Lucky stars

What do you do when you have too much on your plate? Count your lucky stars. I've been accused of being too Pollyanna-y, and that's a fair assessment, but the truth is the world is sweaty and exhausting and we all end up the same anyway, so why not make it a point to find the light in darkness? Why not try?

This morning I attended an event held by New York Women in Communications, where a panelist relayed the above quote, and last night I (finally) read the Entertainment Weekly interview with Josh Whedon, and I swear these two things are related, because together they have re-lit a spark in me that I thought was gone: Do what you love. You are not stuck. People believe in you, believe you can do more than you yourself think you can do.

During my annual girls' beach week vacation last month, one bright day we were walking from our rental house to the beach, a straight shot of four blocks, past the LBI historical society, past all the Victorian houses that serve as bed & breakfasts, past my childhood, when a teenage girl pulled out in her car in front of us. "Class of 2013" and "Vassar-bound" was soaped on her windows, and I thought, wow, there's a girl who's excited about her next steps. And I felt it, that unmistakable pang of regret that I never felt the same about college. My own journey was less exciting; through various circumstances I ended up at a school I didn't care about (and soon actively disliked), and so I transferred second semester freshman year, and my new school was fine, it was great, even (it was just voted top public college in the north!); but I'll always be missing that sheen of anticipation that high school seniors should have. That will always be a gap in the conversation when I talk about that time of my life. And I don't want anymore gaps in conversations.

Basically, I had a bit of a revelation this morning, and it has me wondering, what's holding so many of us back, and why.

I hear the bells

I tried fresh coconut for the first time in Sri Lanka, sipping the warm liquid straight from the shell, and it tasted like the opposite of how it smelled, sweet and dewy and mild. An impromptu game of cricket had started, and I took the opportunity to rest my feet, my back. Six days of labor were behind me, but two remained ahead, stretched out like impossible scenarios.

In 2006 I went to Hikkaduwa, a coastal town in southern Sri Lanka that had been washed away by the 2004 tsunami. When I got off the plane, a 13 hour flight from London, the air was so thick — it was mid-January, their summer — that it lodged itself in my throat and stayed there all eight days, wrestling with my airways. My hair hung in limp ringlets, thin against my head. Everything everywhere around me drooped.

Crossing the street from the hotel to the line of shops, bursting with tarnished jewelry and buddha statues, was a risk. There are no real traffic laws in Sri Lanka. Limbs hung out of buses where windows should be, person on person; stray hands that rested flat against the rusting bus, resigned to the kind of heat that no breeze can shake.

One night we took a canoe through the river, rounding bends over alligators. I had never seen anything so beautiful, so still. I had never felt more different. We ate a meal I can’t remember in a backyard lit up with torches, but I bet the fish was still on the bone; I bet I thought, this fish survived the tsunami only to be eaten by me, a stray American.

Today I am working on some revisions — converting a series of third person chapters into first — and Mike Doughty is playing on my iPod. For some reason I was really into “I Hear the Bells” that winter of 2006, and when I mixed the cement that week, turning heavy piles of stone and paste over and over with impossible shovels, I sang that chorus in my head; the same refrain over and over. Now I can't hear it without feeling that blanket of heat, that angry sun. That last day, the day of coconut drinking and cricket, the day I watched a group of local kids tease the Aussies and Brits about their game play, was the day my arms gave out. Too much cement, too much shoveling. Too much left to do; what was the point when 15 people couldn’t even build a single house that week, when so many people had lost everything.

The moments of kindness still stick out the most. Afternoon tea breaks, steaming hot and sugary, still the best tea I’ve ever experienced, and the best company — a family of seven, living in a house of two rooms, sharing a single bed, and still offering us all they had, all they could think of. A colleague, seeing my collapse, who said, “You’re good, you’re good, here, come sit next to me,” and every year after that we’d still meet up for lunch in London, until one year we didn’t anymore, and now I can’t even remember his name.

But I remember his eyes and the way they helped me that day. I remember the cement, and the shovels; the ladders we stood on to reach the rooftops, the creaking of my hips each night as I stretched out, sore and stiff. The soupy air. The Buddha statue in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The lapping of the water over my ankles, the sunsets, the tourist bars. The knowledge that I would forget most of this soon, that I’d never see these people again.

Looking east

In the summer I listen to Jackson Browne because that was the music of my sixteenth summer, and even then it was old, it was the music of my boss at my summer job, but it played in our store on the best corner of Long Beach Island and I memorized every word without realizing it. My boss loved him so much she even named her son Jackson; I babysat him one winter, in the off-season, and I kept dashing into his bedroom to make sure he was still breathing. Babies are terrifying and also too simple. A few summers later her car wrapped around a tree on her way home. I can’t remember how I found out about it – I suspect my mom broke the news – but I do remember standing around the kitchen of my summer restaurant, hating the looks of sympathy my coworkers were sending me in between waiting tables. This wasn’t about me; I didn’t want their emotions.

