Suzy Spencer's blog

As you may have noticed, I’ve been more than lax in my blog posts since last spring.  At first I was too busy with the sex book to think about blogging.  Then, after I turned in the manuscript on May 1, I was just plain all “wrote out.”  The book took everything I had to give, emotionally and physically.  More than three months later, I’m still all “wrote out.”  I can barely tap out a word.  But I feel I owe you a few updates.

Fused glass artwork: Kim Brill; Photo: Larry Brill

For those who don’t follow me on Facebook or Twitter, I have some very good news.  On July 15, I learned that my publisher, Berkley Books, has accepted my sex book manuscript and set a tentative publication date of October 2012.  The next 12-plus months will be spent editing, vetting, copy editing, and proofing the manuscript, as well as deciding on a name for the book, designing its cover, and creating marketing, sales and publicity plans.

That sex book acceptance news should have sent me into ecstasy.  Instead, it sent me into panic.  I ate 10 pounds of McDonald’s hot fudge sundaes as I worried and fretted about what neighbors, friends (particularly my Christian friends from high school), co-workers, future employers and, most of all, my family – specifically my mother – would think of me after reading the book.  After an afternoon trip to the emergency room, I begged my mother not to read the book.  She promised she wouldn’t, and I relaxed … some.

Through all of this, indeed, through the past 13 years of writing four true crime books and one sex book, my emotional rock has been my dear Mr. Cool.  In truth, he’s not “my” dear Mr. Cool.  He is my mother’s beautiful, sweet, blond cocker spaniel.  He is the one who calmed me as I wrote about five dead babies and nurtured me as I sank into depression afterwards.  In fact, he has soothed me through many depressions.  And when I panicked over the sex book, all I had to do was think of Mr. Cool because I knew he would be the one who would love me and treat me the same no matter what I revealed in the book.  But on the night of August 9^th, after a brief illness, Mr. Cool moved to puppy heaven.

Earlier in the day, he’d collapsed in my mother’s front yard.  For the next hour and a half, I lay with him in the St. Augustine grass, whispering that I loved him and that it was okay to walk toward the light.  I think he knows how much I hate death because he did not walk toward the light until I told him goodbye, left my mother’s home, and left him with those who are better at death than I – my mother and sister.

But I left with one big regret.  That regret is that I cut Mr. Cool from the sex book.

Please don’t go to any kinky thoughts when you ask why in the world I included my mother’s dog in a book about sex.  It’s a perfectly clean explanation:  Just as Mr. Cool comforted me through the stress and confusion of writing about real life murder, he comforted me through the stress and confusion of writing about real life sex.

More specifically, my boundaries as a journalist constantly blurred as my sex sources turned to me for reassurance and yearned for friendship.  And sometimes I too longed for their friendship, as they often came to my emotional rescue, such as the time they supported me after my mother fell and broke her hip.  Thus, I became confused over my role in their lives and their roles in my life.  And I equally became confused over the role of sex in my life.

So, as a salute to Mr. Cool, I share a (deleted) moment from the sex book.  In it, I’m juggling comforting my sex sources with taking care of my mother.

* * *

I shut down my computer and drove the 40 minutes to my mother’s house.  In the darkness of two and three A.M., as I listened to her obnoxious bird clock tweet the wee hours, I rolled over on her couch and petted her blond cocker spaniel.  Mr. Cool is his name because he’s always calm, cool, and collected and because he’s always known who he is – one cool dog.  Throughout the night, his collar jingle jangling as he walked, Mr. Cool made the rounds from my mother’s bedroom to the couch and back and forth again to check on us both.  And when I lay on my right side, my fingers lightly on Mr. Cool’s head, touching his comfortingly soft hair, I could see into my mother’s bedroom and know for myself that she was safe and hadn’t fallen again.

… This night, as I lay on my mother’s plaid couch, the same couch I’d lain on when that workman had lightly stroked my legs and I hadn’t known how to stop him, part of me wanted desperately to be back in my own house where I was free to think about sex.  And part of me didn’t want to leave my mother.  Unlike Mr. Cool, I didn’t know who I was.

* * *

Today, I know who I am.  I’m an all “wrote out” writer who is blessed to be comforted by the memory of a dog, the friendship of some sex sources, and a mother who loves me enough not to read my book. 

I recently mentioned on Facebook that I have a fantasy of seeing someone on the beach reading one of my books.  Perhaps that’s not a fantasy you’d expect from a woman who has spent the past five years researching sex.  But I think it is a fantasy of many writers of books.  And since I am, first and foremost, a writer of books, … well, you get the idea.

