus these clunky jeans. My mother just didn’t get how much clothes credentialed you in those times. I also didn’t tell my mother I’d gone to Washington—well, not until after the fact, when the phase I was in required appropriate mom-baiting.

The tone of our ‘60’s marches was also the same—male—and the focus, early feminist “lady-like.” We never would have worn pink (that was for out-of-touch sorority girls), made anything solely a women’s issue (we were equal in the struggle), or discussed body parts of any kind.  In this year’s Women’s March, the tone was welcoming and friendly, the colors politically pastel, the men supportive, and the anatomy right up there in all the made-for-TV posters and on our pussy-hatted heads.

We had even both been spurred by the Women’s March to call our congress representatives about the same issues—the Muslim travel ban and the Affordable Health Care Act. We were SO aligned.

We Still Have the Power To Galvanize

My in-the-day fashion moment
Photo credit: Karen Thompson

What struck me above all, was how Pilar noted that our focus back then had been singular—to end the war, a generation-galvanizing stance that ultimately touched us all.  Today, we’re both concerned about the multiplicity of the urgent issues—from the environment and women’s rights to immigration—and question how we’ll focus to make the proper impact on each. I wonder, is there a thread we can work through and pull these concerns together like we did over the Vietnam War?

That observation is similar to my additional concern about diversity.  At the Women’s March in Chicago each speaker welcomed in turn every potential subsection represented by the women’s faces in front of her--transgender, queer, Hispanic, immigrant, previously incarcerated, single mothers, African Americans, victims of abuse, etc.—versus our overarching, and all encompassing female umbrella. And yet, SISTERS, it’s our commonalities that will provide the strength for change, not all these differences, right?

Finally, though both Pilar and I had been warmed by seeing the daughters and granddaughters who marched alongside us in January, we are objective about the difficulties for the quest ahead. Can we galvanize to the same degree as in the ‘60’s and fit all our issues, however diverse, under one powerful effort? 

We can figure this out, Pilar. We have this in common—with our generation, with our gender.

So, I’ll bury the hatchet over your radical-chic and admit you were/are Vogue worthy. My look, back in the day I’d say was March worthy, save a few sporadic fashion moments.

Do you think there’s a photo shoot in it?

Any chance you hung on to that cute little tunic? I’m afraid my hat bit the dust long ago.

A Cold War Thriller and Syrian Bombing Make for Implausible but True Plot Twists at Literary Salon

Rita introducing Ellis Goodman at her ninth literary salon

I swear I didn’t plan it, but there was a lot of irony and surprise going around recently at my ninth Literary Salon. The featured author, Ellis Goodman, here to read from his new novel, The Keller Papers, brought more than a fascinating story both on the page and behind the scenes. He also unknowingly teed up the world event to happen later that evening, as well as resurfaced a bit of history between him and me.

The Backstory

More than a few years ago, when he was CEO of Barton Brands, my public relations agency at the time, Dragonette Inc, pitched Ellis for the Corona beer account. We had just left Edelman, so we were a young agency with a short list of smaller clients—Corona would have been a big coup. We jumped through hoops to demonstrate spectacular results for our modest clients with their tiny budgets, assuming he would, of course, easily extrapolate—“Wow! If they can get all this for only that, imagine what they could do for my big-budget beer!” Alas, his only words were, “It does seem that you have a lot of clients without much money . . . ” (I remember it verbatim). We were so charmed by his polite British accent and gracious manners that it took a while to realize we’d been rebuffed . . . and that he’d left the room.

Déjà Without the Vu

The next time I saw Ellis, he was hosting the premiere of Mulberry Child, a film he’d executive produced based on the book of my great friend Jennifer Kwong (Chinese aka Jian Ping). He didn’t remember me from Adam (which, I have to say, is rare when you have red hair, so I was a bit miffed). Cue the revenge scenario, said my inner storyteller. Let me count the ways I could reveal our previous encounter . . . Too contrived, I thought. It would never sell. So I behaved and introduced myself as Jennifer’s friend, a writer, only to learn that he had finished a novel himself—Bear Any Burden—and was in the painful throes of getting it noticed. The coincidental revenge plot crumbled before me. After all, now we were compadres. I had to love him, right?

