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I’m a mother three times, and the births of my children were relatively easy. I say “relatively” because they were each (also) fraught in their ways. But the upshot was the same each time: healthy baby, healthy mother. I remain incredibly grateful for this.

The birth of one of them, however, was a little dicey. No, I didn’t require help with the pain on this particular go-round, but I also couldn’t get any help because none of the nurses would offer it. As I breathed through the contractions, a nurse would occasionally pop into the room and then out again. But none of them would stay long enough for me to ask my question: am I getting any closer to having this baby?

I think it was a very busy night in that maternity ward.

It doesn’t matter. As I said, the outcome was what we all hope for. And while this particular baby was blue for a few minutes and while he did have his umbilical cord wound twice around his neck, he was really altogether fine and, moreover, is fine today. Thanks be to God.

I recall only one interaction with a nurse, and this was when Nurse Harder came into the room. The sun was coming up and I was beginning to feel hopeful (because mornings almost always make me feel that way), and Nurse Harder came in at the start of her shift and didn’t leave the room immediately. Instead she introduced herself to me, my husband and my mother: “I’m Nurse Harder, as in ‘Push Harder’,” and I found her little joke incredibly encouraging.

She also checked my progress and told me that “this baby is almost ready to be born,” which is what every laboring mother wants to hear, and that she was just leaving the room to call the doctor. And then she said to me, “Please don’t push yet.”

I remember that instruction distinctly: “Don’t push.” This was really very encouraging and also not encouraging at all, because it meant that the pushing part (which means the baby part) was imminent– but my compliance with her instruction was absolutely impossible.

Because here’s the thing: when the body decides that it’s time to push the baby out, the body is going to push the baby out. When you’ve reached that point in the labor and delivery, the body shifts to auto-pilot. There is simply no stopping the pushing. None.

***

Why am I telling you this?

Well, because, you see: I am about to write another book. I’ve already begun the research. I have, in fact, been researching for quite some time. I am already in that phase of book-writing that looks like distraction but is actually me thinking about plot and characters and potential scenes in this book all the time. Or most of the time, anyway.

Yes, I may look like I’m washing the dishes or walking the dog, folding laundry or heaving a barbell, but if I’m by myself and not engaged in conversation with anyone, if I’m not reading or studying or working on something else that needs me, then you can be sure that I am thinking about Leon. I think about Leon and his problems, about his best friend Paul, about Leon’s wife (whose name I haven’t determined yet) or about their son (whose name I also don’t yet know). And I’m thinking about western Pennsylvania (again) and the Rust Belt, the space left in landscape and economy by a steel industry that skipped town. I’m thinking about love and jealousy and the deepest of friendships, of what hurts us and how we deal (all of us differently) with pain.

Also, quite naturally, I’m thinking of bears. Black bears, to be specific. Why? Because they’re the only kind of wild bear that lives in rural Pennsylvania. Obviously.

***

Perhaps you’re not with me, though. You’re (potentially?) not seeing the link. Why would the vivid memory of the birth of one of my children have anything at all to do with writing a book?

Because. Many (many) people (including me) have tied the two together. They say that writing a book can feel like a pregnancy, from its quiet beginning to its urgent end. Here’s how: a notion of a story sits dimly at the back of one’s mind and then begins to grow. If the story is worthy, if it’s something that is potentially good-for-the-telling, then it just won’t leave you alone. Gradually it gathers momentum, occupying greater and greater mental space, developing in size and complexity, until eventually it’s simply too big to sit there: it must be told. People say that the drive to write is similar to the process of labor: word by word, line by line, the force of the narrative compels the writer to write until finally–through fits of terrible concentration and pressure–the book is finished. The author has no choice but to write until it’s done. Until it is, one might say, born. 

That’s why I started this post by writing about childbirth: because I’m writing another book.

But I’ve written here about childbirth and writing (also) in order to say this: childbirth (for me) is no longer the right metaphor for this particular creative process. I mean, I definitely see how it relates. But I think I’ve found a better one.

What is it, you ask?

I answer: bears.

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***

I definitely could be wrong about this. The birth metaphor might be the thing most of the time. But I wonder if this new metaphor has less to do with any metaphor’s aptness and more to do with the story itself. Healing Maddie Brees, my first novel, was the story of a mother, after all.

This new book, despite being set in Pennsylvania’s Rust Belt, is far more agrarian than Maddie‘s suburban world. Its people work in steel mills and factories, yes, but they hunt on the weekends. Their homes are on country roads. Their backyards are big enough to be mown with tractors, and cow-tipping is a thing.

And, like I said, there are bears.

***

Here’s how I see it.

While the wise and educated know to be mindful of bears, they know, too, that bears mind their own business. Typically, I mean. A healthy, normal bear– on catching wind of human presence, on hearing human noise– will skirt that presence instinctively. It will keep a wide berth between itself and the humans, and the humans will never even know it was there.

But there are exceptions. A hungry bear just post-hibernation, blinking in the bright light of spring, might sniff out food that the human campers did not intend to share. A wounded or ill bear might pick a fight with innocent hikers. And everyone knows what momma bears are famous for.

Like I said: exceptions.

I’ve been mulling over these possibilities in moments that look like distraction. What would it be like to be surprised by a bear?

***

Sitting by the campfire in the early morning, waiting for the coffee water to boil, you might not notice some rustling in the underbrush. Your eyes are swollen from last night’s campfire, and the smoke from this morning’s fire is already stinging your eyes. But that water needs to boil for the coffee. After the coffee, everything will be different. Then you can start cooking bacon.

So that rustling blends in with the sound of crickets and birds, with the conversation you’re having with your friends and, just now, the collapse of some wood in the flames. There is no more likely a bear in these woods than there is a new novel in your head. Both would be exciting and way too much trouble, and you are still waiting for your coffee.

Later, though, returned from a hike, you hear the rustling again. Your blood is pumping now, your eyes are clear. You stand and look towards the sound, into the woods where the sunlight falls in bands. You think you see a dark shadow move behind those ferns. You tell your friends, and they look too. You are the only one who sees it.

But on your canoe trip, no one can miss the bear moseying along the river’s edge. Everyone stops to watch it, paddles lying still across their laps. The bear is a big one: someone estimates it between three and four-hundred pounds. Can black bears get that big in western Pennsylvania? Someone says that it’s definitely less than three-hundred pounds. Someone else says it’s a baby, and then everyone starts to look for the mother. Meanwhile, the bear turns away from the river, disappearing into the green woods that close up behind it. You forget about the bear because now you and your friends are having a canoe race, which is much harder than it sounds.

Then you hear the rustling again at night, when you are all sitting around the campfire and the world around you is dark. Do you hear that, you ask your friends, and some of them think they do. You all stop to listen and hear nothing but crickets. Talking begins again, and laughter, but you are still thinking of the bear, three-hundred pounds or more or less. You are thinking that three hundred pounds of anything with claws and teeth sounds dangerous.

Later still, when you and your friends are tucked away in your tents, you hear the rustling noise again. But it’s louder this time and continuous, and this time it’s accompanied by whistling and snuffling noises and the occasional grunt. This is a large thing that has come very close. You raise your head and the dying campfire is throwing a shadow against your tent: the looming, shaggy shadow of a bear.

