For my friends, A. and K.    

     Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I am not a gardener. Don’t get me wrong, I love flowers and plants. I love curling my fingers into rich, pungent soil, gently unraveling the tiny root systems already encasing even young plants, coaxing those immature tendrils to grow quickly and spread deep. There’s something almost maternal for me in the feel of tucking those fragile plants into their warm, cozy beds of earth. I pat them gently and hope that Earth, Sun, and Rain will do the rest, helping my little green babies to grow tall and strong and beautiful.

     But, as I’ve already mentioned, I am not a true gardener. Worse, I’m a careless gardener. I get distracted from tending my little seedlings, and inevitably, they end up drowning through my overwatering after a dry spell, or baking, crisping, and crumbling under the exuberant heat of the Sun. I sigh my remorse, read again the stick containing the plant care instructions, and vow that next time, I will pay closer attention to the details. Next time, I’ll try a different variety.

     Have you ever planted sunflowers? Those flowers are amazing. In French, they are called tournesol, which means “turns with the sun”. This refers to the sunflower’s habit of literally turning as the sun makes its way across the sky so that the sunflower always faces the light. I find myself thinking from time to time that for an herbicidal maniac like myself, a plant that could at least control its own sun exposure would be a welcome addition to my garden.

     I think if I could be any flower, I’d like to be a sunflower. There are times when I, too, find myself tilting my face up to greet the joyful sun, particularly after the dark days of a long Minnesota winter. I crane my neck as far back as I can and feel the warmth and light fill me with contentment, and for a moment, I, too, am a sunflower. But then I remember some trifling problem, some slight, some chore, and turn my face away from the sun, forgetting to revel in the joy it brings. I am, I fear, more like the common thistle, cantankerous and prickly.

     People can be a lot like plants and flowers; in fact, many of the expressions we use to describe people originate from plants. There are “Fresh as a daisy”; “Cool as a cucumber”; “Lovely as a rose”; and one of my all-time favorites from a bygone era, “She’s a real tomato”—that one always makes me a laugh for no particular reason. But you never really see sunflowers used to describe people. Why is that?

     They have at least as long a lineage as the rose. They are as beautiful as the daisy, and more useful: you can eat sunflower seeds, cook with sunflower oil, brew tea from sunflower stems. The ancient Aztecs, they say, even used to worship the sunflower. Have you ever seen anyone worship a daisy? They are the flibbertigibbets of the flower world.

     I once watched a time-lapse video of a field of sunflowers and it was startling to see the determination, the single-mindedness, if you will, of that field as the sun traveled overhead. There was something mystical in the pas de deux between sun and flower, something I could see, and recognize, but feel I will somehow never understand.

     Don’t sunflowers ever get tired? Don’t they ever get discouraged? Don’t they ever feel bowed down by the winds buffeting them? Is there ever a morning where they wake up and don’t feel like getting out of bed? No, they don’t. The storms come, the winds blow, the drought sears, the rains lash at them through the night. But in the morning, the sun rises, and those amazing flowers lift their heads to greet it; they make what appears to be a conscious decision to turn their faces to the light, every day, no matter how fierce the storm of the night, no matter how heavy their heads feel, no matter how tempting it must be some mornings to just allow themselves to bend down to the fragrant earth and stay there.

     No. There is something deep within, down in its very roots, something that lifts the sunflower’s head each day as the sun comes over the horizon, something that inspires it, something that motivates it, something that makes it choose the light every time. Whatever it is, roses don’t have it, daisies don’t have it, and I can vouch for thistles—they don’t have it either. But what a gift the sunflower gives me, and how I am continually inspired by it, to keep my own head held high, no matter the storm, no matter the winds, no matter the rain. The sunflower calls to me, reminding me to do as it does: to turn my face to the light, to always follow the sun. 

Rejection-letter box of Kleenex: $2.00.

Rejection-letter ice cream, “Death Wish” size, from Cold Stone Creamery: $8.00.

Rejection-letter “Better-Writer-In-A-Box” bookstore spree: $49.96.

A (reputable) magazine finally accepting one of your articles for publication: Priceless!

Yes, folks, it’s finally happened: a real magazine is actually going to publish one of my articles. Because I’m a superstitious person, I will refrain from jinxing the deal by blabbing here which magazine, though I will tell you that it’ll be in print this fall.

I received the e-mail this morning after spending a particularly broody few days feeling like nothing good would ever come of this writing thing (I guess that “Deux Ex Machina” thing must not be just a literary device), so emotionally speaking, the news could not have come at a better time.

In the hours since reading the news, I have been floating around with what I know must be a sublimely goofy smile plastered to my face, utterly ridiculous. There have only been a few other times in my life when I wandered around all day with my feet several feet off the ground and a silly grin on my face, and most of those had to do with love or infatuation (or in some cases, being really, really drunk).

The realistic voice in my head keeps trying to shake me by the shoulders, yelling “Snap out of it! It’s just one article! It’s just one magazine! It took you three years of writing to get this one published!”

To which voice I calmly reply, “Yes, I know. It’s only one article. And yes, thank you very much, I know it’s not for The New Yorker. But it is ONE.” And it is precisely because of this event’s singularity that I am determined to bask in it, to wallow in it, to slather it onto my parched and callused ego. Who knows if there will be other opportunities? And if they do come, who’s to say that they won’t take another three years, or five, or even twenty to arrive?

I feel like my reserves of confidence had become so depleted that in this moment of plenty, I need to lay in new stores against another long, unbroken winter of scarcity. So I am gorging on happiness, feasting on self-satisfaction (and a bagel layered in celebratory swirls of Nutella, my guilty celebratory treat), building reserves of fat contentment to see me through the next dry spell.

Yes, for me, a little validation goes a loooong way; that’s okay, because it may have to. But in the meantime, ahhh. Priceless.

