Suzy Spencer's blog

The year 2011 is less than three hours away, at least in the Central time zone, and most people have already reflected on 2010 to say their goodbyes to a year of struggles, losses, and – I hope – at least a few victories.  To a small degree, I’ve done that, too.  Earlier today I glanced back at the year and listed my gratitudes on Facebook.  There were just three of them, in part because of the space limitations of Facebook status updates, but also because I had work to do. 

I’m thankful for that work because when I’m writing my heart beats like it should. When I’m not writing, it pounds with terrifying anxiety.  But now that it is 9:30 at night and my work is finished for the day, I want to reflect on my afternoon and evening as a way of reflecting on 2010.

I missed going to the gym this afternoon.  That too is the way I keep my heart from hurting.  But sometimes I feel work must come first, and last night, over and over, I shouted at myself, “I am NOT a quitter!”  I did that to ensure that I met my work goals.  For me, hitting my work goals improves my confidence as much as pounding the treadmill. 

About 5:30 this evening, hungry but not yet wanting dinner, I drove to McDonald’s for a hot fudge sundae that I could eat while continuing to work.  Calmly and quickly, I did work, getting closer and closer to meeting today’s goal.

When I came to a pausing point, I decided to trek over to the grocery store.  I wanted something to celebrate the New Year.  Already, I’d stopped at the wine store, finding the very last split of the specific champagne I wanted, hiding behind a brand I didn’t want. 

At the grocery store, I hit the shopping jackpot – walking up to the deli counter just as they’d put couscous and shrimp on sale for half price and up to the meat counter just when they had one last package of $12.99/lb. beef tenderloin.  Like the champagne, it was hidden, as if it had been waiting just for me. 

I guess that’s sort of like my year – thinking life is out of what I specifically want and then finding it right there on the shelf, tucked away, just for me.

I came home, unloaded the groceries and started washing a few dishes when I was distracted by a flash of silver light.  I looked up and out my back windows.  Fireworks exploded in the sky.  I cannot tell you how happy fireworks make me.  I grabbed my laptop, plugged it in, turned on the TV, and sat in my easy chair watching fireworks and football and working on my manuscript.  For me, life can’t get much better than that.  Before I knew it, I’d met my day’s goal.

I cooked my steak, along with asparagus, mushrooms, and tomatoes, poured my champagne, and ate and drank.  The steak was glorious, though over cooked on one corner, and perfection on the inside.  Again, isn’t that a bit like life?  The asparagus wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, but it was filling, the mushrooms had me wanting more, and the tomato, which I grew in my backyard, tasted sweet.  Yes, that’s a purposeful analogy of life.  The champagne sits by my side as I type to the rhythm of popping fireworks and wait to take that last sip of the year.

This is the first New Year’s Eve I’ve had at home since I moved into this house, and I am grateful for it.  Until tonight, I never knew that I could sit in my easy chair and watch fireworks and football.  I never knew that I could get so much work done on the last day of the year. 

But before I close out this blog and this year, I’ve got to repeat my Facebook gratitudes.  My number one gratitude is for my trip to China and my friend Candie and her husband Jay.  They made the trip happen and in doing so fulfilled a dream I’ve held for 35 years.  

My number two gratitude is for my fabulous and patient editor at Berkley Books, Denise Silvestro.  She is making my writing better than I deserve.  I owe her more thanks than I can ever say.

My number three gratitude is for the wonderful people who have hired me (and recommended me) for freelance work.  I could not have survived without you.

And since I’m not limited by Facebook’s status update, I also want to think my friend Karl Duvall, who motivates me to get my butt to the gym, my Facebook friends who encourage me, my friends from my hometown who have brightened this year, and you, my blog readers, especially Angela.  She, and you, like fireworks, are light in the darkness.

Together, y’all have made my 2010 a beautiful year.  Thank you.

Yes, even in China, the sex writer is on the job. This is an adult store in Beijing.

The day after I emailed my sex book to my editor in New York, I had so much I wanted to blog about.  Ideas and words kept popping into my head.  But I wouldn’t let myself write them because I felt I needed to take the day off.  The previous four months had been long, hard, and stressful – editing and rewriting my own work under a tight deadline, along with editing and coaching others, teaching, prepping for and going to China, family responsibilities, and perhaps most stressful of all, the fear and anxiety of revealing my soul in a memoir that I dream hundreds of thousands of people will read.

The second day after turning in my sex memoir, the blog ideas and words continued popping into my brain.  I still had a hunger to write them down.  Instead, I returned to my sex book and did a week’s worth of rewrite and re-turned in the book, a “whopping” five pages shorter than the original, but with an ending I hope is stronger and more satisfying to the reader.  (And please pardon that ridiculous pun.  It’s one I wouldn’t have used if a better word had popped into my brain).

Just like the week before when I’d first turned in the sex book, that hunger and desire to blog returned.  Still I wouldn’t let myself write.  I knew I needed rest, and I had freelance assignments that had been waiting for two months.  I had to dive into them.  (Thank you, kind clients, for waiting for me.)

