This somewhat non-sequitur of an image relates writing to building, because Christine de Pizan GETS IT

And when you write, you exist in the indicative mood. Creative doings are untempered action, after all: you draft and you plan and you put words on paper and you revise and you proofread. And then, you submit. And everything goes subjunctive.

For those of you whose hobbies are gerunds like “bicycling” and not abstract nouns like “grammar,” a quick refresher. Wikipedia, that Official Transcription of the Collective Unconscious, says that “subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred.”

Various states of unreality. Also known as the stretch of days between when you abandon your wonky little bundle of words on a doorstep and when you hear that someone’s adopted it. Or the time it takes for your void-shouting to echo. Or the haze of wishes and hopes that clogs up your ability to make declarative sentences. You say things like this:

Someone might like this.
If only my book were less weird!
Please let other people think this is readable.
I wish/hope/pray that this doesn’t suck.
This shouldn’t be so hard.

All subjunctive. All moody.

“It might have been” may be the saddest words of tongue or pen, but trim the phrase to its present tense and you have the most flirtatious: “It might.”

The subjunctive is wonderfully seductive like that. It’s the most human aspect of the most human form of word. What separates us from the animals if not “wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred”? What else is story if not a manifestation of those things? And where else do writers like to while away time if not in “various states of unreality”?

I think there’s a reason this aspect of action words shares its name with a synonym for emotion: verbal mood is mercurial, hard to grasp and harder to explain. (Even now, you are probably still scratching your head and wondering if this will be useful for Mad-Libs. It won’t, and I’m sorry for being stupidly obtuse.) Writers, being the agent nouns that they are, gotta write. It’s the only cure for what ails us—getting back to the indicative I write I tell I create—but how are we to make the transition? Thinking of ourselves in the future-tense-indicative might seem like the just the thing to rekindle the blaze in our bellies—I will write, I will succeed—but there’s a hollow, New Year’s resolution sound to those phrases. No, the necessary, block-breaking paradigm shift is of a much more imperative mood.

Literally. Get out your exclamation marks, get rid of your moodiness, and get ready.

Sit down! Type letters! Make words! String sentences! Print pages, scribble on scraps, keep creating! Do not stop! Do not despair! Do not dwell in possibility! Do not gentle go into that good night! Make your mark! Plumb depths! Exhaust everything! Revise! Wrestle! Struggle! Go, go, go!

SURGITE: the motto of Brock University, a school I have never heard of before now, means PUSH ON in Latin. Do it.

My Medieval Studies degree is useful for about three things, and historical fiction is debatably one of them. But I don’t know all the details by heart. I know a few things about William the Conqueror, and they are these:

1. He was from Falaise, the tiny town in Normandy where I spent three soggy weeks on an exchange in 9th grade.

2. He had a castle there.

3. He conquered England in 1066.

Needless to say, I need the help of seasoned historians. And while I love to get library books out and will actually (gladly) spend 2 hours engrossed in a fine-printed book on the history of the French language, I will also take any excuse to watch historical infotainment on YouTube. Because really, what is YouTube if not a wormhole to days of yore?

Award for Best CG Backdrop goes to this one, which forces poor Dale Dye to weatherman his hands around a greenscreen while what looks like a map of England superimposed over a loadscreen from Oblivion flickers behind him. Also great is the reenactment of William yelling “…with God’s help, I will conquer!” It’s about as great as the scene in The Last of the Mohicans when Hawkeye tells his father that he is, wait for it, the last of the Mohicans. I think that’s what we call Dramatic Irony (I think?)

Oh my God. Badly-dubbed English, CG animations of trees bursting out of William’s mother Herleva (here called by her much cutesier name “Arlette”), pronouncing it “dinnesty” instead of “dyenesty,” dramatic recreations on par with not-too-great courtroom drawings, AND ominous bell-tolling sounds about every five seconds.