I let the cat out of the bag at the launch party for The Keller Papers … he did a little head shake as if trying to remember our past association and hoping it wasn’t “Did I fire her?” My memory jog didn’t work either. Nonetheless, we were now both in the same profession. His novel sounded intriguing, and I invited him to be featured in one of the Literary Salons I hold periodically in my home to introduce new books to avid readers. (Or, as Ellis put it, “the most interesting group, so knowledgeable and committed to the written word.”)

Ellis Goodman & Rita Dragonette

The Author

So, what do you call a man who started his career as an accountant, rose to lead an international beverage company, invested in Broadway musicals and movies great and small, and now follows in the Cold War thriller path of John le Carré? Renaissance Man seemed cliché. Did I mention he is British?  I introduced him as James Bond, of course.

Ellis set the scene for his story by describing how, when his cousin traced his family tree back through many wars to Poland in the 1770s, he knew he had a story, then taught himself how to write it. He went on to combine his personal history with his eclectic background. For example, one of his main characters, Sir Alex Campbell, heads a UK-based international spirits company which gives him cover to travel behind the Iron Curtain to occasionally do “little things” for MI6, while tapping his far-flung relatives to aid in implementation here and there.

The Setup

Our  always great, post-reading discussion focused on history repeating itself as his story unwound from the Nazis to the Stasi—similar arrogance, intractable feudal and religious alliances and, above all, dangerous nationalism. I mentioned that several years ago, le Carré had lamented the fact that the “fall” of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War had made it challenging to come up with equally compelling plots. However, he has a new novel ready for release this September—George Smiley back to deal with a similar world situation. Being in the zeitgeist is good for writers, not so much for the rest of us, we agreed as we discussed how hard it is for things to change and history to progress.

The Explosive, Surprise Ending

Literary Salon attendees

Later, as the last two guests and I were polishing off the end of the cheese tray, I received an alarming email from a friend—something right out of a novel. I read it out loud: “Hope this isn’t the end of the world. I would miss not seeing you again.” We quickly turned on the television—it was shockingly unreal and yet familiar—visions of smoke and destruction. Could this really be happening or was it a movie? Was it good or bad? Now, f***ing what?

Then we realized, at the precise moment we’d been bemoaning the “hamster wheel” of the unlearned lessons of history, the US had been in fact doing it all again by bombing Syria. The story had written itself.

And yet, I’m certain, if I put this scene in a novel, it would be edited out as too implausible. No one would buy it.

A Tale Of Two Writer's Conferences

I just returned from two back-to-back conferences and am reeling a bit from what I’ve seen as I begin to peddle my novel after quietly writing it for the past 12 years.

Association of Writers and Writing Programs—I Am Not Throwing Away My Shot

I’ve been to the formidable AWP Conference several times in the past, but always hung to the sides, picking up what craft or marketing information I could, but not feeling quite “legitimate” without a finished manuscript. I’d found my first AWP pretty frosty. Twice, someone I’d sat next to at a lecture responded to my “hello” with a quick look at my name tag and, apparently seeing nothing useful, turned full-body to the evidently more credentialed person on their other side. I’d been taken aback at such a PR faux pas. How do they know I won’t be the next Donna Tartt? So, this is the world we’re in, I thought, as I was repeatedly mowed down again and again until I figured out a system—leave the current session before the Q&A and you’d have a prayer at being able to get into the next, even though you’d probably still end up sitting on the floor.

It was at bit warmer this time. I knew a few people: the poet Parneshia Jones, who I’d met at Ragdale and author Paul Lisicky, who’d led a workshop I’d taken at the Juniper Summer Writing Institute a few years back.  I felt like a celebrity at Four Way Books when they recognized my name as the host of a salon this fall for Christina Pugh to introduce her new book, Perception. When I somehow qualified for a free copy of Elizabeth Strout’s new book I thought I was in like Flynn.