I can’t think of summer, I can’t live summer, without thinking about her. Or this: the lingering concern that I spend too much time trying to get back to those July days when a cut of blue air would land on my heart, when the hours drifted by in a haze of cotton, a distant radio, sand tracked on tile floors. Shift work. Lunch breaks. A register ringing. Crushes on the coffee boys, a car that rarely started.

At 16 I swept the floors on an empty August afternoon on the block between beach and bay, after everything had been folded and refolded and straightened and restocked, and waited for night. The doors were open and I rested against them; frowned upon, but the salt air was too tempting, and there were people to watch in the ice cream line. I waved to my boss as she crossed the street in her running clothes. She always liked me; a treat, since I knew she didn’t like everyone. Jackson Browne was playing, of course, and when she entered the store she hummed along.

How many nights did I spend like that, watching the ebb and flow of the island, watching the girls in short shorts and the boys in flannel, watching the others, watching, listening. How many nights now am I hit with a breeze, or a scent, or a song, that swirls and swirls around me until I hear her voice singing that song?

When I go back now, of course it’s different, and of course I try to make it the same, and of course I will forever fail at that. When I drive I drive there, when the stoplights are off and the tide is high, and when I hear summer coming up my driveway I hear that road, that etched sidewalk, that jangle of coin.  In the store where I spent so many summers, after she died a plaque was hung – her photo, her dates, “In memoriam.”

The store’s owners divorced a while back; whoever ended up with the business in the settlement has changed things, renovated, redecorated. The plaque is gone. When I visit it’s so different I can’t even pretend it’s the same. I can’t even pretend I’m sixteen again, learning everything for the first time.

Grounding

My favorite place to stretch out, to escape, is the floor of my living room. I'm below the line of earth outside the front windows when I'm that low; I can see the sky, the growing building across the street; a different view every day. I have always felt airy and so this recent need to be at level with the ground outside is interesting for me to watch. No judgment. Just now, I left the counter, where I have piles of papers spread out, working on a memoir project for a new imprint, to take to the floor. The pull was intense. (Maybe I didn't get enough savasana in yoga today.)

This weekend, our neighbors are away in Ireland, along with another group of friends, there for a separate wedding, so in addition to suddenly feeling like Ireland is the place to be we are babysitting some plants they left in our care: basil, peppers, an unnamed leafy thing that is flourishing. Lying down in my spot, all three loom over me from the windowsills, bigger than they actually are, curving towards the late afternoon sunlight. The very sunlight that, I fear, will be much changed once the building across the street is fully erect.

When our plant-sitting stint is over, the only greenery we'll be left with is the bamboo a dear friend gifted us when we moved in together last year; a Chinese tradition. I always say I don't want a garden but when in one's vicinity I find myself swayed, picturing weekends filled with sore backs and muddy knees and a bounty. I imagine myself with a pride in growing something from scratch, from seed. Something beautiful, or delicious. Something to make ourselves remember the ground is a gift; a surprise.

Treehouse parties

Today the sun fought with the rain, a war I watched from a treehouse in Princeton. Off and on the clouds breathed on the tall windows, surrounding us in a gray sweater, only to be pushed away a few minutes later by rays of sun that just wouldn't give in. I appreciate a good set of windows. My friend -- the one who lives in the treehouse, which is really a detached garage apartment that sparkles with colors and patterns and rainbows, with framed photos and homemade artwork and coziness, with skylights and floor-to-ceiling glass that overlooks a greenery I never fully appreciate until I see it in person --  shares her space with deer and rushing creeks and a wall of trees that manages to startle me each time I visit. I miss certain kinds of trees here in Brooklyn, and the ones in Princeton -- old, peeling, with branches that crack and fall to the tune of thunder -- are what one thinks of when one hears the word 'forest.'

It is nice, to say the least, when a group of women comes together with no purpose other than marking a passing of time. My friend always has a plan for her birthday. It's a day she celebrates by inviting a curated list of people, which sounds exclusive but is handled deftly in a way I admire, and creating an agenda of food and poetry and yoga and sangria. She hosts us in an old-fashioned way -- hands out goodie bags and treats on our way out the door, down the treehouse steps. We never get to the poetry reading part; we spend all our time catching up instead.

At a certain point in your life it's easy to say no, to say that's so far for a day's trip, to say I'm busy and I'm tired and I just saw you last month and I'll see you again next month and can't we just Facebook instead? It is easy, and sad, and each time I say yes, each time I make the effort to see my old friends face-to-face, in their own treehouses, I am greatly rewarded.

