O, When Will My Bed be Clean?

Ah yes, pardonnez moi for being so long absent. I have been busy doing Lord knows what. Learning how to dump over in a kayak and not drown. Visiting family in the Bay Area. Working hard for one insane week at Geeksoft headquarters only return to my sun-dappled life of leisure this week. Rewriting yet again that article about backcountry skiing that I struggled with so hard the first time only to have it come back and BITE ME IN THE ASS.

As I've said I-don't-know-how-many-times before, DON'T BECOME A WRITER. Unless, that is, you want to suffer constant rejection from snooty editors who don't even bother to reply to your query letters (never mind that you are a published NOVELIST, ahem!); constant self-doubt and guilt; and the fear that you will never ever make a living doing what you love because most likely you WON'T.

I should have listened to my father when he told me to become a computer programmer. But if he wanted me to be a computer programmer why did he feed me the Great Novels from an early age instead of, say, programming manuals? Why did he tell me that I could be ANYTHING I WANTED TO BE, pay for my college tuition, and not make me do any chores, therefore ensuring that I would grow up impractical, lazy, and unfit for anything except daydreaming?

Hmmph.

Methinks perhaps I have been travelling a bit too much. You can always tell how recently I've been on a trip by how much crap is piled on my bed. When in a state of post-travel disarray, I keep the rest of my condo relatively neat and dump everything on my bed. Sometimes I can hardly sleep for the piles of luggage, shoes, books, magazines, toiletries, that threaten to push me off the side.

Right now the pile is medium high due to last weekend's whirwind trip to the Bay Area. As soon as I get it cleared off it will be time to embark on my next trip - nine whole days in Washington DC and Virginia - a part of this lovely country to which I've never been! I'll be visiting Galpal #2 in DC and then hiking around in the Shenandoah Valley hopefully where I better see some great fall colors or I'm gonna kick some serious ass. Got that Mother Nature?

Meanwhile, tentative work on the new potential-possible-novel-in-progress continues. Coming to a bookstore near you in 10 years!

xo
R

Waiting. Procrastinating. Daydreaming.

Sigh.

I am in a phase where I am just WAITING. Waiting to hear from people who - damn them! - should be rushing to call me. To hire me! To stock my book! To buy my articles!

But my inbox remains stubbornly clean except for spam.

Meanwhile, Dave and I did host the best beach party ever on the face of the planet last Saturday. The weather cooperated too, spreading sunny splendor over his verdant lawn and lovely little slice of beachfront property (oh we thank you parental types for your financial foresight back in the day when you were drinking martinis at lunch, making Boeing great, and snapping up property that would one day make your children gazillionaires, that is if they could afford the property taxes, which they can't, but still, they can at least throw great parties!)

Then, on Sunday, we enjoyed the great weather further by paddling in and around the Arboretum. There were so many people there that at I felt like I was on a water ride at Disneyland but we escaped by paddling across the lake (nearly getting run over by boat traffic in the process) to the shores of Laurelhurst, where I was going for a very peaceful swim alongside the kayak until the cursed milfoil (invasive, foreign weed!) got so thick it started wrapping its tentacles around my neck, suspiciously like a giant squid, and threatening to drag me down to the bottom of the lake.

Nonetheless, I have enjoyed my many swims in Lake Washington this summer, courtesy of aforementioned beachfront property. Slipping from the kayak into the water (or jumping in from the dock), looking down into the peaceful (scary) blackness of the lake, looking up to make sure Dave is still there paddling next to me as I do my cross-city swims (Bellevue to Mercer Island!), adjusting to the temperature, and - at last - stepping out of the water exhilarated, the days worries washed away by whatever scary bacteria is in the lake.

