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.

A world of certain difference

"America will soon belong to the men and women — white and black and Latino and Asian, Christian and Jew and Muslim and atheist, gay and straight — who can comfortably walk into a room and accept with real comfort the sensation that they are in a world of certain difference, that there are no real majorities, only pluralities and coalitions." -- David Simon

In my last post I whined about change being hard, but what's funny is that the large-scale changes, the big structural stuff that people vote for or against, has never scared me. I am honored to bear witness to such change, in fact. Whether those big changes ultimately end up being good or bad, they are almost always a sign of progress, and almost always the result of good intentions. And I get to watch them happen. I get to say, I was there when that happened. I remember what I was wearing. I remember the toast we made.

I spent years being afraid of the smaller changes, the graduations and relationships and walks outside in daylight. One day I was grilling eggplant for my dinner and a fleet of butterflies rose up outside my third floor window and poof, my fears flew away, smoking up into a gray plume disappearing. The oil sizzled and cleared and I wondered what I had been holding on to and why.

I learned, worked, to find my fears' roots and dig them out on spring days. I am lucky I had the space and tools to do that. I wish we all did, so our fears, large or small, could be dissected enough for us to realize there's some bit of beauty, of freedom, in them. In realizing that part of what we do here, all of us, is just swim along in the current of changes we never thought we wanted, trying to find our own air.

In between

After dipping into canned hurricane provisions for lunch today I realized it was time to go to the grocery store. And not the bodegas across the street, which, while lovely and have served me many a pint of ice cream in times of need, only offer so much (and little to no fruits or veggies). The neighborhood is weird today, three days after the storm, like I'm looking at it through a wobbly plastic filter that's making everything seem slightly off-color. The grocery store was crowded but poorly stocked, missing things I didn't expect -- cheeses and black beans and eggs. I am not complaining; just observing. An old 90's Gin Blossoms song was playing and I started to tweet "Grocery stores always play Gin Blossoms. #notcomplaining" but I stopped myself, feeling too frivolous.

Yesterday was the first day I really left my apartment, going for a long walk along the East River and up through Brooklyn Heights, bolstered by the rescue mission of my sister out of Hoboken, a town still in desperate need of help and evacuations. I felt positive yesterday, now that she was safe, like we were through the worst and things were back on the "normal" meter.

Today is different. It's November 1st and my concerns have shifted. I am worried about the fact that "normal" is gone, replaced by something new. I'm anxious about the election; that many people who would have voted can no longer, or that it will no longer be a priority. I'm worried, selfishly, about how I'm going to get to work once power is back on. And I'm thinking about my hometown of Long Beach Island, and the city I lived in for a decade, Hoboken, and the city I live in now, New York. And how all of them will be different now. And how change is hard.

Everyone's talking about rebuilding better than ever and how we'll get through it and sure, all of that is true, no doubt. But just once I'd like us to be allowed to mourn for a while, to at least acknowledge the sheer weight of what is now different, before we have to "be strong." I don't know the state of my family's house on Long Beach Island -- the home in which I grew up; the home my ancestors built in 1921. I've only been able to see its rooftop, taken from an aerial photo. At least it is still standing, I told myself. At least there is still a roof to be seen.

And they are just houses, a part of me knows. But most of me knows they are more than that. That house is love and history and family. That house is a front porch and an outside shower and the attic stairs where my boyfriend fell down and fractured his foot just last month. That house is gin & tonics and friendly ghosts and a secret closet I've never even seen inside. That house is news of my baby brother's arrival and a recurring nightmare I had as a kid and Cabbage Patch Dolls under a Christmas tree.

We are all safe and lucky, always, just by sheer nature of being born Americans, where we have things like FEMA and insurance and a general, collective agreement that destruction like this cannot stand. I know all this, and you do too, but still, we're caught in between normalcy and non-normalcy, and I've always been bad with in-betweens.

Sandy

There are risks no matter where you live, and this week I'm thinking about my island hometown, which is currently underwater. Living on the sea is always a gamble. Today, on LBI, the bay has met the ocean. It's not the first time and it won't be the last, but it always breaks off something inside me. When I was in middle school a(nother) big storm hit my town. My family lived on the lagoon for a few years, in a rental on a quiet street way at the edge of town, where you could see the Atlantic City casino skyline on clear days. We watched the water breach the lagoons, creeping up our backyard. We were so busy watching the back I think we forgot to watch the front, where the water surprised us, dribbling under the storm door, turning into a river.