Still, there were 550 events. And, 12,000 writers vying for attention, queuing up like mad for every agent/publisher, asking multi-part “questions” of speakers hoping they’d register as so brilliant that surely they’d be begged for their manuscripts.  It was an ambitious and aggressive space, and everyone seemed to take that for granted.   The attendees were fashion funky, pretty evenly gender split, and primarily in, or on the cusp of either end of their third decade. Many were lost the first day, but more sure footed by the second as they sprinted around the massive Washington DC Convention Center in the ten minutes between crowded sessions, hoping to score a quick granola bar in one of the long concession lines. A choice for sustenance did inevitably mean you’d end up sitting on the floor.

Speakers were universally provocative and political—the daunting reality of the Trump-drenched atmosphere. We all wanted to throw our arms around Jennifer Egan who confessed she’d been right at the end of the final draft of her current novel on Inauguration Day, then stymied with depression. I mean, we actually all wanted to BE her, with her Pulitzer-winning Goon Squad talent, but would settle for offering comfort. Maybe she’d be grateful and recommend our manuscript?

The pace was insane and it was easy to feel out of it. So many events were happening that sounded off book—even a massive protest march, they said. You apparently had to be in the “know” to be aware of all that was going on. Just before a panel on Susan Sontag which featured incredible speakers but no overall “point,” I dipped into a “Over 50” session filled with festive grey hair, tipped with what Katherine Hepburn would have called “colors not found in nature”—purple, green and teal. They were earnest and eager, desperate for reassurance. I backed out early, sympathetic but unable--or unwilling--to self identify.

I left with a raging cold, a legacy of freezing conference rooms and a missed turn back to my hotel where I circled the block three times, teary from the wind, too cold to take off my gloves to work Google maps.

San Miguel Writer’s Conference—I’m Not Going to Give Up My Seat

After a quick strep test I was off to the Writer’s Conference in beautiful San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, which was warmer in every sense of the word. Here, age-wise I was firmly in the middle of the primarily female and very friendly and curious audience--a mix of readers and writers, most working on memoir. It moved slower. No one would think of sitting on the floor, but some were enjoying lolling about on blankets and pillows in the sun on the beautiful grounds of the Hotel Real de Minas. The wardrobe was Mexican fiesta with bright colors, beach hats and the essential San Miguel sandals so you wouldn’t break an ankle on the cobblestones. Food was important—and everywhere--and I may never eat guacamole and taco chips again (something I never thought I’d say). 

Mary Karr with Rita Dragonette

The speakers were there to be entertaining, with only occasional smart-ass remarks about Trump. Memoirist Mary Karr was side splitting. Her definition of narcissism was her mother staggering out of a bar in her stiletto’s looking up at the moon and saying “I have an earring like that.” Karr told a story about the Chanel-clad agent who’d encouraged her first memoir, The Liar’s Club, and I realized I’d seen the agent on an AWP panel earlier in the week. She’d shared a funny story about, as a cub, having to cut 100 pages out of a Simone De Beauvoir book. Her client roster is platinum but I wondered, fleetingly, if she’d give my debut novel a chance if I let her know it includes a running gag about Simone. Too much?

I held my coughing and nose blowing to after each of Billy Collins’ very funny and deceptively simple poems. By David Ebershoff’s lecture I was able to hear the fascinating 20-year journey from idea to book to movie of The Danish Girl on a single cough drop. The editor I pitched (despite what was on her web site) was not interested in fiction.  Had I considered my story as a memoir? she asked, bringing up a dilemma I’d settled long ago.

There was a curious insistence on etiquette. There were “rules” about noise (frequent shouts of “Sound” or “Volume”), timing ( rhythmic clapping would begin on the stroke of the start time and accelerate until the speaker began), and the avoidance of cardinal sins (standing or sitting in another person’s sight line, attempting to save a seat too long or, god forbid, cutting in line). Again, hard to self identify, particularly after the athletic techniques I’d just employed to get into AWP sessions.

