Suzy Spencer's blog

I’m a little bit dumbfounded that I can get nostalgic about writing a book that hasn’t even been published, yet. But the other day I was glancing through some old files and came across a photograph of my previous office, the place where I began writing Secret Sex Lives: A Year on the Fringes of American Sexuality. As I stared at that old photo and was reminded of those first days of research, I got verklempt. Isn’t that ridiculous?

The office where I began researching and writing "Secret Sex Lives."

But I look at that picture and see my notebooks on my desk filled with my research. Oh, my gosh, there are now so many more notebooks of research, as well as boxes and boxes of files.

I also see the telephone that I curled too tightly in my left hand while doing interviews, the computer screen that I stared at when my agent sent me his critiques of my book proposal, and the high branches of the oak trees outside my door that kept me company and gave me comfort during days and nights of confusion.

Most of all, I remember that first night I posted in Craigslist Casual Encounters, searching for my first sex book sources. “Need to talk about sex,” I wrote.

And I remember that first reply: “Please forward whatever information you’ve got to prove you’re not a creep, weirdo, prison inmate posing as an author (those schemes happen all the time, ya know), and I’ll be happy to talk. . . . Interested to see if you’re for real or not.”

Oh, I was for real. And I really want to tell you more, but I know it’s too soon. For now, it’s got to remain a secret, waiting for that perfect moment of release.

* * *

Secret Sex Lives: A Year on the Fringes of American Sexuality will be released by Berkley Books on October 2, 2012.

Today’s the day after Christmas. It’s a day I should be writing my year-end blog where I tell you what wonderful things happened in 2011 and how joyous and grateful I am. And for those of you who haven’t been keeping up with me through Twitter or Facebook (since I haven’t been very good at blogging this year), wonderful things have happened in 2011.

Magician Kent Cummins sawing me in half for the Bess Whitehead Scholarship Fund.

• In May, I finally finished the sex book.
• In July, my publisher, Berkley Books, informally accepted the sex book.
• In August, I accepted an offer to write a screenplay about a topic that takes me back to my undergraduate studies and dreams.
• In September, I got to spend a night in San Francisco reconnecting with dear friends. I got to start research for the screenplay and had some fabulous experiences doing it. And I got to get sawed in half as a fundraiser for the Bess Whitehead Scholarship Fund.
• In October, Berkley Books gave me a firm publication date for the sex book — October 2012. And Red Line Films/Dick Clark Productions interviewed me about my true crime book Wasted for the new Investigation Discovery Channel TV show Deadly Sins, which will premiere in Spring 2012.
• In December, I got a dog from Cocker Spaniel Rescue of Austin/San Antonio. Jacob and I are very simpatico — he likes to spend his time eating and sleeping in front of the TV. And Berkley Books gave me the official title of the sex book – Secret Sex Lives: A Year on the Fringes of American Sexuality.

On set for interview with Investigation Discovery's "Deadly Sins."

Then there are the stories on the news: A Christmas-celebrating family in Grapevine, Texas, shot to death by a presumed family member dressed in a Santa suit, who then killed himself for a total of seven dead. A Connecticut mother lost her three daughters and mother and father – who was the Saks Fifth Avenue Santa Claus – in a house fire as the mother screamed, “My whole life is in there!” Oh, God, that breaks my heart.

I have my family, my health, a dog who loves me, the knowledge that I’ll have a roof over my head and food in my fridge no matter what (thanks to my family), and a book coming out and a screenplay that’s due. I should be screaming from my roof, THANK YOU, JESUS! And part of me does say thank You over and over again. But as I told my sister, the worst thing about depression is that it won’t go away even when you know you have no reason to be depressed, even though you know you are blessed far beyond what you deserve. She understood. Not everyone does. That makes me grieve, and it makes me angry.

Jacob, my "therapy" dog.

This weekend I asked a man, who lost his job last spring and is still unemployed, how his stepdaughter is. I knew she’d had problems, even though even the broadest of details have been kept secret. I surmised the problems had to do with legal issues due to a mental illness. The man’s reply was an angrily whispered, “She’s a sixteen-year-old Casey Anthony.” Oh, God, his comment makes me cry for his stepdaughter. How does this child have a chance with so little support from her own family? I say that because, as far as I know, she hasn’t had a baby and hasn’t been accused of murdering anyone. And either before or after my conversation with the stepfather – my memory is fuzzy because of the stress and shock of the day and learning what I learned – I overheard (though not from him) that the girl had attempted suicide, had been in a coma, and was apparently still in the hospital recovering.