So, this morning, I opened Facebook and found this:

That’s Diane Nerren Butler reading my book Wasted on a beach in Maui.  Diane, a friend from high school and travel nurse working in Maui, knew my book fantasy and was sweet enough to fulfill it.  All I can say is thank God for friends and thank you, Diane. 

A few minutes later, I got an email from one of my coaching clients, Frances Townsend.  Her email was headlined “Cool pic”.  Inside, Frances wrote, “Just picking up some research books on sociopaths for my book and saw this in true crime.  So cool!!!”  I clicked on the photo Frances had attached, and this is what I found:

That’s Wasted on a bookstore shelf.  I don’t care how many books a writer publishes, there’s still a huge thrill in seeing your book on a bookstore shelf, especially if it’s a brand spanking new copy of your book selling for full price and not a used copy selling for 50-cents. 

This afternoon, what I write is so cool!!! that I have such great friends.  Thank you, both.

By the way, I have fantasies of seeing someone reading my book in any Whataburger, on a train from Philly to New York … or in the Swiss Alps for that matter, on a plane to anywhere, in a bar in Japan, seaside in Greece, along the Amazon, snapped by the paparazzi at LAX — shoot, since I’m fantasizing, let’s make that the paparazzi in Paris — along a riverbank in Africa … even along the Angelina River near my hometown.  I just love seeing people read my books.

Until I have those fantasies fulfilled, in my mind, I hear Bette Midler singing, “You got to have friends, the feelings oh so strong … la, la, la, la, la … you got to have friends.”

THANKS, Y’ALL!!

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.

Puttanesca

Maybe it’s because I’m a writer and words are important to me, powerful to me.  Just a few moments ago, I heard a poem on the radio, Puttanesca by Michael Heffernan.  The words that caught my ears were simple — “a street walker’s sweat.” 

Words like that stun me with their beauty that comes from their vividness.  They encourage me.  They make me want to do better, be better.  Not just a better writer, but a better person … someone who is worthy of such poetry.

When I was a student at Baylor University, I remember learning the meaning of a specific New Testament Bible verse, which unfortunately I can’t find right now, though it’s in something like Galatians or Ephesians.  But that verse, in its original language, said that we are God’s poetry. 

I think about that verse and I think about how hard I work on my words for a book, how I write them, read them, rewrite them, rework them, leave them alone, polish them, and try to perfect them over and over again, each time with love, passion, and desire.  And if I do that for my words, and if we’re God’s poetry, oh, my gosh, how He works, polishes, and loves us. 

What I’m trying to say is that it’s the words that get to me.  Specifically, it’s the name-calling words that get to me.

I hear it a lot in myself.  I hear it a lot on TV.  When I do, I wonder what kind of example we’re setting for our children  — that it’s okay to spew hate-filled words just for the sake venting, for the chance to rage and get on TV, to start and have a career as a pundit or reality TV star.  I hear it even more on radio.  I remember I heard it on the radio the morning after the Fort Hood shooting, as I was driving down I-35, returning to Killeen and the hospital where the injured and dying had been taken. 

Strangely enough, I didn’t hear it from the doctors and nurses who frantically worked to save lives.  I saw exhausted smiles of pride over the lives they had saved.  And I didn’t hear it from the victims who lived to tell their stories of that horrible day.  I heard gratitude.

But on the radio, from people who were miles from the blood and the death, I heard it.  Perhaps it was understandable.  That’s not the way it came across, though.  It came across as trying to stir up people for ratings and advertising dollars. 

What really gets to me, though, is the every day name-calling.   I’m not talking name-calling against people like Major Nidal Malik Hassan, the Fort Hood shooter.  I’m talking about name-calling that’s screamed and shouted under the guise of  freedom of speech in the name of trying to save our nation from … whichever side they think is wrong and they’re right.  I’m talking name-calling and hate in the name of superiority, name-calling and hate in the name of righteousness, name-calling and hate out of fear. 

Do not fear, for I am with you.  I will bless you …

Genesis 26:24

I read it a lot on newspaper websites, where people can anonymously vent their anger, rage, insanity, and hate.  And I read it a lot on Facebook.  I think that’s where it gets to me the most — reading name-calling from my friends. 

All I know is that it makes me lose respect for those I once admired, just like I lose respect for myself when I do it.  I don’t want to lose respect for them … or for me.  I know they are smart people.  I know I’m smart.  I know they are kind, giving, and gracious people in the majority of their lives.  I’d like to think I’m kind, giving and gracious in the majority of my life.  But, when it comes to politics, we become the very essence of what we’re accusing the other side of being. 