In all, I was motivated but sick, and longed to settle in to a blanket in the back of the lecture hall, and listen with my eyes closed. I was pretty sure at the AWP I’d have been walked over, if not on. At San Miguel they would have covered me, but gone on to turn out the lights and lock the door.

What I learned

Despite challenging "cultures," there was information galore at both conferences. I learned I need a great idea (check—at least in my own mind), excellent craft (which is “assumed” by an MFA--is my Certificate from the University of Chicago close enough for a check?), to be a good literary citizen (those salons I hold, yeah!..check), and an ability to market (multiple checks).  How does it add up? Do my 30 years in marketing trump (sorry, there’s just no other word) the fact that I have the wrong degree?

Above all I wonder about velocity. The pace to succeed is thunderous, the need to capture attention instantaneous. Marketing and profile-wise I'm pretty certain I can pull this off. But I worry if there will be patience for the slow-build development of my novel’s teenage protagonist into her political dilemma. Should I change it now or wait until the inevitable rewrites? In other words, do I pull it off the market to remodel the kitchen, or trust that a buyer will either love it as is or see its potential? My inner perfectionist gnaws. Maybe I’ll decide by the time this cough is absolutely gone…

Getting my shot is going to be tough indeed. However, these conference experiences have convinced me more than ever that I do want my seat at the table. At this stage of the game, I’ll be happy to sit anywhere, even on the floor—as long as there are pillows.

What My Radical Mentor Taught Me About Protesting Today

In January, I wrote a blog post A 48-Year Déjà Vu, about how the Women’s March in reaction to a newly threatening political climate had caused me to wake out of my “radical sleep,” and reactivate to find an appropriate role for a contribution that would make sense today. I realized I was fascinated by how former political “radicals” were newly responding to the world. I now envision a series titled #Re-Radicalized, which will, from time to time, spotlight the inspiring stories of others who are still out there, newly recharged, working to change the world. This blog post is the first in that series.

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The Northern Star, October 1969

Back in the Fall of 1969, I was increasingly disturbed by the direction of the Vietnam War and just sticking my toe into the campus counterculture at Northern Illinois University. I would comb notices for events advertised on posters and began to attend a few—a planning meeting to support a student strike, a gathering of the campus chapter of the SMC (Student Mobilization Committee to End the War). I’d cling to a wall at the back of the room and try to blend with my brand new jeans, and be amazed at how order would arise from the chaos before me—everyone yelling at once, purposefully raucous, yet somehow arriving at decisions. I’d slink out, without interacting. Intrigued, but not ready to engage.

Sign This

One day at the union, Marcia Fradkin plopped herself down next to me, shoved a petition under my nose, dared me not to be apathetic and told me to sign it. I don’t remember what it was for, but I certainly obeyed. She had seen me at all the meetings and knew a ripe convert who needed a push when she saw one. From that moment she became my radical mentor, schooling me in all the important things—we were “freaks” not “hippies;” it was “grass” or “weed” not “pot;” proper attire meant the bells of your jeans had to be a complete circle, not sticking out like triangles from your ankles; and there were “right” ways to get involved (SMC yes, SDS and YSA—the Young Socialists Alliance, no). She immediately introduced me to her expansive circle including virtually any non-straight person on campus (back when “straight” meant “conforming,” not sexual identification) and gave me the name I am still called by to this day, “Lovely Rita.”

A Woman of Substance

We called her “Heavy” Marcia, a label coined by a mutual boyfriend (no, not at the same time), from I Want You (She's So Heavy) on the new Abbey Road album. And, it was fitting. She was a woman of great substance… our leader. Everyone followed Marcia and we were thrilled when we heard her exclaim “Oh wow!” when impressed or excited. She had a way of getting past all the attitude and reminding people of the essence. Forget wounded US pride and failed Paris peace talks. People were dying. The war had to end. Period. Love conquers all…really…think about it. “Give me one instance when it doesn’t. You can’t can you?”

As a one-issue radical, once the war ended I moved off into a business career. But Marcia kept at it, always involved in causes to help the underdog, people in need. We reconnected in recent years when we lived closer together. She’s on the board of Bridge to Success, helping people get a second chance, always recruiting others to become involved in causes she’s identified, still marching when it’s called for.