I want to give this man a break and say his ignorance and insensitivity about mental illness are due to the stress of his unemployment, lack of job prospects, and money troubles, and the child’s suicide attempt is beyond what he can bear. I did say to him that I’ve been concerned that the child suffers from schizophrenia. She is of the age when the symptoms begin to appear. Or maybe she’s bipolar. I don’t know. I’m not a psychiatrist. All I know is that mental illness is not a choice. It’s not a desire. It’s not a call for attention. It’s not being melodramatic. It’s not a matter of bucking up or not praying enough. It is a disorder. A brain disorder. An illness.

Think of it this way, if this child had leukemia, there is no way that she purposely f***ed up her white blood cells to cause leukemia, and there’s nothing she could do to reorder the structure of her white blood cells to make herself healthy. She’d need great doctors and great medicine to have any chance of regaining her health. And everyone knows that and accepts that.

Similarly, a child with a brain disorder did not purposely scramble her brain so that she could be “crazy,” get attention, or cause problems for the family. And she can’t re-order her brain, as if it were a Rubik’s cube that could be twisted and turned until it’s miraculously put back in order. Like a leukemia child, she needs great doctors and great medicine to have any chance of regaining her healthy. Sadly, not everyone knows that or accepts that.

After all, people don’t talk about what a f***up a child with leukemia is or how bad she is or how she’s ruining the lives of everyone in the family. They certainly don’t compare her to Casey Anthony. And they don’t wish her away. Rather, they contact Make-A-Wish Foundation, take her to Disneyland and celebrate her. They pray for her and try to get her the best treatment for possible. Let me repeat: the child with leukemia did not cause or create her disorder of the blood, just as that man’s stepdaughter did not cause or create her disorder of the brain.

So, if there’s one positive thing I can do at the close of 2011, I think that one thing is to attempt to create some understanding about mental illness. Understanding doesn’t just make it easier on the one who is suffering from the brain disease — it increases the chances of recovering mental health. Perhaps equally important, understanding makes it easier on the friends and family members, too. After all, isn’t being empathetic, patient, and caring a heck of a lot easier than being angry and hateful?

Now I’m going to try to practice what I preach – get over my anger at her stepfather and be understanding toward him. After all, a lot of wonderful things happened in 2011, and I have a book coming out in 2012.

Click on the below for additional reading and information regarding brain disorders:

National Alliance on Mental Illness

Breaking Point by Suzy Spencer

Austin American-Statesman columnist Andrea Ball on being bipolar

And posts from my blog:

Update on Tracey Tarlton from The Fortune Hunter

Strong Legs, Fragile Brain: A Guest Post by Diana Kern

A Dark Cloud of Desperation: A Joint Post with D.H. Gregory

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. 

In 2001, when I first started covering the story of Andrea Yates, the Houston mother who drowned her five children, I read every article on the case I could find.  I thought the most touching writing came from a reporter for the Los Angeles Times.  I contacted her to tell her how beautiful and emotional her work was.  If I recall correctly, I told her she should be the one writing the Yates book, not me.  Her writing was so moving that I knew she was a much more talented writer than I.  She begged off saying she didn’t like covering the story.  If I remember correctly, she said she preferred covering war.

More than nine years later, after watching the last mine rescuer in Chile safely return to the surface (yes, I mean mine rescuer, not rescued miner), I found myself combing through unread emails, including my daily update from Publishers Lunch.  ”We posted another 35 new deals yesterday at Publisher’s Marketplace,” I read, “among them: Journalist Jonathan Franklin’s inside story of the trapped Chilean miners…”

At that, a bit of sadness washed over me.  I was sad because we were already commercializing such a rare, beautiful victory.  Couldn’t we just savor it in our memories for a while before committing it to commercialism?  Of course, I have no right to feel that way; I was part of the commercialization of Andrea Yates and her five murdered children.  And maybe Jonathan Franklin is like me.  Maybe he didn’t pursue the story.  Maybe, like me, he was asked to write it.

I know I had qualms about writing the Andrea Yates book.  I remember discussing it with my family.  They told me, “Someone’s going to write it.  Why not you?  You’ll handle it with more sensitivity.”  I hope I handled it with sensitivity.