I guess for that very reason I can’t give up.  Nor can I spew back.  After all, I’m God’s poetry — written, read, rewritten, reworked, trying to get perfected. 

*  I wrote this last March and revamped it and rewrote it in May.  I don’t think I ever had any intention of ever posting it.  And maybe I shouldn’t be posting it now because it may be too similar to I Don’t Know Where to Start.  Yet that very blog post, I Don’t Know Where to Start – specifically some of the comments posted here — is what motivated me to go ahead and publish this.  Forgive me if you find it redundant.

I don’t know where to start. 

That’s not a very good thing for a writer to say.  Even if we don’t know where to start, we usually write until we know where to begin.

But finding where to begin takes time.  It takes lots of typing and retyping.  Rearranging.  Starting over.  And finding our way again.  I don’t have time to do that.  There’s a book to write.  There’s freelance work that’s due.   And I’m constantly distracted. 

Last night and today I was distracted by Facebook.  Specifically, I was distracted by a “prayer” that many of my Christian friends were posting on Facebook and other Christian friends were clicking that they “liked.” 

“DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE [sic]. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH [sic] FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN”

For nearly 24 hours I’ve been raging against this “joke” because, as a Christian, I felt I had to.  As a Christian, I’m shamed by such hate.  My Jesus isn’t about hate.  My Jesus – as you’ll read in my sex book – is about love, grace, and mercy. 

I have no issue with people expressing their disagreement with our President.  I don’t even have a problem with people expressing their dislike for him.  What I do have a problem with is Christians praying for a person’s death.  As a Christian, I don’t feel like we have the right to decide when another dies.  That’s up to God.

I’ve heard people compare this “joke” to the cruelties spoken about former President George W. Bush.  They say that those on the left – specifically Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks – wished President Bush dead, so those on the right are justified in doing the same regarding President Barack Obama. 

If I recall correctly, Ms. Maines didn’t wish any sort of thing on our President.  She simply said she was ashamed he was from Texas. 

“Just so you know, we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.” — Natalie Maines, 2003

I have no objection to people saying they’re ashamed President Obama is from Hawaii … or that he’s an embarrassment … or, even as I heard tonight, that he’s an idiot.*  Again, my problem is Christians praying for his death.

In fact, that seems to go against the essence of Christianity, especially since there are many Christians who believe our President is a Muslim.  That very belief – inaccurate as it is – is all the more reason they should be praying for our President, rather than praying for his death.  In other words, they should be praying for his salvation rather than praying that he dies before he’s saved.  Isn’t that what evangelical Christianity is all about?

But there’s another reason I’m upset that Christians are “joking” and praying for our President’s death, and that reason is personal.  He has two little girls.  I cannot imagine what it’d be like for those children to hear that others – specifically Christians – are praying for their father’s death.  How cruel is that?  And, oh, how it would turn them away from Christianity.  At least it would me. 

Still, that doesn’t explain why it’s personal.  My father died when I was five years old leaving my mother to rear two girls by herself.  I look at those children and I see my sister and me.  I think about what it’s like to grow up with a dead daddy, and I don’t want that for them.

This is what I mean about not knowing where to start and not having time to find out where to begin.  This blog is nothing like what I wanted or intended.  It’s not even covering the topics I thought I’d discuss.  But it’s what has come out of my fingertips, so I guess it’s where I’ll end.

By the way, for those who have forgotten, Natalie Maines later apologized to President Bush.  I wonder if there are any Christians out there who will apologize to President Obama.

“As a concerned American citizen, I apologize to President Bush because my remark was disrespectful. I feel that whoever holds that office should be treated with the utmost respect.” — Natalie Maines, 2003

* Okay, truth — I’d prefer he not be called an idiot, but calling him an idiot is an improvement over praying for his death.

When I was a kid at summer camp, in order to get dinner, we had to create marching routines.  We’d rehearse our routines, march to the chow hall, perform our drills, and be judged on them.  Only then were we allowed to grab our military dinner trays and eat.  On the first night of camp, it was usually a simple routine as 12 barefoot girls would line up in rows of two, arms length apart, and march to the chow hall calling, “Left.  Left.  Left, right, left.”  We urged our voices as deep as schoolgirls could go.

As the camp term wore on, we morphed into lyrists and choreographers creating unique songs accompanied by elaborate maneuvers.  When we marched, we were part drill team and part chorus line dressed in faded cut-off jeans and t-shirts, usually with a pocket over the left breast.

