I spent March In-Between: in between Winter and Spring, in between long drives, in between revisions, in between visits, in between finishing one book and promoting its prequel, in between apartments, in between traveling and building a home, in between one chapter of my life and the next.
(Wow, you know when you write a word so many times that it starts to look foreign, like maybe you haven't spelled it right. That just happened to me and "between." :-P)
It's not a bad place, but it's definitely busy - and not exactly full of interesting activities.
But today, because I was driving down from Seattle and my mind had a little mental free time, I thought about how many stories have In-Betweens, especially in fantasy and scifi. A place, a portal, or a passage, which is the dividing line between one thing and the other.
For example, Lucy and her siblings must go through the wardrobe to reach Narnia in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Found the image here, but I think the illustration credit goes to Pauline Baynes.
But my favorite In-Between place from C. S. Lewis is the "Wood Between the Worlds" in The Magician's Nephew, an in-between place filled with trees and with small pond-like pools. Each pool took you to a different world; all you had to do was jump in it.
In The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland (In a Ship of Her Own Making), September passes through the Closet Between Worlds to reach Fairyland.
From "The Beast Below" - a.k.a. one of my favorite episodes.
You could argue that the Doctor's Tardis is an In-Between (you could also argue that it's a vehicle, though; or if you've watched Series 6, she might also be a person). But it's there at the beginning and end of every adventure.
The In-Between in Spirited Away is the abandoned amusement park Chihiro and her parents stumble upon, and I love the way it felt magic even before any of the creatures appeared.
Alice has her rabbit hole, and her looking glass. Both In-Betweens take her to Wonderland.
Harry Potter's In-Between is the Platform 9 3/4.
Even The Ever Afters has In-Betweens - the first of them is an ordinary red door, which takes Rory to Ever After School for the first time and changes her life forever.
Storytellers love In-Between places. That's where the end of something familiar touches the beginning of something new. They mean change, and change almost always means conflict. Conflict means story.
That's where I am right now. I'm in the middle of a lot of change. I'm sure I've passed through In-Between months before, but this time, I noticed it happening. I paid attention, took notes - I'll use it as book fodder someday.
Right now, here In Between, I'm too close to my story to be able to tell it properly.
So, yesterday was kind of a bleak day. For no real reason.
The Japanese Garden in Washington Park,
which I explored on the gloriously sunny Sunday.
Sunday was awesome. Portland was warm. It was sunny. It was like spring. I walked around Washington Park and wrote ten pages of a fun, unpublishable project completely unrelated to The Ever Afters. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.
Then yesterday hit with a case of the Mondays. It was raining, like Portland has been known to do (I've been in denial about the amount of precipitation in the Pacific Northwest, but I think that cured it). I drove around and got lost and tried to visit a cafe I found on yelp, but it was mysteriously closed. I watched my phone for emails and didn't get any.
Like I said, no real reason.
But I was in such a funk. Kind of overwhelmed by life, and wondering if I had made a terrible mistake. Kind of wishing that I hadn't driven across the country for the adventure of it, I wanted to be home. Well, I wanted to be someplace where someone I know could give me a giant hug.
I have a point, I promise. I'm not just complaining.
And then, 9 o'clock rolls around. I shut down all my freelance work for the night, take a shower, and can't decide what to do. I decide to read a chapter of Shannon Hale's Midnight in Austenland, go to bed early, and hope tomorrow would be kinder.
I bet you know where this is going now.
Highly recommended on all fronts. :-)
Yeah, I stayed up reading until the wee hours of the morning. I finished the book. I was giddy with how much I enjoyed it. The pure, unexpected joy of reading something for pleasure, getting caught up in a story totally removed from my own.
Somewhere between Chapter 3 and the last page, my mood had totally reversed. I was no longer worried about finding a place to live, or finding another job, or when I'm going to find the time to get my website up, or what exactly my personal marketing plan for Of Giants and Ice should be. I wasn't even too concerned about what I was doing with my life. The future made me feel hopeful. I was glad to be where I am, life-wise, and locale-wise, and totally excited that my college roommate will fly over to visit me on Thursday.