I drew myself away from Mr. Franklin and continued reading Publishers Lunch.  ”National Book Award Nominees Avoid the Predictable…”  I barely glanced at the fiction nominees and focused instead on the nonfiction list, briefly wondering if, briefly dreaming that, my sex book could gain such esteem.  I knocked that embarrassing thought out of my head and kept reading: “Patti Smith, Just Kids (Ecco) … Megan K. Stack, Every Man in this Village is a Liar: An Education in War (Doubleday)”.

I stopped.  Megan K. Stack.  That name sounded so familiar.  Then, I thought I knew why.  I Googled Megan to make sure.  Yes, she was that great LA Times reporter who had covered Andrea Yates with such respectful, touching power.  I’d had no idea how young Megan was when she was covering that case — 25 years old.   At that, I was even more in awe of her talent.  I then went to Amazon to read the opening sentences of her National Book Award nominated book.

* * *

This memory from childhood is still there: the voices of the adults bounce fretfully, eternally in rooms that have since been sold or abandoned.  Beirut, they said, never Lebanon.  John was in Beirut.  All meaning fit into those words.  His barracks had been blown up, but he had survived.

John the drinker, the smoker, the apprentice in three-card monte and hanger-out with New York street cons; his face cut by light, arms angled in salt air, his imprint lingers still in corners and amber edges.  John was my father’s cousin, my godfather’s brother, our two Irish Catholic families braided together in city blocks, in the Bronx, by marriage and the crosshatches of godfathering.  He was adrift between the generations of our family, too old to be a cousin and too young to be an uncle, but still unmistakably one of us, with us in churches and cramped living rooms and summers on the beach.  In my earliest memories I waddle in his retreating shadow, arms in the air and begging, “Johnny! Uppy!”  And then this skinny street hustler sweeps me into the air to swing on the rim of centrifugal force until the salty, sunny world swims.

* * *

As I first read Megan’s words, I thought, oh, my, she still has that ability to paint power with a few, simple words.  As I typed Megan’s words, I remembered my days working in New York City.  I was a researcher for Fortune magazine, just a bit younger than Megan when she’d covered Andrea Yates.  Often, I spent my lunch hour touring the Museum of Modern Art.  There I watched struggling artists – the same age as me – sitting on uncomfortable black benches, sketching the Masters, trying to learn from the best. 

More than 30 years later, I too am trying to do that – learn from the best.  I’m reading memoir after memoir, including Megan’s, trying to figure out what they’re doing right and I’m doing wrong.  And the reason I’m doing that is embarrassing.  My sex memoir, the one that I previously bragged was the best book I’ve ever written, has been returned to me for rewrite, again. 

It’s painfully shaming to admit that a book I’ve been working on since December 2004 isn’t of publishable quality.  How good of an author can I be if I – a professional writer since 1976, an author of four books including one that has New York Times best-seller on the cover – can’t get a manuscript accepted after more than six years of trying to perfect it?

Yes, admitting that is embarrassing.  In fact, I started writing this “embarrassing” blog post in September, continued trying to write it in October, pushed it aside and tried to forget it forever in November because a friend had said I shouldn’t publicly admit my rejection.  I understood why – people want to be associated with winners, not losers.

But I decided to write the post and publish it anyway because, well, I’m tired of hearing, “I can’t wait to read your sex book this summer,” with me replying, “It won’t be out then.”  And I’m tired of hearing, “When’s your sex book coming out?” and me mumbling, “God knows when, if ever.”  But most of all, I’m writing this because I need to for me.  I can’t seem to move forward on the rewrite until I confess my sin of … failing. 

I know I have some terrific friends and fans out there who will say, “Suzy, don’t say that.  You haven’t failed.  You’re not a loser.”  I appreciate that kindness and support.  I really do.  And I have a small fantasy that by admitting this publicly that there will be at least one struggling person out there who will be inspired to keep working toward achieving their …well, whatever they’re pursuing, because I know that I will keep writing and rewriting this manuscript until I get it right.

I also know that one of the reasons I’m having such trouble with this memoir is because – like the Yates book – I have qualms about writing it.  But as I tried to handle the Andrea Yates case with sensitivity, I will try to handle myself with sensitivity too.  And God willing, I’ll succeed.

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.

I’m sitting in Whataburger trying to work on my sex book.  I’m editing a chapter in which I meet swingers – lifestylers, partner-swappers – through Craigslist.  But I’m having trouble concentrating because there’s a lifestyle group meeting in my neighborhood this weekend.  Part of me, a large part of me, wants to be at their party watching and reporting.  Since I can’t, since I need to write rather than report, I came to the WB thinking the lifestylers might drop in for breakfast.  I think I was right … as I sit here watching the customers, trying to figure out who might and might not be swingers.

