Spring Cleaning?

I suppose Spring cleaning in August could be considered a bad thing. But I prefer to look on the bright side, at least it's happening in the same year if not the correct season. Cleaning out my dresser drawers usually yields a lost earring, a missing sock, or an old sachet that's lost its scent. In my closet I find shoes ready to be donated to the thrift store, worn out t-shirts and occasionally a piece of clothing tucked into a corner with a price tag still attached. Bookshelves are another matter all together.

I have too many books. I love them all, but I have too many. The bookshelves are bowed, double-stacked, and it's a challenge to locate specific titles. My bookshelves are in the guest room/craft closet/writing room. I haven't been spending enough time in here lately and I'm thinking that both the room and my writing could benefit from a good straightening.

The bottom shelf of the bookcase closest to the window is dedicated to writing books. I just pulled them all out onto the rug to dust them, and the pile is high. The books aren't all new, many were gifts and a number of them haven't even been read. I have how-to-books, author memoirs and books on embracing creativity. I think I just counted about 40 titles, and I know I have a few more out on loan to friends. I'm writing a list (mostly to avoid duplicate future purchases) and color-coding it (this step might be too anal.) Blue for books I've finished, red for partial reads and green for admired, desired but not read titles.

Most of these books are ones that writers I admire have recommended. I realize I've invested money, but more importantly my time, reading these books. I've learned a great deal from them, of course, but I think that on some level I've also allowed the books to become obstacles to my own writing. It's easy to justify reading about writing instead of sitting down and doing the hard work of actually writing. So for now, I'm swearing off reading and focusing on writing. My unread books are newly dusted, repositioned on the shelf and ready to have their spines cracked when I've earned that reward.

Write Away, Elizabeth George
The Making of a Writer - Journals 1961-1963, Gail Godwin
Writing and Selling the YA Novel, K.L. Going
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
The Elements of Style, Strunk and White
Goal, Motivation and Conflict, Debra Dixon
How I Write, Janet Evanovich
Making a Literary Life, Carolyn See
Art & Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland
The Pocket Muse, Monica Wood
See Jane Write, Sarah Mlynowski and Farris Jacobs
Rules of Thumb, Edited by Michael Martone and Susan Neville
Take Joy, Jane Yolen
Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg

The Toolkit for Writers, Naomi Epel
The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron
Writing the Breakout Novel, Donald Maass
Writing Tools, Roy Peter Clark
2008 Children's Writers and Illustrator's Market
Crafting Stories for Children, Nancy Lamb
The Weekend Novelist, Robert Ray
Off the Page, Edited by Carole Burns
The Writing Life, A Collection from the Washington Post Book World
Reading Like a Writer, Francine Prose
Steering the Craft, Ursula K. Le Guin
The Making of a Story, Alice LaPlante
Children's Writer's Word Book
The Writing Diet, Julia Cameron
Writing Fiction for Children, Judy K. Morris
If You Want to Write, Brenda Ueland
On Teaching and Writing Fiction, Wallace Stegner
The Art of Fiction, John Gardner
The Right to Write, Julia Cameron
Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg

The Writing Life, Annie Dillard
One Writer's Beginning, Eudora Welty
The Writer on Her Work, Edited by Janet Sternburn
Creating Characters Kids Will Love, Elaine Alphin
Don't Tell the Grown-ups, Allison Lurie

Graceful in Their Worlds

I carry a small brown, blank-paged book with me at all times. I frequently use it to take notes and to write down clever ideas for brilliant (?) plot lines. It also gets used for more mundane purposes: grocery lists, gift lists and random phone numbers. I need to write things down almost immediately after thinking of them or they escape into the sphere of my unconscious, never to be recalled again.

One odd thing about writing in my notebook is that I’ve discovered I’m hesitant to take notes when I'm sitting next to someone I know. I accept that at this point in life I need to write things down or I simply won’t remember them. I know this. But I also find that I'm slightly uncomfortable about taking notes when a friend is seated next to me. I imagine them evaluating the merit of the information I’m recording, and secretly questioning my ability to discern the essential importance of what we are both hearing. In my more rational moments I recognize that this social paranoia is ridiculous, but at times I still find myself to be a reluctant note-taker.

Last week I went to hear a lecture from Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot, a Harvard professor of Sociology, and author of The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50. The subject matter intrigued me as I am a few years into the Third Chapter of life and am looking forward to discovering what this new phase has to offer. About a third of the way through her lecture I broke out the brown notebook. I wanted to write down Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot's definition of the Third Chapter–"a season in search of a purpose,” and then went on to tantalize her audience by describing this phase as both “bodacious” and “exhilarating.” Sounds worth getting older.

The possibility of a life filled with “risk-taking collaboration and adventurous learning” is very appealing. She told the completely third generation audience that we are each both teacher and learner. We need to nuture our curiosity and let go of our fear of the unknown and our fear of failure. That seems like a recipe for success. Wish I had wholeheartedly embraced this approach in my first and second chapters.

I think I neglected to mention another small limitation to my note-taking–horrible, undecipherable handwriting. My scrawled notes, especially those taken in a dark auditorium, frequently require me to de-code them with the aid of a magnifying glass. I can never quite make out every word of what I've written. I know the professor stressed "the need to calibrate a balance in our lives," something that might have been missing in the earlier chapters. I also wrote down the phrase "graceful in their worlds." Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot was talking about the evolution of the individuals she interviewed for the book. I loved those words. They provide both a powerful aspiration and inspiration. I want to become graceful in my world.

Books, Books and more Books

I guess there is more competition for good books than I thought. The sign pictured at left is what greeted people in the parking lot for the 34th Annual Planned Parenthood Book Sale held at the Earl Warren Showground in Santa Barbara. I was a little fearful as I approached the hall full of books but a quick scan of the room convinced me that the bibliophiles filling up boxes of books were neither armed nor dangerous. Further research led me to conclude that the sign was for the attendees of the other event held at Earl Warren over the weekend, the Fall Classic of the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Association. Apparently the quarter horse crowd is pretty lively and perhaps overly competitive.

Anyway, back to the book sale. I've purchase some gems at the sale over the past four years and we've also donated many books to support Planned Parenthood. Last year Paul's goal was to weed his personal collection and he managed to eliminate the double rows of books in all of his bookcases. I'm hoping that all those books have found happy homes in the double rows of other people's shelves.

I've also donated lots of books but I am a re-reader so I tend to keep books that I might like to revisit at a later date. I have certain books that I read again every summer--the Irish sagas of Maeve Binchy and the English village stories of Joanna Trollope. They're my vacation "beach reads"--my guilty pleasures--even though I'm rarely reading them at the beach. I find something comforting about reading when a safe outcome for cherished characters is assured, and it's relaxing to be immersed in the familiar rhythms of favorite storytellers.

This year I purchased a few children's books as well as some adult fiction. The discovery of a never-opened hardback book with a stiff spine is a special treat. I don't mind paying $7.00 for a "used" book that's really brand new. That seems like a bargain to me. Sometimes I'm on the prowl for specific titles. My mission this year was to find a paperback of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I wanted to re-read it after I saw a preview of the movie, and Nora has my copy in Oakland. I spotted one copy left on the trade fiction table and $3.00 later it was mine. I love it when things work out that way. Now I can read it again and enjoy the original story and beautiful writing before I see the movie. Movies of books that I love are almost always a disappointment (imagine how the authors must feel) but I have to remind myself that a movie is just a different way of telling the story. My hope is that afterward some moviegoers will be intrigued enough to want to read the book. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one.