There are two things I remember most about those marching drills.  First, I never could get in sync with my cabin mates.  While they were calling, “Left.  Left,” with their bare left feet hitting the hot pavement in perfect beat to the word left, my right foot was hitting the pavement, then stumbling over a stray pebble of granite, or my left foot was hitting the pavement two milliseconds after theirs.  To say I have no sense of rhythm is an understatement.

Yet, the second thing I remember is the bellowing rhythm of “left, left, left, right, left.”  It is so engraved into my memory that 40 years later I would hear it in my head as I walked the outdoor track at my old gym.  “Left.  Left.  Left, right, left,” and I stumbled over a chunk of cedar bark. 

But, no!  I couldn’t be thinking about summer camp and the way granite smells when it’s heated in the sun.  I couldn’t think about the sound of the motorboats as they skipped over the water, the rhythmic chirps of crickets in the late afternoon, or the chit-chit-chit of the water sprinklers on the Saint Augustine grass.  I needed to be thinking about SEX!  I had a sex book to write. 

Yes, some people have to force themselves to not think about sex.  I have to force myself to think about sex.  So as I stumbled and tumbled along that cedar bark track, I coaxed myself into calling, “Sex.  Sex.  Sex, right, sex,” for at least three figure eights around that track.  “Sex.  Sex.  Sex, right, sex.”  For one mile.  “Sex.  Sex.  Sex, right, sex.”

I always wondered what the male joggers thought as they passed me.

“Sex.  Sex.  Sex, right, sex.”

No, I only wondered for a split second because I was trying – forcing – myself to think about sex. 

As many of you know, I turned in the first draft of that book on May 1, 2009, which was a little over a year after I switched gyms.  There’s no track at my current gym, and now I’m back to trying – forcing – myself to think about sex because my editor has sent me her notes on the first two-thirds of the sex book.  They aren’t horrible notes.  In fact, I like them.  There’s a part of me that is so psyched and – do I dare say – excited to get back to working on the sex book.  But when it comes right down to it, I can’t seem to do it.  I’ll do anything other than think about sex.  I’ll write this blog.  I’ll vacuum.  I’ll even iron, which I hate doing.  I’ll go outside and pull weeds, and believe me, there are enough weeds to keep me pulling until next fall.  I’ll even work on my taxes … because that HAS to be done.

And still, the sex book sits on my desk – the first 230 pages printed out, my editor’s notes laying on top of them.  I glance at them and read:  “I think the main narrative of the book definitely starts in the right place with you talking about your …”

Ah, this is good, I think.  I can do this.  I turn on the computer, check Facebook, pull weeds, check Facebook again, and pretty soon it’s time to go the gym.  My new gym is small, intimate even.  Though the trainers and I sometimes quietly joke about sex, they don’t have me constantly thinking about sex like I need to.  And it’s too small of a gym to be pushing my feet against the footplates of the elliptical trainer while calling out, “Sex.  Sex.  Sex, right, sex.”

I’ve got to start thinking march, food, sex.  March, food, sex.  March, food, sex.  So if you see a brunette, wearing red eyeglasses, marching and stumbling somewhat rhythmically into a Whataburger, using her laptop as a military serving tray, and crazily shouting, “Sex.  Sex.  Sex, right, sex,” as she exits, maybe even swinging her laptop over her head as she throws in some fancy arm routines, “Sex.  Sex.  Sex, right, sex,” you’ll know it’s just me working on my sex book.  “Sex.  Sex.  Sex, right, sex.”* 

*  I don’t know what happened to me.  When I was typing that last line of “Sex.  Sex.  Sex, right, sex,” suddenly I heard a new line with it.  “Thrust that laptop toward his chest.”  You know, like, “Sex.  Sex.  Sex, right, sex.  Thrust that laptop toward his chest.”  Oh, geez, I don’t know where it came from.  Maybe it means I’m thinking about sex.  “Sex.  Sex.  Sex, right, sex.” 

By the way, let me know if you start walking around saying, “Sex.  Sex.  Sex, right, sex.”  Especially let me know if you add, “Thrust that laptop toward his chest!”

Hear that tapping?  It’s my fingers … as I wait … and wonder … when my editor is going to call.  This is what it’s like for writers … waiting.  Even published writers.  Wondering.  Maybe it’s not that way for writers like Nelson DeMille.  But for those of us in the middle, it’s tapping fingers … anxiously waiting … maddeningly waiting.