Now, I'm not totally sure why this happened. Maybe it was just a cause of the Mondays; maybe they eased as soon as I read straight into the wee hours of Tuesday. But I also hadn't finished reading a book for fun for almost two weeks, which usually only happens when I'm under deadline.
Is it possible to be addicted to reading like some people are addicted to exercise? Like, did my body not get its weekly dose of book endorphins???
It's possible. After seeing how many books I read last year, I decided to read FEWER books this year. In 2012, I wanted to do more living than reading (mainly because I feel like the opposite happened in 2011). With my road-trip adventure in place, this turned out to a goal that was easy to achieve.
But I guess last night was a reminder - Don't lock yourself in stupid policies. Read if you freaking want to read. It's one of your favorite things.
I don't think I've mentioned this yet: I'm traveling up the West Coast, trying to find a place I want to live.
Disclaimer: these pics don't have much to do with this post, except for the journeying trope.
One of my favorite scenes in Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre is this one in the very beginning - where Jane is running away from Rochester.
Sounds very straightforward when I put it that way, doesn't it? It almost seems like I have a plan. This is not precisely true. It's a weird nomadic sort of life. I don't know precisely where I'll be sleeping a week and a half from now, and most people find that a very frightening thought. Actually, sometimes, I find that very frightening.
NOTE: Life is scary. And amazing. The trick is learning how to let it be both at the same time.
Living my life this way seems insane to most people. I'm fully aware of that, and I've just figured out why it makes perfect sense to me:
I've always justified my crazy-seeming actions. I'm used to it.
Jane finds herself at the crossroads, and she tries to figure out where to go. But she has a problem: she knows that Rochester will look for her and search these paths.
A: Yes, it'll look great on my college applications.
(Note to young readers: If you want to do unusual stuff, I highly recommend this excuse. But then you should actually use it in your college apps. I did, and I got into a great school.)
A: Yes. I've talked about becoming a writer since kindergarten. When else will I get a chance to learn the industry from the inside?
So, eventually Jane decides to ditch the roads and cut across the moors.
THE MOST RECENT EXAMPLE
Q: What? You want to give up your hardwon, well-placed job in New York and try to get published? In this terrible economy?
A: Yes. Unfortunately, the noise and energy of New York have given me insomnia, which has led to some unforeseen health problems. I need to move to recover.
Now, the answers I gave were not the whole answer. But what can we glean here?
#1. Where there is great risk, there will always be naysayers.
#2. I take risks. (But honestly, so do we all. I just didn't realize how many gambles I've taken with my whole life in the past ten years.)
#3. You can get naysayers off your backs by framing an answer around something most people value - education, career, and health.
Talk about the road less traveled. The moors are basically the wilderness. Nice, sheltered, educated young governesses just don't trot off into the wilderness on their own. It's just not done.
I love this scene in the book too, btw.
But I don't have a ready-made excuse this time.
My reasons are the same reasons I had for the above examples, the reasons that I didn't say outloud: I want to. It'll be a great experience. I've been talking about it for years.
And one more, which is even harder to define: It feels like the right thing to do.
Yes, it is probably insane. That doesn't make it unnecessary.
I am twenty-five. Both of my jobs can travel with me on my laptop. I know that I won't always have the opportunity to be so nomadic. I also know that if I don't do this, one day, decades from now, when I have children, a mortgage, and other responsibilities, I will wish I did.
The great and scary thing is, I'm not required to explain myself to anyone anymore. That's the benefit of being a grown-up.
Brace yourself for some cheese-tasticness, folks: I try to live my life the way my characters do. I try to be true to myself, and as cliche as it sounds, I am following my heart.
Those decisions? The ones that seemed nuts? They're the ones I appreciate the most.
Have you noticed that I've been kind of...quiet lately? Online, I mean.
Well, two major items have filled my waking hours this month:
I moved. I'm in California's Bay area now, like the place I've been talking about relocating to since I started this blog. My mom and I actually drove out here from North Carolina. It was pretty epic. (I'll blog about it later, mainly because it will give me an excuse to post some awesome pictures.)
