Perspective

Boys spark the imagination.

I mean the ones who have only recently become men. The ones who seem unaccostommed to their beards, and the squareness of their shoulders.

I used to try on the skin of their girlfriends. Of the girl who woke up, perhaps, beside that sleepy boy. Or who broke up with the tall, lean one, who always thrust his hands in his pockets. I used to look at a boy's hands, and feel his touch on some other woman's skin.

I would gauge whether he could break her heart.

These days, my vision is stronger. I see into the past, to smaller hands, reaching up. To bike-riding lessons. To playground days and sleepless nights. I see boys as their mothers see them.

From this perspective, you feel the heart break every time.

Why, Revisited

Most of my meta-writing thoughts are about how, rather than why.

Why I write seemed obvious. Because I want to; it makes me happy. Five Lies made me re-consider all that.

Five Lies (which I wrote) was part of the Ottawa Fringe Festival, hence my recent hiatus. We sold out our 35 seat venue (a pub basement) almost every night. The actors and director did an amazing job with our limited space. We got great reviews. Audiences seemed to like the thing.

Each night of our 8-night run, I stood at the back and watched. That was cool.

It just wasn't satisfying.

It wasn't satisfying, I think, because I want to write a novel. Novels have been my friends all my life. I need to produce one. Its just really, really hard. Probably because I care about it so much.

More than I cared about Five Lies.

Back to the drawing board.

Exhaustion

Its been a complex summer. Some of it was good (Bermuda, Muskoka and completely re-decorating my teen daughter's closet). Some of it was bad (won't bore you with that part).

I didn't write. Too exhilarated and empty from my play being staged in June, too tired from the bad stuff and too unsure about which of my 3 unfinished novels to dive into.

I also have a great new novel idea, but four unfinished novels seems promiscuous.

Its my birthday. I did some stock taking, registered for some courses in pleasurable things like felting and pottery. Today I get celebrated by people who love me. That's pretty great.

I was exhausted, but I'm not any more. I feel cleaner. Ready to go. Maybe exhaustion is like a good mental bleach.

I hope so, at least. I'm going with that.

Doing What Comes Naturally

My 12 year old daughter, who has a flair for things artistic, recently told me that she can only write when she's "emotional."

"Why is that?" I asked. She told me that the words only flow when she's wound up about something.

I get this. When I was 12, I wrote only when gripped by unbearably strong emotions. Fortunately, this happened every hour or so. In my twenties, the hormonal storm subsided, along with my productivity.

A lot of what makes writing good - the structuring, the editing, the organizing - is entirely unnatural. It needs to be learned. It can be practiced even when your inspiration is minimal.

If you're no longer 12 (alas!), you can wait a long time for inspiration to flow naturally. When it won't, why not focus on the unnatural stuff? I think of writing exercises as being akin to gardener's work. What's natural may bloom more easily once you've cultivated your skills in an entirely unnatural way.

Rules

As you may have noticed, I love making them up. I'm not as big on following them. Your personality, like mine, is rooted in how you relate to rules.

Ready for a test? Which one of the five answers below best describes you?

Rules are:

1. Helpful guidelines for stupid people;
2. The basis of civilization as we know it;
3. Valuable in direct relation to who made them and why;
4. Always capable of being turned to your advantage;
5. What rules?

Made your pick? OK, here's what you should be writing:

1. Novels
2. Non-fiction
3. Plays
4. Self-help
5. Poetry

Make sense? Good. Remember to send me my commission.

My Youth in Pizza

How many slices? Hundreds? Thousands? Like kisses, few are individually memorable. The Bronx pizzas of my eary childhood are lost in the mists of time. Only a handful (plateful?) of others offer themselves up for recall.

1. Mike's Submarines, Montreal, 1975. I was 11. I had never seen mozza that artificially elastic. Appallingly, I was expected to eat it with a knife and fork. Worse was in store. I had to take off my shoes on entering suburban homes, use a "serviette," and attend a sex-segregated Sunday school. Hello middle-class Canada, good-bye preppy/bohemian NY.

2. Portofino Pizza, Vienna, 1979. 15 years old. My best friend was an orthodox Jew. The pizza wasn't great, but (accidentally) it was kosher. We felt utterly grown up as we sipped our cheap wine. Three topics of conversation (boys, school, the future) in endless rotation.

3. An unnamed counter, Rome, 1981. 18. I threw countless dorm-room parties at my boarding school. As these reached full-tilt, and often just as some boy was starting to hit on me, I'd head out into the cool winter night, wearing my grandfather's green jacket.

The place was 2 blocks up the hill. Standing room for three customers. Two men, shirts pasted to sweat-soaked backs, heaving massive slabs of ai funghi from the ovens. 800 Lira/100 grams. Then I'd go back and let the boy keep hitting on me. This rarely turned out as well as the pizza.

4. Gino's, Kingston, Ontario, 1985. 22. A dozen toppings graced the Gino's special. My boyfriend and I substituted pineapple for sausage, and got anchovies on (my) half. After months of phoning in this order several times a week, we discovered that Gino's was only 2 blocks from campus. Gino was so tickled when we made our first order in person, he gave us free drinks.

That boyfriend has been my husband for 19 years.

There have been many pizzas since. Some were memorable. But you remember the slices of your youth with a sharpness and sweetness that the others never achieve.

Building the Platform

Not so long ago, I was fat. Sixty pounds overweight to be exact.

I hardly even saw it. I assumed that clothes were getting shoddier (and tighter) and that there was something wrong with my haircut.

When I started going to the gym, it was because a half-hour on the stationary bike meant I could watch TV uninterrupted by my 3 year-old.

One half hour. Three or four times a week. At the pace of a senior citizen.

After three years of this, I got a trainer. I ignored half of what she recommended.

But I did the other half. Three or four times a week.

A few more years passed.

I wasn't fit. I wasn't strong. I was still fat. But I was ready. I had built the platform.

When a rare lull at work let me go to the gym every day, the scale started to move. So I trimmed my intake, just a bit. In a year, I lost 40 lbs. 20lbs more went in the next few months.

Without the platform, I never could have done that. Five years where I got little to no results, except for the pleasure of dropping by the gym, watching the tube, and showering in peace.

The Lessons:

1. Keep writing, undettered by a slow pace and barely adequate performance.

2. Make it a pleasure. Otherwise you'll quit. All that slow work you've done on your platform will be lost. Write about what you like, when you like.

Don't worry about progress, as long as you're showing up at your desk at regular intervals.

Just like the lull at my work, your great opportunity may be coming. Make sure your platform is ready when it does.