My editor was supposed to call me on February 1.  She didn’t.  I let it slide.  Previously, she’d said she was going to send me editorial notes in five weeks.  In five weeks would have been February 16.  Now it’s more than seven weeks.  She emailed me yesterday and asked if we could we talk today.  That made me nervous … that she wanted to talk … rather than just email me her notes on the sex book I’m writing.  I’m not the type of person who likes to talk on the phone.  I’d rather do email … or do lunch.  But considering she’s in New York and I’m in Texas and I’m not Nelson DeMille …

Today, I ate a half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich standing by myself at my kitchen counter.   Well, I wasn’t actually alone.  My nerves were with me.  I ate the sandwich 20 minutes before my editor was supposed to call so that I’d have the energy to clearly focus on every comment she made.  Now I’m hungry for dinner.  Now I’ve gone from anxious to angry.  I’m not angry at her.  I’m angry at someone else … a man who emailed me and told me he hadn’t answered the multiple emails I’d sent him in January because he didn’t think they were intended for him.

I wrote him back that if I hadn’t intended them for him I wouldn’t have sent them to him.  He hasn’t responded. 

Neither has my editor.  I phoned her.  Her assistant said she’d see if she was available.  As I waited, I clicked through my emails.  That’s when I found the one from the man who said he didn’t think my emails addressed to him were intended for him.  I also found a frantic sounding note from my editor saying she was running late and asking if she could call me “in a bit.”  That was an hour and 33 minutes ago, not that I’m counting.  Her assistant came back on the line and said my editor would call me in a few minutes.

I need to remind myself that New York time is different than Texas time.  I learned that when I lived in New York.  They may move fast and talk fast, but when it comes to business, boy, do they ever move slowly.  In Texas, we do business fast; we just walk and talk slow.

I told the assistant to let my editor know that I wasn’t trying to rush her, that I’d just found her email saying she was running late.  Then I answered the email from the man who thought my emails addressed to him weren’t to him.  Then I swallowed back a Bayer aspirin because my heart was starting to ache.  And now, I’m still waiting.  At least now my fingers are tapping on the keyboard rather than simply on the desk … or in my mind. 

But in my mind, I hear Edgar Allan Poe:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.’

Yes, I hear The Raven in my head.  I don’t think I’ve thought about this poem since eighth grade. 

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted – nevermore!

For some reason, Poe’s rapping, tapping words calm me, though I don’t understand why.  It’s now 6:07 PM in New York.  It’s time for my editor to go home from work.  And still I wait. 

My Facebook friends know how this story ends.  But I’m going to fill in some of the details anyway.  I want my non-writer friends to get an idea of what a writer’s life is really like.  On second thought, maybe it’s better not to tell you so that you’ll create a glamorous fantasy for me.  Non-writer friends, quit reading now!

Published writer friends, you too have to stop reading now.  I want to maintain some semblance of success in your eyes.  Then again, you probably know my truth. 

Non-published writer friends, keep reading so that you’ll learn the realities of this business. 

At 6:08 PM in New York, the literary agent who sold the sex book emailed me and asked how my phone call with my editor went.  At 6:16 PM, I told him it hadn’t gone.  I won’t tell you everything else that I said or he said, but I will state that he told me to try to make another telephone appointment with her.

So, I stopped cutting and pasting the lines:

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted – nevermore!

And I started typing an email.

“Since it’s 6:25 PM in New York, I’m guessing we’re not having our phone meeting today.  Can we make a firm appointment for tomorrow?  Or … I can continue to wait here by the phone this evening … it’s just whichever works best for you.  I’m just eager to get this rewrite done and provide you with a great manuscript.”

“Eager” is a weak word for what I feel about completing this book.  But at that moment, I wasn’t thinking about that.  I was obsessing over striking a firm but respectful tone, unlike with the man who had thought my emails to him weren’t for him, while debating in my mind whether – after hitting the send button – I was going to rush to the gym or to my mother’s house to cope with my anxiety.  Weight lifting v. roast beef dinner with the family.

The clock on the computer still read 6:25 PM in New York when I did hit send, and just as I did, my phone rang.  Caller ID simply said, “New York, NY.”  I let the phone ring twice before answering.  Yes, it was my editor. 

We talked for 26 minutes and 25 seconds, not that I was counting.  (I really wasn’t.  I just read the timer on my phone right after I hung up.)  Again, I’m not going to confess all the details.  That’s between my editor and me.  Besides, I don’t want to tell you too much about the book.  Let me just say, in my opinion, it was a G-R-E-A-T conversation.  I’m talking P-O-S-I-T-I-V-E. 