The ol’ bait-and-switch! You think you’re just going to see some stuff about “the greatest amphibious invasion in history” BUT NO, it’s just a big WWII psyche-out to get your feeble mind to realize where Normandy is in France. Host Michael Wood’s got some scholarly seventies sideburns and the soundtrack’s got some Rite of Spring lite sturm and drang.

Also, this quote: “Normans are as fiercely proud of their separateness as Yorkshiremen.” Uh. I’ll take your word on that one, Mike.

It’s the details that make this one interesting. I don’t just mean that this video somehow knows that William the Conqueror was a redhead or that the strolling narrator has that kind of Ken-Doll haircut that seems to stick out of his head more than it should. I mean about thirty seconds in when the voiceover says “seck-shoo-ull innnnnntrigue” in the Britishest way possible.

Imagine, if you will, a sixteen-year-old girl who has:
1. A unexplainable passion for the Middle Ages
2. No actual, factual knowledge of the Middle Ages
3. Literary ambition
4. Never kissed a boy

If this sounds like a recipe for the Greatest Romance Novelist Ever, you would be wrong. But that didn’t stop me from trying.

In the November of my sixteenth year, I rolled up my unfashionable sleeves and tried to bang out a romance novel about, for reasons I cannot remember, Medieval Ireland. I did not know what I was doing on any front of this endeavor. I had Google everything from “Norman military hierarchy” to “herbal remedies for bleeding” to “how do you French kiss.”

His Irish Bride (I know) stalled at 16,000-some words, the first few you will see annotated below. I never submitted it anywhere (or even finished it), but it did end up being useful later.

But first: the story.

Chapter One
Ireland, 1203

I have no idea why I picked this year. I think I wanted it to be after the Norman invasion, but I don’t think 16-year-old me put together just how after 1066 this setting would be. Also, real talk: I could not point to Ireland on a map.

“One step further and I’ll shoot!”

A cold gust whipped the words from Alodie’s mouth to meet the rider facing the quivering point of her arrow. The lone figure on horseback had come over the crest of the green hill that marked the edge of the clan’s land.

“Calm yourself, lass. I mean ye no harm.” The man dismounted as he spoke, ever wary of the sharp aim of her bow. He tilted his head with shallow respect. “Have ye a name?”

I will give myself credit for a pretty good opening line. And that scene-setting: cold gusts! Green hills! Why, I’ve conjured up the Emerald Isle! Throw in the half-assed metonymy of “sharp aim,” the illogical adjective-of-attraction in “shallow respect,” and the completely unmerited Ye Olde Pronoune and it’s practically poetry.

Alodie tilted her bow just upwards, her deep brown eyes set on her target. “Aye.” He was a Norman, doubtless, from his looks and garb. The dog, she thought with a bitter half-scowl.

The leader fixed her with grave intent in his eyes. “No times for games, now. What is your name, lass?”

She hesitated, but spoke. “Alodie. Of Kavanagh clan.” The man surveyed her again, and she tightened her grip on her bow. “I’ll warn you but once more, man…” Alodie’s contempt flared. She was ‘lass’ to no one, least of all to Norman lord and his band. What right had these invaders to trespass on clan lands?

“Now, then. Your threats are idle placed against me. These lands are now an estate of Normandy. There is where you owe your allegiance…or loathing, as you may choose.” His smile was cruel, and the dull ache of dislike in her chest had sharpened to hatred.

“You cur! These are Kavanagh’s clan-lands, and I’ll…” She faltered, catching sight of his grim opposing face. She steeled herself. “…I’ll die to keep them from your hands.” She drew back the bowstring, and taking careful aim, let the arrow fly.

Here are a few things I didn’t bother to research: whether or not Alodie is an Irish name (it’s not), what kind of bow she would even be using (still don’t know), how “estate” law worked at this point in history (also still don’t know, but p. sure that no one would call it that). Also: what’s a half-scowl,  why does the “lone rider” all of a sudden have “a band” with him, and good God Alodie, you should get that “the dull ache of dislike in [your] chest” looked at. At least I managed to use “cur” for some Authentick Dialect Flavour.