About six or so inches came in that day. I remember leaving for higher ground -- our neighbor, just a few houses down, wasn't flooded, so we hung with her, eating weird canned soup with a metallic aftertaste and trying to keep ourselves occupied. We lost photos, but nothing else irreplacable.

A few years later, the island flooded again and lost power. I was at my summer job at Fantasy Island. We all got to leave and I joined the gang of 14-year-olds tramping through thigh-high water to the 7-11 where we could get Slurpees, because priorities. That day felt wild and free; it felt like being 14.

Now my grandmother has left our island home; my parents on the mainland have been evacuated, and people are tweeting pictures of my beloved hometown streets -- the mini golf courses, the closed seasonal shops, the restaurants and dunes, covered in a mix of ocean and bay, waves overlapping.

So, yes, the sea is always a risk, but is it wrong that I find it a preferable one to anything else? I can't imagine a tornado; I don't want a basement to hide in; the fault lines in California make me nervous every time I'm there and it's too quiet. No, I'll take a sea any time. The water always recedes.

On this rainy Friday

I dreamt of lying on benches, waiting for trains, with quotes circling the air like thought bubbles I could reach out and touch. I fell asleep feeling guilty about how the days pass so quickly; sometimes it will be dinnertime before I know it, and I've spent an entire day only talking about work, and there are never enough hours to call my mom. But I woke up to rain and a new attitude, humming the Demi Lovato song I haven't been able to get out of my head. Several months ago I told my sister about a book she should read, only I got the title wrong -- I was supposed to say The Age of Desire and instead I said The Age of Miracles. And it's a good thing I forget titles as often as I do, because she then read The Age of Miracles and said, "Morg, it's not about Edith Wharton like you said it was, but I think you should read it anyway."

I finished it last night on the train home, savoring every moment. (And then I read the acknowledgements, where the author thanks people I know, and I was reminded again how small this planet is.)

I can't stop singing Tori

A few weeks ago my friend Joe, for whom I was wearing my favorite Tori Amos concert tee back when we first met when I was a mere 18, asked me to contribute an article about my relationship with feminism and Tori's intersections of it for PopMatters.com. (Talk about full circle.) PopMatters has been running a Tori spotlight all week, and today my post, "Reflections on Tori Amos and the Feminist Movement," went live. In the few weeks I spent writing the piece, I've reverted, hearing Tori lyrics whispering to me every part of every day. I've been YouTubing old videos and live performances, hitting repeat on my "best of Tori" playlist, and generally just enjoying my renewed Tori love.

Hope you enjoy, too. And here's a song for today. (It's humid and rainy here in New York, and my body feels gummy, and I'm having hankerings for Londontown, so this felt appropriate.)

90

Her earrings sparkled, hanging from droopy lobes in a way that felt like a risk. He wore a cowboy hat, which I'm told was out of character, but then so too was the restaurant, all fake western memorabilia and country music, and besides, people change. I watched the Pistol Annies on the television; I can get a little bluegrass myself, and I still remember the country line dancing we did in high school, the day my trig teacher cleared out the cafeteria and showed us the moves, her tight jeans secure under a belt with a big brass buckle. It was a surprise party. He moved well but slowly, overwhelmed by so many faces. This one, though, he knew: the old woman with the earrings, with the curated lips,  with the silver hair piled high like a movie star. The one who said "I love you" to him over and over, her hands grasping his cheeks, and his hers, and they stood like that for minutes, whispering 90 years of life to each other, while the party turned into a reunion around them. I don't know who she was, and I can't even imagine what that age must feel like.

I have grown short of grandparents of my own. Tell me, what does 90 mean when you were born in the midst of the Great Depression? When you lived through world wars and civil rights and moon landings and a technological shift that changed the world so immensely? Is it an accomplishment or a curse? Maybe when I'm 90, if, I'll be wishing for things I used to have, or mourning the things I'll never see. Like my parents versus my great great grandkids; like the Mars rover versus a colony on Mars. Like another night with my lover, or another piece of pie. There is so much to miss, both forward and backward.

I can't get their moment out of my mind.