And now. Well right now I am just procrastinating. I should be working on my next novel, you know, the one that is finally going to make me famous and let me escape my benevolent master, Geeksoft -- or at the very least I should be looking for a job that will pay the bills when my forced 100-day break comes up in December instead of waiting to hear from non-profit employers whose jobs I desperately want, the salaries of which wouldn't pay for pellets for a guinea pig (good thing I don't have one anymore, but remind me to tell you about the failed guinea pig empire of my youth) but anyway, it's easier not to do all that practical stuff and just daydream the morning away.

Finally, you should go out and buy a copy of the paperback version of Beachglass by Wendy Blackburn - not least because it's a very good novel: sad, funny, satisying -- but because yours truly has a BLURB in it. Yes, that's right. My first blurb! I'm so proud.

Post Labor Day Blues

I returned from the long weekend on Monday and still have barely regained consciousness. Yesterday was a Lost Day. I went to the office but my soul was somewhere else, hiding. I was catatonic, unproductive, grumpy. Everything reminded me of my own creeping decreptitude and eventual doom.

All except the fact that I did write 1,000 words in what is my next-sure-to-be-discarded manuscript! During that hour-and-a-half period of the day, I escaped to a parallel world where I was Lord God Creator of the Universe and only my characters suffered and decayed and had stupid dreams and I floated above it all in my latte-induced omiscience.

The weekend was spent recreating in that giant playground that is my backyard. Paddling glacial blue-green lakes and hiking along trails populated with bears and eye-popping views.


(The bear, who we dubbed Carl, is not visible in this photo -- of Lake Ann taken from Maple Pass in North Cascades National Park-- but that's because, unbeknownst to us, he was right behind us on the trail).

There was a wee bit of tension in our REI tent since co-captain Dave apparently, envisioned having time to "relax" on his vacation while I pictured it as a nonstop three day marathon of strenuous mountain-related activity ending at midnight on Monday as we collapsed exhausted into our beds.

We worked this situation out by - how do you say -- "compromising." I am not very good at this "compromising" though I tried to do it with a modicum of grace. I therefore only complained quietly three or four times - instead of the usual 25 -- when we came home early on Monday for "relaxation" purposes rather than squeezing every last drop out of the weekend.

Next on the docket comes a kayaking class so Dave and I can learn to rescue ourselves should our sturdy kayak (pictured above on Diablo Lake) capsize and so we can learn about tides and currents and such so as not to get swept under bridges like those kayakers in Boston! And so I can continue my quest to become jock of all adventure sports, master of none!

Summer Reading in Sun-Deprived Seattle

I am really ready to start writing another novel. I mean REALLY.


(Photo of edited draft of BreakupBabe by Leslie Duss).

The thing is, since our whale-tastic vacation, I've been dreaming about whales again. Almost nonstop. Big, barnacle-covered, bad boys.

They're both awesome and frightening in my dreams, so close that I'm afraid of falling in the water and getting eaten by one. You know what THIS means. It means there is an idea under there, bubbling around in my self-conscious, that is about to erupt and take over my life.

I have been reading some of our more bestselling authors lately. Jodi Picoult for one, Nicholas Sparks for another. Yes, Nicholas Sparks, OK! Just get over it! Someone gave me The Guardian and though I put it off I ran out of novels and started reading it and now I can't stop!

Though I find myself struggling, at times, with the ludicrousness of the plots (Picoult), the crudity of the writing (Sparks), these are books I'm dying to get back to at night. These writers are skilled storytellers. Sparks, in particular, proves you don't need a fancy plot to make a gripping story.

His writing appears so simple that he makes it seem EASY and you know when something seems easy it's not. Which reminds me of one of my all-time favorite writers, Alexander McCall Smith. Now here is a true master. With his No. #1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, he writes stories that are funny, sad, and uplifting with a structure and voice so seemingly simple you think "I CAN WRITE LIKE THIS!"

And of course you can't. So at first these stories are inspiring and then they are truly depressing - when you sit down to write your own simple, beautiful masterpiece only to produce garbled nothingness, but I digress.

In other news, I have too many effing blogs. I need to rein in my sprawling Web presence.