I’ve had a few ups and downs this week in terms of my writing. I did some revising of my novel Widow Woman (thank you to my readers for their feedback) and began working on writing my next one. Putting a Go Day out there for everyone to see made me accountable and productive: I actually finished Chapter One this afternoon. Hurray for me!

But  in spite of this achievement, off and on this whole week, I’ve been questioning my choice of a career; (can you actually call it a career if you’re not making any money at it?) I’ve been questioning whether I have what it takes to become a writer, be it skill, talent, luck, marketing ability, whatever; questioning my sanity–this has just been a week to be wracked with self-doubt.

Into the fray have stepped friends and family, just at the moment when I needed them the most. Bus-stop buddies telling me “To heck with traditional publishers! What do they know anyway?–let’s just get you onto Amazon! We know you’re going to be a star!” A colleague reading my first draft told me she has no doubt that I will get this novel of mine published. Several others who have been reading the manuscript have been telling me how good it is and asking for other things I’ve written. My “troops” have really been rallying behind me, for which I am intensely grateful.

But in this week of violent self-doubt, nothing has meant more to me than the support of one person–my husband.

Think that that kind of support doesn’t matter, or that it can be replicated in the encouragement of anyone else? It can’t. It is irreplaceable and invaluable. I was reading On Writing by Stephen King this afternoon and came across this passage: “And whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or a husband), I smile and think, There’s someone who knows. Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.” Well, I haven’t been published yet, so I don’t have a formal dedication page yet, but I already know that I wouldn’t have gotten this far without him, so why wait–this one is for you.

I am so incredibly fortunate to have so many people out there who believe I’m going to succeed. Thanks to all of you for being there when my faith in myself wavers.

But to my husband, especially, thanks for reminding me that  though this may be a long haul, you’re there right behind me to push me when I need pushing, to pick me up when I stumble, or even to drag me the last few feet if I need to be dragged (if you ask him, that’s more often than not much of the time.)

Stephen King is right: Writing is a lonely thing. Thanks for keeping me company along the way.

In spite of what you might infer from the length of time that’s passed since my last post, when I vowed to write every day, I have actually been doing so. I’ve written a couple of articles and have been continuing to work on the research for my next book. I’ve also been writing a number of query letters to agents. Don’t scoff–those can be incredibly time-consuming! My goal has been to complete five queries each week and so far I’ve been meeting my quota.

I started doing some additional research in the hopes of writing a “killer” query letter. One literary agent’s blog waxed rhapsodic about a writer submitting to him who had the first chapter of her manuscript posted on her Web site. “She already had a Web site!” I do, too, and that entry started me thinking about posting my first chapter as well. I’m such a nervous Nellie, though–want to know what my biggest concern is? It’s not that no one will read it, or if they do read, that they won’t like it. It’s that there’d be some unscrupulous person out there who’d plagiarize it. But I guess that’s a concern no matter where you’re publishing. Maybe I just need to bite the bullet and get it out there.

If I do, you’ll be the first to know.

In the meantime, I am labeling today “Go Day” because it is time for me to begin writing the next book. The voices in my  head have reached an unbearable crescendo and I have to get them out of there before I become a crazy person muttering to myself all day. Oh, wait–I already do that.

I had not planned on starting the book today, but my daughter, who is definitely serving as my life coach at this point (how scary is it when your 10-year-old is filling that function for you?), handed me a beautiful drawing yesterday. We’d been in the car listening to Miley Cyrus belt out “The Climb”. That’s the great thing about having kids: you don’t have to think up an excuse for liking their music; you can just pretend you’re only listening to it for them. Anyway, as we were listening, I told her, in regards to my writing, that I often felt those opening lines myself: “I can almost see it, that dream I’m dreaming; But a voice inside my head says ‘You’ll never reach it'”.

She sat down with paper and crayons as soon as we got home and presented me with the most inspirational writing I’ve ever seen. She’d drawn a beautiful green mountainside (Get it? “The Climb”?), and above it she had written “May The Writing Gods Be With You.” But that’s not what did it for me. She had drawn book covers of some of our favorite books floating in the sky above the mountains. Among this pantheon of our favorites, she had drawn a book cover that featured what she knows I have chosen as the title for the book I’m about to begin: The Water Bearers. 

What an act of faith. So today will be the day. Thank you, dear girl, for the nudge; I needed it.

I have a weird sense of humor and I like to laugh–a lot. What this often means is that I might appear to be a less than serious person (true) and that occasionally, I am the only one laughing (also true).

Personally, I subscribe to the belief that “Laughter is the best medicine”, although I do draw the line at those new “Laughter Yoga” classes; as a general rule, I prefer laughing at people in exercise classes rather than laughing with them.

Yesterday was a banner day for laughter, even for me, so I thought I’d share with you a couple of the things that made me giggle:

First, a line from the book The Stingray Shuffle by Tim Dorsey. You don’t have to know anything about the book to appreciate this line, particularly if you are, as I am, the parent of two young boys: “How can we play Hot Wheels without lighter fluid?” All I had to do was imagine my older son speaking those words and I was rolling on the floor (also doing a mental check of where I last saw our fire extinguisher.)

Later, I noticed a small fire burning in the back yard of a neighbor’s house and called another neighbor to ask what the huge cloud of smoke was. She replied, “It’s Mike*.” I asked, “What is he doing?” “Gardening.”

I think that one speaks for itself.    (*Name changed to protect The Combustible Gardener’s true identity, although I do have to wonder if he was just playing Hot Wheels with his sons.)

Ain’t life funny?

With the world evidently going to hell in a hand cart, I think we’re in the position of either laughing or crying. I’d rather laugh–the world can be such a funny place, if you’re paying attention and not afraid to laugh alone.