As she scanned down my manuscript, I heard her whisper, “Oh, this is good.”

Lordy mercy, my spirit is hungry for such encouragement.

And, she got what I was trying to accomplish with this book.  She sees what I see in the future.  In fact, what she sees is even better than what I dreamed.  She said this is going to change my career.  I could tell you the exact word she used to describe that future, but if I did, it’d reveal too much about the book.  I’ll just say I emailed my agent, “It’s all super good.  I am so totally psyched!!”  And I posted on my Facebook page, “YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Great convo with my editor. I am TOTALLY PSYCHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I then grabbed my phone and purse, ran out the door, jumped in my car, zipped down the hill, over the highway, and wound my way over to my mother’s house for victory roast beef.  Okay, it wasn’t really victory roast beef.  Roast beef is far from my favorite food.  But, hey, it was cooked with TLC, and I was hungry.  I walked in the door smiling, which I rarely do.  I don’t mean that I don’t smile.  I just don’t like to walk in smiling.  My sister stood at the kitchen counter.  She looked up, and I announced, “I have a career.”

She said, “What?  As a sexpert?”  Her tone of voice wasn’t p-o-s-i-t-i-v-e. 

“No,” I said, still smiling.  I was smiling ‘cause I hear tapping, rapping at my door, and it’s all good for evermore*. 

*  Okay, truth – it’s “all good” for today, not evermore … because writers have serious ups and downs.  In fact, I’m thinking about chronicling those ups and downs as I go through the rewrite and publication process on the sex book.  Is that a good idea?  Would you be interested in reading about the rewrite of the sex book?  Tell me what you think.  

My blog generates frequent comments, though they’ve never shown up here.  Most often they’re posted on Facebook.  Sometimes, they arrive in my private email box.  A few days ago, I received what I felt was a powerful response to my Working Through the Struggle post.  That’s the one where I quoted award-winning novelist Joe O’Connell.  The response was so powerful that I asked its author if I could post the comment here.  I was told yes.  So, here it is.

“A few years ago I started an alternative teaching certification program so I could be an English teacher.  My big thing in the classroom was going to be making those kids write something every day.  Writing is that important and students are not being taught the skills necessary to succeed in freshman-level composition classes. And why is this? 

1.  “Name the two school subjects that consistently receive government funding and attention from the media?  Science and mathematics.

2.  “Name two careers that are consistently portrayed in the media as being glamorous?  Scientists and engineers.

3.  “Name two careers that pay the highest salaries to graduating college seniors?  Scientists and engineers.

“Now compare that to the way writers and other creative-types are portrayed.  It’s a little depressing, especially when it is we creative-types that the scientists and engineers approach to create their business ad campaigns or write their press releases.  Are we trying to be subversive?  Counter to the culture?  Our little way of raging against the Man?  Well, maybe we’ve been doing it a little too well. Maybe we need to light the fires under our own ‘hey, ho, look at us creative types go!’ kind of marketing campaign.  A ‘where would the world be without journalists or writers?’ type of campaign?

“Do we minimize our contribution to society because for so long we have been made to feel less-than-intelligent due to our lackluster math skills or inability to understand the human genome?

“Now don’t get me wrong, I love science and the fact that there are people that spend their entire life in the pursuit of science excellence.  I know several scientists and engineers that write extremely well and sell value in a well-turned phrase.  They also contribute significantly to the advancement of humanity and all that jazz.  However, the last time I checked, so did Shakespeare, Alcott, Cather, Shaw, Twain, and thousands of other writers.

“Why then do I have college grad students approach me seeking guidance on what makes a good writer or what makes a good article?  One grad student in particular comes to mind.  He attends a very prestigious*, highly regarded East Coast university, is a native speaker and is a product of American public school system, yet he struggles to write a simple article.  Writing clearly makes him, a math god, uncomfortable.  And you know what?  When the people in power are uncomfortable with doing something, then that something (writing, journalism, etc.) struggles. 

“One last story before I go.  When I was in college, my roommate was an engineering major.  She used to give me hell for wasting my time with an English degree, said that technical writing was a joke.  After graduating, she went to work for one of the major oil and gas exploration companies*, making near six-figures when they started.  Ten years went by before we spoke again. 

