Some Numbers for Thought

A few interesting statistics from Paul Campos, a professor of law at the University of Colorado:

Since September 11, 2001, 14 million Americans have died. Of these,
*untold thousands died needless, agonizing deaths because they lacked health insurance.
*over a quarter million died in car accidents.
*some 200,000 were shot to death. And no, that’s not counting those who died in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On that cheery note, I’m off to Florida tomorrow. See you next week!

And the Page Count Is…

I made it. My target for my writing spree up at the lake was to hit page 225 once the new chapters were typed up, and I exceeded that by hitting page 235. Yes.

Unfortunately the clock is now ticking on another week and I’m already starting to fall behind, what with the MERMAIDS galleys and the Q&A my in-house publicist wants done and the new website I’m having designed and the trip to Florida to visit Daughter #1 that I have planned for the end of the week (assuming she manages to get back from the Far East in time). And then there are these really neat out-of-print books, the Village London series, that I recently discovered and ordered from used booksellers around the world and they’ve now started arriving and they are oh-so-tempting, since they’re full of all sorts of wonderful little historical tidbits. Except Daughter #2 will be home from Europe before I know it and I’ll be sucked into the whirlwind of getting her ready to go off to college, and I need to have the first draft of this book finished by 1 September. Only, I also really need to get the upstairs hall painted because…

Breathe, Candy. Breathe.

Revisiting Hell

The galleys for WHY MERMAIDS SING are due back in New York on Tuesday. Because of the long time lag in publishing, that means I’ve been spending the last few days rereading the book I wrote right after Katrina—the book I thought would never get finished. I had sent the proposal for MERMAIDS off to my agent right before the storm hit. And then I didn’t write another word for more then six months.

At first my days were spent driving back and forth from Baton Rouge, mucking out the house, dragging what couldn’t be salvaged out to the curb, tearing out walls. Even after we moved down to my mother’s house in Metairie, we still had to drive up to Baton Rouge once a week for groceries. While we waited for our stripped studs to dry out, I set about the painful task of attempting to restore my antique furniture. And then it was time to start putting up walls, finish Sheetrock, and do all the million and one other things needed to put a house back together. I spent my days in paint-splattered clothes, joking that with the cost of labor in New Orleans I could make more money installing Sheetrock than I could writing. Actually, it wasn’t a joke. After all, the only reason I’d acquired the skill was because good Sheetrockers were impossible to find in New Orleans. They still are. But I digress.

Sometime around February or March I realized I had to quit working on the house and start working on my book. My deadline was looming. Only, how could I? We were rebuilding the house ourselves simply because we couldn’t find anyone to hire. Even putting in 12-14 hour days, Steve could only do so much on the weekends; I was the one working on it seven days a week. I was desperate to rebuild my nest, rebuild some kind of normal life for my traumatized chicks. I kept saying, how can I just quit and sit down and start writing? How can I write when I live, breathe, sleep, dream Katrina?

In the end, of course, I realized I had no choice. At first I set up my computer in my mother’s backroom. Then Steve and our friend Jon got the paneling up in my office and I started writing in here. The floor was just a concrete slab, there were no baseboards or crown moldings or doorframes or window frame (actually, there’s STILL no window frame!). There was no kitchen in the house, although one of the bathrooms upstairs still functioned. The neighborhood was filled with the sound of air compressors and hammering and sawing. I kept saying, I can’t write like this! I’d write half the day, then give in to the compulsion and go off to do Sheetrock or sand trim, seal tile or paint ceilings. In the end, the only thing that saved me was the miracle that is the lake house.

Yet somehow, the book not only worked, but worked amazingly well. The only problem is that as I go through the galleys, I find that I can only read about thirty pages at a time and then I need to put it aside and do something else for a while. I find myself remembering the time I was assaulted by a raving lunatic at one of the city’s few functioning gas stations (people were seriously losing it in those days). I remember sitting next to my dying aunt and listening to the hospital rep apologize for the fact they were using orange FEMA blankets, but their laundry service had flooded. I remember the miles of flooded cars choking the streets of New Orleans, the boat abandoned just two blocks from my mother’s house (where the water stopped). I remember the huge flies that seemed to mutate after Katrina, and the smell. Who could ever forget that smell? And then I go pick up the galleys again.

