I can't read books like a normal person.

I wish I could. The other day, worn out and mentally tired,  I fired up my Kindle and bought a book called The American Duke. I like a slutty book about British nobles as much as anyone. However.

In the very first paragraph Lady Whatever wakes and decides to go for a walk in the ducal garden at dawn. She flings her cloak over her nightdress. I wince, Maybe they had nightdresses in 1812 for duke's daughters, (most women at that time would have slept in their shift, which was basically the bottom layer of what they wore during the day) but it's very hard to believe in a duke's daughter who go outside in one. She'd have absolutely nothing on beneath it. Okay. I move on. Lady Whatever slides her feet into her boots, and I wince again. What boots are these? No Wellies back then. Tall leather boots wouldn't slip. Most footwear she'd either need help to get into, or she would ruin by walking in the garden.

I've gotten to the second sentence and can barely stand to continue.

Lady W goes down to the garden dressed like a slutty farmhand and encounters her father, dead. She runs to the stables for help, and sits down on a hay bale.

Maybe it was possible to bale hay then. I don't know. But it would have been really rare, particularly in England where even now they don't really put hay up in the square bales common in America. Haystacks, people. Haylofts. Not hay bales. Sheesh.

Inside the house, Lady W's sister asks, if Papa is dead, who will be the next duke?

It's hard for me to express how wrong this is. Everyone knew who the heir would be. Everyone, all the time. In on of Jil Paton Walsh's Lord Peter Wimsey books, the Duke of Denver, Lord Peter's brother, drops dead of a heart attack. Lord Peter rushes over, and, as he's examining the body, a family retainer comes up to him and says, "Your Grace--" which is how you address a duke, because, now that his brother is dead, Lord Peter has become Duke of Denver, and everyone knows it immediately.

I realize the author just wanted a way to explain that this crummy American relative would inherit, but it didn't need to be done with inane dialogue spoken by incredible characters. '"Oh, no!" cried Lady Whosis, "now we're at the mercy of the dreadful heir!" It was true. Since the death of her second brother, her father's second cousin's child had become the heir. No one knew a thing about him.' See how easy that was?

I sigh deeply and try to persevere. But the next bit of what is still the first chapter explains how, since their family's descent into poverty, they've had very little to eat. Bullpucky. They live on a landed estate. Gowns, jewels, carriages, anything that has to be bought with cash, they well may not afford, but they've got plenty of food. If anyone in the area has enough to eat it's them.

I'm done. It's awful. I paid for the book and it's stuck on my Kindle; I can't give it away. I can't stand reading it. I know most people aren't like me, but I'm stuck with my neurotic attention to history and I simply can not go on.

(Fortunately, the next book I picked up was Sarah Waters' The Paying Guests. Now that's how to write historical fiction!)

Overthinking

I've been overthinking things with my new novel. I tend to overthink things, anyhow. My husband hates going to movies with me because I dissect them in detail on the drive home. Sometimes--often, actually--when I'm taking a riding lesson and stop to ask a complex question, my instructor says, "Kim. Shut up and ride." With novel-writing I'm even worse because 1) I have only myself to talk to; and 2) all first drafts are lousy.

I know this. I know that the first rule of writing is to get the crap on the page. I know that the magic mostly happens in revision. This will be my 17th book, for heaven's sake. I'm not new at the game.

And yet. I'm piddling, agonizing. What is this book About? Where's the Plot? As if I could ever answer those questions in a first draft. Get on with it, darling.

Yesterday I finished Katherine Paterson's new semi-autobiography, Stories of my Life. I adore Katherine Paterson. I still remember reading The Great Gilly Hopkins when I was quite young, and getting to the part where Gilly, a brat of a foster child, has given a handmade card to her African-American teacher. The front of the card reads, "They're saying 'black is beautiful,' but near as I can figure is that everyone who's saying it looks mighty like a-" and then the inside says, "person with a vested interest in maintaining that point of view." That line made me howl with laughter, probably 35 years ago, and it makes me howl now, but it also--way back when--it showed me a glimpse of how writing works, how you can manipulate words with fascinating results. I met Katherine Paterson once. I wanted to kneel and kiss her ring. I love her so, have always loved her so. So you can imagine my relief when I learned, in this last book, that the time between when she started writing seriously, and when her first book came out, was the same as mine: nine years. Oddly enough that nine-year figure crops up again and again in writer's biographies. It's almost as though it takes nine years to become any class of writer.