***

And that’s why a bear is a good metaphor for writing a book. See?

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***

Or maybe you don’t see, which is fine. I’ll explain.

In our earlier metaphor, one simply can’t quit. Once labor has commenced, it really must continue. And once it’s time to push, It’s Time. There is no putting it off or waiting it out. It has to happen. Now.

When you have a bear outside your tent, things are happening. Yes, the bear might (one hopes) get distracted and move on to other things, in which case you might go home and have great tales to tell. Or something truly terrible might happen. But at the Moment of the Looming and Shaggy Shadow, you can’t simply roll over and go back to sleep. No. You are suddenly on high alert, at the ready, and you will not look away until– one way or another– this issue of the bear is resolved.

Writing a book– at least in the phase I’m currently in– is like this. Thrilling, potent, completely absorbing. AND: it cannot be abandoned. How can I leave it now, pretend it hasn’t come this close, move on to– say– repainting the house trim WHEN THERE’S A BEAR OUTSIDE MY TENT?

I can’t.

I have to write this book now. Many, many pieces of it are falling into place. I love the setting (deeply) and the characters already. But I honestly don’t know what is going to happen to them. Most of them, anyway.

Writing this book is the only way to find out.

***

So here’s my news: I’m writing a new book. A novel. It’s about a man named Leon, about his wife and children and his best friend Paul. It’s about the Rust Belt in Pennsylvania  and the beauty and challenge of making a life there.

It has a bear in it.

And that’s all I can tell you for now.

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The post Writing A(nother) Book appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

The cat calls for her dinner. 

(This is a post about a poem, and these are some of its lines:)

On the porch I bend and pour 

brown soy stars into her bowl,

stroke her dark fur. 

No. It’s not a poem about a cat, although here at the beginning one might think it is. But with poetry– as with so much else– you have to give it a minute. Wait it out some. There’s more coming.

It’s not quite night.

Pinpricks of light in the eastern sky.

See? No more cat.

Some people don’t like poetry– or they don’t think they do.

But that’s not you, is it? You like poetry. You do. I mean, you like a party just as much as the next person. You can do loud and noisy, no problem. But you don’t judge. You like quiet people, for example. You’re willing to sit a minute and listen and then find out that the quiet person has something to say.

Poems are quiet. Mostly. And you like them.

This is a quiet poem, anyway. See:

On the Back Porch

The cat calls for her dinner.

On the porch I bend and pour 

brown soy stars into her bowl,

stroke her dark fur. 

It’s not quite night. 

Pinpricks of light in the eastern sky.

A poem, like– somewhat– a person, is an invitation to see something in a new way. And here, the poet is inviting you with her out onto her back porch. She wants to show you something.

This is just the beginning of the poem. And what– so far– does she want you to see? You can answer that: dusk. The cat and her food. The way the light leaves the sky and the stars begin to come out, those “pinpricks of light” that match, without the poet saying so, the star-shaped food she just a moment ago poured into her cat’s bowl.

She gives us more:

Above my neighbor’s roof, a transparent

moon, a pink rag of cloud. 

Ah, you say. I see, you say. Because you, too, have done this– whether or not you have a cat. You have stepped outside late in the day, when the light is going but still held there by a bit of cloud. “A rag of cloud,” she says. How apt. You have definitely seen clouds like that before. You have stepped outside late in the day, just in time to see that day fading, to know that all of it will soon be closed up in the dark.

And now, reading this poem (and because our poet is a good one), you are standing on the back porch with the poet. And with me. We are all three standing on the back porch, and we are each of us alone. Except (perhaps?) for the cat.

It’s quiet out here. The light drains away but is held by cloud, by moon. The stars are coming out.

The poet says,

Inside my house are those who love me.

This is going to be important.

Inside my house are those who love me.

My daughter dusts biscuit dough.

And there’s a man who will lift my hair 

in his hands, brush it,

until it throws sparks. 

Who is in the house behind you? Whom have you left inside? Are there people who love you and know (or don’t) that you have stepped outside for just a minute to pet the cat, say, or look at the moon? Is someone who loves you inside the house and looking at her phone or reading the paper?

Or maybe you live alone. Or with people who don’t love you. Or with people whom you don’t love. If so, it’s okay: this poem is (also) for you, because anything (everything) can be a metaphor. Stay with me. Our poet has more to say, and so do I.

Everything is just as I’ve left it.

Dinner simmers on the stove.

Glass bowls wait to be filled

with gold broth. Sprigs of parsley

on the cutting board.

“Everything is just as I’ve left it,” she says. There’s stillness here, both inside and out. We’ve seen it outside already: the cloud, the faintest stars, the moon. No sign of breeze. Even the cat has disappeared.

But inside, too, everything is just as she’s left it. And how has she left it? At the edge of ready. Her daughter makes biscuits, the soup is done. It’s time for this family’s supper, just as it was for the cat. Everything inside that house is quiet, waiting for the poet’s return.

And here you stand, I stand, on the this otherwise empty porch. The world is silent, waiting for night. And behind us, what is waiting? Who– or what– is waiting for you?

Maybe your dog waits, curled in his bed. Your phone? Your supper. A bowl of peaches on the kitchen table. Your email. A project you have to return to, that has taken too much time already, that you cannot wait to finish but abandoned just for this moment to read this blog post, this poem, to step out onto your back porch and watch nighttime overtake the world.

Here, the poet stands (we stand) on the porch, and the world– inside and out– waits.

I want to smell this rich soup, the air

around me going dark, as stars press

their simple shapes into the sky,

I want to stay on the back porch 

while the world tilts

toward sleep, until what I love

misses me, and calls me in. 

This is a poem about love. And, I believe, about contentment.

Our poet stands here on her back porch, and what waits for her inside “are those who love me,” she says. Yet she “wants to stay on the back porch….”

And I’m asking you: do you want to stay on the back porch, too?

You have things waiting inside for you, just like I do. Maybe they are people who love you, and maybe not: but they are what has been given to you and, for the sake of this poem, this conversation, they are the things you love.

In my reading, the poem here asks, Are they enough? When you are standing out there and the world is somehow both dusky and radiant, are those metaphorical persons and things– the things you have been given– enough to compel you inside? Or are you– like me– sometimes tempted to the edge of the porch, to the steps, to the cold, damp grass and the woods that line the yard? To the promise of the unknown and different, the new and exciting, the adventure that might look like love but cannot be love, because “inside my house are those who love me” and inside the house is “what I love.”

Maybe that’s a metaphor for another poem. Or is it?

I want to stay on the back porch 

while the world tilts

toward sleep, until what I love

misses me, and calls me in. 

Here’s what I’ve learned and am learning: love calls me in. It’s mine to choose, to turn my back on beautiful moon and rag of cloud, to lawn and woods, to new and different. To go back inside.

Love returns to love again and again. That’s how it lasts.

Poem by Dorianne Laux

Laux, Dorianne. “On the Back Porch.” 365 Poems for Every Occasion, The American Academy of Poets, 2015, 236.

The post On the Back Porch (looking at a poem by Dorianne Laux) appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

Dear Friends,

I wanted to give you something for Christmas. Something free and different.