I've owed Joanna a new draft of Ever After 2 since Christmas. I did part of my revision when I was in Montana for Christmas, part of it on the road, and part of it when I arrived here in Berkeley.
This is Red Rocks Park in Arizona, pic taken in car. Ten points if you can spot the ghost of the ms literally looming over this scene! (It was on the dashboard.)
Yesterday, I finally finished and sent it back in.
My immediate thoughts were: Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!! I have free time again! I can sleep in! Read books! Explore the area!! Do research for my next project!!!
Less than an hour later, when the euphoria ebbed slightly, a few other facts sank in:
I just moved. To someplace far, far away from everything familiar in my life.
I only have one job. (But it's an awesome job. So awesome that I was tempted to write I don't have a job - it seems too cool to be work.)
I don't have a plan.
I don't have a long term apartment.
I don't even have a place to stay past next Tuesday.
Some people might call this "reality," but I tend not to like those people.
Anyway, I had a brief freak out. That's natural when you realize you've made a change you can't back out of. You second guess yourself no matter how long you've been talking about taking the action you just took.
But I realized something. - This is exactly what my 2012 resolution is all about.
Have I mentioned my New Year's resolution yet? I don't think so. It's not really a typical one. It's more like a mental habit I want to work on - something that will make my brain a more enjoyable place to be. I did a similar thing last year, which actually made my brain a more comfortable place.
Here my resolution for 2012:
Life is a journey. You can't control where you are. You can only control what direction you're heading. Enjoy the whole trip.
Yeah, I know. It's a long one. And also the kind of thing you would see embroidered on your favorite grandma's pillow amidst cute thread-stitched kittens.
2011, for me, was marked with impatience and frustration. Most of it stemmed from me being dissatisfied with where I was - whether that be how far I was in a revision/draft, how much blogging I'd accomplished, the place I was living, and being impatient to move onto the next stage.
Here's the underlying belief that caused both the impatience and frustration: that if I reached --insert some sort of achievement here--, then I would finally be happy.
Here's the truth: I will always be able to freak out about something, to be dissatisfied with something.
True Story: I found this in Books-a-Million last October.
It made me laugh and send it to my best friend. Great book too - The House of Spirits sparked an Isabel Allende reading frenzy for a whole semester in high school.
But honestly, I have a great life. I'm reasonably healthy (although I would appreciate not being allergic to half the planet). I drive my favorite car in the entire universe - past, present, and probably future. I have my dream job.
Also, I only get one life. Okay, unless I'm reincarnated, which might be cool. But definitely, only one life as Shelby Bach. I need to enjoy it RIGHT NOW. I need to appreciate even the stuff that scares me, because the only constant thing about life is change. I won't always have this.
So, this move - It's something I want. This is something I've wanted for a long time.
Exhibit A, evidence that I've wanted this for a while: This map has been hanging in my bedroom for the past year, reminding me where I want to go. (It was a gift from a very dear friend.)
I am going to enjoy it.
Because it will only happen once.
And I've basically decided to just have an awesome life. :-)
(Ignore the 1.'s below. This started out as a regular Friday Five post, but when the journal idea grew and grew, Blogger didn't want to give up its numbers.)
I didn't always keep a journal, but I always liked the idea of writing in them and feeling all writerly. As a kid, I would start them and then forget them. One, which I started during spring break in third or fourth grade, starts with a detailed and earnest catalog of all the seashells I found on the beach that day, and ends three pages later.
Those are the seashells, fyi - in between my brother, sister, and me. (I'm the one in the blue nightgown.)
Then, during my senior year of high school, my homeroom teacher made me read Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones and Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, and one of these (not sure which anymore) said that the best way to keep yourself writing was to make sure you always had a journal. Even if you didn't have time to write short stories constantly, or (gasp!) novels, you could put something down on paper and keep your creative juices moving around in the right way without the pressure.
