Last Chance

I saw Spiderman tonight. Yes, hmm, well, dum dee dum, I don't think I want to talk about that right now. Yet.

Before I went to the movie, I dropped in on Lois McMaster Bujold's book signing for the release of her new novel Diplomatic Immunity. (Click on the link that says Next at the top of the page to read some sample chapters.) I was one of the people she had critiquing the manuscript, so I got to read it about eight months ahead of everyone else. I'll be glad to read it again.

As I watched her sign books and answer questions, graciously as always, I thought about a little embroidered sign I'd seen that she has hanging on the wall of her bedroom. It reads "Last Chance for Marion Housewife." If I remember correctly, her good friend Lillian Stewart Carl made it for her.

Here's the story behind that wall hanging: Back when Lois first started writing, she was living in Marion, Ohio, an area so economically depressed that she couldn't even sell her house to move away, and she couldn't get a job that would pay enough to cover day care. So she wrote. She didn't sell her first book, Shards of Honor, right away, and so her first three books all got published pretty close together. She made quite a splash with them, and she was a nominee for the John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award. New writers have two years of eligibility for this award from the date of their first publication.

She was nominated for it both years after her first publication. And when she came up for the second time, the local Marion, Ohio newspaper did a little feature on it, which they rather baldly titled "Last Chance for Marion Housewife."

And it was true, she laughs when she tells this story. She laughs, but there's pain there too, and that's why she has those words mounted and hung on her wall, both as a joke and an ironic reminder. It's her story to tell, not mine, so I won't say exactly what it was she left behind in Marion, Ohio. The point is, however, that writing was what got her out of there. Writing saved her, she says.

There are people all over the world who care deeply about their writing; there are people who put their lives on the line for what they write. There are people who are only alive because of their writing.

If what you wrote next was your last chance--whatever that means to you--what would you write?

Put another way: if the next thing you wrote was the last thing you wrote--what would you write?

Hmm. I've been thinking about what alexmalfoy said about the story I'm working on, that I should work on it "as long as it's fun." I read earlier this week that "no one learns from what simply amuses them." (Do you believe that? I'm not sure I do.) And is the point of writing learning something? It can one possible purpose, I suppose. I wrote once that I write about what haunts me. Is it possible to write something that's both funny and deeply moving? I think so. Lois can do it, and many of the fanfiction writers I've been reading the last few years can do it, too.

What would I write if what I wrote next was my last chance? (What does that mean to me? Last chance to make a statement? Last chance for immortality? Last chance to sink down into someone's heart and move it deeply? What is my last chance?)

I'm not sure it would be the story I'm working on.

Hmm. Must think more about this.



Cheers,
Peg

This and that, including my bedside table

Upon thinking over what I wrote yesterday, I took back all my books to the library on wildfire management. It's a good idea for a story, but I think it's still missing one critical element, and I'm not ready to write it, and so my back brain is resisting. alexmalfoy said the crucial thing that made me finally make the decision I'd been hemming and hawing over for several weeks: it's not fun. Now I know that sometimes when I'm writing something that is working, I can get temporarily stuck and it's not fun, but I know I just need to barrel on through. This is not one of those times, I think. The key is I'm not excited about it at all; I don't want to write it, at least not now.



I'm leaving open the possibility of getting back to it some day. Sometimes I do that.

Before I forget: a couple of people have asked where I get the Jane Austen icons. I've answered in the comments, but I'll put it here too: I get them at a lovely site called The Republic of Pemberley, which is devoted to Jane. These icons, which they call "FUPs" for "Frequently Used Phrases" can be found here ("I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant phrases as may be adapted to ordinary occasions." You recognize where that comes from, don't you? It's a remark of Mr. Collins, in Pride and Prejudice.) Anyway if you'll go to that link, you'll find links at the top to seven other pages of icons; they have hundreds to choose from.

Out of curiosity, I have decided to archeologically excavate my bedside table. Starting from the top and working my way down:

1. Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold. Picked it up at the signing last night.
2. My daily journal. Twenty-eighth year in a series.
3. Growing Up Weightless by John M. Ford. I've finished this; just haven't gotten it back onto the bookshelf.
4. Welcome to my World, Where English is Sometimes Spoken by Shannon Olson. My boss lent it to me; haven't started it yet.
5. The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julie Cameron. A birthday gift from Rob. Dipping into it occasionally.
6. A pack of overlay screens for my palm assistant (haven't figured out where else they should go).
7. Making the Connection by Bob Greene and Oprah Winfrey. (Hey, I just passed my sixty workout mark since I've begun exercising again! Am starting Cathe Friedrich step videos. Without a step. Go me.)
8. A list I printed out from the Internet entitled "100 reasons to exercise," which I grab to read to convince me to get out of bed when my alarm goes off at 5:35 a.m. so I can get up to do my Cathe Friedrich step videos.
9. The parent comment cards for my two daughters' report cards. Oops. These were supposed to be returned to the school.
10. A print out of Lois McMaster Bujold's novelette (or is a novella? Not sure) "Winterfair Gifts," the story of Miles and Ekaterin's wedding. This one is going to be published in an anthology of sf/fantasy and romance cross over stories. I don't remember what the anthology is going to be called, but I think Catherine Asaro is editing. The story is Way Cool and is told from the p-o-v of Armsman Roic. Sergeant Taura figures prominently. And I mean prominently. All eight feet of her. Go her.
11. A lovely card from Kij.
12. Fiona's spring conference report. Good lord, from February?
13. A handwritten draft of a short story.
14. An early printout from cassieclaire's Very Secret Diaries.
15. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Movie Companion book.
16. A book that Lois lent me on Chinese Eunuchs when I was working on that story treatment idea for a prequel to Emerald House Risingthat never went anywhere. Damn, I forgot to take that with me to the reading to give back to her.
17. A spiral notebook which I was using for morning pages when I was doing Julie Cameron's The Artist's Way. I'm not doing them anymore.
18. Various barrettes, combs and hair twisties.

On the bed itself: cassieclaire's Draco Veritas.

What's on your bedside table?

Cheers,
Peg