Worrying is a way of life

There's a photo taken of me from two summers ago, standing in tree pose on a ledge overlooking the southernmost tip of Long Beach Island; a 20-foot drop to a rocky bottom. The late August sun burned into my shoulders. We had driven down to the end of the island just to show off the view to our friends -- a faraway Atlantic City skyline -- and to dance in a different ocean for a few moments. I saw my opportunity, eager for an audience, and stepped up; a one-legged balancing act, looking out to the sea. I inherited the panic gene from my mother, who wears it like a bracelet, jingling with every flick of her wrist. And I've come to terms with it -- the tingle in the stomach, the train of adrenaline that rushes by and pools in my fingers. So at odd moments - the breath before sleep, the split second before the phone rings -- I find myself always back on that ledge, considering the drop, remembering the sun, squinting my eyes. What a foolish act, I think, getting up on there and standing like a tree, breathing in deep, trying to find an om somewhere on the ocean. What if my balance had been off that day? What if a gust of wind, a rogue wave, had taken up more space than I had accounted for? How much damage could have been done?

Worry is a funny friend. I can laugh at some of the things that used to pinch my insides with fear now, years after the fact, but there's a danger in cockiness. Just when you think you have both shoes in the ground, a third one comes falling out of the sky. So I've learned to like my panic, or appreciate it, at least; a little anxiety is preferable to a fall over a ledge, to a broken bone, to a gun pointed at your stomach in a foreign country.

Dear Diary

I don't know how many diaries I bought as a kid. I just know it was a lot, considering I never (ever) filled them up and never had a lot of money to spend. But diaries were my downfall. The key, the lock, the smooth covers, the fresh, blank pages...there was so much potential in them. In the Thrift Drug in the center of town there was a case of them, pale blues and pinks, and I would run my finger over them and think, "I can say so much in here!" I never did, though. After a few half-hearted entries they'd fall to the wayside, one by one; a graveyard of calm colors dumped under my bed.

I had this yearning to be the kind of girl who wrote in diaries back then, similar to my yearning to always be acting out a scene from Teen magazine, like how, the night before the first day of school, I would almost always hot-roll my hair and put on a face mask and call my friends on the phone, even when I didn't have anything to say and besides, I hate talking on phones, because that is what I thought I was supposed to do as a pre-teen girl; that is the story I wanted to convey. (One year, the mask took so long to dry, and my mom was working that night, and my dad got annoyed at me for not being in bed yet, but I couldn't go to bed because I had to let the mask dry. And then it was too late to call my friends, and even my sisters were near-asleep already, and my whole staged scene was ruined that night. I woke up with red eyes and a lingering hiss of betrayal at Teen.)

Back to diaries: sophomore year of high school my friends and I had a little, fat notebook we called Phat. We used it in lieu of passing notes to each other -- instead, we just passed around Phat, which was filled to bursting with secrets and doodles and song lyrics and crushes and recaps of that day's General Hospital episode. A core group of us shared Phat, with occasional guest posts from other friends. (I like to think of it as my very first shared blog.) Sometime in college when K and I found Phat in our bedroom, its green cover tattered, we realized how dangerous it was. All the original writers were off at college, steeped in new lives and new allegiances, and the level of change made Phat risky. So we shredded it. the only real diary I've ever finished. I still regret it.

Today I found this article about a new kind of digital locked diary, and my heart leapt. I found myself thinking, how could I use this? Would people laugh at me? But what if I kept it secret? Then I would have a secret about a secret diary and...maybe that feels a little much. The drive for a locked book where I could dump everything hasn't gone away, it seems. Even though I know better now. I know I would never write in them.

Today, when I hear other writers talking about how they filled diary after diary as a kid, graduating to proper journals as a teenager, I can't help but think, "Liars." But maybe they're not like me, is all. Maybe they haven't saved it all up to parcel it out, piecemeal, into various manuscripts.

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Flying

I was 21 when I took my first flight, a commuter jet to Boston, and it rumbled and shook and I held my first passport close to my chest. My second flight was more substantive -- Boston to Brussels, the one where I actually needed the passport -- and since then there have been dozens just like that one, soaring over Europe, leaving windmill imprints behind my eyelids. Layovers, turbulence, crying jags in British Airways business class when a friend and I chose to watch "The Notebook," not realizing how it, combined with little sleep, would leave us red-faced and ashamed, but gleeful too. Buzzed flights, productive flights, painful flights; missed connections in Swiss airports where no matter how fast I ran I knew I'd never make it; Heathrow runways where I took my time, confident I was already so late, only to be surprised by a delay that meant I would get home on time. Flights where I welled up looking out the window, wondering if I'd ever see him again, wondering why an ocean has to be so big. Dozens of short flights, and one long flight to and from Sri Lanka, where, at three hours in, I realized I had only hit the 25% mark; where I and some other passengers came down with food poisoning. Flights where I fell asleep even before takeoff; flights where my boss had pulled out her laptop and typed away, so I, in turn, did the same. Flights where I tuned out, and some where I tuned in. The airport in Vermont is a charmer. Currently under construction in one area, once you get through security the bathrooms are literal port-a-potties, with thin painted plywood built around them to give the illusion of a room; with a running sink in which you must pump your foot in order to actually access the water. Whatever. We ate lunch at The Skinny Pancake and waited, and waited, as weather delays in Newark put our plans on hold.