The drive home felt like big sky and autumn, like pumpkins and apple picking. There was green and blue everywhere, so bright it hurt to look, with clouds we'll never see again. And still I thought of the two of them, the way they held on to each other, and the sound a life makes when people pause to mark it on a clean fall day.

Gimme a...

"Where'd that world go, that world where you're a kid, and now I can't remember noticing anything, not the smell of the leaves or the sharp curl of a dried maple on your ankles, walking? I live in cars now, and my own bedroom, the windows sealed shut, my mouth to my phone, hand slick around its neon jelly case, face closed to the world, heart closed to everything." There is something wrong with the F train these days, and some nights it actually leaves me near tears, because we all just want to get home, presumably, and we never can, at least not in the time we thought we'd be able to. So last night I'm waiting, and waiting more, and brushing condensation off my forehead, which is just another way of saying I was sweating like crazy, because everyone knows Broadway-Lafayette is the hottest subway station in the world, and did I mention I am ready for summer to be over?

And I'm waiting, in a rush, but no F trains come and when two finally do, they're so bursting with people that none of us can get on without risking our lives. And even though I desperately want to get on, I enjoy my life a lot, so I don't push myself in, I don't make the other sweating, smushed people hate me for smushing them in even tighter.

So I read. I read to distract myself from the heat and the anger and the near-tears.

And then I read that passage above, from Megan Abbott's Dare Me, and just like that, there is no subway station, there is no New York, there is no long work day and no jerks leering at me and no exhausted pregnant lady next to me (won't someone just give her their seat already), there is just me and a book, me and my own memories of high school cheerleading, where a new coach came and tried to whip us into better shape, just like in the book; where I took my varsity captainship and shoved it because I had my own awakening at the start of senior year that, wow, I actually hated almost everything that squad had become, and even though I missed the competitions, I missed the lights on my face during pep rallies, my senior year became more about me.

The myth of the cheerleader so often misses the mark -- there are complicated layers to cheering, at least to me -- the power and the flounce and the ponytails all swirl into something kind of dangerous for a lot of us. We start thinking we're invincible.

Dare Me is the first book I've read where the author gets it. She gets what the cheering is all about, what it's for. And who.

August memorials and memories

This week the shadows changed. I saw it on my street this morning, walking to the F train, the very one that's made me miss two yoga classes this week. Augusts are funny -- still sticky, but there's a cool tone to the air that wasn't there before, and everything feels just a little off center. One summer in college when I worked at a jewelry store on the island I tried to explain to my dear friend, the store's owner, how easy it was to squint just the right way so that everything looked as rosy and fresh as it did in May and June. I never wanted summers to end back then, only that's not entirely true; I think I mostly just wanted to make sure I captured them.

Anyway, my friend told me there was no way August could look anything like June, because the shadows always gave it away. They've moved a few degrees, a move that can't be hidden by a squint.

I know she's right, and I see it now. The island would always clear out in August, but we'd still be there, singing to the Indigo Girls behind closed doors, watching the sand blow by, waiting for school to start. Now, even in New York, August feels still to me, frozen. It feels weirdly quiet. The interns at work have left. It's cool enough for sweaters on early mornings.

Today B. and I went to pick up our friend's CSA share while he's out of town and passed a group of people holding a makeshift memorial service on the front stoop of a brownstone. One stumbles upon many things in front of Brooklyn brownstones -- free books from people cleaning out their shelves, old toasters and printers that say "Take me! I work!" in wobbly handwriting -- like this whole borough is hosting a neverending garage sale. But I've never seen a memorial service.

They each had fold-up chairs and there was one empty one, on the top step, with a photo and "1953-2012" printed on it. It wasn't sad. Everyone there seemed joyous, and I thought, that's the way to do those things. On a stoop in August in Brooklyn, watching the world and the weather pass by.

I guess I can't trick myself out of August by squinting. It's here, and just like that, it'll be gone.

On hard books

This is a serious post: how difficult should books be to read? I think back to my college days (English major here), where I was reading for hours a day -- Dosteovsky and Coleridge and Rich, Melville and Dillard and Chaucer in its original English. I would be tired, spent after some of those books. Rejuvenated, too; like I had just run a mental marathon.

There's a burst of rebellion I think many English majors succumb to post-graduation when we're suddenly free to read for fun in more ways than we could before. For me, that meant lots of chick lit and bestsellers; then I joined Scholastic and my pleasure reading became almost exclusively YA. And then I started writing YA for real, and studying the genre. And then I realized how many amazing books I was missing from other genres and started to make concerted efforts to expand. Now I think I have a nice balance of reading material, but still -- there are so many good books to read, and not enough time.