The book I'm working on now is the sequel to The War That Saved My Life. It's the first true sequel I've ever written. It's a bit easier to write a sequel, because I already know the characters and the setting, and I've done a lot of the research. But--I realize how self-aggrandizing this sounds--I keep getting good reviews for TWTSML, and they sort of paralyze me with regard to the current book. What if it sucks?

The answer is: of course it sucks. Keep writing.

For my last several books I haven't waited to finish a first draft before I sent it to my publisher. I've mailed off the first 70 pages or so, and mostly they've responded with enthusiasm and contracts. When I sent the first pages of the first draft of TWTSML, I got a concerned phone call from my editor, asking, "Is this really going to be your next book?" Translation: ain't nobody gonna publish that.

I sighed. "Yes, it is my next book," I said, "only, obviously, not quite in this form." I dumped the 70 pages into the trash and started again. And again. And again. Six drafts later, I finally found the main character's voice. From there it wasn't quite smooth sailing, but it was at least open water seas.

That's what I need to think about: the work, not the reviews. The story, and the work, and the inherent lousiness of every single first draft in the world.

Our Neighbor as Ourselves

Some day soon I'm going to write about this year's pony club horse show, which was amazing. But right after I got home from the horse show, Saturday night, I read another Post of Self-Loathing on Facebook. Now, I wish my friends wouldn't post these things. But more than that, I wish they wouldn't feel these things. The post was all:
I look terrible in this photo (posted to the internet)
I'm so fat
I'm so ugly 
I can't do anything right
I feel awful.
I feel ashamed.

I felt awful, too. Because there's no way to respond to a friend who's mired in her own self-loathing. All your reassurances sound false. I don't know why this is true. But I also wish we could all overcome these puddles of shame. We are loved. We are all loved.

At church on Sunday the gospel reading was about the two greatest Commandments, "love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself." Now, this verse is sort of like "money is the root of all evil," in that it gets slightly misinterpreted. (It's actually, "the love of money is the root of all evil.") We're not called to love our neighbors as we love our own selves. Thank God. We're called to love our neighbors as we ourselves want to be loved.

What a difference.

It can be really hard for some of us to believe that we are loved. I get that. But we are, and if we are that loved, if we could feel ourselves wrapped in that constant love, wouldn't we be less self-disparaging? If we treated ourselves as deeply, wholly loved--if we even treated ourselves as kindly as we would our own dear friends--we'd cut ourselves some slack without letting ourselves off the hook.

Maybe we can offer ourselves some kindness. Maybe we can see the beauty instead of the ugliness.

If not, we can always put the ugly to work. At the YA Lit conference I went to recently, a bunch of us writers had gathered for dinner at the hotel (read: gathered at the bar, stayed there, and ate bar food for dinner). I was talking with a small group of women. Talk veered to trauma and I related some of mine. The writer next to me gave me a long sympathetic look. "Why don't you use that?" she asked. I told her what my upcoming book was about--a clubfoot evacuee from the slums of London. "Ah," she said, nodding, "you have." Damn straight. Writers do that. But the rest of you had better learn to love. 

I Have Trolled the Internet So You Don't Have To

I've been sitting down at my computer for 15 minutes so far. I've checked my email, sent off a couple of short replies, and looked at Facebook and Twitter.  (I hope I'm saying all that correctly. According to my children, and to all the teenagers with whom they've regaled this story, my phrase, "the cloud," as in, "I'm saving my new novel on the cloud," is so dorky and old-fashioned that I might as well be wearing a corset and bloomers. I'm just hilarious, or so they say.)