A blur of motion flew in front of the startled horse. The arrow sang through the air, narrowly missing the leader as he fell onto the damp rise of earth below. The clamor startled Alodie, and she took a stumbling step back, her bow still humming in her hand. The man pushed himself up from the ground, turning to Alodie with an acute rage.

“Have ye no sense, woman?” he cried, gray eyes blazing with fevered passion. He strode towards her, his height intimidating at such a close range. “You nearly set the horse out of his mind and broke my neck!” He stood inches from her, and Alodie could feel his ragged breath hot in the cool air.

Good: use of verb “sang.” Bad: “gray eyes blazing with fevered passion.” I’ve given this guy some kind of diseased medieval Laser-vision. Also, “ragged breath hot in the cool air” sounds so icky I can barely bring myself to retype it.

Blah blah blah, they introduce themselves, and then—four whole paragraphs in!—it’s time for a POV shift, because why not.

Gerallt Dillon surveyed the woman facing him. Fierce temperament, no doubt. The wind pushed long, golden strands of hair from their tight binding to cross her face, which was graced by a glaring look that gave a sharp contrast to the pale softness of her skin. She wore a simple gown, plain for the daughter of a chieftain, but that nevertheless revealed the low curve of her breasts above its scarlet neckline. Gerallt’s skin grew warm, his pulse thudding. It had been long since he’d known a woman at his side. Drawing his gaze higher, he saw the rosy beauty – or was it determination? – flushing in her cheeks. A rose with such thorns, he thought with a grim countenance. The crossbow still quivered in her small hands. She would not yield without a fight, although it was more than obvious that the odds were in his favor. Gerallt was taller, stronger, and quicker, and he knew she could tell. Still, he didn’t want to result to brute force to take a lass’s title. Even one as stubborn as this.

Well, I suppose at least my archaeological voyage into the past has uncovered the Purple-Prosiest Info Dump Ever. Of course she has golden hair. Of course she has a glaring look. Of course her skin is so delicate that it can only be referred to in a prepositional phrase after a precious qualifier like “pale softness.”

So Alodie’s blushy flushy beautermination inspires Gerallt into a tortured rose/thorn metaphor that manifests, apparently, in his “grim countenance.” Oy. But at least we get some insight into his character: he’s in a Major Dry Spell and…doesn’t want to fight a girl? Swoo-oon.

But oh, it gets better. She says something else, which, who cares, and Gerallt reacts:

Her words came more slowly now, her rage more measured. The control over her emotions steadied her visibly, and she drew her shoulders back with confidence, revealing a greater swath of her pale neck and shoulders. Gerallt felt his gut tighten. This woman had a warrior’s spirit, and it sparked something in him. Who would challenge him so foolishly, when there was nary a chance for victory or even escape? What woman would stand her ground so brazenly in the face of capture? Gerallt looked her over a second time, but more slowly. Despite her posture of confidence, her breathing was uneven, and the unsteady rise and fall of her chest made his own breath catch in his throat. A shame indeed, he thought, that such a hostile soul must be sheathed in such a comely form.

Slowly, visibly, and brazenly? Good; I wasn’t sure of the exact flavor of her personal comportment, so that cleared that up. There’s comely, too, which isn’t an adverb but is really awful. Oh, and did I mention she’s pale? And she likes to fight? As for Gerallt’s gut-tightening, what can I say? It’s not like there was Dramamine for those long horse voyages.

“Lass,” he said, with measured temper, “mind how you speak to your soon-to-be husband.”

Alodie’s indignation burst out, full-force. “Husband? You insult me with this foolishness! I would rather die than marry a land-thieving murderous like you!”