Yes, yes. I know that everything on this website is free (okay, well, if you click the links to my books you’ll see that the books aren’t free). And the Advent readings are certainly free. But they aren’t different.

Okay, maybe they are different. I don’t know.

I’m starting over.

Dear Friends,

I have a Christmas present for you. And this is for you even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, don’t get Christmas, or even if you are a Bah Humbug kind of person.

I hope you’re not. But still.

This is a Christmas present for everyone: adult and child alike, solitary or in company, at home or away. It’s for anyone who likes words and even for people who don’t realize they do (one of my not-so-secret aims is to show you that you do like words, that you actually love them–did you know?). It’s a gift of something simple, brief, and lovely. Something you can enjoy once or again. Something that will make you think and imagine or that you can turn your mind off to and just let the words come– as they will, as they want to.

(Well-aligned words are Such Lovely Things, don’t you think so?)

Here’s the gift: I’ve read aloud and recorded something Favorite of mine, and I’m inviting you to listen.

What is it? It’s a short story. No. A poem. No. A Memory and a Conversation, a look over the shoulder, a Christmas or ten of them heaped up and then unspooled in a glorious line of words.

It’s Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

Who is Dylan Thomas? Dylan Thomas was a Welshman and a poet. He lived a short, loud and inebriated life, and he loved Christmas. He loved his memories of Christmas, anyway–the Christmases he had known when he was a child in (you guessed it) Wales.

He wrote A Child’s Christmas in Wales, and the work is certainly a testament to his love for and fond memory of his childhood Christmases. Well, whether or not he actually loved these memories is, I suppose, up to question, as he died in 1953. We cannot ask him. But this bit of prose certainly suggests that he loved those Christmases Past and snow and Wales in the snow.

Any work of literature mustered up in love is worth something, isn’t it? Add to that Thomas’s adjectives, his specificity, his brilliant and tempered use of alliteration; include his evocation of the child-mind, so richly done in this text; his appreciation of postmen; his love of mystery; his brilliant description of uncles (“there are always uncles at Christmas”) and aunts.

It’s so so good.

And it might be difficult to follow. So allow me to explain that this is a memory, and memories come as they will, right? Often memories lead to other memories in ways that make sense to our minds at the time but that, written out, might be confusing to the one who is following along.

Know that this is what is happening here: someone is remembering his childhood Christmases, and he is doing so in the aggregate: all-in-a-heap. One thought of Christmas past leads to another, and just when you are really and truly settling in to this stream-of-consciousness, you realize that he is now relating these Christmases to someone else–likely a child.

In fact, the way that this narrative becomes a conversation makes one wonder if Thomas is himself one of the uncles he mentions who has been dozing (and remembering) in front of a Christmas fire, and then has been interrupted by a niece or nephew and so begins telling them what he has been reliving in his mind.

It’s wonderful.

And, as I said, it’s for everyone. For people who began their holiday celebrations last night with Hanukah. For people who have never heard of Christmas. For people who celebrate Christmas in the summertime, never with snow. It’s for you and your children, for your baby who can barely crawl. For your great-aunt who might even now be “teetering at the sideboard.” For the uncles who are on their way to your house for the holidays.

Why is it for everyone? Because it’s beautiful–and beauty is for Everyone, most especially at Christmas.

So where is it? See below. Download and enjoy.

Merry Christmas!

With Great Joy,

Rebecca

click here to download

The post A Merry Christmas Gift for You: A Child’s Christmas in Wales appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

~Joan Didion

Back in my teaching days, I would assign a much-dreaded and labored project called a “paper.” Perhaps you’ve heard of this? Perhaps you’ve written some. My students wrote many and, no matter the caliber of student, most approached them with dread.

Many of my students also labored over them, but not all.

As teacher, I both dreaded and labored, because the work of evaluating said papers was often dread-worthy and laborious in the extreme, and there was decidedly an inverse relationship between the amount of labor a student put into a paper and the amount of labor I had to put into evaluating it.

In other words, the more poorly prepared the paper, the more challenging, time-consuming, and exhausting it was for me to evaluate.

I am sure this makes sense to you.

What I realized only recently is that I never (almost never?) called these assignments “essays.” We reserved the term “essay” for a portion of a semester exam or some sort of test the students were to complete during class. We never called papers “essays.”

Now I’m wondering why. After all, the word “essay” literally means “to try.”

What if that had been the assignment? In the wisdom of retrospection, I’m thinking this would have been an excellent thing to call my students’ papers. Doing so may have relieved some of the dread and given hope to the labor. In writing, what they needed was to try. Yes: Argue, support, prove, explain. Show, tell, justify, deduce. But still, all in all, the product was to be an effort at the thing. An essay.

To try is so much more approachable than, say, to accomplish.

***

The essay is a time-honored literary form, coming to us from Europe in the 1500’s, when French philosopher Michel Montaigne began writing about himself.

Oneself is the subject one (presumably) knows best–but writing about oneself is not enough to make an essay. A journal entry, yes, or a diary. Or maybe even a blog or Facebook or Instagram post, in which one reveals what one is thinking, feeling, doing, has suffered, is suffering, dreams/hopes/wishes for.

There is a place for this. I believe I have named some. But these are not an essay.

True, the essay does come “from a limited or personal point of view” (thank you, Merriam-Webster); and so what we have in the essay is not poetry or fiction, but neither is it journalism.

It is, in fact, “analytic or interpretive” work, a sustained, personal reflection on an idea, a thing, even a situation. And as readers, it is something to make time for, to dig into, to read actively and also to rest in as–if you are able–you watch the writer invisibly at work.

(Did I say to watch the writer working invisibly? Why, yes. Yes I did).

Because a good essay does work a bit of magic. As with the best poetry and fiction, reading it can be a transformative experience. The essayist links together ideas such that new understanding is suddenly laid bare. And the best essayists achieve this invisibly. The reader may never see it coming, but she reaches the end with altered perspective. The writer has lined up these words and these ideas, and the reader has followed them–and suddenly: Oh, look! I see! Here we are.

***

Maybe that is a bit too much to ask of our high school students on the regular.

***

It is, perhaps, a lot to ask of anyone. Many people are made to write, to pin down their ideas and experiences with actual words on actual paper (or screen). But the essayist has a specific function. Her view and experience are doors opened on to ideas, but she must go through those doors. She cannot sit on in self-reflection but rather, using her view and experience, must go somewhere, taking her readers with her.

How is this done?

Enter Charity Singleton Craig to help us. In a work of clarity and generosity, she shows us how to write essays, how she writes them. Anyone interested in writing essays (me! you?) or in uncovering, as you read them, some of that aforementioned magic, should read her The Art of the Essay.

In brief, thorough, and honest chapters, she sketches out how it’s done, beginning–as a gentle teacher might–with the beginning. How does one know what to write about in the first place? And when we’ve decided, what do we include and what leave out? If the subject doesn’t stem entirely from memory, our experience, the dark and less-explored corners of our minds, then can we do research? Craig says yes, giving permission to ask all the questions and do all the investigating.

Because not everyone, you know, is aware of the potential essays to-hand. Sometimes we need to go find them.

