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

Am I Really Asking So Much?

Really, all I aspire to do is write a novel that is as catchy as a Tegan and Sara song.

No instrumental breaks to show off my virtuousity. No deep lyrics. Hell no. Just short, sweet, poppy, infectious, a delectable confection about my bad moods and relationships gone awry. Kind of like BreakupBabe: A Novel (get your signed copy for the new low price of $111!)- only better!

Meanwhile, work is once again interfering with my creative genius. When will the world realize if they could just put me on a sparkly pink tour bus stocked with champagne where I could daydream constantly rather than having to ply my trade from a windowless office in a strip-mall scarred suburb that perhaps I would actually PRODUCE and at last satisfy all those fans screaming for a sequel.

There is nothing worse than a writer who is not writing and I'm not sure who said it but it's true.

I actually AM writing. Why in fact I'm currently writing an article about backcountry skiing for Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, a dream come true, since maybe one day I'll be sent to far flung lands to write about such things (heck, I already got sent to Utah!) but alas, the article, such as it is, is horribly devoid of any inspiration, imagery, imagination, anything that starts with an "i" and that includes interest.

Not to put down my own accomplishments. Through blood, sweat and tears, I finally broke my way back into freelance writing after disappearing for years to write a novel - no mean feat! But is it so much to want it ALL?! I THINK NOT. I am just hideouly uninspired right now is all I'm trying to say, although I can see exactly what I want, dangling like a nice, ripe, piece of fruit just out of my reach.

I want to write articles AND novels- poppy, bittersweet, bestselling ones - travel the world on a pink tour bus stocked with champagne, visit lots of countries, write about them, have a kid or two who doesn't cramp my style, and never have to edit another word of technical documentation again. A side career in rock and roll would be nice too but I have to draw the line somewhere.

xo
Rebecca

BreakupBabe Now a Collector's Item!

[This post shamelessly stolen from my own author blog]

Well, well, what do you know - BreakupBabe has become a collector's item!

You know what this means, right? You better buy up some copies FAST, have me sign them, and then you can auction them off for lots of money! Why you might even be able to purchase that yacht you've been dreaming of, or maybe even your own island! Just invest in one of the .87 cents copies also available on Amazon.com, ask me to sign a bookplate and send it to you, then put on Amazon for 100 times what you paid for it = instant wealth!

Though I have to wonder how seller ZONTIK2 from New Jersey ended up with a signed copy in the first place and how he/she could bear to part with it?

Not for me to ponder such mysteries, I guess. I will be most curious to see if anyone buys this collectible item - not that I will see a penny for it. But that's OK. We all know I'm not in this for the money. Ahem.

Pity the Poor White-Collar Professional!

This has not been an easy week for yours truly. After a month of freedom I now have to buckle back into the straitjacket every day at Geeksoft Corp.

Oh yes, pity me and my overinflated salary, please! While people toil in the mines or on the factory floor for a pittance, I sit in my ergonomic chair and stare at my glare-free computer screen swilling free soft drinks for a fortune!

However, this is my blog so I will whine anyway. In the last month of quasi-unemployment, my work life actually took on a shape I liked. I rose at a reasonable hour. Commuted to the nearby coffee shop where I worked on things I cared about - like planning the class I'm teaching, writing articles, or applying for writing residencies.

Afternoons I spent working out and doing more work - my own work - at another coffee shop or perhaps the library. Living in the self-contained urban oasis of lower Queen Anne, I hardly ever got in my car on a typical day, which added hours to my life that are now being cruelly snatched back by the Corporation and its gridlocked highway.

Of course, my sweet view condo in the urban oasis of lower Queen Anne doesn't come free. There is a mortgage (2!) attached to it and thus I am not free to simply write articles, apply for grants, teach classes, live a peaceful car-free existence, etc etc.

Not yet anyway. I'm getting closer but not yet.

Meanwhile let's get just a little bit personal.

Now that I am in a uh, uh, (will not say the word happy, will not say it, because as soon as I say it everything will become unhappy), working relationship - one that is more real than any I've been in since Mr. Loser himself (of whom there has been no glimpse or peep since the book came out and maybe he really HAS been too ashamed to leave his house!) I dream constantly about being cheated on.

I MEAN HELLO HAVE I NOT WORKED THIS OUT OF MY SYSTEM BY WRITING A NOVEL ABOUT IT!?

I dream constantly that I put all my trust in someone only to have them tell me, suddenly, that they don't love me anymore, and oh, by the way, they're running off with their barista/ex-girlfriend/coworker/someone who is not you.

My current boyfriend is devoted as can be which might be part of the problem because Loser was too. And, naive little 30-something that I was, I trusted him! I never suspected he would do what he did! I got really, truly thrown for a loop and my whole world view was thrown out of whack.

Lo these past five years I've specialized in dating men who were dashing and unavailable. It was much easier. I could pine away, all daydreamy in CrushLand, knowing, deep down, that the damn thing would never go anywhere and that I would never truly get hurt. I had plenty of fun in CrushLand(as you know). But I think I've grown up a bit. I hope I've grown up a bit. I read old entries from Breakup Babe and cringe. Not because they aren't well-written, oh but they are, but because I was like a f*cking 13-year old with all that boy-chasing I was doing! (Only when I was 13 I was far too nerdy for any boys to like me so I was making up for lost time).

It's hard growing up. It's hard having a mortgage. It's hard knowing you could get dumped, that you're gonna die, that no matter how glum you might feel, there are people far worse off than you. That's why I like to write. It's an escape from all this stuff. You escape to your fictional world and it's almost like being a kid in your pretend fort again.

Which is why I must really start writing another novel soon. I feel it gestating. Ideas come and go and slip-slide around. One will be here soon, I know it.

Meanwile I've already written about three topics on this blog and made it far too long and it's broken all the rules I've told my poor blogging students about so GOODBYE.

r