The thing is, I never mind waiting at airports. It's not like there's nothing to do -- one can always buy books and magazines, or food, or martinis with fat olives that wake you up three hours later with a ring of salt burning your throat. There's always ample opportunity for people-watching, for catching up on Twitter, for reading a type of magazine you would never purchase but were delighted to find on an empty seat. And there's always time for reflection, for deciding which memory from your trip was your favorite, the one you'll hold close always.

For me it was this moment, sitting with my mom and my sister on a deck on Lake Champlain, feeling like summer is mere moments away.

Setting into a coast; a life

An old friend from LA emailed and when I wrote her back, I told her I loved her photos of her city -- burnt and hot-looking on her Instagram account, offering a glimpse of a place I've never visited but have always secretly loved. Los Angeles, or the vision of it I have in my head, is my single instance of coastal regret. Why am I in New York, I sometimes wonder? But here is where I settled. The settling happens, whether it’s into bones or cities or routines, and I always knew New York would be good, it would be how everyone said, and even better, and then some. But there are losses, sacrifices I forgot would revisit when I least expected them.

Last fall, a lovely 23-year-old I worked with jumped ship; a cross-country move, a dream job. I told her then how jealous I was, and I had never been more serious, and it was a thick jealousy, a mournful one. For a while I struggled with the reasons behind my reaction. I moved to New York after college, lured by a communications job for a respected news organization. I spent six years at that job, loving things, but far from settlement. I read books on LA, on how to become a writer, on how to write for TV, on how to work in entertainment. My Amazon bill for those books was more than I could afford and I remember thinking they felt dated even then, in the early '00s, and they felt less than useful. But I read them, and wrote occasional poems, and when I thought ahead I knew I wanted to be a writer, but it was a vague notion, and besides, wasn’t what I was doing already just a type of writing?

It was. One day, years ago, on a train ride from DC to NY, a man next to me, leaking nerves, told me his life story. He waved around photos of the long-lost child he was about to go meet. He asked me what I did, and I said, I’m a writer, and he said he’d never met an actual writer before, and so I felt like a liar.

Today I am 33 and a writer, and it’s definitive, and I adore all of it – my day writing job, coming home to my writer love in the evenings and cooking dinner together and then retreating to our shared office, where I write more, this time for me, this time for ghosts I’m legally unable to name, this time for what I hope is my future life. And the city speaks to me in fits and starts and that’s okay because it’s mine, and if that means I can’t live on a deserted beach, then that means the beach is there for vacations.

But then a twenty-something told me she was leaving New York for LA to write, and I wanted to throw up, because even though I love my life and I’ve chosen this and it thrills me, my making the choices I’ve made means, necessarily, that I’ve opted out of other lives.

The problem is, there are so many lives I’ve always wanted. But I have this one, and it’s not even a “but,” it’s my own type of fantasy, one I never even thought I’d be brave enough for, because I made it here in New York. But it means I didn’t make it in LA, or London, where I was so close, so many times. I chose this place, which means I couldn’t choose any other.

In a few months I'm getting married, and that too is a choice that relegates some other choices unnecessary.  I treasured my single life. I miss aspects of it -- the things I could have hung on the walls, the throw pillows, the night cheese. And marriage is a type of settling, too, an acknowledgement that one more life is closed to me, a burst of magic rendered obsolete. A circus with no more seats.

Both youth and naps are wasted on the young. My bones feel their age now but sometimes I am still the youngest person in the room and therefore the one with the most opportunity to dream and when I dream I dream of flight, escape, but the secure kind, which doesn’t make much sense.

When I told my fiance all those months ago about my coworker, the one leaving, the one I could have been but can no longer be, he told me with wide, serious eyes, Babe, we can move to LA. You can work in TV if you want!