I was quite taken with this idea. Suddenly, I became a dedicated journal carrier, and I haven't ever looked back. I don't know if they actually do help my writing, but they've become a necessity - part confessional, part travelogue, part chronicle of all the changes in my life (even crises that I eventually forget ever happened). I write almost daily, and on days I don't write in them, I feel flat and strange. Re-reading these journals are amazingly helpful when I want to draw on personal experience. I have a terrifically terrible memory, especially for hard times, so rereading my angst helps me recognize ALL of what I felt at that particular moment.
I'll finish my current journal probably in the next week, the same journal I started on the day I started this blog - Thursday, August 20, 2009. Just in case you're wondering why this is an accomplishment, take a look:
It's mammoth (500 pages, I think). Here's a side view - each Post-it represents the start of a new month.
Inside, the pages are lined like graph paper, so my handwriting ends up being neat and tiny. (This is important. I'm vain about my handwriting.)
But it's not all filled with my own notes. Sometimes I cheat and tape in printouts of new discoveries I want to keep.
For instance, here is J.K. Rowling's 2008 Harvard Commencement Address, "The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination." I had heard of this speech, but I hadn't seen or read it. (If you haven't, you SHOULD. She's self-deprecating and inspiring and generally full of awesome.) The handwriting on the side are my comments, ie. personal response.
Okay, I've also gotten smaller, skinnier, and more colorful journals and finished them happily in a few weeks. In fact, this particular kind of journal - which hails from a fancy Spanish stationer, and which I buy from my local chain bookstore - only gets toted around during certain times in my life.
The special events, the big changes, where I want to keep a record of all the transitions in one place, and I know that finishing it, I'm not the same girl-woman/writer/person I was when I began at page one. So far, I've started these behemoths only three times - the first week of studying at Oxford University during junior year of college, the summer after I graduated from college, and most recently, the day I left my job in New York and began life as a writer.
I don't think a lot is going to happen in the next week, so as I glance at the opening pages, I'll just share a few ways I've changed:
I'm less terrified and more sure of myself and my path. When I left New York, I wasn't completely positive that I was doing the right thing. The only thing I was sure about was that I couldn't continue the way I was going. Now, the future feels a little less like stumbling in the dark and more like chasing the light at the end of the tunnel.
I know a heck of a lot more about my current writing process, which includes revisions. The last novel I wrote before my current WIPs, I finished in August 2006, and revising those chapters was basically re-reading them for typos. Dedicating myself to turning a first draft into the best novel it can be is totally different. For one thing, it's a lot slower than I thought.
Related to my speed, I am beginning to realize my limitations as a writer. Not so much the quality of my writing, which can only improve and improve, but the volume of work. As it turns out, I can't do everything. Which means, at some point, I'll have to learn to say no - even to myself.
Leaving New York, I had this vision of myself, living alone in a small town and just knocking out huge chunks of work. Now that I made that vision a reality, I realize that it doesn't work. In short spurts, it's hugely productive - that's how I finished two manuscripts in a month. As a lifestyle, I end up tweeting and blogging about the weather, because that's the most exciting thing happening at the time. Living like that long-term (ie. longer than a few months) isn't going to work out.
At first, I called changing my life an act of desperation, but desperation has turned into determination, a daily routine of stubbornness. I haven't yet figured out if this is an improvement or not. I'll let you know after the next journal.
(Wow, look at that - this ended up being a Friday Five after all. :-P)
I don't mean to talk about the weather all the time (especially after about a week of radio silence), but I kind of can't get over it.
On April Fool's Day, ie. two weeks after spring officially started, I walked out to my car, and I found this:
Which is basically my car buried under 14 inches of snow. No joke.
Although I was tempted to go accuse my neighbors of messing with my head, I didn't, because I realized the snow might have a little something to do with the blizzard I saw outside my window the day before:
(Okay, so with this bad video quality, you can't see the actual snow. However, all that noise is the howling wind. The wind gusts got up to about eighty miles per hour that night. :-o)
Since then, not a day has passed without fresh snow.
the view out my window yesterday
This may be the last winter I spend in a place where winter doesn't seem to end, but right now, I don't mind it much. I've been telling people that I'm using this time in Montana as a winter writer's retreat, and since it still looks like winter, I don't have any trouble buckling down and getting to my desk every day. I know that if it were warm, I would be tempted to take a book outside and drowse in the sun rather than tackle that day's to-do list.
