Rachael

Yep. I quit drawing. 

And it feels so good. I sent out a whole tiny letter about how I wouldn't quit drawing every day, that I'd made that commitment and that's what I would do, because I finished things. 

But lord a'mighty, I didn't WANT to keep drawing for 365 days. I hit Day 188 and dug my heels in for the last time. I complained on Twitter, because what else is Twitter for? 

And several very smart people pointed this out to me: If drawing were an item in my house which I was holding in my hands, trying to figure out if it sparked joy (The KonMari method), I would answer no, it didn't. I liked drawing while I was doing it, sure. It was fun to move the pencil, to color things in, to see a completed 2D version of something that had come through my eyes and hand. 

But did the thought of having to draw spark joy in me? No way. It brought dread. God, another day to have to draw something. 

And this year is about letting go of things that don't spark joy like fireworks and cream cheese frosting.

I realized I was in it for the finish line. A year after starting the project, I'd be able to say I drew for 365 days in a row! THAT was all I was after. I wanted the right to say that. 

What?!

That–being able to say that single sentence, to myself or anyone else– was not enough. Not even close. 

I do things this way, sometimes. I'm impetuous (yes, I'm admitting it). I like to hit finish lines, even ones chosen rather arbitrarily. I ran a marathon once (twice). I love writing "The End" in my books. I adore meeting a challenge. 

But this wasn't my challenge. I'm not an artist. I don't actually want to be one. I do still like drawing, very much. I'll keep it up. But I won't require it of myself. It's good for me to require myself to meditate daily, to floss, to run (I signed up for a 5k! I'm doing Couch to 5k again!). Those are things that will help me daily, things that will bring joy because I'll have a healthier mind and body, so it's okay if I don't jump for joy thinking about buying floss sticks (although I sure do like a ramble through a drug store). 

Drawing daily wasn't for me. I thought I'd be embarrassed to tell you. Strangely, I'm not. I'm actually the opposite; I'm a little proud of myself for 'fessing up. (If you want to see the progress, you can look at the Flickr set here.)

This one of Virginia Woolf is my favorite, I think: 

(Also, get this in regards to health: I just got off the phone with the doc – after testing, I've learned I have apnea! I didn't know you could have apnea without snoring! My biggest migraine trigger is lack of sleep and for years, I've woken at least three or four times an hour while sleeping. What if helping this helped my migraines? DUDE. I don't go in for a consult for another five weeks, though.) 

So. What habit are you trying to start (or dump)? 

(Winner of Haven Lake from last post is Kelli – you've been emailed!) 

I'm SO pleased to tell you about my friend, Holly Robinson. She's a gorgeous writer and a fellow Penguin NAL writer. She wrote my favorite blurb for Splinters of Light. Because of that, I wrote to introduce myself and thank her for taking that time, and we fell immediately in friend-love, and now I'm keeping her for myself! (I swear this is true: I appropriated her as a friend before I learned she lives half-time in Prince Edward Island. I am SO crashing at her house someday.) 

BOOK GIVEAWAY – Penguin sent me a copy of the book that I'm going to send to some lucky commenter! Please ignore the fact that my terrible, awful mailman sailed it over the fence into a stand of weeds and the cover is a wee bit wrinkled. Damn his eyes. (I'll also be sending another copy (not mine or wrinkled- I'm keeping my precious signed one*) to someone subscribed to my email list next week, so make sure you're signed up there, too!)

Hi Holly!

You wonderful smart thing, you. I loved Haven Lake and I'm thrilled to ask you a few questions about it. You know me – I love that it incorporates SHEEP and KNITTING. (You even have a knitting male teen!) You say you're a beginning knitter – what's been your favorite part of learning so far? (I bet no one else has asked you this!)