So far, I think I’ve seen six possibles.  (Freudian slip – I initially typed sex possibles.)  Two were females who ran in to get drinks and as they filled their soda cups, they talked about the men they’d seen and the ones they were attracted to.  Two were male-female couples.  One couple was older and ultra-fit.  In fact, the man – if not for his aged face and toupee – would have passed for 20 years younger.  He was that buff.  After briefly checking me out, he kept watching the two younger women getting their drinks.  His wife?  She reminded me of a fit blonde I saw at the first swing club I went to.

Piles of garbage lined the sidewalk to our right.  Three lengths of velvet rope stretched along the sidewalk to our left.  Maybe a dozen people stood behind the rope trying to get into the club, but we weren’t going to that nightclub.  We were going to the one across the street, the one that had garbage in front of it – a club for couples who have recreational sex with multiple, consenting partners.  Utilizing the vernacular of the 1970s, it is a club for swingers, though today’s practitioners prefer to be called lifestylers.*

For those who don’t know me, I was at the swing club solely for research.  The WB?  Well, I’m here for the sausage biscuit, endless supply of Diet Coke, and the swingers. 

As for the other swinging couple at the WB, actually, they were the first ones here.  They were sitting near my favorite table, so normally I would have sat near them.  Today, I didn’t.  I was thinking I needed space and privacy to edit.  Now I wish I had sat near them so that I could have talked to them.  He wasn’t as fit as the older gentleman, but he was flirtatious with his wife like he was ready to party.  And she was dressed ready to flirt in her bikini with a skimpy cover-up that revealed her pierced belly button.  In fact, that’s something I noticed about lifestyling women – the older they get, the more likely they are to get piercings and tattoos.  But that’s for book two, not the book I’m working on today.

Oh, wait!  Four more lifestylers just walked in.  I gotta go watch.  As a friend of mine said about me, “I watch; I write.”  The writing’s going to have to wait ‘cause … “Are you with the lifestyle group?” I whisper.

“Yes,” he says.

* From my sex book-in-progress.

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

I love writing notes on napkins.  I think it makes me feel important because when I was a little kid in East Texas, only important people jotted notes on napkins – at least that’s what I thought.  

When I moved to New York City, it seemed like people bragged about doing deals on a napkin.  And when I lived in Los Angeles, I felt like everyone exchanged phone numbers on napkins.  It helped me remember where I met them and how I met them.

Oh, yeah, that’s the napkin with a bit of spilled salsa on it.  We met at Cugat’s while drinking margaritas.  And that red napkin there, that was from Ashley’s Christmas party when she was living in the high-rise downtown. 

Now days, whenever anyone asks me for my email or website, I don’t hand them a business card.  That seems too ordinary.  I grab a napkin and write down the info.  In fact, I’ve gotten where I don’t even bother to carry business cards.

I’ve designed dresses and jewelry on napkins.  I’ve drawn house plans on napkins.  I’ve made grocery lists and to-do lists on napkins.  And, of course, I’ve jotted a jillion and one book ideas on napkins. 

Many of these squares and rectangles of paper stay in the bottom of my purse so long that they turn into unreadable shreds of coin-colored tissue.  Others get tucked into notebooks and files to be discovered years later.  But just the other day, as I sat in Whataburger, I jotted notes about the sex book.  That napkin I keep tucked safely on my desk.  And that napkin I share it with you now … because I’ve been so busy with the sex book that I haven’t had time to blog.  All I have to offer is a note on a napkin.  But after reading this, I hope you know how important a note on a napkin is to me. 

Sex Book Napkin Notes

For those of you who know I’m writing a book about sex, get your minds out of the gutter.  When I say I’m going to bed with my work, that’s not what I mean.

For those of you who regularly read my blog, you’ll know exactly what I mean.  I’m climbing into bed with my research.  Well, that doesn’t sound right either.

What I mean is that I’m so bogged down in my work that I’m finishing late at night and need to go to sleep thinking about my work so that I wake up the next day and know exactly where to start.  That means I take my notes to bed with me and read them just before going to sleep.  That’s what I did in college – go to sleep with my notes, study in my dreams, and wake up the next day to take the tests.  Then again, I didn’t do so great in undergrad.  Let’s hope it works better now.  I’m behind schedule on the rewrite.

Today, I re-edited for the gazillionith time the pages covering May 13, 2005.  That day, I met with two sex sources who have commented here, did a photo shoot during which the photographer told me about a dildo bar in San Francisco, and went to a seminar on the psychology of bondage.  I was exhausted at the end of the day … just like I am now.