Craig goes on from there. We’re helped somewhat at this point (immeasurably, really), but still we need more: how to organize ideas; how to balance those three (!) essential components: “show,” “tell,” and “explain.”

This was a portion I found particularly helpful. I think I do a pretty good job of showing and an adequate one of telling, but until I read this book, I thought that explanation was anathema. Should it be? Craig: “Exposition operates in the dimension of abstract ideas, examining and analyzing information and events.” It “often sets essays apart from other types of creative nonfiction…. It’s the X factor that allows for exploration, inquiry and even counterpoint to the life circumstances, the destination, or the story being written.” It is, in other words, essential to the essay. Thank you, Ms. Craig.

More essentials follow: the value of place in an essay–which elements are necessary to set the scene; the importance — and risks– of writing about people one knows; the value of finding one’s voice (through pursuit of clarity–novel and so true!) in one’s writing.

And Craig talks us through those difficult things: self-editing, the failure of a work to meet one’s expectations, the challenges and disappointments that come in the pursuit of publication.

This book is thorough and, as I’ve said, honest. But it is most of all generous: not just because of the appendices (invitations to respond to each chapter and to practice peer review; resources for publishing options), but because, throughout the book, Craig talks about her own experience as a writer.

She writes essays. She has been published in many places. And yet she is not free from the difficulties and insecurities that writing means. She is simply willing to help others learn what she has learned–and she’s willing to draw from her own experience to teach us.

***

An act of generosity is, by definition, a humble one. After all, true generosity means risk–and Craig’s willingness to expose her own misconceptions, mistakes, and frustrations as a writer all work here to help others improve their writing.

And an essay, I am realizing, is also a humble thing. It intends only to try, which means recognition from the outset of the project’s ambition– which, in the case of the essay, is no small thing: the essayist invites you into her perspective and experience and then deliberately takes the back seat. This piece of work is not about her at all; it intends, rather, to be a gift. She offers her experience as a view onto ideas so that the reader can think, perceive, learn and, yes, be changed.

But to try something is also to risk. The risk of exposure, embarrassment, failure. Writing–and writing essays–implies risk. It’s inherent in the project.

But Craig thinks it’s worth it.

I do, too.

The essay, as it turns out, is for you, even if you like the word “I” as much as any other word in the English language and want to use it boldly–or, if you sometimes start writing before you know what you want to say and discover something new by the time you’ve finished. The essay is your words and your mind, lit up.

-Charity Singleton Craig, The Art of the Essay

You will love this book. Head here for details. And see below for gifts based on your order!

Order The Art of the Essay before October 1, 2019, and receive free resources to help you turn your ordinary life into extraordinary words.

LEVEL 1: Order 1 copy of The Art of the Essay and receive the free downloadable guide “How to Plan Your Personal Writing Retreat.”

LEVEL 2: Order 2-4 copies of The Art of the Essay (one for you and one for a friend?) and receive “How to Plan Your Personal Writing Retreat” plus “12 Top Writing Tips Worksheets.”

LEVEL 3: Order 5 or more copies of The Art of the Essay (one for you and one for each member of your writing group?), and in addition to receiving “How to Plan Your Personal Writing Retreat” plus “12 Top Writing Tips Worksheets,” I’ll also offer you or your writing group a one-hour video session about essay writing, help with a specific project, or just Q&A about writing essays or any other issues related to the writing life.

All of the bonus gifts will be sent on or before October 1, 2019.

https://charitysingletoncraig.com/the-art-of-the-essay/

The post On The Art of the Essay appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

Here is the post-workout photo of the amazing people I did Murph with this year. See how everyone is smiling? That’s because it’s over.

Day four, and I’m still sore.

Not bragging. Not complaining. Just saying.

We are four days out from the workout known as Murph, and I am still sore.

What is Murph, you say?

Murph is a workout named for Michael Patrick Murphy, a navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan in 2005. He was awarded the Medal of Honor–the U.S. military’s highest decoration–and he lost his life in service to our country. Later, a workout was named in his honor.

As in many CrossFit gyms, we at Bull City CrossFit do Murph together every Memorial Day in remembrance of this soldier. It is, quite honestly, a great way to begin to imagine the endurance and dedication practiced by our military every single day.

And it’s a killer workout.

So, what exactly is Murph, you ask?

Just this: a one-mile run, followed by 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air-squats, and then another one-mile run.

We do a lot of difficult things in our gym. A Lot. I have been doing CrossFit for over three years now, and I still have much to learn, and all of it is hard. Many are the workouts that leave me lying on the floor, just trying to remember how to breathe.

But Murph is in a class by itself, as you can tell from its brief description, above. My husband calls it, “aggressively difficult.”

Truth.

There are lots of ways to tackle Murph, and before I go further, I will tell you that you are supposed to do it precisely as described above, in that order, one exercise at a time. But also, you are supposed to do it in a weighted vest. A 20-pound vest, to be precise. Forgot to mention that. Sorry.

This is my son Will, in the weighted vest, winning at Murph. And there’s me, way in the background in the red shirt, talking to myself about doing more push-ups.

Suffice it to say that I have never done Murph in a weighted vest. Neither have I done Murph straight through, as described. Instead, I do the run and then I break the exercises into pieces, like so: 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 air-squats. Repeat. Twenty times.

Aaaand another mile-run.

(still sore)

You could break it into smaller increments (say 2 pull-ups, 4 push-ups, 6 air-squats), if you wanted, and then do more rounds (in that case, 50 of them).  Or you can go for the gusto (and potential serious muscle fatigue) and do it straight. (Some people are fit enough for that.) Whatever you choose, I can tell you this for certain: There will come a time in the midst of your Murph workout that you will wonder how you will ever possibly finish.

There’s only one answer to that nagging question: You keep going.

At the gym we have names for workouts like Murph: they’re called “chippers.” The idea is simple; I’m sure you already get it. You just keep chipping away at the workout. You just keep doing your reps. Who cares if this is round 8 or round 18? You’re not finished until you’re done, so you might as well keep going.

Need to breath a second? Fine. Need to talk your legs into squatting before you commence with that (again)? Have that conversation. Need to remember you have arms (and where you left them) before you grab the bar? Sounds like an excellent idea.

But whatever you do, just keep chipping away. Just keep going. Just do the next thing until you run out of things. And then go run your (second) mile.

That’s the thing about endurance– a thing that soldiers know, and athletes, and (sometimes–here it comes) writers. The only way to endure something is to, well, endure.

***

Once upon a time, I wrote a book. A novel, to be precise. The book is 300 pages long–but unlike my comprehension of Murph and its scope, I didn’t know–going in–how long it was going to be.

Instead, I knew (for the most part) what the book had to say. I knew the general plot-line, and the characters (mostly). But there were many (many) moments, descriptions, even conversations that I didn’t know were going to be in there. I discovered their necessity as the writing unfolded.

Sometimes these developments frustrated me. I thought I knew where I was going, and I wanted to get to the end. These new necessities felt like delays, but it was a disservice to the story as a whole to skip them.

As I got closer to the end, I would imagine finishing. Heading into a full day of writing, I would convince myself that today was the day I would finish. The story and its necessaries were clear and tidy in my head. It was only a question of writing it all down–and seriously, how long could that take?