“Perhaps,” Gerallt replied, “and Prince John’s soldiers would see you through to the end of that threat. I have no desire to see you dead, but the lands will be mine by either of your choices. The only difference is the delay you will incur by resisting.” He watched her consider him, the wind sweeping her hair into a golden frame for her troubled face. He knew she would not choose death. She knew as well as he that her lands would only see greater ruin without a clan leader to fight for them. He felt fully satisfied that the castle would be his, and yet the idea of Alodie as his wife left him intrigued. Her wild, golden beauty could have kindled the desire of countless men, and yet he was more captivated by her ferocity. She would doubtless prove to be difficult to control, and if things were to play to his favor, he would need to control her flaring temperament. By herself she was of little threat to him, but who could know what allies she might have elsewhere?

Gerallt ran a hand through his crop of dark hair. He would have to tame her somehow. The thought sent a spear of energy down his spine, and he shook his head, trying to rid himself of it.

A murderous what? The world may never know. And there are so many adjectives to the effect of Alodie’s solid-gold gleam that I’m surprised she isn’t dangling on the end of a rapper’s necklace. “Spear of energy” gets points for being a Good Combat Metaphor (not—Virgil is cringing in his grave).

Also, the action of this scene takes place in what, five minutes? Pacing was clearly not a concept with which I was overly familiar.

So…Chapter One? Ouch. Chapter Two? Later. Your reward? The real-life epilogue!

I wrote this seven years ago, nearly a third of my life removed from where I am now. Since then, I’ve grown, both as a writer and a medieval scholar—not despite this awful dreck, but because of it.

No, seriously. This actual writing—the first cringe-inducing chapter of His Irish Bride—made up my admissions essay to the University of Chicago. I was accepted early decision, graduated with honors in Medieval Studies, and delivered one of three Convocation speeches for the Class of 2012. I guess I’m kind of proud of it after all.

And! I’m starting my next book, so I’ll have lots of bare-laying to do in the coming weeks. We’ll see this thing through together, you and I. Sharing is good for you!

So: write a novel. What’s the worst that could happen?

No, I’m serious. I need to know—you need to know—in the universe of your fiction, what is the worst thing that could happen.

Got an answer? You’ve got a story.

Based on what I’ve done personally slash absorbed from my very minimal writing workshop experience, I believe that ideas for stories can come from one of two points of origin: either you come up with a CHARACTER you love and want to write about, or a SITUATION that will become the plot/problem. (The third, secret idea-germ is THEME, but TBH I don’t think a lot of writers think in themes—we’re much more likely to latch on to the specific details than the more abstract, overarching implications…at least at first).

Once you’ve got your idea-germ, the trick is in taking specific details that surface in the Petri dish of your brain and culturing them into a complete, dynamic arc. This sounds so much fancier than it is! But that’s the gist of narrative: beginning, middle, end; exposition, action, climax, resolution; whatever. You probably know these things fairly intuitively, so don’t sweat mapping everything out to the last detail—as you let ideas percolate in your head, they just sort of fall into place.

But! You can still tease them out, like so. Daydream your way to a novel!

Option 1: you have a character. If you’re like me, the character is NOT AT ALL complete when you first imagine (encounter? discover?) her or him—there’s just a strong feeling about the way they act, or a specific reaction they have in one moment, or even a physical description of what you want them to look like. All valid! Once you’ve got that little bit, then you need to extrapolate outwards and make them into a whole person.

For example, let’s say you want to write about some badass lady with a nose ring who lives in New York. You really have no idea what she’s about except that 1. she has a nose ring and 2. she lives in New York, but for some reason those things are really speaking to you. Who knows why this happens? Anyway, take those two attributes and connect them to her emotional state: what’s with the piercing? Why New York? Then, once you know how she feels about herself, via these two things, spin them out into what she wants. Maybe she hates New York and wants to leave. Maybe she desperately needs to cure the tetanus she got from the shady piercing salon. And finally, once you’ve got the wants down, throw a wrench into her path with some obstacles. She’s broke. She just got fired. She doesn’t trust doctors because her father was a doctor and he emptied out her college fund.