“Imagine her astonishment when she learned that I, a lowly technical writer with my joke of a degree, was working offshore doing the type of work that she dreamed of doing while in college.  She now sits in an office all day, every day.  Me?  I do the same, but every once in a while I get to go offshore and see and do some pretty amazing stuff. Stuff that is pretty darn close to ’cutting edge’ as one can get without getting cut.  So, yeah, it goes to show that a liberal arts education makes you a lot more open-minded to trying new things than the one-track mind of an engineer.

“I’ll get off my soapbox now.  You have a great way of hitting all the right buttons.”

By the way, the author of the preceding comment loved Joe’s suggestion of creating a vision board “to get the daydreams flowing.”  For more information on that, click here.

I’d also like to note that I love comments.  Feel free to leave them here, post them on Facebook, or send them to me privately.  But especially feel free to leave them here.

*  I was told the name of the “very prestigious” university and the name of the “major” oil and gas company.  Indeed, it is a “very prestigious” university, and it is a “major” oil and gas company.

My postman's C-class Mercedes Benz.

I know 2009 has been a rotten year for many.  In fact, I have a tendency to want to join everyone in saying that it was a horrible year.  To be honest, 2009 wasn’t great.  To be even more honest, it was great.  I feel a bit guilty in saying that since I have so many friends and family who are seriously suffering from 2009.  So let me explain, and in explaining I’ll be confessing a few things I don’t want to admit to the general public. 

So why am I confessing?  Because I keep telling the writers I coach that they’ve got to “go deeper” in their writing, that they’re just scratching the surface of their characters and stories.  Sometimes going deeper requires embarrassing honesty.  I just wish I could hide my honesty in saying it’s fiction.  But what I’m about to write is the truth as I know it.

The year that was rotten for me was 2008.  I gave up my beloved townhouse that I’d lived in since 1990.  I’d planned on dying there.  But I put my home on the market because some new neighbors moved next-door and they were so noisy that I couldn’t work or sleep.  At first, I tried to cope.  I moved my office into my living room and started sleeping in the guest room.  But I realized that’s no way to live and began searching for a new home.  Instead, I found a lot with Hill Country views so deep and stunning that I can watch lightning shows that are scores of miles away. 

I grabbed my mother to show her the lot.  She started referring to it as “Suzy’s lot,” even though we both knew it was a bit over my budget.  Still, it called to me.  I grabbed my friend Vanessa and showed her the lot.  “It’s so peaceful up here,” we said.  And we dreamed that it was perfect for writing – on top of a hill so high that the birds soar at shoulder height and the song they whisper is the sound of the wind.  We all knew this was my home, even though – and I know I’m repeating myself – it was a bit over my budget. 

But, hey, I’ve always been lucky and blessed.  I bought the place.  A few months later, the “for sale” sign went up on my beloved townhome.  And here’s the catch.  I bought my future home just as the Texas real estate market was near its peak.  And I put the townhouse on the market just as the economy and stock market were crumbling, then crashing.  It took approximately 16 months for my townhouse to sell.  And for 12 months, I was covering the expenses of two homes.

We all know that everyone loves a “winner.”  Hell, I’ve had people admit that they wanted to be friends with me because I have that New York Times best-seller title in front of my name.  And we all know that success breeds success.  So here comes the embarrassing part, the part that can damage my image and career since New York and Hollywood, which is where I make my career and money, only want to deal with winners – I struggle financially as a writer. 

Yeah, I know some of you are saying “big whoop.”  After all, that’s not a surprise to many, if not most of you, especially my writer friends.  But for me, the MBA who believed she’d be a millionaire novelist by the time she was 30 years old, to admit that at 55 years old she’s still struggling like a career beginner is embarrassing.  In fact, just a few months ago a friend from high school emailed me that she thought I was successful enough that I could easily make a half-million dollar charitable donation.  Obviously, (1) I’m very good at faking things, thanks to my MBA in marketing.  And (2), by this age I planned on being wealthy enough that I could donate half my income to charity.  That was my game plan.

So my long overdue point here is that 2008 was a horrible year because I had to give up my home and that that move – along with the crashing economy and the fact that my career success sucks when compared to my dreams and the image I intentionally have cultivated – wreaked havoc on my finances, my emotions, and my self-esteem.  And perhaps worse of all, I haven’t found the writing peace in my new home’s office that I had in my old townhouse.  I’ve struggled, I mean struggled, to write here.

My old office, the place where I completed one novel and all four of my true crime books.