Anyway, in my 11 minutes of random internet perusal (subtracting 4 minutes spent on email), I have learned the following:

1. Smelling farts can prevent cancer. This is because sulfur compounds help preserve mitochondria.
2. If that's true, I'm like a little angel of life, and my family should appreciate me more.
3. A snarkier post says that smelling farts does not prevent cancer, geez, people oversimplify science.
4. Hitler was apparently a prodigious farter, so much so that it was widely known in the Reich that you should never stand directly behind him. Also, his confidants nicknamed him "Gas Mustard Breath."
5. No, I am not making #4 up. Nor am I making up that in an attempt to improve his digestive health he apparently ate the feces of strapping healthy German soldiers, which the more you think about it is so weird it couldn't be invented, at least not by me.
6. Also, Hitler was addicted to both heroin and crystal meth. Apparently crystal meth was quite the thing in Germany during WW2.
7. People who publish books can also be maniacally weird. There's an essay going around in which a writer describes in astonishing detail how she stalked a woman who dared to give hernovel a bad review. On Amazon.
8. Another essay about that essay says, "There's no industry that combines ego and economics like book publishing."
9. If so, Governor Andrew Cuomo's ego has taken a bit of a beating. In its first week out, his book has reportedly sold 948 copies. Honestly, I do better than that. However, he reportedly got an advance of $700,000, which I do worse than, so he's probably just fine about it. Except of course that Hilary Clinton's first week book sales were 85,000. Copies, not dollars.
10. It is possible, according to a You Tube video, to fill the ice dispenser of your refrigerator with candy, so that it dispenses candy instead of ice. I don't know why you'd do this. It seems easier to put the candy in a bowl. Plus, then you'd also have ice cubes.
11. My friend Jenn posts the worst jokes in the world.
12. I have several friends named Jenn. (Jennifer/Jenn/Jenny was a very popular name from my birth year.) If you're a Jenn and you're wondering if I mean you, I don't. She knows who she is.

13. And finally, my friend C sent me a link of 10 Things Food Banks Need and Won't Ask For. It's quite good. So, here they are:

Spices
Feminine Products
Chocolate
Toiletries
Canned Meats or Jerky
Crackers and Tortillas
Baby Toiletries
Soup Packets
Socks
Canned Fruit (besides pineapple)

14. Of those, I'll explain that tortillas and crackers are like bread but have a stable shelf-life. Fruit is something we almost never get, but people actually like.  (Unlike, say, canned peas.) Chocolate is because EVERYONE needs chocolate sometimes. And my number 1 favorite donation is actually feminine hygiene products. I've beat this drum before, but I'll do it again: you can't buy tampons with food stamps. Can you imagine not being able to afford them?

15. Lack of feminine hygiene products is also a huge problem in the developing world--in fact, it's the leading reason why teenage girls miss school: they're menstruating and have to stay home where they can drip. If you're moved to do something about this, I suggest looking into AFRIpads, Diva cup, or Softcup, all of which are good options.

16. My guess is that very few blog posts start with farts and end with menstruation. You're welcome. Have a nice day.

The Exquisite Pleasure of Making New Friends

I've never been a person who took friendships for granted. I still remember the cold-water-shock of graduating from college, where I knew everyone and liked at least half, to entering medical school, where a person I thought might turn into a friend greeted news of my departure with, "Great, that's one less person I have to beat," to the work life, where, since it was a chemistry research lab, my choices were limited to mostly men mostly much older than myself. That was difficult.

Then I quit to write full-time while caring for a newborn with a husband in medical residency, living in the sort of condo association where you could go decades without ever meeting the person living beside you. People drove out of their garages in the morning and back into them at night, and never, ever, stepped outside

That was a little lonely.

Then we moved to Bristol and put down roots. Some of my friends here have walked with me the paths of babies-toddlers-grade school-high school-college. We'll be watching each other's children marry next, and then gathering for lunch to brag about our grandchildren. Bristol's the type of Southern small town where the grocery clerk notices when I come in on Tuesday instead of Monday and wants to know what my next book will be about. I once got a phone message from the library: "The book you put on hold is in. We'll keep it for you for two days, so, honey, you can just pick it up on Wednesday on your way to Faith in Action." I kid you not.

(It's a fabulous place to raise kids. Everyone in town keeps an eye on them. and will let you know the moment yours crosses a line.)

Still, new friends are such a treasure. I've had two really happy moments in the last few weeks, when I've realized that people I'd really like to get to know better want to get to know me better, too. I'm not going to blab the details all over the web. I'm just happy about it, and I thought I'd share.

A Golden Celebration

The year I was married, my parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary and my maternal grandparents celebrated their 50th. Now I'm at 25, and, last Friday, my parents hit 50.