This is a really janky way of getting to what all the writing books call “goal-motivation-conflict.” I’m not big on thinking of it that way because it feels artificial, but in the end, you do need those three things to make a story. The story is the story of the character overcoming the odds (or not) because of whatever particular fire is burning in their belly. And the most important thing, I think, is why this particular conflict is happening to this particular person. It’s cruel, but you once you know your character, you have to throw them under the bus and into the lion’s den: give them the one thing that crashes into their beliefs, challenges their strengths, and plays to their weaknesses. Why is this problem in particular the worst thing that could happen to this particular person? THEN you’ve got intrigue (though it doesn’t have to be HEAVY and dramatic—it could be as fluffy as “Jane is a timid high school senior who’s suddenly confronted with her worst nightmare: she’s the lead in the musical! Oh noes!”)

Option 2: you have a plot. Basically, you’re going to do the same thing, in reverse. For example (based on a true fictional story I wrote once!), let’s say you really want to write about a girl who suddenly finds herself saddled with the responsibility of writing the anonymous advice column for her high school paper. What kind of person would get in the most trouble if this happened? I made Emily (my heroine) a good but highly private writer (she’s a fanfiction nerd) who doesn’t have a great grasp on social interaction…but has to take the column as extra credit or she’ll flunk English (too much daydreaming about Harry Potter makes for bad grades). This worked pretty well because she messed up a lot writing the column, and hijinks ensued! Then, I worked to bend the arc of the narrative towards some mild lesson-learning (trust your friends, be true to yourself, blah blah blah) and all’s well that ends well (what?! it’s a romantic comedy!).

The takeaway here is that if you know the kind of situation you want in your story, you can also use that to suggest character—and character, ultimately, is what makes or breaks your story. The real trick is getting your plot and characters to weave together, affect each other reciprocally, and most important, change over the course of the story, thus creating something bigger than the sum of their parts (or, as an English teacher would call it, theme).

Phew. You made it. Now answer me this: what potential next-time sounds good? Research? Plotting? Advanced Butt-in-Chair Studies?

I’ve been 23 years old for almost half a year now, and I think Blink-182 was on to something.

On one side of it, 23 is a lot of years: I have a college degree, a job with a paycheck, and more than one nice pair of pants. I pay taxes*, I make budgets, and I can drive three and a half hours to a writers’ retreat all by my lonesome. I have come far enough in life that there exists a place where I used to be, and find myself giving advice to people (plural!) whose present situation is my past.

Most critically, though, I write books. Have written, am writing, whatever—I have picked a career and God-damned if I’m not in it for the long haul.

But on the other side, 23 is so little. I sleep in my childhood bedroom. I don’t pay the heating bill. I can’t rent a car. I get called “young lady” by my so-called peers in the business of book-writing as they dispense advice in a patronizingly royal we: “We can’t give up! We all have to keep writing!”

Lady, I know. I’ve kept writing since I was 16. You want trunked manuscripts? I’ve got six. I might have been born yesterday but that doesn’t make me stupid. It doesn’t make me some kind of wunderkind, either; I’m not trying to posit myself as an under-appreciated prodigy here. I don’t want to whine. I just want to work.

Back in the days (daze?) of employment-hunting, my mantra was this: if the worst thing they can say about you is that you’re too young for the job, then the best is yet to come. Time heals all ills, and no more so than when you’re afflicted with youth.

My point (or my hope, or my belief) is this: age should be neutral. Your work and the quality thereof is the only thing that counts and the only thing you should count on.

Last night, my mother and I were commiserating over our respective places in time. “You’re closer to the beginning of your life, and I’m closer to the end,” she said, one of those double-edged statement that cut at each of us in opposite ways. I said what I thought without thinking about it and spit out one of those dumb-but-true truths:

“We’ve both got tomorrow. That’s all you need.”

*or, okay, I will have paid taxes as of tonight. This is why god invented e-filing.

You see three cozy-looking frittatas, nestled in an itty-bitty skillet and becomingly blistered with cheese. You don’t see me dashing around my kitchen at seven in the morning, frantically steaming kale, grinding coffee, and scooping my lunch-yogurt into a pint jar. And you definitely don’t see the pink, handle-shaped indentation burned under my left thumb.