Sooooo, the intense weather is actually a big help, because I have plenty to do this month: revisions for two separate manuscripts, and one Intellectual Property for a five-book middle grade series. I told myself that my writer's retreat can't end until I get these things knocked out. (enter determined face here)
Then a friend of mine who lives in DC sent me this picture to remind me that spring is sprung in most of the world.
Then there was jealousy.
Suddenly, I have the itch again. The itch to move. It won't happen for a while. The HUGE to-do list mentioned stands between me and other plans at the moment, but it won't forever. Then I will need to find a new destination.
I don't remember very much of what the keynote speaker said at my college graduation, but one thing stuck with me: Find a place you want to live, and then find a job in that place.
That may seem a little backward. Many decisions to move are based on finding a new job elsewhere, especially in this economy. But I'm starting to think that the speaker's way is more helpful in the long run.
For example, the first place I lived after graduation was New York City. I wanted a job in publishing, and that was where many great jobs in publishing were.
However, New York was never my cup of tea. Raised in the South, I didn't grow up taking field trips into NYC like many kids from the Tri-State area do. In fact, despite attending college in upstate New York, I didn't visit the City even once until the spring of my sophomore year. It was a fun trip, but it was also noisy and dirty and a little too hectic for me to be completely comfortable. I remember telling my mom that I would never live in New York after graduation, unlike most Vassar grads.
Cue Senior Year. Suddenly, there's a class-wide freak-out about employment, which I joined. Since I was an English major, many people commented, "What are you going to do with that? Teach?" (Not my parents, though - they're awesome.) I was determined to prove them wrong.
There was also this little thing called editorial that I had wanted to try ever since I learned that there was a job where you get paid to read and make books.
And where were most of those editor jobs? New York.
Thus, the road into New York started getting paved with very lucky twists of fate:
Without any prior experience, I secured a spring-semester internship at a publishing house. I became Queen of the Slush Pile. It was no match for my quick typing skills. (This was probably why it was easier for me not to take rejections too hard. At this point in my life, I've written more of them than I have actually received. With this kind of karma, I have been bracing myself for years now.)
One of my very best friends from high school moved to New York, which meant that I had a great roommate all ready to go.
I was accepted into a prestigious publishing program, where I learned a lot from big industry names and met tons of people who geeked out over books just as much as I did. (Gasp! I thought it was impossible.)
My new roomie and I signed for our first apartment in the way, way Upper East Side.
I was lucky enough to be hired for an editorial assistant position in children's publishing at the end of summer, and for many many months, I loved my job.
Everything slipped into place so easily that it felt a little like Destiny. Dreams were coming true.
But I still didn't love New York.
I got used to it. I blocked out the noise with my iPod. I hated the price of groceries, but I loved Pinkberry (pomegranate is the BEST!!). I hated the subway, but I loved being able to walk to everywhere. I hated the crowds, but I loved the Strand. I wasn't all that fond of my neighborhood, but I knew where to find fantastic nighttime views:
I picked out favorite places in Central Park, which I visited often.
Still, my job was far-and-away the best part of my NY life. I enjoyed even the menial tasks (ie. answering epic amounts of fan mail for one of our authors), and I was incredibly fond of everyone I worked with. When I was at work, I felt like I was in the right place, and doing the right thing.
That stopped pretty much as soon as I left the office.
Then I started realizing that I wasn't getting used to New York. I was coping with it, and at a certain point, all my coping mechanisms didn't work any more.
New York is known as "The City that Never Sleeps." My body took this very literally. After a few months, I couldn't unwind the way I needed to. By summer, I was averaging about four to six hours of sleep every night, which is never good for anyone's health. Finally, after many (literally) sleepless nights and quite a few sick days, I had to resign my position and start a new life elsewhere (as well as this blog, actually).