And maybe we will. Even if we don't, though, I like having the option.

 image via

A collection of things my niece said this weekend

1. I like your wedding dress, aunt Morg. (I was wearing a brightly patterned maxi dress.)
2. I'm going to swing on the swings now, but I'll be careful, so everyone calm down.
3. Back it up, sister.
4. Good morning! Let's get this party started!
5. Aunt Morgie, your hair looks bad.
6. Aunt Morgie, I like your long hair.
7. You be the dragon that's chasing me. I'll save myself, though!
8. Come in the moonbounce with me! The age limit is 28. (Me: I'm 33.) I mean, the age limit is 33.

My niece and her curly hair; my nephew and his lopsided smile and his penchant for exclaiming "Yeah!" like he's singing backup for Usher; the way the sun slants across their backyard in Pennsylvania...these are the things that make a weekend worthwhile.

On camera

A few weeks ago, the lovely folks at LinkedIn asked if they could interview me for their Get Connected video series. My first inclination was to say no; that's embarrassing, I thought, and there goes a whole afternoon. But I was reading Lean In and everyone around me told me to do it, so I worked through my issues and finally said yes. The team was supremely wonderful -- funny, warm, and clearly talented -- and they edited my nervous rambling into something pretty coherent. Huge thanks to them and to LinkedIn and to my job for all being awesome. Here's the video.

Warming up to Spring

The Philadelphia row home my grandparents lived in always smelled like sauerkraut, and while that sounds like an insult, I don't mean it to be. We would visit a few times a year, and as we pulled onto their street the green awning over their door was the only way I could pick them out of the lineup. As we got older, the television in the house would grow louder; the mess on the dining room table, bigger. There was always a bowl of black olives from a can to snack on, and Pop-pop taught us how to jab our fingers into each olive and eat them, finger by finger, can by can; reveling in the aluminum aftertaste.

Today the office smells like that old row home in Philly, like old-fashioned food and tulips, and this week has been quiet. I finished my book on Saturday and turned it over to my writing group, my critique buddies, and while they read I get to luxuriate in this freedom, this moment before I have more work to do on it. It feels like a spring break of sorts, which is neat timing, considering New York City seems to have closed for the week, too. The subways have been empty; my emails have dwindled as the sun stays up later, stretching out the days. I am warming up to Spring, my least favorite season, as a ray of sun latches onto my exposed forearm and begins to remind my bones of what it can do to me.

Spring's always been a temporary stop on a train to someplace better. Maybe this one will prove me wrong, show me what she's got besides a teasing warmth and an itchy nose.

Stage fright

My parents put us in dance classes when I was four. At my first recital, I walked out on stage, clad in my red sequins and some messy feather headpiece, ready to dance to "76 Trombones." But then I looked around, waiting for the music to begin, my cue to start tapping. I was horrified to discover this wasn't dance class anymore, where I got to stare at myself in the safe mirrored room. Instead I was facing hundreds of people -- all of them strangers -- who had the luxury of sitting in a comfortable, dark seat while my forehead itched under the lights and sequins. No one told me this is what performing would be like. I burst into tears.

The music started, but I couldn't stop crying. All around me, my friends were shuffling and flapping, feathers flying in their eyes. But I couldn't move, I couldn't get over the tragedy of being unprepared for an audience. Finally, someone crept out on stage to escort me off. (My twin sister stayed, unaffected by my tears.)

Somehow, luckily, I got over that. I continued dancing for another decade and never had stage fright like that again, which I like to believe set me up for a lifetime of being mostly unafraid of public speaking, but that's just a theory.

This week I went back to my roots. Remember the "Friends" episode where Monica goes to a tap class to confront the woman who's stolen her identity? Ever since then, I told myself I'd go back to an adult tap class, especially once I moved to New York. Well, I've been here for 11 years now. It was time.

Back I went into the safe mirrored room, lined with a barre and a sense of purpose. When I was around nine I was named a Baby Starlet at my dance school and got a tap scholarship, which meant I got to attend class with the older girls who, at the time, felt like superstars, with their long legs and high-heeled tap shoes. I stood at the barre with them every week, my pride at leaving my peers behind helping to hold up my head just a little higher. Smokey Robinson would blare from the overhead speakers and we would warm up, leg by leg, ligament by ligament. When the tap instructor this week turned on Stevie Wonder from an old-fashioned boom box in the corner, it felt almost the same, like this was it, I had come full circle.

I'm in the middle of Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In (who isn't?!) and she writes about the quote that most resonates with her, "What would you do if you weren't afraid?," and I guess my answer is, I'd tap.

So here I am, new tap shoes in hand.

The Next Big Thing: Gemstones edition

Years ago (five, maybe? Who can remember?) I took a day-long writing workshop from MediaBistro. I was toiling with my first YA (now one of those books-in-a-drawer everyone talks about) and just needed some focus, and the class was helpful. But what was greatest about that class was that I met Laura Sibson, who's been a valued critique partner and all-around fun-to-text-with friend ever since.