In pictures, all is pleasant! Life imitates Instagram, or something. Also: does frittata sound like the name of a Pokémon to anyone else?

It remains, however, that a frittata is a good breakfast: good in the virtuous sense of “having vegetables” but also good in the hedonistic sense of “having cheese.” I have been making them lo these past two weeks, and even though beating and broiling eggs every morning is a scramble (no pun intended, because that doesn’t even make sense for a frittata), it’s nice to start the day with some protein. Here is how you make one.

(If you don’t want to burn your hand, don’t be like me and think you can get away with just using a dish towel to insulate your tender flesh; use something comprehensively heatproof).

Frittata for One
A handful of vegetable matter, frozen or fresh if green (spinach, kale, broccoli, asparagus) and cooked/leftover if otherwise (root vegetables)
1 tbsp. olive oil or butter
2-3 eggs
1/3 cup of cheese in bits (grated works for cheddar or Parmesan, feta and goat cheese can stay in blobs, and if all you have is slices, just tear it into hunks as best you can)
Pre-cooked sausage, cut into rounds, or bacon, cooked and crumbled, or smoked salmon, optional
Salt & pepper
Parsley, chives, or dill, chopped, optional
Hot sauce, optional

Preheat your broiler to low and adjust rack to highest position. If your vegetables are frozen, place them in a microwave-safe bowl and nuke for 1-2 minutes until thawed.

Heat up your lipid matter in your littlest cast iron or other ovenproof skillet over medium heat, then add vegetables, stirring occasionally to keep them from burning, then add the meat product, if using.

Beat eggs with salt (at least 1/2 tsp) and pepper (a few grinds). Add cheese to eggs and stir. Using a rubber spatula, pour egg mixture over vegetables in skillet, pushing in edges and tipping the pan as it sets.

When the eggs are mostly set on the bottom, grab the skillet WITH AN OVEN MITT and put it under the broiler for 3-4 minutes (watching carefully) or until cheese is melted and eggs are puffed and golden. Scarf down warm or room temperature, sprinkled with hot sauce if you like it and herbs if you remembered to chop any up.

Think back to any “E! True Hollywood Story” you’ve ever seen (because I know you’ve seen them). You know how there’s always that grainy, talent-show clip of a six-year-old Christina Aguilera belting out a song onstage at her elementary school, and then a quick cut to a talking head of a parent or friend who’s all, “we knew from the very beginning she would be a singer”? I think these moments happen for those of us less glamorously gifted, too.

Mine would be when, at age seven-ish, I was flicking through the manuscript for a book my mom was working on illustrating about princesses having a slumber party. After hearing a story of fantastic beasts evidently too scary for sheltered royal progeny, one of the princesses was said to gasp thusly: “What DRAGON?”

Cue me: “Shouldn’t it be ‘WHAT dragon?’”

An editor is born!

This humble-bragging anecdote is just a lengthy, lede-burying lead-in to the fact that I’ve just (well, a month ago) completed editing My Novel. Since that first incidence of precocious pedantry, I’ve gone on to edit plenty of things–the high school lit mag, endless cover letters, a handful of news articles, and even manuscripts–but never anything so long and so very my own.

If you’ll recall from this fall’s FAQ, I absconded to Canada with the a project of writing a book, which I did. I had a schedule, which was to write 2,800 words a day, and I mostly succeeded, because I had nothing else to do and I was determined to see this thing through. It hit 78,000 words, I hit the end, and then I started another one, because I still had a month and a half left in my new lease on life and also on sublet apartment. I left the book alone, like you’re supposed to, and waited.

I don’t (or don’t here, anyway) talk about my fiction writing much, because…it’s scary! I don’t know. For some reason I’m the proverbial open book about my Real World, whether I’m sobbing in nice restaurants or weathering a long-distance relationship or thinking about the future where my parents are dead and I don’t know how to get my car repaired. But when it comes to letting people in on my Fake World, the one that I built in my head out of gumpaste and papier-mâché and dreams in Old French, I seal off.