But I was only right about that one time: I only truly finished writing the book once.

Now I’m writing another book, one that is simpler than the last. More on that later, but suffice it to say that I have a clear and detailed outline, and I know where I’m going.

Still, it’s happened to me already: my vision so clear, my confidence so hopeful, that I sit down to write thinking today is the day I will finish this chapter.

So often (almost always), it isn’t.

It turns out that, like so many CrossFit workouts, writing a book is a chipper. You sit down to work with the whole of the project in your head, but you pick just one little place to start. You work on that, you develop those ideas, and you finish that one bit. If you have more time, you write some more, and maybe you finish that part, too.

Either way, you chip away at it: a section, a paragraph, a sentence at a time. There’s no other possible way to get it done.

And someday you actually finish.

Because truly (I must remind myself), writing a book is a game of endurance. It’s going to take a long time–and a lot of solitude, and quiet, and keeping yourself squarely in front of your laptop/your notepad/whathaveyou–to come to the end.

I only learned this by writing a book, mind you. And maybe also from CrossFit.

The post A Post in Which I Explain How CrossFit and Writing are Basically Exactly The Same appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

I have said that, and so have scores of others (although this one disagrees and makes some excellent points while she’s at it). The comparison works less for the degree of love and/or difficulty (parenting is fundamentally more in both regards) than it is the sense of personal investment, I think. To write something well is to labor over it in thought and deed for what is likely a Very Long Time. To make a story believable is to have drawn, again and again, from one’s personal understanding and experience. And although the result is not necessarily memoir, autobiography, or even that personal experience (I can, off the top of my head, point to perhaps three moments in Healing Maddie Brees that actually reside in my living memory), the finished book is naturally an extension of its author.

Not quite one’s heart walking around outside one’s body–as they say of children–but close.

And so, like parenting, having a novel out in the world requires a thick skin and the educated understanding that one’s book is not for everyone. Not everyone likes literary fiction, for example. Some read less for thought-provocation and more for entertainment, distraction, relief. Some people don’t like description, can’t work with metaphor, like their tales neatly told.

And this is Fine. The world needs all kinds of books. And all kinds of readers.

I don’t expect everyone who reads her to like Maddie. I don’t expect everyone I see to have read her. I never want to be the author that people duck and run from because they haven’t read or don’t like my book.

Most of the time I am not thinking about Maddie these days anyway. This is due, in part, to the satisfaction of having finished with the book: it’s done. The ideas that compelled me and overtook my brain are quieted now, perhaps like so much labor pain. And it’s due, in part, to work on a different project, a new book that will be finished soon and out in the world shortly thereafter and that necessarily occupies much of the mental space that used to belong to Maddie (details soon).

Still, it is lovely when people mention her to me, ask me how she’s faring in the world, express interest in or appreciation of the book. That is very kind. I love the novel and am exceedingly proud of her. And I still have great hope that more people will discover all she has to offer.

Recently Maddie has had some rather excellent attention: the novel was considered for the prestigious Eric Hoffer Award, a top literary prize for small, academic, and independent presses.

My publisher nominated the book; being new (still) to the world of publishing, I have little to no idea about prizes until my publishers teach me–which they do. So in early May I learned that not only had Healing Maddie Brees been nominated for the Hoffer Award, but that she was a finalist for the Montaigne Medal, an award within the Hoffer prize that honors the most thought-provoking books.

Then came Friday’s news. The final awards were out, and my Maddie had done very well, indeed. The book was a finalist for both the Grand Prize and the Montaigne Medal, and she earned an honorable mention in the fiction category for the Grand Prize.

Oh. My.

Here’s what they had to say about the book:

This tale of physical and spiritual healing unfolds as a combination of current struggle and meaningful back story. The novel relates the tough process of recovery from cancer, misbelief in God, disbelief in God, alienation in marriage, and doubt. Perhaps the biggest battle faced by Maddie Brees is the need to be healed from a perverse self-centeredness. The superb writing conveys present and past with compelling images, beautiful words, and a lovely and relentless pace, even while skillfully confronting questions that belong in a theology class. The result is a story of wonderful characters who act so human in overcoming the pitfalls of life, love, and belief without the blatant miracle.

Friends.

I have duly formed a thick skin. I know that not everyone will like my book. And from time to frequent time, I am struck anew with insecurity: maybe the book isn’t as good as I hoped, as I thought. Maybe what I have for this book is that blanketing mother-love that sees beauties no one else can see. And would anything be wrong with that?

No. The creator loves what she creates. It is enough to do one’s best.

But when, from time to time, I discover someone who sees and understands Maddie, who appreciates the struggle and beauty I tried so hard and for so long to tuck into those pages, well.

I think it’s fair to say that it’s similar to–though not quite the same–as witnessing one’s grown child thriving out there in the world.

(That’s my girl!)

And I’m grateful.

The post Maddie and the Hoffer Award appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

Standing in her office, my editor reminded me that writing is a job just as ditch-digging is. The ditch must be dug. Must not also the writing be written?

She is right, of course. The ditch-digger goes to work and digs her ditch; so must the writer go to work and write her pages.

But, I think (my mind swelling with contingencies), must the ditch be dug in all weathers? And are not the graduation of a son/the marriage of another/the departure for six months of the former all grounds for writing’s suspension? What writing wants–I tell myself, I tell her (who is herself a writer and also not present during this rationalization)–what writing wants is level emotional space in which to write. One wants peace and quiet and non-upheaval, all of which (lately) have been difficult to come by.

***

My parents were here for over a week. They came, along with a beloved aunt, for Thanksgiving, and so for a time we were back to our usual number (+1) in this sweet little house.

We went for walks, we played games, we ate great food, we talked. And around the edges my father removed and stored all our window-screens for the winter. He replaced light switches and repaired a broken lamp and rescued two computer chargers that had been almost too thoroughly chewed by a certain rabbit (I’m not naming names). My mother finished my mending (languishing since time out of mind at the foot of my bed) and did all the laundry and cleaned up the kitchen most days before I could get to it myself.

I did not do any writing, and I do not feel bad about that in the least. Neither–if she knew–would my editor.

***

Yesterday’s loneliness was contingent on all of this. Emma had gone back to school, Bill was away, and our beloved guests had gone home. The dog, two cats, and offending rabbit, while present, offered little comfort.

I might have gotten some writing done. Indeed, my days’ contents are contingent on the demands of my work–except that yesterday my car needed repair.

And so for a while yesterday morning, my well-being was entirely contingent on the sanity and tow-truck-driving skill of a boy-man named Seth with a ZZ Top beard on his chin and a three-year-old son at home; and our comfort throughout the thirty minute drive depended on our ability to make decent conversation or for me, on the other hand, to stare out the window or immerse myself in my phone.

***

Everything hinges on everything else. Or, better said, everything hinges on something.

Refrigerator space is contingent on our finishing the leftovers.

A flushing toilet is contingent on good plumbing.

My happiness is contingent on the well-being of a very specific group of others–including my parents, who yesterday and again today are traveling north; and my husband, who yesterday was traveling south; my daughter, who is mere miles away at school; my daughter-in-law, who is gift and delight; and my sons, one of whom is currently residing on a island in the Pacific.