Yesterday she tagged me in The Next Big Thing Blog Hop, a traveling blog that asks authors to tag "the next big thing" and ask them these questions. Here's her post, in which she talks about her work-in-progress. (Edie sounds awesome, btw.) The idea behind the Blog Hop is to get writers to share pieces of what they're working on.

The thing is, I am kind of weird about blogging about my writing. There are countless blogs out there by writers at all stages of publishing who talk about what they're working on, their processes, their statuses (seeking representation, on submission, etc.) and I almost find it overwhelming. I don't try to be precious about my writing at all -- quite the opposite -- but I think there's a part of me that wants to surprise people, maybe, with it when it's ready?

But! This month I am thisclose to being finished with a brand new book that I'm really excited about. So I'm breaking my don't-talk-about-writing mindset right now, because I want to talk about this book.

Ready?

What is the working title of your book? I love naming things, but I am struggling with this title. I call it THE GEMSTONE RESURRECTION, but my back brain is still working on something better!

Where did the idea come from for the book? Two places: when my grandmother died I received some of her jewelry, including her old engagement ring. I was wearing it one day, and while waiting in line for lunch I started twirling it on my finger and thinking about her. We had a complicated relationship. (She and my mother didn't get along too well, and I am a mommy's girl.) And that line -- "I have a complicated relationship with my dead grandmother" -- popped into my head. I wrote an entire opening chapter based on that line.

Then, a few weeks later, I was in Charleston, SC (amazing place!) with my sisters and mom for her 60th birthday. (See? Mommy's girl!) We took a ghost tour -- a total tourist trap, but a super fun one. The guide told us a story about a woman who haunted the graveyard, and I found myself disagreeing with his telling of the story. He clearly thought we should all hate the woman for what she did, but I found myself defending this woman -- this supposed ghost -- in my head. So I wrote a chapter, thinking it would be unrelated to the chapter mentioned above, about her story. When I got home and began working on the book, I realized they were actually parts of the same story.

What genre does your book fall under? It's YA, with alternating chapters that are contemporary and supernatural. Which means it'd be shelved in the paranormal section, which is a shocker, because I never, ever thought I'd write paranormal!

What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? Gemma would be Elle Fanning with dark hair; Pearl would be Troian Bellisario (Spencer from Pretty Little Liars).

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? First, a funny story: I wrote one and sent it to my sister for her thoughts. She wrote, "It's good, but I always think of Pearl as the main character, not Gemma." Readers, she blew my mind. Why was I thinking of Gemma as the main character? (Well, a lot of reasons, but too many for this blog.) So, after multiple drafts and a total shift in thinking, here's my one-sentence synopsis:

Pearl Briar needs an heir – not to her fortune (she’s only 17), but to her secret sorority, the Gemstones, but after a miscast spell throws her plans into disarray, new girl and outsider Gemma Martin becomes an unwitting participant, a powerful competitor, and maybe the most vital Gemstones component of all.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I'm represented by Amy Tipton of Signature Lit.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? I am a slow writer -- it takes me time to get into a story and figure out what it is. Plus, I have a full-time job (that's often more than full-time). All this is to say, I started writing this in earnest in early spring 2012; it's now nearly early spring 2013, and I'm about 8,000 words away from finishing it. (So, this weekend, maybe? Although I said that last weekend, too.)

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma comes to mind, which is so beautiful -- not because I think my book is technically similar (or anywhere near as great) but because there's a freedom and a magic in that book that I think is also present in mine. You don't know what's real versus what's not; the world of the characters sometimes feels murky.

Who or what inspired you to write this book? I had just recently turned in edits to my agent (for a contemporary YA that hasn't yet sold) and was tossing around a few ideas for what I'd write next, but nothing was sticking. So I decided to not even worry about what to write next. And like I said above, then the line about my grandmother's ring came, and then the ghost story, and I thought, "I'm going to make this book as crazy as I can and see where it takes me."

My friend Sarah MacLean always says, "Ask yourself, what's the worst thing that could happen to your characters? And then do it to them." So I tried!

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest? Four words: Secret high school sorority. Oh, and one more word: Witches.

And I'm tagging the lovely Melissa Sarno!

A crazy experiment

In Miami, it's all neon lights and scooters, waking me up with her electric blue flashes and small engines. The clouds move in at midday, every day, just in time for a lunch I'm too stuffed to eat. The Art Deco district feels reminiscent of someplace I've never been, like maybe Cuba; at the beach, our sunblock doesn't work and seemingly everyone smokes. On the horizon of the ocean are massive, iron-and-slate fortresses that move slowly from left to right and right to left; languid sailboats with white sails that run too close to the shore for my liking. Oh, and the cruise ships; always the cruise ships, docked and departing and embarking and moving. It's not the beach view I am used to. Here, I can't imagine what's across the water the way I can at home. There, I picture Ireland, geographically impossible Ireland, a holdover from when I was bad with maps.