Except.

It is no secret I read a lot of children's books...and, well, some of them (considering I have a penchant for old series from the '80s) aren't always the best quality. I mean, that's a can of worms right there (because any book that gets a kid to fall in love with reading is a good book!). But the actual text of some of the stuff I've been re-reading is on the weak side. (I love it, but still.) And as a writer, lately I've been struggling with what I read for fun, and whether it's (perhaps negatively) influencing my writing.

I am a writer who is mostly inspired by other writers -- meaning, reading a fresh poem triggers something in me, or getting lost in a new book makes me rush to finish so I can get back to my own. I have read some ah-mazing books lately -- The Vanishers by Heidi Julavitz, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller...but I've also just come back from vacation, and a few days of illness where I wanted my comfort books, so I've been reading some not-so-complicated books lately, too. (Like my beloved Baby-sitters Clubs.)

There's something to be said for making your brain hurt now and then. So I'm taking this list of the 10 Most Difficult Books from Publishers Weekly (some of which I've read -- but only some) and thinking: do I need a month of "hard" reading? Do we all? Should my reading be about challenging myself, or about comforting myself? What's my role as a reader -- what's my obligation to the world's best authors?

Where should I start?

Vacation blurbs

• 

  A road trip; a house dinner; unpacking; sage burning (because who doesn't need a little cleansing now and then). On the front deck we circled around each other as night fell and tried not to feel awkward as we lit the fat bunch twigs and waited for the smoke to transform us.

• A red crescent moon disappearing over the bay, startling in its speed. We stood on the docks and toasted to the end of the world, because if the moon disappeared like that, surely we would be next.
• Early-morning thwacks of tennis balls on the courts across the street as I ran sunburned hands over my beach towel, hanging over the deck, to test for dampness. It stormed what felt like every night, and in the mornings our bathing suits and the deck chairs still dripped, fat drops falling through the cracks in the deck below our feet.
• One single, perfect beach day, bookended by many great-but-too-humid-or-too-cloudy beach days, where we all sat on the deck tearing up bread and taking our time with a slow breakfast and fast conversation. We got to the beach late, so we stayed later than any other day, long after the lifeguards jumped off their stands and drug their boats back to the dunes; long after everyone else back home was getting ready to leave their offices.
• A club, surrounded by 21 year olds in miniskirts who were trying so hard to be something someone, anyone, noticed. I had a fleeting pang of sympathy for them, because oh my, does life get better once you stop trying to impress everyone.
• Seagulls and snapper turtles and clams under our feet as we paddleboarded out into the bay, getting our sea legs, circling the marshes I'd never before seen up close. I fell in, splashing underwater until I realized it was only thigh-deep.
• The full seven days, which after last year, is all we could ask for.

Turquoise friends

Last week I got a pedicure in a shiny turquoise blue, and today it matches my shirt, and it makes me think of my dear friend K. in London, whom I haven't seen since September. These days I only see her twice a year or so, and even then that's just luck, based on her annual jaunts here and my annual jaunts there. If people are colors, she is turquoise, or aqua, or chlorine blue -- whatever you want to call it. She is bright and clear and smooth and vivid. At her wedding she wore satin turquoise heels and he wore a turquoise bow tie and the bridesmaids wore turquoise dresses and so here I am, 3,000 miles away, thinking of her because of my toes, thinking of the baby's breath in her hair and the bagpipes playing and the walk across the Royal Naval Academy in Greenwich that fine spring day in our heels.

All of the best people in my life, except for my family and a couple of childhood friends, I've met mostly as an adult. Is that normal? Is it a result of having changed so much in the past 15 years of my life, of, to borrow a phrase from a book I'm currently reading (The Vanishers), giving birth to my true self and then willing those people into existence?

As a teenager I couldn't imagine where I'd be in my early thirties. Did I think I would have friends scattered across the world, with accents I'd never heard, with careers and lives and perspectives that make me shine? Did I know things would be this incredible? I mean, is anyone where they thought they'd be, with lives they thought they'd have?