***

Seth earned his commercial driver’s license because another job fell through and he needed work. Currently, he has a class B license, which allows him to drive vehicles weighing 26,001 pounds or heavier. As we pulled onto the highway, we watched the rear wheels of a tractor trailer smoke, stutter, and come to a stop. He explained that the brakes had locked up, and for a time our conversation was of brakes and how they operate, and I told him that I have a real fear of rear-ending someone, so I always keep a gap between me and the car in front of mine.

He said that a tractor-trailer traveling at full speed requires the length of two football fields and then some to come to a complete stop.

This is true, of course, contingent on the weight of whatever it is the tractor-trailer is hauling.

***

So much can change so fast.

***

My mood is often contingent on what I have to do or what I can get done or some strange ratio between the two.

Yesterday my mood was contingent on the departure of my guests, the sudden quiet of my house, and the marks–everywhere–of my parents having been here: the newspaper my dad brought home from McDonald’s. My mother’s Sudoku book. The light coming through all the windows brighter, because my father had removed all the screens.

When they are here, everything I do seems more efficient, because they are so willing to do the difficult or menial things. They leave and the house looks basically the same, but in fact it is much improved.

***

Yesterday I sat at my kitchen table and noticed, for the first time this fall, pale sunlight irradiating the finest limbs of the maple trees that line my backyard–a beauty contingent on the cold and the leaves having fallen, contingent on the earth’s continued jaunt around the sun.

The last time these trees were bare–sometime in March, I think–we were still five people living in this house. But this change doesn’t make me sad as I once feared it would–and that is contingent on wisdom, for which I am grateful.

***

My parents left at 8 a.m., only minutes before Emma left for school, and it wasn’t until some time after they’d left that I realized I’d forgotten to wish them a Happy Anniversary. Yesterday was their 52nd.

We make our own decisions, live our own lives, but yesterday I was thinking that so much of my life is contingent on my parents’ commitment to God and to each other, which for them is, in a way, one and the same thing.

They practice what they’ve always told me: that you’ll find only One consistent in a world of contingencies–and that even this One sometimes only seems consistent because you yourself insist on believing he is.

I think sometimes we want him to leave us a note or send a visitation, but he has other ways. He doesn’t always tell us that he Is so much as he spreads scarred hands wide each morning and brings the sun up.

The sunrise contingent on his goodness, and all goodness contingent on him who is Always Good.

The post Contingencies appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

It’s tricky, though: when invited, I always tell my host that I recognize the liability. Having an author present for her book’s discussion can decidedly hamper dialogue and limit expression: how many attendees will be willing to say what they’re really thinking with the author sitting right there?

Of course, I am more than willing to hear criticism. Releasing a book into the world requires lots of things, and a thick skin is definitely among them.

***

One of the first book clubs I attended for this novel was also among the best. They were a large group of intelligent and educated women, most of whom were empty-nesters. We had a long and very rich conversation, and people were not at all unwilling to express annoyance with characters or frustration with ideas.

But I was taken aback by one critique: one woman said–and others agreed–that there wasn’t much in the book about Maddie as a mother. They wanted to hear more about that, they said.

***

That was the day she’d imagined she was knitting–though she had never actually learned how. But she had imagined that she could, and that as she sat, her knitting needles clicked in her hands, binding together the softest yarn into a ribbon and then a square, and then an oblong sheet that grew so long it fell to her feet. Still she knitted, calmly, efficiently, so that the blanket (for this is what it was) pooled onto the ground and then, by the force of her knitting, began to move away from her and toward her son where he sat in the sandbox or walked toward the swing. This great blanket of her affection followed him over the playground, flowing up the ladder behind him and then piling around him as he sat on the platform at the top. It followed him down the slide, too, and she could see in her mind’s eye the way that it surrounded his torso and flowed over his legs that, once again, he used to brace his body against gravity. Such was her love for this child, and such was the way that she willed it to cover him. 

***

The fact of Maddie’s motherhood is in fact central to the novel. She and her husband Frank have three sons, and her cancer diagnosis–occurring very early in the book–keenly shadows her thoughts, feelings, and fears as a mother.

As one might expect it would.

***

***

I’ve thought often about that remark at that book club. At the time, I didn’t defend the novel against it, although immediately my mind ran through multiple instances wherein Maddie’s love and fear for her children are in view.

It’s a trick of my attending book clubs not to be defensive, to let the book speak for herself (or remain silent, if necessary), to let the liability of welcoming the book’s author not be such a liability.

I am not an expert on many things, but I am an expert on this book. There is never need to let that authority cow the expression of others.

***

***

Yes, the truth is that Maddie-as-mother is a very important part of this novel, and over the course of the book it’s a concept I return to again and again. Maddie’s motherhood is, in fact, vital to the overarching themes of the work as a whole.

And of the few autobiographical elements of the book, Maddie’s motherhood experience is perhaps most closely linked with mine.

Being a mother has been and remains one of the most important experiences of my life, and I contend that, of the myriad experiences this life has to offer a person, motherhood is likely one of the most powerful.

One can see this, for instance, in how intensely personal it is, how every comment can so readily be received as a critique. The “Oh, I see your baby sucks his thumb!” becomes a commentary on the mother-as-enabler, as addiction-engenderer, as potential destroyer-of-her-child’s yet-to-emerge teeth.

Every comment, every tantrum, every failure to sleep through the night is fodder for assessment as to how well one loves her child.

And every mother feels inadequate, because every mother sees–if only in glimpses–how gloriously separate her child is, how unlike any other, how inconceivably precious are the toes, the fingers, the thoughts, the phrases, the efforts, the successes, the failures, the being of the one she mothers.

***

Mothers should know. A mother should know her child’s face, she thought. She knew that Garrett’s left ear was just the slightest bit bent at the top, that Jacob’s whorl of hair was just to the right of the center back of his head. And Eli had his father’s nose: straight and, even at this young age, elegantly shaped. It was like a little ski-jump, Maddie always thought: dramatically steep with just the slightest inverted angle at the end. He would be handsome when he grew up.

***

Kerri is mother to twins who are going on three. The other day on my walk, I stopped to chat with her where she sat on her deck in the afternoon sun. The twins were in their beds: naptime.

We talked about them at pre-school, and Kerri marveled aloud to me about Eli’s predilection for holding open the lid on the classroom garbage can so that his classmates can throw away their trash.

“How does he know to do that?” she wondered. And we were silent for a moment, taking this in. Here was an untaught behavior, a glimpse into a nature uniquely Eli. What might it signify? A pleasure in being helpful, a blooming compassion? A fascination with hinges, an interest in seeing things properly put away, a love for his teacher? An ambition to someday drive the garbage truck?

“What does it mean?”

I stood with my dog on the other side of her fence and pondered it with her, I with my years and years of parenting experience, with two out of three of them– by all accounts– full-grown. What could I say?

I told her what I thought, which is to say that I told her she was doing the right thing. I told her it is her privilege and perhaps her unique responsibility as a mother to pay attention to these things, to notice.

I have a collection beyond counting of the things I have noticed and know about my children–things that might no longer interest them, things they have moved on from, things that once defined them and really no longer do so.

But I have collected and I keep them; and this, to me, is part of what it means to be their mother.

