How much do you care about a question mark (?)
Ah, the best laid plans. I am sitting at my desk and working, and sat and worked most of yesterday too, but I’m not writing reams of words into a new book; instead I’m going over the final copy edits for The Juliet Stories, which arrived on Wednesday afternoon. I was almost afraid to open the file. When Hair Hat was being published, lo these many years ago, I enjoyed every stage of the editing process … right up until we got to the copy editing. Suddenly, I disagreed with the editor, and strongly. You’ll remember that my one real job was at a newspaper where I worked my way up to being a copy editor. So I was feeling pretty confident that I’d turned in a clean manuscript to my publisher.
But the copy editor didn’t think so.
And, listen, she was right and I was right. We were both right. The copy editor’s job is to use a fine-toothed comb and to insist on grammatical correctness and stylistic consistency, by which I mean adherence to the style guide used by the publisher, and not style as in stylish. And that was where we disagreed. I wrote Hair Hat in a deliberately flat and uninflected (stylish) style. I didn’t even use question marks. I wanted the reader to arrive at conclusions without being dragged there by me, the author. The copy editor wanted all questions to end with a question mark.
I just couldn’t do it. It sounds ridiculous to get upset over punctuation, but by God, I just could not compromise. And it pained me. I like to make people happy (even more so at the time than I do now.)
So when the copy edits landed on Wednesday afternoon accompanied by a long message from my editor explaining the process, I went all fear and trembling. It’s been a fabulous editing process up until now. Would the copy edits do me in? Well, I’m only about halfway through them now, but the answer so far has been a gentle, no. These copy edits will not do me in. Am I a more relaxed person, now, than I was before? Is my (stylish) style in The Juliet Stories more compatible with traditional grammar? Or have I just accepted that some disagreement will be part of the process, and conflict doesn’t upset my stomach in the same way that it once did?
I have to go with door number three. I’m still a pretty finicky person. I can get very excited over a semi-colon, let me tell you. And my (stylish) style in The Juliet Stories, though different from Hair Hat, is unique, and sometimes idiomatic rather than grammatically correct. I don’t always agree with what the copy editor has suggested, but I’m okay with that; we don’t have to agree about everything, and I get that this time around. She’s done a bang-up job on this book. The fact checking is amazing. And I’m taking notes on her highly effective use of italics.
I’m back at it again today. Thankfully without dread.
Where does that leave my ambitions for a November writing month? I’m sticking with the original plan, just pushing the start date back by a few days. The copy edits are due back at the publisher on Tuesday morning. The amazing thing is that the builders say my new office will be DONE by Wednesday. In some strange confluence of otherwise unconnected endings and beginnings, that means that I will start my new book in my new office, having dotted all i’s and crossed all t’s on this one.
It’s too much to think about. So I’m off to think about italics instead.
Yes, this photo is blurred. But within the blur, the colours seem brighter, and the body positions more expressive. I should make something of that. Observe that it mimics our perception of time when mothering small children, the way the days disappear into a blur, and some small detail remains in memory, a flash of colour, a story that gets passed down and requested at bedtime.
Today, I am thinking about motivation. I am thinking about sitting down at my desk and writing into a story that may or may not become a novel that may or may not succeed. What keeps me sitting back down and writing more, not knowing what may come of it? I think it must be hope. I’ve read that people with depression have an inability to imagine the future; instead, they see an unchanging blank. I’ve got whatever is the opposite, though it’s got its downsides, too. Let’s call it an over-active imagination. I get excited about the future based on the slimmest of evidence. My happiest daydreams fling me far and wide through adventure and thrill and accomplishment. “What was I just thinking about?” I’ll wonder, returning to earth with a glowing feeling, and then I’ll remember, oh yes, I was thinking about being interviewed by Eleanor Wachtel. Or about training as a midwife and travelling to Central America to practice. Or about recording myself playing an original song on the piano and becoming a star on YouTube. Heh.