When I didn’t hear from her about the recent Women’s March, an activity that after the election woke me out of my everything-will-work-itself-out stupor, I contacted her. I figured she must be planning to go to Washington to march.  Her response was quiet, thoughtful and puzzling. The eternal fighter said simply that given the new administration our voices would fall on deaf ears, and her response from now on would be more spiritual. Peace and love over fear and anger. Healing, not raging at, the world.

The Women’s March without the Key “Woman”

I went with others to the march I wrote about here, but I felt Marcia’s absence everywhere. Only she would have seen all the parallels to 1969. I wrote an entire chapter in my novel, The Fourteenth of September, about the March on Washington we’d been on together. I wanted her to be with me now to revel in the music, about how open and engaged everyone was, over the fact that there were so many people we couldn’t actually march, just like back in our day, and how fantastic it was that we’d overwhelmed expectations yet again. I knew she’d have beamed out “Oh wow’s” all over the place.

“Heavy” Marcia and Lovely Rita have lunch…Oh wow!

I had lunch with her last week and told her all about it. She’d read my blog. We reminisced. She spent a lot of time since the election, she said, seriously thinking about what direction was right for her and she’d reached a conclusion. She decided that her best contribution would be to ensure that everyone she encountered—whether it be the receptionist at her doctor’s office or someone on the bus—would feel seen, heard and valued. She was stopping—to be pleasant, to ask about their day, to listen to them. She wanted to make a difference, she said, if only one by one. She was apologetic, almost embarrassed, as if she knew it was small and I’d be disappointed in her.

Instead, I thought, she’d done it again--cut through the political rhetoric and reduced the problem to its essence.  After all, wasn’t that the issue of the election? Large swaths of people were frustrated they hadn’t been listened to, taken seriously….seen? If we had been doing this all along, where would we be now? If we all do this--from each individual to all of congress--on a larger and larger scale moving forward, where do we have the ability to be as a country? If we see, listen and value instead of shriek, sneer and blame?  

So simple. So heavy. Oh wow!

A 48-Year Déjà Vu

The last time I was part of a massive protest march was November 15, 1969, in Washington DC to end the War in Vietnam. It was major. I wrote a novel about it. This past Saturday, I was in Chicago, part of the Worldwide Women’s March to maintain our hard-won rights.  It was bigger. It will be mentioned in inevitable books to be written four years from now. In both cases, I immediately knew I just had to be there, if for nothing else than to be counted.

The first song at Saturday’s rally was Let it Be and 48 years dropped away

Back in ’69 I’d arrived in DC sleepless, after an all-night trip on one of three school buses taking 200 of us from Northern Illinois University to what we were certain  would be the end of the war. I froze in a threadbare pea coat left over from high school and gym shoes that got so muddy I had to pitch them the minute I returned. I had three PB&J sandwiches in my paisley bag along with a knit hat to hide my red hair so my military mother wouldn’t see me on TV and realize that I’d gone even though she’d pitched that fit. “What do you mean you have to be there?”

We were full of purpose and joy –everyone was so friendly, eager to know where you were from, what protests were going on at our campus, to show off their homemade signs and share buttons. “I’ll trade you my green Texas SMC (Student Mobilization Against the War) for your blue SDS. We were walking posters of cross-country solidarity. The only tension was over how to greet new friends.  But soon, even if you got it wrong and they answered your peace sign with a clenched fist or vice versa, embarrassment turned to giggles and it didn’t matter. So much was going on. Though we were there to demand that Nixon end the war, there were lots of ‘isms” about other issues that blurred in the background—communism, Marxism-- debates about peace vs violence. I warmed my hands by a fire while listening to an anarchist. He was cute so I listened.  It didn’t matter. I was there and would be counted in the million plus number we were certain we’d hit and Nixon wouldn’t be able to ignore.