In other, other news, while we were on our whaletastic whale-watching trip, co-captain Dave channeled Jacques Cousteau to narrate this Academy-Award winning video "The Sea is a Lonely Place." The narration is hard to hear and gets drowned out (no pun intended, ha ha) completely after the first half but you can still see some whalies swimming around.

Whale-tastic Vacation

Just returned from vacation and you all know how I feel about THAT.

Bills piled up blah blah. Boring work to do blah blah. World shrinking down from big wide wave-slapped orca-studded to an 8x10 cell encasing me and my two officemates like an overstuffed sausage.

I shall cease my whining now, however, and focus on the *positive.* Like how very relaxing it was to sit on the deck of our lodge and look out at this view.




How very excited I got when we went on a whale-watching trip and I saw more orcas than I could ever have dreamed of? Jumping, swimming, slapping their tails and generally being whale-tastic. I snapped this photo of a humpback, who would obligingly flip his tail up in this photogenic manner.



We did see a few whales while on kayaks but they were so far away as almost not to count.

Whether these whales I paid to see "count" I don't know. Now that I saw them will the idea for my next novel come to me? Or does a giant whale need to come to me unbidden in my dreams? Oh who knows. Who cares.

Before I can move on to my next novel I have to finish this $#%@! article about skiing that I keep trying to grapple to the ground and that keeps jumping up and knocking ME over. I'm the writer here? Aren't I supposed to be in charge? Huh? HUH?



But back to kayaking and my trip with Sea Kayak Adventures. The food was delicious, the scenery was stunning. There were seals, sea lions, and more bald eagles than I have ever seen in my life.




I was rudely awakened every morning at 7:30 a.m. by a breakfast bell then mocked for stumbling in after everyone else but it was a small price to pay for making an escape into this corner of the world known as God's Pocket where my biggest challenge was trying to get my spray skirt on and not gorge myself on the new desserts that appeared every single day.

More later. XO,

Rebecca

On the Trail of the Elusive Three-Toed Byline

I forgot to mention to y'all that you should immediately go out and buy the August issue of Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, in which I have an article.

The article is not available online, although you can see a description of it on their Web site where it describes this month's issue.

My article has nothing to do with food. It's all about tracking wild animals. Which I guess COULD be about food, or WAS thousands of years ago, and still IS for some people but not for us yuppies in Seattle. For us it's all about getting in touch with nature and our long-lost hunter gatherers and its actually quite a cool experience. Read the article and you'll know all about it!

OK now I really am going on vacation.

xo,
Rebecca

O Whale, Where Art Though?

Darlings,
I just wanted to alert you that if you don't hear from me for a while it's not because I've finally been given the big pink tour bus and carte blanche to go where I will but it's because I'm piloting a kayak in the Queen Charlotte strait looking for whales with Sea Kayak Adventures.

Yes WHALES. Do you know why? Those of you who've read my novel knows that a whale figures prominently in the book. In fact, the whale is one of the few symbols I managed to get in there.

Our erstwhile heroine, Rachel, dreams about a giant whale just as she is going through her breakup with Loseur. She realizes that this whale symbolizes her creativity and that something creative is going to come out of this breakup, though she doesn't know what it is.

That creative burgeoning is her blog, of course. Her blog, and mine, since I had the same dream. And I tell you, in my dream that whale was BIG. It scared the living daylights out of me and excited me at the same time.

But since the whale's prophesy has come true, she's nowhere to be seen. Hello? Whale? Don't I get to write another book? You can't just leave me like this! Come back? Please?

Oh I've seen a few barracuda, some Sergeant Majors, and a pufferfish or two. But nothing bigger than that in the last two years. They're cute and all but they just don't cut it as far as major inspiration goes.



Thusly I am heading north to Canadian waters. Where I will be kayaking for one week hoping to glimpse the whale again. Humpback, orca, grey whale, I don't care. Any old whale will do.

Wish me luck. I shall return August 14, God willing.

xo