Let’s hope while I dream I can figure out … zzzzzzzzzz.

I’ve got the shakes.  On top of that, I just knocked over a glass of water and a large cup of Diet Coke, both spilling onto my cream-colored carpet.  The carpet is only two years old.  I don’t want it stained, so I just spent 30 minutes or so standing on towels trying to soak up the mess.  It’s now 1:32 PM and I still haven’t started work.  I thought I was starting work when I knocked over the glasses.  Now I’m writing this instead of working on my sex book. 

Last Friday night, I broke or jammed a toe.  Last night, as I sat in bed with two computers, working hard on everything but the sex book, I accidentally slammed the injured toe into one of the computers. Man, that hurt.  I have a tendency to break toes and sprain ankles when I’m under deadline.  As you can imagine, I’ve broken a lot of toes over the years.

I know that my behavior — the spilling of drinks, the breaking of toes, the shakes — sounds like I’ve been experiencing boozy nights.  No.  Though I have been indulging in unhealthy behavior lately, it’s not alcohol.  It’s cookies and cake and pizza and skipped workouts.  This too is typical of me when I’m under deadline.  I get to the point of saying screw everything until I get this book finished, though I guess since I’m writing a sex book I need to clarify that I don’t mean screw in the sexual sense.

Sex book.  There you have it.  That’s why I have the shakes.  I’m terrified of this book.  Of what I’ll expose.  Of what my editor wants me to expose.  What I need to expose to make this book great.

No, I’m not sure that’s true.  I’m not terrified of the exposure.  I’m terrified of the repercussions of the exposure.  Of what my friends and family will think of me.  How they’ll judge me.  And … well, I could tell you more, but I’m not comfortable exposing all that right now and it might distract from my point, which by now you’re probably wondering what it is.

My point is that this is normal modus operandi for a writer.  And I’m making this point for all the writers out there who come to me for coaching, who take classes from me, who come to my book signings to ask for advice, and who seek me out at conferences for a few words of encouragement.

My words of advice and encouragement are don’t be afraid of the fear or the panic.  It’s part of writing.  Now go (figuratively) jam a few toes, spill a few drinks, and get the shakes.

By the way, I wrote this a while back, so my toe is doing better.   I haven’t spilled anything in a few days.  I’ve eaten fish two nights in a row.  I don’t have a slice of pizza or cake or a cookie in the house.  And I’ve been making it to the gym four days a week.  You can imagine how my rewrite is going.  Well, okay, I haven’t had the shakes either but I have wakened in panic.  Maybe there’s hope!

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.

As many of you know, the making of the sex book has been a long and trying process.  I started the book in December 2004.  For the next year and a half, I researched, reported, wrote, rewrote, rewrote, and rewrote the book’s proposal.  The research continued through 2007.  During those years, I traveled from Texas to New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey to California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico to Florida, Jamaica, and Mexico, and ofttimes I traveled to those places more than once. 

A few of the year 2005 sex source emails

In January 2010, Denise Silvestro, who is my editor at Berkley Books, and I started talking about rewrite and publication.  We both knew that 200 pages had to be cut.  Over the next few months, she began sending me her suggestions for those cuts, as well as other thoughts about the manuscript.  In April, Denise emailed me her final set of editorial notes and we agreed on a rewrite deadline and publication date – August 1, 2010 deadline, summer 2011 publication.

That’s my first big news – after six and a half years in the making, the sex book will finally be on the bookstore shelves the summer of 2011.  I am psyched and stressed about this.  I’m psyched because it will be the first new book I’ve had on the shelves since December 2004.  I’m psyched because, in many ways, this was – and is – the most difficult book I’ve ever written.  Why do I get psyched about a difficult book?  Because it stretched me as a writer and as a person.  The reporting experience took me into worlds that I never fathomed I’d go into.  Sometimes those worlds were a tad frightening and intimidating; frequently they were – and are – confusing. 

But this hasn’t been simply one of my most difficult books, it’s been one of the best reporting experiences and perhaps the more rewarding writing experience of my life, too.  Along the way I’ve met some wonderful people who have encouraged me, inspired me, and changed me, in part because they have been my friends in the truest essence of the word – they love me and accept me despite our differences. 

Now the hard work is in front of me – the discipline of cutting, rewriting, delving deeper into the soul and revealing that on paper.  That’s not a task I cherish.  In fact, it frightens me a lot more than walking into a swing club with a man I met only a few minutes before. 