***

***

The women at that book club had wanted more from me about Maddie as a mother and, as I’ve said, I’ve given that request a lot of thought. Had they missed what is there in the book about Maddie and motherhood? Certainly other themes and plot elements speak far more loudly in the book, I see that.

Is it that they are empty-nesters, and so are missing the difficult and excellent work that means having children at home?

***

I am not displeased with the way I wrote Maddie-as-mother. In fact, I feel quite the opposite. I didn’t say this to the women that night, but this is how I saw it when writing the book, and this is how I see it now:

Motherhood is one of the most powerful experiences this life has to offer. Raising it in ordinary conversation can evoke all kinds of reactions, from those who wish they were mothers to those who never want to be mothers to those who had a bad mother.

And raising it in a book is equally if not more powerful for the distilled nature of a novel. That Maddie was a mother is incredibly important to the book–but it is a bell I had to ring lightly because of the reverberations it evokes.

In short, writing too much about Maddie-as-mother actually might have been unkind. I couldn’t say too much about it, because motherhood is too dear to me. This book–and any good work of fiction, I’ll warrant–is not about the author. Any and all of the personal emotional investment the author puts into it is actually none of the reader’s business, and, if there, would necessarily tarnish the reader’s experience.

The experience is the story. The means is the writing. The book is the gift.

How many books do we read from which the writer lacked courage to tie off the umbilical cord? How many gifts do we open from which the writer neglected to remove the price tag? Is it pertinent, is it courteous, for us to learn what it cost the writer personally?

—  A. Dillard, The Writing Life

***

These days, every day, I drive Emma to school. She is a junior in high school now, nearly as old as she’s going to get before she moves on from home.

Every day she gets out of the car, tells me she loves me, closes the door behind her, and never looks back.

But as I pull away, I always look for her blond head moving in the crowd, and I say yet another prayer over her lovely self, and I send the blanket after her, covering her, keeping her all through the day.

The post Maddie and Motherhood appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

Every student in this country has started back to school by now. The other day, a boy in my daughter’s math class announced that, two full weeks in, they had completed exactly 5.5% of the school year.

This was not excellent news to Emma. She wasn’t sure that 5.5% was worth registering.

Nearly three weeks ago now, I visited her school with her at student orientation. With five minutes to pass between classes–threading our way in and out of buildings, up and down stairs–we sat in each of her classrooms for ten. Her teachers met us at their doors, encouraged us to take copies of the neatly stacked hand-outs. And in what must have felt to them like a hot second, they explained the scope and sequence of their courses, their methods of teaching and evaluation, and briefly listed (if we would be so kind) those extras we could provide that might be handy over the course of the upcoming year: whiteboard markers, boxes of tissues, hand sanitizer.

None of them knew that I have been a teacher, but like every parent in that room, I’m sure, I was interested in how my child would do in that class. I wondered if the methods employed would work for her unique mind, her way of perceiving the world. And, as a teacher, I had that other perspective: knowing what it feels like to greet student and parent alike for the first time. Knowing that I would be navigating relationships with both, listening carefully to both. Seeking to know each student insofar as he would allow it, as was appropriate. Seeking to like each one. Knowing that my standards were high and earnestly believing that my students could and would get there, that it was my job to give them everything they needed to reach those goals.

Emma’s 5.5% has been well worth her time already. I hear it in the way she talks about her classes: the experiments, the discussions. On the way to school this morning, she was telling me about parent functions in math; last night before bed she was discussing Malcolm Gladwell and rhetorical analysis. She likes each of her classes; she likes her teachers very much.

***

Once, years ago, I saw a comment about teachers on Facebook that saddened me. It was made by a mother of grown children, each of whom had been educated through college and perhaps beyond. She was complaining about teachers asking for pay raises. Why did they need to ask for more, she wondered aloud on social media. They only work nine months a year. They get the entire summer off.

I didn’t reply, but if I had, I might have said something about the work a teacher does around the edges of her day, those hours when she’s not required to be in her classroom. I spent hours and hours at planning and grading when I was a teacher. After an eight-hour day at school, I easily and often put in two to four additional hours of work at home, especially in my earliest years of teaching.

Listening to my daughter’s teachers talk about the upcoming school year, I had a difficult time assessing the value of their expertise. This one has a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a Master’s in teaching. She will conduct her students in performing experiments that will help them draw conclusions about acids and bases, and she will–at the same time–ensure that none of them blows himself up, or his neighbor, or school property.

When you are a teacher– I wanted to say to this Facebook remark– you don’t work with your colleagues. You almost never see them. You work instead with people who are vastly younger than yourself in age and experience, vulnerable people, people who are not in charge of their own lives and so sometimes (often?) are victims of poverty or anger, who are trying to understand the world while you are trying to teach them the beauties of a sonnet.

Please put a price tag on that and then pay the teacher accordingly. Or give her the summer off. Or both.

***

Every year I was teaching, my husband would compose a list of “class rules” and write it on a white board in my classroom. This is fall, 2007. Sorry for the flash. Again, 2007.

Of course I realize, too, that some people are terrible teachers, that they entered their profession in error or that, over the course of years, they have become calloused or embittered to the point that it might be best for them to stop teaching altogether. But that doesn’t happen because teaching is easy. That’s never why.

***

A teacher is a person with two loves: her subject and her students. They vie for dominance within her, and she is at her best when their marriage erupts in the classroom: when her delight in a sonnet equals her delight in her students discovering the same.

This doesn’t happen every day. It can’t.

And the most difficult part of a teacher’s job is when he is altogether unable to enjoy the thing he loves in deference to loving his students. They present with needs, difficulties, challenges, issues (or essays) that he must give his full attention while his love of sonnets molders behind the classroom door.

And that is part of the job.

***

My very favorite teacher helped me learn to write. I can’t say he taught me: like the best teachers, he understood that the best learning was a process of discovery. But he provided the insights and the examples, and he made me write. And then he only gave me praise when I wrote well.

He was an excellent teacher, and in what I consider to be among the best of the essay-ish things I have ever written, I recounted his excellence and my blundering foolishness in the face of it, and my regret.

He was a teacher, but he was also a writer– and it was his love of good writing that equipped him to teach me. No doubt it was also his hours spent evaluating my writing and that of others that prevented his getting more writing done. I wish I could thank him for that.

But there is this: he has released a book. Or rather, a book of his writing has been released (ugh, passive voice–he would have hated that), compiled and edited in the years since his death by his colleague and another of my favorite teachers, Dr. Gloria Stansberry.

Fragments is a collection of Bill Donnelly’s short stories–some fiction, some not–that showcase his love of language. He taught me to love the dictionary, and this book demonstrates that he loved it too–for all the wonder and surprise a rightly chosen word can deliver.

He was a brave writer, unafraid to experiment with writing–and this is what he encouraged us to do, so many years ago now, in his Advanced Writing class.

I think he knew what I have learned: that writing is always a risk; that you never show up to the task alone, despite how solitary you are; and that perseverance just might produce quality. So it’s always best to try.

He said, “Fragments are not the enemy. I like fragmentary sentences, vivid imagery, humor, weird repetition and variation, sound effects, contentious dialogue, electrifying facts, surprise.”