It's a pretty cool milestone. They didn't divorce and they didn't die. Five decades after they committed to each other in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, they're still waking up in a shared bed. I'm terrifically happy for them.

My grandparents' 50th wedding party was a Mass followed by a meal in a nice restaurant. My mom had a cake made with their wedding photo on it, but she dropped the cake box putting it into the car trunk so it looked a little rough. For years I had a photo of my grandparents on that day--heads together, not quite smiling. They were of a generation that didn't necessarily smile for photographs. I remember that they seemed pretty old and frail. My grandfather was the cardiac poster child for the state of Indiana, having inexplicably survived one of the very first open-heart surgeries and then gone on to live for 30 more years, but he was never very active. I think he'd been told to guard against exertion in the same way that he was told to only eat margarine, never olive oil or butter. In their younger days my grandparents had been adventuresome travelers, but by their 50th anniversary their world had shrunk. It would continue to do so.

My parents at the same milestone are, if anything, increasing their speed. Now that my dad has a new knee he's been able to start exercising again. My mom has one of those Fitbits to track how many steps she takes each day, and she loves looking up her progress on her phone. This is good, because for their 50th anniversary they took a 2-week trip to Europe, primarily Italy. I haven't gotten to hear all the stories yet, but I can't wait. So far my Dad's told me about the Venetian glass factory they toured, founded in 1480, and the slightly older vineyard where they ate lunch, and the eeriness of the Roman catacombs. My Mom's described the marvelous restaurant they found by getting lost.

I am grateful for these parents, for their dedication to their marriage, and for their wanderlust. Love you, Mom and Dad.

Homosexuality and the Catholic Church

I love being Catholic. I always have. I love the Mass and Eucharist. I love the concern for social justice, I love most of the teachings. But there are a few areas I flat-out ignore, and others I openly rebel against. Most of those areas have to do with sex.

For instance, I'm a fan of contraceptives. Always have been, as have most--not quite all, but close--of the Catholic women I know. I once pointed out to a priest friend of mine that if our parish church really wanted people to follow the Church-approved rhythm method, they should find someone to teach the class who hadn't had five children in eight years. He said, "But all of those children were planned."

"That may well be," I said, "but to the rest of us, it doesn't look like the method works. Most of us couldn't procreate that quickly if we tried."

The thing about contraception, though, is that it's a very private issue. Most of us don't go around openly pro- or anti-contraception. You can't tell by looking at me whether or not I use birth control; unless you're my husband, it's really none of your concern.

Homosexuality, and heterosexuality, are intrinsic parts of a person's being, and I've long grieved over my Church's official position on gays. My priest friend above tried to tell me that gay people were "Intrinsically disordered,"--a phrase borrowed from Pope Benedict, alas--"like being born blind," he said.

I said that I thought being born without a uterus, or with undescended testicles, would be like being born blind, but that being born gay was part of the normal variance of God's creation.

I don't know what my priest friend really thought about that. He's good at discussing doctrine, but not himself.

Anyway, the point of all this is that on Friday, sitting down at a Starbucks at the University of Notre Dame while my son went to class, I opened up the South Bend Tribune and got a pleasant surprise. Indiana law had just changed to recognizing same-sex marriage. Notre Dame immediately sent out an email to its employees to say that anyone affected by this change should contact human resources to change their benefits. "Notre Dame is a Catholic university and endorses a Catholic view of marriage. However, it will follow the relevant civil law and begin to implement this change immediately." 

Part of the reason this is awesome is that they could have wiggled out of it--there's a loophole for religious institutions; many faith-based colleges are using it.  (Notre Dame also makes it very clear that LGBT students are welcome on campus. I'm glad about that, too.)

Then yesterday word came out of the synod of bishops currently underway in Rome that the official church is getting a little more open, too. Remarkably, at least to me, the Church--the big one--sent out requests for all Catholics, everywhere, to fill out an online survey before this synod. They asked us what we thought instead of telling us what we should. That was unprecedented. Apparently, much of the world thinks the church needs to become more accepting of gays. The first words out of the synod were that homosexuals had "gifts and qualities to offer." It doesn't sound like much, but, like Pope Francis' earlier comment, "Who am I to judge?" it's a start, and I rejoice in it.