Is it healthy to daydream such big, such ridiculous, such clearly out-of-reach dreams? I’m not sure. But some of the things I’ve dreamed have come true. I dreamed of becoming a published writer, long before anyone else would have dreamed it of me. I dreamed of motherhood. I dreamed of completing a triathlon before I could even swim. Of course, the original dream was that I could become an Olympic triathlete, and reality whittled that fantasy back down to size. But that’s okay. Even if the original dream was wildly over-ambitious, it sent me on a path toward actual achievement.
Almost always (or is that always always?) the daydream is realized in watered-down and compromised form. Reality has mosquitos and critics and temper tantrums. It has limitations. Daydreams don’t.
Lately, I’ve been daydreaming about writing this story. I would like to sit down and just do it, but I seem to need the daydreams to carry me over the fear of failure, the doubt that it will add up to anything special. I also need tangible goals. So I’m going to do something I’ve never tried before. I’m going to write in volume. I’m going to participate in November’s National Novel-Writing Month, even though I’ve disdained it for years (who can force the muse to show her face?) It’s abbreviated as Na-No-Wri-Mo for the hashtag on Twitter, and I’m going to tweet my progress. My goal is 30,000 words by the end of the month.
Because daydreams are shiny happy places in which to linger, but you have to get to work if you’re going to leave a flash of colour in the blur of reality.
The most anticipated evening in their year
This isn’t a Halloween post, though it falls on Halloween. I have a difficult relationship with Halloween. It seems a strange holiday, making light of death and darkness. Maybe I should just accept it as being another way we humans try to make sense of mortality.
It’s been four years since my father-in-law passed away. He died on Halloween, and Kevin’s mother telephoned late that afternoon, twice, first to tell him to hurry and come home, and then, not long after, to tell him, yes, please come home, but it’s too late to make it in time. But we felt fortunate. We’d been to visit just two days earlier, and knew that goodbye was coming. Still, we wondered what to do. The kids were dressed up and excited about trick-or-treating. How to give them this news? “Take them out,” I said, “and I’ll stay home and pack.” And so that’s how we told them, after trick-or-tricking: when they arrived home with bags full of candy, our bags were packed. There were wrenching sobs, and we changed them into pajamas, hopped into the van, and drove away, letting them eat all the candy they wanted. I don’t suppose we’ll ever forget that night, or that drive. It felt like an adventure, momentous and sad all at once.
A year ago, my grandma passed away on Remembrance Day. Last week, my grandpa, her husband, also passed away, and our family travelled across the border for another funeral, on another autumn day. As we drove to the graveyard for the burial, it was raining and the sun was shining. From our angle, the rainbow that emerged looked like a column of magic dust rising out of the earth, colour, shimmering. We all saw it.
I don’t know what everyone else thought. I don’t even know what I thought, exactly. Just that it was a rare and ephemeral sight, and I was glad for it.
Last week in suppers: enter chaos, from above
**Monday’s menu: Pasta. Red sauce. Broiled shrimp. Chard stir-fried with onions, peppers, and carrots.
**Original plan: Pasta.
**In the kitchen: Cooked as soon as the kids got home from school. Two of the kids I was feeding were leaving for theatre rehearsal just after 5, and needed to eat early. The red sauce was just waiting in the freezer to be used. I jazzed it up with lemon juice and thyme. The veggies turned out well: sauteed in butter, not over-cooked, and I seasoned simply with salt and the juice of a lemon (we have a lot of citrus in the fruit bowl right now.) Totally over-estimated how many noodles we’d need to feed eight people (two friends stayed for supper.)
**At the table: Eaten in shifts at the island in the kitchen due to major construction going on that required the dining-room table to be moved up against the breakfast bar.
**The verdict: The kids ignored the chard. You may be noticing that I’m not one to force food on a child. They ate a ton of pumpkin bread with peanut butter for dessert, so maybe that counts?