By the time I turned in those assignments, complete and utter physical, mental and emotional exhaustion overwhelmed me.  I think that happens to most writers once we finish a book.  After the exhaustion, or perhaps more accurately, in the midst of the exhaustion, depression sets in as we grieve over our projects and the loss of our characters.  Whether one is writing nonfiction or fiction our characters are real to us.  They are our friends and constant companions.  When they are no longer there for us on a daily basis, we mourn their passing.  Without them, we are a bit lost.

That’s where I am right now.  I’m a bit lost.  That sounds silly when I have another freelance project to do, one that will take months, when I know what I want my next two books to be and I need to get cracking on them, and when I have another secret project that I want to do and must be done now if it is to happen at all.

But instead of working and accomplishing, I sit at my computer and stare at TMZ and Facebook as if someone is going to post something that will forever alter my future for the positive if I don’t read that post within five seconds of it going online.  I then tell myself that I’m not writing because I’ve first got to clean my desk, my office, and my house.  I need to clear out the old and get organized before I can start the new.  Instead, I walk around in circles, fuming at the mess that won’t walk out on its own like cartoon ants exiting a picnic.

So I exit, stand on the edge of my back porch, stare at my Hill Country view, and remind myself how lucky and blessed I am.  I look at my yard, notice how it needs mowing and weeding and how it’s turning brown under the relentless heat.  I think about how desperately we need rain, and I walk back inside, to my bedroom, and collapse into my bed, even though it’s only three or four in the afternoon.  I do that because I’ve got nothing left inside me to give.

As I lie there in the cool quiet, I realize that is exactly what I need – cool, quiet. I thank God for the moment of peace.  It’s been so long since my mind has been able to rest.  I know I’m repeating myself, but I am so frigging tired; I am lost.

I want to be lost on the beach where my mind can wash in and out with the waves.  I want to taste the salt sea water on my lips.  And I want to lie in a king-sized bed with white Egyptian cotton sheets, a friend’s arms wrapped around me as a way to say it’s going to be okay, while I weep for my characters lost.  But I know that’s not going to happen.  I won’t let it because I know that in truth I have no reason to weep.  I’ve just written the best book of my life.  And maybe that’s the real reason I want to weep.  Victory can bring us to tears.

* * *

Addendum:  As some of you may have noticed, I wrote my sex memoir.  Yes, this book isn’t just a look at Americans’ alternative sex practices, as originally planned.  At my editor’s request, it’s been turned into a memoir.  That changed has made this not only the best book I’ve ever written, but the most difficult, honest , and self-revealing.  So the tears I won’t allow myself to weep aren’t just tears of grief and victory.  They’re tears of fear too as I worry about how my family, friends, fans, and freelance employers will react.

But strangely enough, as I typed the words “victory can bring us to tears,” I looked out my window.  And this is what I saw. 

I’m hoping this rainbow is a sign that all is going to be okay with my sex memoir.

Who would have ever thought that researching and writing a book on sex in America would result in a life-changing business trip to China?  Certainly, I wouldn’t have, but it did.  Alas, I don’t have time to tell you about it right now because the trip put me severely behind in my sex book rewrite.  In fact, it’s nearly 10 o’clock at night and I haven’t met today’s minimum page count, which is imperative to do because my August 1 deadline is non-negotiable.  So, I need to get back to the book. 

In fact, since I am so behind in rewrite, my planned one-month blogging hiatus is going to have to change to a two-month hiatus. 

But I will tell you this tidbit of info because it explains the title of this blog post and the photo below:

I met some businessmen from Hong Kong who have a company that grows, processes, and sells organic ginger.  They joked that my trip was going to result in a novel about a reporter who meets and falls in love with a ginger farmer.  Then they drove our little entourage  into the mountainous farmlands of China where we walked through their leased caves storing their fresh ginger.  As we emerged from a dark, chilly, spider-infested cave into the Chinese sunlight, I saw a tall, lean Chinaman in a navy blue shirt and wearing a coolie hat.  He was the owner of the ginger caves and a farmer, too.  I wanted a picture of him, so I had my traveling companion stand where it looked like I was taking a picture of my friend, but was really photographing the farmer.  But when the farmer grinned and scooted into frame, I realized he wanted his photo taken. 

Unfortunately, just like now, I was in rush.  We had another cave to tour.  So I drew down my camera, and we hiked through the farmer’s fields of peanuts, walked through another cave, and hiked back down the mountain.  As we walked, I told my companion that I wanted him to take a picture of me with the farmer.  But when we returned, the farmer wasn’t there … at least not at first.  Then I saw him literally trotting toward us.  I smiled, and I laughed.  He’d changed from his navy blue shirt into a white shirt that matched mine.  We stood next to each other, and my friend took our picture.  When I saw it, I laughed again.  Notice that we aren’t simply wearing the same color of v-neck, knit shirt, we’re tilting our heads the exact same way, too.  Maybe the reporter and ginger farmer are meant to be … or are at least meant to be another book. 

The Reporter and the Ginger Farmer