(I am still bad at maps.)

We took a tiny commuter plane home, flying over the barrier islands where I unsuccessfully looked for surfers. I had just finished reading a Hurricane Sandy article in the New Yorker, during which I cried, and I wondered which islands below us would be next, which blocks of Miami would eventually be underwater, how will we all deal with those inevitabilities.

Here's a crazy experiment, though: go on vacation and turn off your phone. Try to retrain your brain so that when there's a moment of silence at lunch, or you're waiting in line for your iced coffee, instead of reaching into your pocket to see if anyone new has tweeted at you, just look around. Just see things you didn't think to notice before. Just be.

V is for

The best part of going on vacation is that you get to pull out your summer dresses and wedges, those bright colors and patterns that make the sun seem to glitter and burn even when there's still melting snow outside your window. Mid-week I had a moment, a familiar one, where the world halted in front of me asking for favors when I had none to give. But these things always seem to work themselves out, and someone told me, "Why don't we just see how things go," and she was right and my anxieties cleared away. By end-of-day Friday, riding high from an uber-productive week, my tides had finally shifted.

It doesn't hurt, of course, that I'm on vacation. On Monday I'm turning off my phone. I won't be writing. I'm buying magazines at the airport, ones about celebrities and weddings and clothes, and I won't be embarrassed. I won't be reading your tweets or liking your photos. (My apologies in advance!)

I do need some books to read, though. Suggestions welcome!

All this from a Hello Kitty iPhone cover

Something about her varsity jacket caught my eye. It was old looking -- retro. More Danny Zuko than Pinelands Wildcats circa 1994, like my own varsity jacket. I studied her, because I was intrigued. Who was this girl wearing a lukewarm varsity jacket in 10-degree weather? What was she listening to on that iPod? Was she me, 17 years ago? On Fridays during football and basketball seasons we cheerleaders had to wear our uniforms -- some sort of old-school show of support. (Because, you know, actually cheering at the games wasn't enough?) By junior year we had convinced our coaches that our street clothes paired with our "Wildcat cheerleader" tee-shirts would suffice, showing enough school spirit without needing to don those awful skirts that were either always too short or too long; too skanky or too '50s (and we weren't sure which option was worse). I had discovered thrift stores that summer, tiny warehouses tucked alongside the river in New Hope and Lambertville, and my vintage, ripped jeans matched with my Wildcat Cheerleader tee and my white Vans made me feel like I was giving a teeny, tiny finger to the establishment. I'll show you cheer, I'd think.

I thought of those Friday outfits as I looked at this girl on the subway. Something I'm always intrigued about is: how would I be different if I had grown up in NYC instead of South Jersey? How would I be the same? Would I have worn my uniform on the subway after a game? And I saw myself in this girl. Her clothes gave it away. She was:

An athlete: besides the jacket she wore track pants with her number stitched into them on the hip. Fourteen.

A student: a thin backpack strapped tight to her shoulders. Pink. I could see the shape of books inside.

A casual thing: Dirty Chucks with no laces; graffiti and doodles etched along the rims.

A teenage girl. Just as I decided this girl was cool; this girl was above it all, she pulled out her phone, wrapped in a Hello Kitty iPhone cover.

Of course, I thought when I saw it. She wasn't me all those years ago. She was just herself, and all the contradictions that entails.

My year in books

When I was about 15, I met someone who kept a reading journal, listing every book she's ever read and a sentence or two summing up her feelings about each one. She wasn't smug about it, but she had every right to be.

Reader, I was jealous. If there is one regret in my life, it's that I have literally no idea how many books I've read. I don't know how many books I read each year, I can't remember when I read certain things and how they connected to my life at the time, and, perhaps scariest of all, I even have trouble remembering whether I've read something and what I thought of it.

Because of all of this, I am actually making a 2013 resolution. I will be documenting every book I read next year. (Don't worry, not publicly or anything. It's just an exercise for me.)

But first, I just need to spend a moment talking about the books I've read this year. Because, holy mother of goddess, I read some amazing books this year. I would venture to say this has been my favorite reading year in a long while.