 Thanks, Rachael—and thank you for having me on your wonderful site. What a treat! You're right: nobody has ever asked me this particular question, but it's an easy one to answer. I started knitting a few years ago, when a new friend invited me to her Wednesday night “Knit night.” The invitation came via a phone call, and because lice was rampant in our elementary school at that time, naturally I thought she meant “Nit night,” as in, we would check each other for nits! When we got through THAT little conversational hurdle, I told this new friend that I didn't know how to knit and would probably stab myself in the eye with a needle or something. She convinced me to come, finally, by saying, “We have lots of wine.” I've been knitting ever since. My favorite part of learning to knit is that it has given me opportunities to meet and chat with women of all ages. Our own knitting group has women ages thirty to sixty-five. I also go for extra help sessions (yes, I'm a slow learner) to our local library, where they have a Monday night knitting help session run by women in their seventies and eighties. Listening to other people's stories has always inspired me as a writer, and knitting brings so many great life stories my way.

I will seriously never think of Knit (Nit) Night the same way again.

Your main character Sydney is a therapist, and a good one. Did this require a lot of research? (I always put research off till the end. Are you a procrastinate-by-researching writer or a panicked-at-the-end kind, like me?)

 Thanks for that! Sydney's career is one I might have pursued if I hadn't become a writer. I started out wanting to be a doctor—picture me in a multi-pocketed Safari vest, trotting around villages in Africa with a miracle cure—and didn't discover my passion for writing fiction until I was about to graduate from college. (You can imagine my father's reaction when I said I wanted to forget medical school and be a writer.) Anyway, I've had five children to get through school, and along the way, I've occasionally needed help from therapists like Sydney to figure out what's going on with them. One of my best friends is actually an educational psychologist, and she was very generous in sharing stories with me, too, so the research was actually more like fun conversations over wine. (Do you detect a theme in my answers?) In general, the research I do for my books tends to be hands-on; for instance, in order to write the sections about raising sheep, I actually contacted a shepherdess in New Hampshire, the wonderful artist Wendy Ketchum, who let me come see her Icelandic herd and talk to her about what it takes to live that kind of life.

Catherine Friend! You mention her at the end of your book. Isn't she great? I adore her. That's not a question. I just thought I'd mention it. 🙂

Yes! I've read all of Catherine's books, and in my fantasy life, she calls me up to say she likes Haven Lake, and we become pals! (Over glasses of wine, naturally.)  An anecdote in her book Sheepish inspired one of the key early scenes with Hannah trying to retrieve an escaped lamb—if you've read that book, you'll know which one.

DUDE. I loved that book. I knew that scene reminded me of something, and now I know why! Ha! 

I'm flattering myself when I say that I think our writing voices are similar, that both of us go deeply into complex characters, and that both of us enjoy exploring all aspects of love. Whatcha think?

Absolutely. When I read Splinters of Light, I was brought to my knees emotionally several times throughout the story of Nora grappling with her illness and trying to imagine how her daughter Ellie will cope. What struck me most about your novel was how adeptly you managed the voices—and complex interior lives—of both mother and daughter. Plus, you never lost that spark of humor that saved the book from being maudlin. Your imagery was also stunning throughout—I often feel that novelists today rush their work and don't take the time to truly describe settings in a way that will transport readers. Oh, and I admire how you write about love: the love between mother and child, between sisters, between romantic partners. You do it all with tenderness and class in Splinters of Light. I'm flattered that you think our voices are similar. I think of my novels as “emotional family mysteries” because there is always some dark family secret (or several) that the characters need to discover and understand before they can resolve their emotional conflicts. Like you, I hope to create characters who are complex, imperfect people grappling with issues. I hope that, by the end of each of my novels, readers feel they have been both entertained and enlightened as they accompany my characters on their journeys of self-discovery and love.

NOW I FEEL REALLY FLATTERED. Thank you, friend.  