I did not know him well, but I can vouch that the above is true. It describes not just the way he wrote; it was the way he taught.

The book is titled Fragments because, I think, of his avowed love for them. But the book is fragmentary too: pieces of a life.

And that’s the thing I like best about the book: I can hear his voice as I read. No matter which story, it is Bill Donnelly’s voice reading it aloud. He is perched on a desk at the front of the room, his long legs bent in front of him. He is sucking his cheeks, he is pausing, he is enunciating the words exactly so. And I am riveted, listening, hearing not just the words but their sounds, not just their sounds but their rhythms–and finding my own voice because he shared his so generously. I am sitting there listening, and I am learning how to write.

I received my copy of the book a few months ago, but I’m writing about it today to celebrate. The book itself is a few months old, and today my novel celebrates one year since its release. I guess one could call it my book’s birthday.

So this is another gesture of gratitude to Dr. Donnelly, who above all others, helped me find my voice as a writer– or who, at the very least, most emboldened me to try. It is the page, after all, that teaches us to write. But Dr. Donnelly provided me immeasurable help.

Once more, Dr. Donnelly: thank you.

William Francis Donnelly, III    1935-2015

Fragments is available here. 

The post Of Teachers and Why We Love Them, My Favorite One, and Two Birthdays appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

His email arrived sometime in May, or maybe late April. An invitation. He’s a writer, a someday filmmaker, and he wanted to talk Art.

I’ve known Joel since he was born, I guess. His family and ours go to the same church; his age falls just between that of Everett and Emma. I’m sure they tumbled over one another in the church nursery. But he first truly registered with me when, at about four years old, he spoke to me on the church sidewalk with all the gravitas of a grown-up. He was adorable.

Since then, I’ve watched him grow up in the way that parents watch children not their own: out of the corner of my eye. But in recent years, he’s been around more, hanging out at my house with my children. Among teenagers I’ve known, he’s emerged as that scarce and winning type: deeply thoughtful, with the confidence to discuss those thoughts with adults not his parents. We’ve had some good conversations over the years.

Now an invitation in the inbox: words over coffee. Would I meet with him at a coffee shop and talk art-making? Talk writing, to be specific? His schedule was flexible. Would I meet him?

Yes, and I was looking forward to it.

The problem was time. When could we meet? I was working on a magazine article, a project requiring research within the limitations afforded by Everett’s upcoming graduation. My answer: Sure! I’d love to. But can it wait until after May?

There’s no hurry, he said, which was good. May flew by, as did the graduation festivities. Our home’s exterior, due to long-neglected damages, was undergoing a modest reconstruction, as was my magazine article. Meanwhile, a wedding loomed.

Can it wait until after the wedding? Mid-July at the latest. I’m sorry.

His answer: No problem.

So then the wedding and all the travel, and a return to a house interior– due to recently developed damages– undergoing a modest reconstruction. The living room furniture was in the dining room, construction dust was everywhere, and the suitcases had exploded on the bedroom floors. The magazine article, meanwhile, was in a sorry state of disrepair. And we were leaving town again in–what was it?–a few weeks.

Me, embarrassed and tired: After that?

Him, cheerful: That’s fine.

But things still did not look good. Remember all that time I spent on the magazine article and consequently not on the clean-up? And you know the faithful miracle of housework: It always waits for you. Mine grinned at me from dust-coated walls.

The article, meanwhile, Was Not Good.

And we were anticipating a wedding reception. Not a wedding, mind you, but a party to celebrate our newlyweds here among their North Carolina friends. There was a house to clean up and a yard to make right. There was Emma’s back-to-school preparations. I sprained my ankle walking the dog. I had no time for the article and absolutely no business meeting anyone for coffee.

Me: So sorry. So, so sorry.

Finally we met this week–but mostly because he was here at the house already, hanging out with Everett. Our conversation wasn’t in a coffee shop; there was no coffee involved. He sat on our living room sofa and I on a nearby chair, happy to not be on my feet (er, ankle) for awhile. He ate his Chick-fil-A French fries and, with all the gravitas of a grown-up, asked me:

When you’re starting a story, do you think about the concepts and ideas you want to communicate, or do you start with plot, or with character?

Here was something I hadn’t thought about in awhile. Not in a long while. Suddenly I was recalling Maddie in her earliest days–such a long time ago.

You start with ideas. No, with character. Well, but character must absolutely drive the plot. One can play with believability. Almost anything is believable–potentially, anyway, if you handle it right. But you can’t readily believe a person suddenly doing something out of character.

And what does one do with the ideas or images that come to mind–those random ones that seem completely insignificant to the larger work? Are they worth writing down, or do you wait until you’re sure of a thing and then take the time to develop it?

No, you don’t wait, because you never know. You never know when an idea or an image isn’t exactly the one you will–someday–be reaching for. Write it. Bring it to life and then, if need be, squirrel it away. You never know.

I had a useless character while writing my book who kept coming up. I didn’t know what to do with her. Truly, I had no idea why she mattered, but I kept writing her, and I kept writing her in. In the end, she was enormously significant to the story. I needed her throughout, but she came of her own volition. I can’t explain it to you, and I’ve heard other writers say the same thing.

We went on like this for the better part of an hour, each of us talking about that what comes in the exhilarating isolation of creativity. I summarized some concepts from my book for him. I told him about how, for years, any church communion service I was part of had my head teeming with ideas. I had little notebooks of grocery lists and errands that were punctuated with thoughts on the meaning of the Eucharist. It was a vital part of my book, I told him, and now that I’ve finished the project, these ideas don’t come to me anymore. I can receive communion in penitent and grateful prayer, just like everybody else.

He told me about a concept he’s working on. He showed me the paragraph description that was an opening scene, and in a few moments of reading, its quiet and fearsome tableau filled my living room. He talked about it, and behind his eyes, I watched the strange multi-fold labor of the creative: ideas made manifest in character, then teased out in images that invite others into the room.

He said: the most terrifying thing in the world is a blank page.

Yes, I said, remembering that fear and wishing that I were staring down a blank page again.

But I had to go. Time to get Emma from school, and then hit the grocery store, and then a meeting at church at 7. I was running late already, having lost track of the time because for ten-twenty-thirty minutes I was talking about writing, that thing Annie Dillard describes as “mere,” but that, for some of us, is akin to life.

We continued talking as we walked to our cars.

He won’t go to film school. Quentin Tarantino (among others) says don’t bother. Joel says Tarantino said to make a short film. And I thought about my training as a writer: two classes, one workshop–all of it twenty and more years ago.

I picked up Emma. We went to the grocery store. And the ensuing days have been full of preparations for the wedding reception– all of them must-do’s for that joy-filled reception.

The “words over coffee” had happened– without the coffee, but rich with reminders of what I love to do. I’m grateful to Joel for the conversation, wedged as it was into an unforgiving schedule. And I’m looking forward, more than ever, to confronting a blank page.

Soon.

“The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, and it smells good. Writing is mere writing, literature is mere.” — Annie Dillard

“To this day I actually think that…rather than go to film school, just grab a camera and try to start making a movie.” — Quentin Tarantino

“The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly…. that page will teach you to write.” — Annie Dillard

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