Pink Hats

The New Yorker called  Saturday’s pink sea “radiant with love and dissent.” It was equally full of purpose and joy. We snapped selfies instead of traded buttons, showed each other our witty—sometimes smutty--signs, marveled at how far people had travelled, asked each other what activism we had planned, and obeyed orders by staying off the grass. I was in a perfectly warm Cole Haan jacket and Mephisto walking shoes. The only tension was wondering how long my lower back would put up with standing on pavement. I was not nineteen any more. The message was equally messy. We were there to demand Trump not roll back our rights, but the speakers spilled over into calling for Rahm’s ouster… union rights. Someone was trying to give away a free pair of Ivanka Trump sandals. I laughed, having fun while knowing I’d be counted among the numbers that were escalating from 50,000 to 75,000 to 250,000. Who’d ever seen so many people in one place? I mean…not since ‘69. After, we stopped for lunch in a cozy spot over hip health food and reflected.

Had to be there

I was motivated in ‘69 to do whatever I could, including putting myself in jeopardy, to be counted as against a policy that simply could not stand. After that I moved on from activism. Nearly 50 years later I feel equally threatened.

My late mother often told my sister and I that she’d been certain we’d have so much more freedom than she’d experienced in career, marriage, family—all of it. She’d gone as far as she could in her day and wanted us to go farther and we did. But she was disappointed it hadn’t been more.  Yesterday, there was a post from my second cousin who is a diplomat in the foreign  service awaiting the birth of her second child, with no paid maternity leave. She has to decide to take either a financial or a professional hit over her “choice” to have a baby. She hopes her two-year old daughter won’t face the same decision.

The past is not past, it isn’t even dead. What I object to is the hamster wheel of things. I reject the way a new administration is coming into completely repeal the work of the previous one, and how that will tee up the next to do the same.  Massive programs like Medicare and the Affordable Care Act don’t arrive perfectly operable. There are a lot of moving parts. We start with what makes sense based upon what we know and then we need to work to make it better. Sure it’s messy. If we repeal instead of refine, they’ll be another plan with its own messes that will either be rejected or refined and we’ll keep going in the wheel of negative progress so my cousin’s daughter will still be fighting and being threatened by the repeal of Roe vs Wade. Just Let It Be.

That’s why, after so many years, the Women’s March has helped me come out of my radical sleep. The voice of my own novel reminds me. This time, my mother would have agreed it was worth it. She may never have understood the antiwar part, but the woman’s rights part, she’d SO get that. She would have come to the march. She looked great in pink.

She would have known it was important just to be there.

Take the Plunge! Join Me on My First Novel’s Wild Ride

As Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway would put it, at long last, I’ve finally taken the plunge. I’ve burst out of the business world and into a full-time creative career.

I anticipate a wild ride, and I’d love your company.

After my toiling away on my first novel for twelve years, my editor has, as she puts it, “taken away my paintbrush.” I’m ready to go public and find an audience for The Fourteenth of September, a Coming of Conscience novel that follows a young woman in the time of the Vietnam War who must make a choice as fateful as that of any draftee. Think—if Tim O’Brien in the “On the Rainy River” section of The Things They Carried had been a woman—that’s the emotional intensity I’m going for. Like most debut novels, it’s based on personal experience. I’ll be sharing more on my story, what I mean by a Coming of Conscience novel, and on the plunge into the creative life in posts to come.

For now, I’ll simply say this:

There have been challenging obstacles in the novel’s development, from objections to the subject matter (“Vietnam? Not relevant!”) and its female point of view (“that era belongs to men”) to struggles to get out of my business head and into the mind of a writer (“don’t say ‘positioning statement,’ say ‘why you write.’”) There’s no question the ride will continue to be bumpy and, I trust, fascinating.

I plan to use this space to share ideas I’m considering, hurdles I’m facing, insights I’m realizing, books I’ve been reading, and what I’m learning from other writers I admire. I hope you’ll follow me as I progress to publication and well beyond this first step.

And, I do consider this first novel an initial step. It’s the time of year for resolutions, so be my witness as I plant a stake in the ground and declare out loud that I’m planning to be a career writer, not a one-hit wonder (or single-try stumble, as the case may be).