The highlights:

Dare Me by Megan Abbot: I talk about this one here.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walters: My twin sister and I often swap Kindles, and she's very organized about the whole thing, handing it over with instructions on which books to read in which order. Beautiful Ruins was at the top of her list last time we swapped, and I dove right in, not even knowing the title of the book. (What a wonderful way to read, by the way -- zero expectations.) It blew me away.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker: The danger of similar book titles! I recommended this book to several people, only I got the title wrong. I thought I was recommending The Age of Desire, the fictional retelling of Edith Wharton's life. (I read that, too, and it was lovely.) After reading The Age of Miracles, a friend said, "This isn't about Edith, but I think you'll love it anyway." So I did. And reader, I loved it. I'm chalking this one up to a wondrous act of the reading gods.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles: I just finished this yesterday, and it was another one of K's surprise picks. I read it on the heels of finishing The Diviners and now I am obsessed with the 1920s and 30s in a way I wasn't before. This was so captivating, with such a fun, almost kooky voice, and completely wonderful characterizations.

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling: You know, if she hadn't written it, I wouldn't have read it. But I'm glad I did. It took a while to kick in -- there are LOTS of characters -- but by the near-end I was utterly hooked, and then left heartbroken and almost disgusted. In a good way, I think. The kind where you can't stop thinking about it.

The Diviners by Libba Bray: I read this in hardcover, and it's hefty, so it sat on my nightstand for months as I made my way through it slowly and deliberately, a few pages here and there. I feel like this is a book that needs to be read that way. It seeped into me and I hope it never leaves.

There were others. The Year of the Gadfly, The Vanishers, Imaginary Girls. (Edited to add: And The Crane's Dance, which was so phenomenal and definitely one of the best of the year. Thanks for the reminder, K!) The wonderful works-in-progress from my writing group friends and my fiance; many, many Baby-sitters Clubs. Too many to count.

What were your favorite books of the year?

Happy year-end

I’d be alone in the backseat of her Geo Tracker, but surrounded by stuff – Beastie Boys cassette holders, pom poms, duffel bags, water bottles. A stray pair of sunglasses. A scrunchie. I’d be alone, because even though the driver’s and front passenger’s seats were filled, the air would whip through the Tracker so fast it would build a wall between us, rendering me deaf in the backseat. And I would look out the windows and stare, and think. It doesn’t happen too often, but sometimes, these memories of high school flood my canals. Today it’s of a fall day, junior year; of my best friend’s first car; of the country music I didn’t listen to. Of slurpees and study halls, coasting down the pine tree roads. Of a promise of more, more, more; so much more than Jersey offered.

I make fun of it all the time, and I’m allowed to, but the truth is there’s something about southern coastal Jersey that is overly formative. I am sure you can all say that about your hometowns, whether they are Midwestern or Californian or Canadian. I am sure you are feeling a pinch inside as I imply here that mine was different, special. I don’t blame you.

But there is something to a hard blue sky and a horizon of deep green pine trees. There is something to a Jersey Devil legend and unblemished, near-empty beaches. There is something to the cranberry bogs, the duck crossings, the grainy, sandy dirt that blows across empty football fields.

There is something to being a teenage girl riding alone in the raised backseat of her best friend’s car on her way to cheerleading practice, eating her fruit lip gloss off her mouth and wondering what on earth is in store for her.

I haven’t been to my hometown in nearly three months, and since then there’s been a hurricane that ruined some of my favorite places, a couple of holidays, an engagement. This weekend I’ll hitch a ride down the Garden State Parkway and keep my eyes open for the memories I hadn’t realized I’d forgotten.

image via

Edna or Millie or Grace or Anne

When I leave for work at a particularly late time in the morning I'm almost certain to pass by a wonderfully gray old lady who stands on a corner, resting on her walker, taking her time to get to the small bus that picks her up and, I assume, drives her to some glorious amusement park for seniors. Today an ambulance came rushing past me as I left my apartment, so much noise, and when I turned onto the old lady's block it had stopped there, right in front of her waiting spot, and I thought, oh, no. The EMTs were out, organizing stretchers and talking to a woman I didn't recognize. I tried not to look, but I am human, and when the stranger-woman pointed the EMTs in a direction I followed their gaze and saw my little old lady sprawled out flat on her back in the doorway of her building, the walker cast aside and upended. She was awake, though, and talking.

In cities we are so often dependent on neighbors, on strangers, on services we never think we'll need until the moment right before we realize we do. Over the weekend I was violently ill and B. still has his broken foot and I thought, the night I couldn't sleep from delirium and dehydration, we have never been more vulnerable than we are right now.

I like to think my lady's name is Edna or Millie or Grace or Anne, and that her great grand children are with her at her hospital bed right now, and that her own children are at home cooking her favorite meal, and that there are flowers waiting for her. But of course she has her own name and family and has lived more lives than I can imagine and probably hates flowers and would likely scorn me for making up stories about her. I hope she knows I do it out of love. I hope she knows we have all been more vulnerable than we care to remember, and that it's that shared experience that binds us.