Novelist, journalist and celebrity ghost writer Holly Robinson is the author of several books, including The Gerbil farmer's Daughter: A Memoir and the novels The Wishing Hill, Beach Plum Island and Haven Lake. Her articles and essays appear frequently in publications such as Cognoscenti, The Huffington Post, More, Parents, Redbook and dozens of other newspapers and magazines. She and her husband have five children and a stubborn Pekingese. They divide their time between Massachusetts and Prince Edward Island, and are crazy enough to be fixing up old houses one shingle at a time in both places. Find her at www.authorhollyrobinson.com and on Twitter @hollyrob1.

Leave a comment to enter the drawing, and I'll randomly draw a winner next week. Alternately, tweet or FB a link to this post and tag me to enter, as well, if that's more your style. And someone on my mailing list will win another copy, too!

(Winner of the Elizabeth Haynes thriller is the darling RedSilvia! I swear I'll get it into the mail tomorrow!) 

 * Holly sent me a signed copy. And get this: it was her first copy. Authors, if you ever think to do this, you should. Sending your very first copy to a writer friend? Tears will happen, I promise. We get it. 

** Amazon affiliate links provided in this post because MAMA JUST PAID OFF HER STUDENT LOAN DOING SHIT LIKE THIS, BAM. 

Dude. 

You guys, Into the Darkest Corner is SO GOOD. When I'm writing (really writing, writing hard), I find I can't read within my own genre, so I depart from it. Right now that means I'm reading mostly memoir and thrillers. This one? Oooh, this is the best I've read in so long. 

Set in London, it's the story of Cathy, who loved a bad guy. No spoilers. You know this from the first page. There's no mystery as to who the bad guy is. It's Lee. He's bad. He's beyond bad, he's just awful. And somehow, Elizabeth Haynes (a fellow NaNoWriMo'er!) manages to make the novel completely spell-binding and page-turning. I read it in a day and a half, which is fast for me. Well written,  emotionally satisfying, and scary enough to make you leave the lights on, I HIGHLY recommend it. 

And, because I'm not keeping books anymore, I'll send my own copy (purchased at the wonderful Murder By the Book in Houston, grab one there if you don't win) to one lucky commenter. Tell me your favorite thriller? Or just say hi. Either is a valid entry. I'll draw the winner on Wednesday. OH MY GOD and I'll DRAW the WINNER on WEDNESDAY. Seriously. I'll do a sketch of whoever wins, if she'd like me to. Heh.

PS – I'm sending out my tinyletter later today with a confession and I'm giving away the new Gretchen Rubin book. Make sure you're signed up! 

PPS – Ah! I was looking at Elizabeth Haynes's bio page, and I've already read and loved Human Remains (SUPER grisly and awesome). I'm her newest (and not-so-new, apparently) biggest fan!

The launch party for the newly released Splinters of Light was exactly that. A launch party.

First of all, my hair did me right last night. It’s amazing what hairspray can do when you buy it for the first time in twenty-five years.

Second, we went to Forbes Island, which is flipping nuts. It’s a floating man-made “island” just off Pier 39 in San Francisco. Old Mr. Forbes lived there for 35 years (while he moored it out in the Bay) before he pulled it up next to the sea lions sixteen years ago and turned it into a restaurant.

It has a special place in my heart when it comes to sisters — my sisters and I went there last year, and we all fell in love with it. I put an important sister scene in that same restaurant in Splinters of Light–Nora feels the roots of her love grow right through the water into the silt below, ready to hold her family in place, no matter what.

So it was natural I wanted to go there to celebrate the book’s release. (I had an involved fantasy about inviting everyone I knew and loved, actually having a real, open-house launch party with a book signing and flowing wine, but dude! I looked up the price! Six friends it is!)

First, we got on the cable car at Powell Street.

I may have strong feelings about the cable car. I mean, I love it. It was a gorgeous evening, the sky was that bright blue of a city night, and the full moon hung low over Coit Tower. Completely perfect.

Sophie and I were thrilled to be hanging off the back.

Me and my girls.

THEN GET THIS PART!