MORAL OF THE STORY: If you feel like you don't like a place when you first go there, you probably don't like it. You may be able to trick yourself into thinking that you can deal with it, but there may be some unforeseen consequences, ie. insomnia.
Now, I don't mean to hate on New York. Plenty of people are very happy there, and I've noticed that if you live in the outer boroughs, you're more likely to settle there for the long-haul. It just wasn't a place for me. I couldn't make a home there.
And although Montana is great place for writer winter's retreats (and I get plenty of sleep), I'm beginning to realize that this too isn't the place for me to settle indefinitely. (There is such a thing as too isolated for the long-term.)
A change is coming. As a writer, I'm lucky enough to be able to take my job with me wherever I go. As a very young person with no dependents, I have the luxury of making a decision on personal inclination without worry about the effect my choices will have on others. The next stop is coming up.
Actually, I think beaches might be in my future...
Since I started this blog on the day that I started my new life, that means that exactly six months have passed since I left New York and moved to Charlotte. That is definitely a reason to celebrate, especially since the following has happened since I made that huge life-change:
I connected with my fantastic agent J. (And someday, I'll stop mentioning her in every post.... :-P)
I read 80 books, believe it or not. I almost don't believe it, but since I was curious about exactly how many books I read in a year, I started keeping a list in the back of my journal.
Looking at this list, I have to admit that things are going well in my new life. Unbelievably well.
I don't know why things are going so well. I've wanted to be a writer since I was in kindergarten, but lots of people chase life-long dreams. I might just pass off my good luck as an upturn after five years of crummy life experiences, but several of my friends have faced rough times recently. I would say that I've been hard-working, but I know plenty of hardworking people who are struggling right now.
Maybe Enzo (from The Art of Racing in the Rain, one of those 80 books I read) says it best: "Your car goes where your eyes go."
When I left New York, I was already imagining what it would be like to be an author - both like and unlike the authors I knew as an editorial assistant. Once I had the contract, I was envisioning the writing and the revising of the manuscripts. When I finished the first round of revisions and began the querying process, I was already daydreaming about meeting my agent and discussing career plans with her.
I did doubt myself. Of course I did, especially early on. Quitting my job and moving was a big scary change, and nothing was certain. You may not have noticed, dear reader, but I didn't post at all during the month of September. I did other things. I read twenty-some books, almost a book a day. I started a part-time job. I planned - plotting out five books and developing career strategies. I started writing again, spending hours at the library with my headphones on and my pen in my hand (yes, I'm old school like that - handwriting my first draft - gasp!).
But especially in September, I was incredibly nervous, too wound up to fall asleep after I turned off the lights. I knew that I couldn't have made any choice besides the one I made, but what ifs in my future haunted me, especially in the nighttime quiet. I took a while for me to trust myself and my own judgment again. And so, I didn't blog, nervous that my insecurities would leak out on the screen.
In October, I started to feel confident again despite my doubts, and that's when my writing started to take off. I don't think that's a coincidence.
Confident daydreaming is important. I do recognize how lucky I am, but I don't think I would've gone very far if I wallowed on my day-to-day difficulties rather than thinking toward the next step.
Even now, at this six month mark, I'm thinking beyond the next round(s) of revisions to the day when I finish the last pre-contract revision for EAS and my wonderful agent sends it out to editors. :-D
I have a friend who believes in The Secret like whoa - she actually quit her job before she received her acceptance letter to grad school. (Both events did happen on the same day, but still, the names have been withheld to protect the innocent/eccentric.) I wouldn't go that far, but I think there's definitely something to be said for believing in yourself and believing good things to happen to you. Even if you don't know which way you need to go, you can visualize what it'll feel like to be in the right place - to have your strong will and determination headed in the right direction again.
And if you're out there, reading this and knowing that you aren't in the right place, knowing that you need to make a big change, do it. You have nothing to lose. Don't hesitate. Go for it.