For the creative process, the generative part, I think this is a good thing–no matter how crazymaking the lonely days of French-Canadian composition were at the time. But for editing, and especially after editing, you’ve got to start letting other people in.

So I emailed copies to trusted friends, printed the damn thing out, and slapped it in a plastic binder, ready for the evisceratory rage of the red pen. And you know what? Weren’t so bad. Were, actually, kind of fun. Kind of a relief to see that hey, the book is Not Terrible. Kind of reassuring to see that, with the benefit of a break, my future-self could pick up and refine the threads and themes and know what and when to slash. Kind of thrilling, too, to think that “WHAT dragon?” was a question more rhetorical than I realized at the time–a calling to my calling.

The book is 81,000 words long. It is funny and it is sad and it is Pretty Good, if I do say so myself. It is being looked at by experts, really, and it is in God’s hands, figuratively. It is finished in the sense of done and finished in the sense of slicked over with metaphorical polish, but either way, I’m the one who finished it.

Edited to add: My sainted mother managed to track down the page in question. Behold:

So! These are not revelations, but they are helpful. You could even call them “life-hacks,” but then we can’t be friends. Your call.

1. Get up early.

The easiest way to add bonus time to your day for writing is to rip it right from Dawn’s rosy fingers. No, it isn’t necessarily fun to get up before sunrise and yes, I do have an unfair advantage at this because of farm conditioning and a natural larkiness. But it’s not just a personal predilection, I swear: if you can rouse yourself from sleep and put in an hour or half an hour or even ten minutes, you give your writing the best brainpower, jacked-up on caffeine and undiluted by actually having done anything yet that day.

Make coffee. Eat breakfast. Then go.

2. Do not touch your smartphone at crucial times.

If you need to make a call, sure, you pedant. What I mean by crucial are times when you can sneak in some hardcore daydreaming: train rides, waiting for the bus, chopping up food for dinner, etc. Phones are like antibacterial soap for ideas: they wipe everything out of your head, good and bad. Keeping your Angry Birds caged up in your pocket or backpack and resisting the urge to dial up Terry Gross’s dulcet tones to blot out the background noise will let all kinds of things grow in your mental terrarium. Be alone with your thoughts. Walk and woolgather. Stare out the window and let things get funky.

3. Learn to like lentils.

Day job or no, writers must live cheaply. But food is non-negotiable, especially if you’re one of those delicate flowers whose personal hierarchy of needs includes things like “breathing” and
nourishment”  before you even get to art. Lentils are an excellent source of protein and fiber that are easy to cook from dried, cost next to nothing, and go well with the economical vegetables that will last for weeks without getting limp and pathetic. You can make a giant thing of salad or soup and subsist on it for days and it will usually taste good enough to keep you from feeling too Bob Cratchit-y about your situation.

I could tell you a long story about why we recreated this particular picture, but I think I’ll let the letter I wrote speak for itself.

Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year!

Happy Valentine’s Day! Whatever!

Look, we’ll be the first to admit that we’re a little behind. But we have good reasons: we forgot, we were busy (see below), and we needed to send cards as part of the 2013 fiscal year for tax purposes.*

Mostly, though, it was in the name of (re)capturing the special moment from 15 (!) years ago for the family photo. The story is, way back in ’98, David and Rebecca were all dolled up in white tie for the Academy Ball (as they do every year)**. They were smiling, Alice was sad to see them go, and Blair was…swimming? Sure, fine. Whatever happened, it was a moment that defied logical description then and begged for re-creation now.

As the least physically changed of the family, David has been dutifully preserving an aging portrait of himself in order to keep eternally youthful (just kidding, folks! That’s just good, old fashioned healthy livin’ for ya). When he’s not pulling his tuxedo out of mothballs for contrived photo ops, David is still the fearless leader of the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, which continues to flourish Fels-ily. He’s maintained his obsession with the ’88 Vanagon and learned important skills like Soundproofing Your Van and What You Should Do Now To Keep The Coolant From Leaking. Besides rocking out with the Reckless Amateurs and The Miners, David has also added to the household instrument roster with another lap steel guitar and a banjo for the kid (Blair). Online reviews of his work with the Miners praise “Gary” Thornburgh for peddlin’ the steel with feelin’.