And perhaps that finally brings me to 2009.  It’s been a rough year because I’ve spent it trying to recover from my rotten 2008, both financially and emotionally.  But it’s been a good year because my house finally sold and I turned in my sex book, though I’m still waiting to get it back for rewrite.  It’s been a good year because I’ve gotten my coaching business off the ground, thanks to Cyndi Hughes, executive director of the Writers’ League of Texas.  And I have some really cool clients whom I adore. 

Thanks to Cyndi, I’ve also gotten to teach, and I love teaching. 

It’s been a good year because I’ve gotten to freelance for ABC News, a job that challenges me because it requires new skills, which is one of the very reasons I love it.  And because of ABC, I had the honor of working one of the biggest stories of the year – Fort Hood.  Thank you, dear friend Teri Whitcraft, National Producer, Law & Justice Unit, ABC News.

It’s been a good year because I’ve sold articles to the Texas Observer.  To be accepted and published by such a nationally respected magazine is a privilege.  Thank you, Texas Observer editor Bob Moser … and thank you Ruth Pennebaker and Jesse Sublett for helping me break into this fabulous publication.

It’s been a good year because of even small things like Diane Dimond quoting me in the Huffington Post.  I cannot tell you how much Diane’s respect means to me. 

Turning from the professional to the more personal – moving outside of Austin in 2008 was shockingly rough because it took me away from easy lunches, dinners, and drinks with my friends.  But in 2009, I’ve been blessed with something that will sound so stupid – Facebook.  Through Facebook, I’ve reconnected with friends from New York to California and back to Texas.  They remind me of what I was, what I’ve become, and what I can become.  I’ve “met” people whose paths I’ve never crossed except through Facebook.  These new acquaintances have brought me smiles.  Specifically, thank you, Tonya Montgomery. 

While I’m thinking of friends, I want to thank my friends Candie and Jay.  On my 55^th birthday, they gave me a vacation during which they reminded me of the joy of dreaming big.  So often rejections, cruel reviews, unresponsive agents, inattentive editors, the confusing and lost state of publishing, the lack of money and respect, beat down writers.  We focus on the negative and forget to imagine success.  Thank you, Candie and Jay, for reminding me to dream positive and to believe in myself like I did when I first began.

From beginning to now ending, I can’t close out 2009 without thinking of the blessing of Karl Duvall.  Karl and his staff, Jim Murillo and Susan Dunton Burton, are my trainers, my friends and my lifesavers.  They are whipping me into shape so that when the sex book comes out I will look like a person who can actually find a sex partner if she wants one, rather than look like Dr. Ruth or Sue Johanson (who may have very active sex lives, for all I know, and, believe me, even this sex interviewer and writer doesn’t want to know that).  But equally important, Karl, Jim, and Susan listen to me, encourage me, make me laugh, and make me laugh at myself.  They also push me past what I perceive are my limits and make me succeed anyway, which is what I hope to do with my coaching clients.

If writers aren’t getting my drift here, my point is that this business is very tough.  It’s tough on you financially, emotionally, mentally, and physically.  Become a writer only if you have to do it.  And I’m about to digress for a moment, or at least appear to digress.  I briefly had a literary agent who yelled at me that there was more to life than writing and my career.  I fired her immediately because she was right, but she was also very, very wrong.  Writing isn’t simply a career; it’s who we are.  So again, if you can do anything else, do any other career, do it.  But if writing is the only thing you can do, no matter the financial cost, the emotional cost, the mental cost, and the physical cost, then you are a writer and you must write.

So how am I now going to weave this back to that postman in the Mercedes Benz?  Well, that postman used to deliver the mail in a beat-up, dark green station wagon.  In 2009, he moved up to a Mercedes Benz.  Whenever I get down and disgruntled, I’m going to think about that postman in the Benz.  If he can move up, so can I.  And believe me, I want a Porsche Cayman so badly that I can see it and see me in it. 

Now I’m going to go jump in my seven-year-old Mercedes Benz and go buy a bottle of champagne.  Then I’m going to come home and dress for the evening.  And when I say dress, I may actually put on a dress to remind myself of the days when I actually wore dresses … when I lived in Los Angeles, had big dreams, believed that I would attain them, and nothing or no one could dissuade me from that belief.  Then I’m going to grab that bottle of champagne, take it over to my friend Carol’s, and spend some time with her, her husband, and our writer friends.  And I’m going to talk about what a great 2010 we writers are going to have.  This writer is going to have a book ready to be published, a fit body, and a Porsche Cayman.  If the postman can do it, ….

BTW, if one of my student’s had written this, I’d tell her she didn’t go deep enough. 

"My" Porsche Cayman