We took the launch to Ye Olde Crazy “Island.” We boarded and went into the dark, romantic, slightly-creepy-in-a-carnival-ride-way restaurant, and the host spoke to me from the gloom:

Grab it Now!

I’ve had a minimalism revelation.

I’ll never get there.

(Duh, right? I’m always the last the know.) 

The idea itself? Is awesome. Essentialism (a better term for my way of doing all this culling than minimalism) has been saving me money, something I hadn’t realized until recently. Example! Normally, when confronted with a new-to-me coffee device (Aeropress!) I would buy it, hoping for a revelatory coffee experience that would part the heavens and pour sweet caffeine over me in a non-wasteful drip-irrigation method. Then I really thought about it, and what it meant in terms of what I've been striving for. We have four other coffee making methods in my house: the pot, which is used everyday; the French press, which Lala loves; the Moka caffettiera, which I love; and a Melita drip filter which comes in handy all the time. 

All of these we use. All of these bring us joy. We’re keeping all of them. These are our “essentials.” But I certainly don’t need another one. So I spent a couple of hours happily reading coffee maker reviews, and then I closed the browser tab, satisfied. (BOY, do I love reading reviews online, especially of luggage*. It’s a thing.) 

This is what I've been doing: getting rid of the extras. I've been tossing the things I'd kept because I thought I had to (misplaced sentimentality) or because I would need them (even though I never have and won't). I have much less now (and there's more to go! I'm going into the bedroom closet soon! That space is a horror show!). 

We have extra. We don't need extra. But getting rid of it isn't simplifying my life. 

See, I was heading down the path of minimizing hoping desperately that when I got there—when my office was empty of everything except space and light and the few things I love best—I would finally not be overwhelmed by choice. I'm pretty much there. The only two books I have on my bookshelf right now are Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson because it's the most perfect book ever written, and Bread and Jam for Frances because it's the second best book ever.

But I still have so much to read that sometimes it's hard to choose what to sit down with.

I wanted to minimize to reduce choice. Isn’t that a ridiculous luxury? How entitled is that? I have so very much that I want help in narrowing down the things I spend my time on. I am, quite frankly, irritated with myself that I thought I could effect this change outwardly. Silly me. 

It's not going to change. If I sit in my office with one book and nothing else, I'll still have to make the choice between reading and napping and meditating and going bzzzzzzzzzzzz with my lips until my face is numb. Choosing, the stressful part, is sticking around. 

I’ve been approaching it from the wrong direction. Or, at least, it’s been a direction that wasn’t quite right. I wanted to make things be simpler in my life by eliminating clutter. I got rid of books I wasn't going to read and yarn I wasn't going to knit. That has absolutely helped me by making my surroundings quieter and less stressful. 

But nothing can make life simpler. It’s messy and cluttered and busy and frantic and overwhelming, and that’s just the way it is. Sometimes. 

Other times, when you sit with that feeling and just let it wash over you, not trying to do anything about it, not getting mad at the feeling or yourself, it gets pretty damn simple. I really like this post by Leo Babauta: You're Not Doing Life Wrong. 

I will never get all the interesting articles on the internet read. I will never catch up on Twitter or Facebook. I will never just look around the house and think, Oh, nothing else to do but rest. 

I have to choose to rest. To read. To make. (I don't choose to write–I not only have to but I have to, you know?) 

And that's a gift, really. That I get to choose. I'm grateful for it. 

Oh, speaking of what I've been reading, I've really enjoyed The Map of Enough: One Woman's Search for Place by Molly May (affil link). A self-proclaimed nomad, May finds out what it's like to grow roots as she builds a yurt in the middle of winter. She has a gorgeous way with language, and I'm sad that I'm almost done with it.

* Oh, man, luggage. I think my obsession with packing for trips possibly began with Frances! The way she packs her lunch at the end! I also love salt like she does! Or more! 

** Suddenly, I find myself going to Scotland in May. DUDE. All I can think about is packing for the week in my half-sized suitcase which I love even more than salt. I'm so excited!