**Tuesday’s menu: Peanut noodles with fried tofu and raw veggies (pictured above.)
**Original plan: Beans and rice. But we had all these leftover noodles.
**In the kitchen: Whipped up peanut dressing on Monday night, post-dance-class/run combo, while putting supper away and doing the dishes. Used recipe on my blog, piped in via my phone. Kev, some while into the process: “Oh, that’s why you keep checking your phone.” Me: “Did you think I was becoming obsessed?” Marinated noodles in dressing overnight. Fried tofu and added veggies the next day, before swim lessons.
**At the table: Initially refused by several children, eventually eaten by all. It’s not like there were options.
**The reviews: All good! Thank heavens. I almost made something extra to go along with it, and Kevin suggested I should keep it simple.
**The verdict: Great use of leftover noodles, but, “Remember not to put that in my lunch for school tomorrow.” (Peanuts)
**Wednesday’s menu: Beans and rice. Green beans.
**Original plan: Borscht. But beans and rice was easier.
**In the kitchen: Soaked and cooked beans in the morning. Baked rice before leaving to pick up the girls for piano lessons. Chopped tomatoes and steamed beans upon arrival home.
**At the table: Everyone was very hungry and appreciative. But we have no table to sit around, at present, so the meal felt haphazard. The kids sat at the counter and I filled their plates at the stove and served them. Kevin and I sat side by side at the part of the dining-room table that is accessible.
**The verdict: I miss gathering around the table. But this is temporary.
**Thursday’s menu: Squash with orzo. Broccoli with cheese sauce.
**Original plan: Tofu and veggie stir-fry. But I wanted to try this Squash Orzo recipe that was supposed to be an easier version of risotto, and which I knew everyone would hate. Don’t ask why.
**In the kitchen: This is not an easier version of risotto. It took just as much standing around and stirring. Plus peeling and chopping a squash is hard work. Is there an easier way? But it smelled delicious: cubes of squash cooking with onions and garlic and white wine. Finished by stirring cooked orzo into the squash mixture and adding a pile of parmesan.
**At the table: As predicted, no child would touch the squash with orzo. But I made a ton of orzo, and did not mix it all with the squash, so they could have it with cheese sauce and broccoli instead. Some refused even the cheese sauce. I am getting worried about their veggie and protein intake.
**The reviews: “But you know I hate squash, Mommy!”
**The verdict: Even I didn’t love this meal. Kevin thought it was delicious, but I’m not sure it’s worth the work.
**Friday’s supper: Leftovers, plus dessert.
**Original plan: Yup.
**In the kitchen: Steamed a pot of rice to go with the leftover beans. While Kev took the kids skating, I rented carshare car for an hour and headed out to Herrles, which closes for the season on Monday, to buy veggies and pumpkins. Plus dessert. No Bailey’s pickup, so Herrles stood in for Bailey’s.
**At the table: AppleApple and I ate hastily, then dashed off to soccer (I went for a run.)
**The reviews: Everyone loved the pumpkin pie. But now that Herrles will be closed, along with Bailey’s, I’m at a loss of how to replace my super-easy Friday suppers.
**The verdict: It’s a changing season. Get ready for snow. A very old woman in front of me at the Herrles checkout turned and said, “It’s sad, isn’t it,” and I knew just what she meant.
:::
**Weekend kitchen accomplishments: Lentil soup simmering on the stove less than hour after returning home late Sunday afternoon from a cross-border trip to Ohio, where we spent time with family and said goodbye to my grandpa. This feels like a genuine accomplishment. I’m also working on turning over-ripe pears and bruised apples into sauce. Smells pretty good in here, even if the house is basically a total disaster. (If you drop in for a visit, don’t look down. Or around. Think construction materials on dining-room floor, plus drywall dust, plus bags of travel laundry, plus piles of school work, plus games and toys, plus yet-to-be-carved pumpkins, plus dishes abandoned on Saturday morning, plus this list could go on and on and on ….)