Portraits of a weekend spent unwinding

The pool was greenish and cloudy with a fine coating of dead gnats. In the dark, on the deck, I stepped on the remains of a slug's trail; it wound, dark and wet and fat, across the red wood and down the step onto the cement patio. The power went out at 2am, and I watched the lightning storm, so full of rage it never gave the night sky a chance to be night; so full of rage, it brought down trees and rooftops and cars and people.

But then there were these moments, too: the cheer from the neighborhood when the power kicked back on at noon. A platter of grilled fruit -- pineapple and peaches coated in caramelized sugar, hot from the flames. A clear, blue-er pool where I read half of Summer Sisters, because that's what I do in the pool every summer. B. in the hammock under the shady tree, relaxing in a way I never see him do. My dad on the deck, rockin' out to his iPod Touch (a recent prize) as he read his Kindle Fire (his Father's Day gift). My brother confessing high school indiscretions to my mother.

On the bus ride back to the city, I found $30 in singles someone had tucked in between the seat and the window. Was it some server's nightly earnings? Some runaway's stash? Should I donate it or use it or leave it?

I kept it. It paid for our tickets back home.

"I always wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it."

We're fond of tossing out Fitzgerald quotes like candy at my house, and the title above is a favorite, but I swear, it didn't occur to me until someone pointed it out this past week, on the day of the summer solstice itself, that the problem with summer solstices is that from here on out, the days shrink rather than extend, like summer is over before it's ever even begun. Tonight I was reminded of the NYC blackout of August 2003. Have I ever told you that story? Sometimes it feels like a perfect party trick, like this little ticket stub I keep in my pocket and pull out whenever someone mentions their subway being stuck or how hot the afternoon has grown. "I was at the big game," I can say.

I had taken the day off work and my sister and her friend were visiting. We had big plans for the day and tickets to the Indigo Girls at Central Park Summer Stage that evening. We'd browsed through the Village and then hopped on a train (I want to say it was ACE, but that's just me filling in the blanks) and it was hot, a hot hot heat that left our faces moist as we waited underground. K., my sister's friend, was one of those girls who was highly particular about her face and, quite simply, never touched it. Like, hands on face was off-limits, de facto. (The bitch had beautiful skin.)

So there I stood waiting for a train, wiping sweat off my upper lip and feeling judged by her for doing so, when finally one came, and it was crowded but cool, and it was like the whole platform heaved with relief at the change in temperature.

And then, ten minutes into the train ride, we stopped.

The short version: there was a blackout, city-wide; after 90 minutes we finally saw a conductor who informed us we'd be evacuating; it took another 90 minutes for that to actually happen, for us to stomp through underground tunnels, mice at our feet, hands on cool underground walls that I shudder to think about now, for a firefighter to pull me from a manhole in midtown as people snapped pictures.

I couldn't get home that night -- all the tunnels and bridges were closed to traffic. So we drank in the street -- leave it to New York to turn the day into a party -- and we watched businessmen in suits direct traffic and we assumed the concert had been canceled and we ended up back in my office in Times Square, which was running on a generator, and we played games and used the phone and ate free food from the cafeteria and slept on borrowed couches in executives' offices. Somehow the text I had sent while still stuck underground had gotten through, hours later, telling my mom we were okay, since someone had whispered the word "terrorist" while we were still in the dark train waiting to find out what had happened, and it hung around my brain like a lingering smell of dinner.

We barely slept, and in the hot, gray early morning we hopped on a bus; they were parked on the corners outside of Port Authority, which was still technically closed, and we were just hoping to get through the tunnel back to the Jersey side, since the benefits of a Hoboken apartment include the fact that you are mere steps away from both the Lincoln and Holland. It turns out the buses were all just kind of meandering, shipping people for free over the Hudson and then dumping them in various mall parking lots. So when we got on and got through the Lincoln, I pushed the yellow rope to indicate a stop and the driver's head jerked up.

"Does someone want to get off here?" He called back.

"Yes," I shouted, hoping that was an okay answer.

"Why?" He wondered.

"Um, I live here," I confessed.

"Lucky," my seat neighbor said.

We walked the half a mile back to my apartment, in the same clothes, needing toothbrushes and deodorant but overall, not too much worse for the wear, and discovered my apartment had never even lost power.

It was a free day off work, I remember. And somewhere, people have pictures of me being hoisted out of a manhole on 57th Street, probably aching to wipe the sweat off my upper lip.