After thirty years of telling other people’s stories, I’m champing at the bit to tell my own.

My formal writing will always be an intimate story that takes place on a large canvas—war or generational change. In this and all my writing I’m a pattern identifier and a dot connector, and feel strongly that nothing is irrelevant for any reader—age and gender restrictions be dammed! 

Less “officially,” I plan to comment broadly.

I am, above all, a questioner. 

For instance, why do we say Vietnam is old news and yet regularly race to the cinema for the latest WWII movie? But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

With this new plunge into blogging, I promise to be honest (or to admit it if I’m not), provocative (or it’s not worth your time), original (I trust), succinct and humorous when I can.

I’m full of ideas, and firmly “in the zone,” as we say about the month-long afterglow of a writer’s residency, but I want it to continue. Sharing and hearing back from you will help me tremendously as I determine what type of blog content sustains both you and me. 

So bottom line, as we say in the business world, I realize that I’ve taken the plunge, but really I’m asking you to take one, too. 

Please join me.  Take a chance.  Everything is Interesting.  Nothing is irrelevant.

What a lark, as Mrs. Dalloway would say, indeed.

Why I Write

Photograph by Karen Thompson

Throughout my career I’ve written for the trend, for the times, for the zeitgeist. I spent years in the public relations/marketing profession, where being current was currency, and built a reputation as someone known for “getting it.” So I was surprised when I encountered push back over the years as I wrote my first novel, set during the Vietnam War, as to why anyone would be interested in the subject matter. It’s over. It’s been done. Why should I care? I wasn’t around then. It’s irrelevant to me, to today.

Such comments always made me respond with a crack referencing the latest hit movie set during World War II, about a war that took place before most of us were “around,” and yet endlessly of interest, of relevance.

This millennial resistance to all but the immediate present has caused me to think a great deal about the notion of relevance. The concept seems obvious as I work on a second novel about the experiences of two women in Germany during the Great War, and how what they went through trickled down to profoundly harm their children, and children’s children. These influences may have begun yesterday but highly impact today and, as more children are born, without question, tomorrow. In fact, the point of the novel is to wonder how very long, into how many generations, the impact of war can last.

I think of relevance as I work on a memoir in essays about my own life that highly resists staying in the present, or even in my own past—it circles back, farther and farther, into the influences of those that influenced me.

My own present has many dimensions that began long ago. It’s hard not to feel it when my physical therapist helps me stretch out the impact of the gymnastics incident that threw out my back when I was sixteen; the car accident at thirty that messed up my neck, gave me a lifetime of migraines and threw me permanently out of alignment; and the mugging at forty-something that saved my purse but frayed my rotator cuff. Our bodies are like old cars, I believe, the injuries of our past dinging us with every morning wake up.

So too, are our minds and our memories. What else explains the need for so many therapists who help us deal with patterns, fears and behaviors that belonged to generations long ago and have been passed down, unwittingly, to influence and inhibit how we deal with achievement, relationships and what we in turn pass on ourselves?

With every throb of the little finger of my right hand that reacts when my back goes out or pang of head pain that comes with the low barometric pressure of summer storms, I go back to the source, and am reminded where this all started. 

I’ve always told my clients, in my most recent profession as a career consultant, to stop and reevaluate as they progressed. You’ve worked for twenty years, I’d say, thirty. What is the combined value of that experience, expertise and point of view? That’s what you are now. It’s what makes you unique and is the foundation of the legacy you leave for others. 

And so it is with history. We are informed way beyond the shortsightedness of the present.

Viet Thanh Nguyen was nominated for the National Book Award for Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War.  President Obama quoted William Faulkner about how “the past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.” The past, immediate or far, what happened to others, the country, the family, is all there when you crook your little finger. It’s what made it happen. It’s why it still happens. 

Physical, mental, familial, historical. We are the ancestry.com of our times and to continue to move forward there’s an imperative to connect the dots, to identify the patterns, to factor in everything, to acknowledge.

Nothing is irrelevant.

This is why I write.