Marvelous matriarch Rebecca continues to be endlessly creative: besides illustrating her 115th and 116th children’s books, she wrote a draft of a mystery novel set in a coffee shop, created a whimsical and wonderful book of “What I Drew In Church” doodles, sang with Reckless Amateurs, the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, and a women’s chamber choir, and fiddled. Her recent birthday present of a playhouse was a dream come true (and you’re all invited to come help build it over Memorial Day weekend!) Her signature punk-rock-pixie-cut continues to be the coolest hairstyle that anyone has ever had (is the pink natural? Only her stylist knows for sure!) She also avows an addiction to watching ’24′ on Netflix, at which her family lovingly restrains from rolling their collective eyes.

Elder daughter Blair (your humble amanuensis for this epistolary endeavor) has been busy growing about eight feet (see photo). She graduated in June from the University of Chicago, where she not only wrote a 40-page thesis on Latin and Old French literature for her Medieval Studies degree, but was also one of three student speakers at the Convocation ceremony (her speech, however, was in English). She spent the summer in New York City as an intern at the Jewish Daily Forward, where she was published on the front page and finally learned to spell the work “shtup” correctly (though for different articles). She then departed in September for a three-month long finding-yourself-in- a-foreign-country thing in Montreal, where she spoke French, wrote two young adult novels, and diligently avoided detection by the Royal Canadian Mounted Immigration Police. As of, like, three weeks ago, Blair is the newest member of the editorial team at Quirk Books (they of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies fame) in Philadelphia, and she doesn’t think it’s premature to say that reading and writing about groovy and wonderful books all day is the best job forever and ever, amen.

Lastly, little Alice, who is actually NOT so little any longer, had the coolest adventures of anyone: she spent the fall of her junior year in college studying abroad in Florence, which is in Italy, which is awesome. With a veritable smorgasbord of studio classes spread before her, Alice learned to do all kinds of crazy things like sew clothes, illustrate children’s books (say…), paint in many media, and inform Italian waiters that she is dead***. Also, she got to walk past the Duomo on the way to school every day, which CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE. After bidding Italy arrivederci, Alice has returned to her natal nation for the remainder of her year at Vassar, where she intersperses her art studies with video games, sketchbook drawing, and lending her ethereally graceful soprano to the Vassar Camerata.

Our standard poodles, Rory and Zero (not pictured), keep up a rigorous daily schedule of barking, sleeping, eating, attempting to open the fridge, eating some more, and barking. We love them a lot but would really like them to stop climbing on our legs at night.

Well, there it is. You’ll excuse us for not lingering, but we really need to get the ornaments off the tree.

See you in another fifteen years!

*No.
**No.
***This was actually a comical cultural misunderstanding.

Coincidentally, the last post to grace the blog chunk of this website was also about birthdays! Mine! Which was in December!

Urgh, okay. Sorry. Obviously, Things Have Happened since then, so let me get everyone up to speed: came back from Canada. Started awesome job at awesome publisher. Began revising my novel. Finally sent out family Christmas cards (more on that later). Redesigned website.

Phew!

A year is a weird amout of time. It’s like a hundred bucks: a lot of time and yet also not a lot of time. A year ago, I bought this domain with no after-graduation plans, no posts published elsewhere, and no idea what was going to happen. It was year of the writer, but beyond that, who knew what was in store?

Everything, that’s what. Every last thing. From February last to February this, every good thing I can ever recall wanting has befallen me. Jobs, writing, creative projects, [redacted], food, speaking in front of 5,000 people, and adventures spanning four cities and two countries. What a life. What a year.

So! Onward! You can now find me blogging for Quirk, but I’ll be here too. And beyond that, I really need to get some sleep because I’ve run out of dreams to come true and I love waking up to make things every day.