And I wonder, is it there? Did the heartache and the trauma and the craziness of it all somehow bleed into these words about an English Viscount chasing a tormented killer through the streets of 1811 London?

I don’t know.

Skiing Off a Cliff

There’s one thing to be said for skiing off a cliff or being broadsided by a truck. Apart from giving you a new appreciation of how quickly life can go spinning out of control, it definitely tends to shift your perspective.

I was ruminating on those life experiences Monday as I was flying down the interstate at 85mph (hey, this is Louisiana). And because I’m a writer—which means I’m always seeing analogies even where there aren’t any—I thought it might hold the key to why I manage to get so much written when I’m up at the lake.

There are all sorts of prosaic reasons, of course. No internet. No piles of laundry and dirty refrigerators beckoning to be cleaned out. The freedom to listen to my inner body clock, which means scribbling away until 4 am and sleeping guilt-free to 10 or 11. And then there’s the blessed sound of silence, and the soul-lifting inspiration that comes from the sight of sun glistening on breeze-licked waves.

Those are all, obviously, contributing factors. But I suspect a major key to my uncharacteristic prolificacy up there is that going to the lake yanks me out of my routine everyday patterns. It shakes me up, breaks my habits, sets me free to be different. Cocooned alone in the lake house, I can immerse myself in my story and then simply let it flow out of me. When I want a break, I go walk around the lake or grab a paintbrush. But the story stays with me. In me. My world becomes the lake and my story.

I have a friend who has written all twenty of her books in longhand while sitting in a coffee shop. The other day I told her I thought maybe she had something there, that I’d noticed I’m actually far more productive when I’m up at the lake and writing by hand. You know what she said? “Really? I’ve just started composing at my computer because it seems faster.” Of course it is, theoretically, since one eliminates the step of having to type up what one has written. It’s why I shifted to composing at the keyboard years ago. But I suspect she’s feeling a burst in her productivity largely because her process is now different.

I can still remember the heady days of the first book I ever wrote, scribbling by hand, dashing after my story with no outline and little forethought. Over the years—I’ve been at this twenty years now!—I’ve learned how to do so many things so much better. But in the process something was lost. Something I recapture—at least partially—sitting on that porch swing with a notebook propped on my lap.

So here’s to being shaken up—preferably in a nonlethal way. If you normally compose at your computer desk, go sit out under a tree and write by hand. If you outline, ditch it for a day. If you don’t outline, try it. Light candles and play Gregorian chants. Or douse the candles and turn off the CD player. Get up at 5 am and write while you watch the sun come up. Or write by moonlight in the stillness of the night. Why wait to be clobbered by a hurricane to try something different?

Louisiana High

I’m back home again and even though I’ve been hard at work, I feel as if I’ve had a vacation. I’ve spent five days sitting on a porch swing with a notebook propped on my lap, gazing at a sun-sparkled lake, listening to wild geese and bullfrogs, and sleeping late. And this is a job?

Seriously, I came home with two notebooks filled—I won’t know the real page count until I get it all typed up since I write in longhand when I’m up at the lake. But I feel very, very good about how much I managed to accomplish. And I even got the lake house’s dining room painted!

There was a time I found the drive up there a chore, but I discovered I’ve come to enjoy even that part of the experience. There’s something liberating about barreling down the freeway in my little yellow bug (technically it’s Danielle’s little yellow bug, but she’s gone for the summer and I still haven’t replaced my car), letting my thoughts wander where they will and belting out “Country Roads” with John Denver. Although there’s a certain twist of irony to being stuck in traffic on the Bonnet Carre spillway and listening to Rocky Mountain High while staring out at a Louisiana swamp.