Since the rewrite is going to take the majority of my time, energy and spirit, for the next few months I’m going to have to limit my coaching.  I will continue with my current clients.  I might take on one or two new ones, if I really believe in them.  And I will be available for one-hour consultations to help authors prepare for the Writers’ League of Texas annual agents conference. 

But, and here’s the second big news, the best option for writers who want to work with me over the next few months is to sign up for my True Kick in the Pants class offered May 22, June 5 and 12, through the Writers’ League of Texas.  This is a shortened version of the week-long seminar I taught a couple of years ago for the Writers’ League’s Summer Writing Retreat held each year at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas.  That class was aimed at the serious narrative nonfiction writer prepping a book and proposal.  In contrast, this class is geared to both fiction and nonfiction authors who want to polish their first 50 pages in preparation for the agents conference.  As the class description says: 

Through critique and encouragement, we’ll discuss story, hook, and pacing, as well as self-editing. We’ll delve into topics like self-talk, discipline, determination, how to take criticism (constructive and otherwise), and how to bounce back and keep up one’s confidence no matter the circumstances. Making it as an author is about the craft of writing, but it’s also about self-confidence and marketing–knowing who you are as a writer and how to express that to others so that you’re completely prepared to meet agents and editors.

The class is focused on the first 50 pages because that’s what agents usually ask to see, before requesting for the complete manuscript. 

So join me for the WLT class.  Send me some good luck for the rewrite.  And – and maybe this is my third bit of big news, though I think I’ve mentioned it before – look for the December 2010 republication of my true crime book Wages of Sin.  Perhaps it’s appropriate that Wages of Sin is being reissued just before the sex book because I always describe it as the story of the Southern Baptist killer stripper – a girl who was reared Southern Baptist, became a stripper, and then a killer.

Yep, these days, this writer is always thinking about sex.  Maybe that’s not such big news after all. 

Some of the sex research and interview notes from year 2005

I have a thing for clean fingernails.  Usually, mine are clean.  Everyone can see that because I don’t wear nail polish.  Nail polish just isn’t me.

Today, while eating lunch alone, I stared at my fingernails.  There was dirt underneath them.  That upset me.  I’ve noticed dirt under them a lot lately.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been pulling a lot of weeds, which are thick in my backyard.  I have to dig deep to get to their roots.  The dirt they’re in is damp and sticky.  It gets between the ridges of my fingerprints.  It ekes beneath my cuticles.  It sticks under my fingernails.  I scrub.  I scrap.  I scrub and scrap some more, and the dirt refuses to come out.  It makes me mad.

As I sat there staring at my fingernails, I thought about my sex book.  I can’t figure out how to open it.  My editor knows how I should – just the way it’s written right now.  I know that opening’s okay, but I also know it’s not great.  It needs to be great. 

My friend Carol knows exactly how I should open the book.  She’s told me precisely how to do it.  I started a rough draft of her version.  It’s not bad, not bad at all.  But I’m not sure it works for me. 

I have a third version that I’ve written, too.  That version involves my family, which could be misinterpreted to sound a bit kinky.  It’s not at all.  It’s very clean.  But that version made me think about my little guy and his fingernails, which are always filthy.  Then again, what does one expect from a little boy? 

I remember when he was three or four years old.  I gave him a fingernail brush.  I tried to teach him to use it, but when they’re that age it’s hard to explain a fingernail brush in words and mimicked motions only.  I needed to show him with soap and water, and I wasn’t ever around him at bath time. 

When he turned five, his dad and I took him to Mexico so that he could swim with dolphins.  My little guy and I went to the beach; his dad went to play golf.  Before his dad got back, my little guy and I returned to our rooms to get ready for dinner.  I sent him off to the shower, or so I thought.  After I discovered him still covered in salt water and sand, he eventually confessed that he didn’t know how to wash his hair.  I poured out some shampoo, smeared it on his blond head, quickly tried to show him what to do and left him alone.  A bit later he walked into my room, all smiles, all wet, all proud of himself, and with sand still in his hair.  I bragged about what a good job he’d done.

Now that my little guy has a stepmom, I thought she’d make sure he keeps his fingernails clean.  But, they’re still dirty.  I make myself keep quiet about it, though I want to buy him another fingernail brush.  I look down at my fingernails and want to buy me one too. 

Though my editor is content with the opening of my book, she wants me to put more of “me” into the book.  As she says, she wants me to reveal my soul.  I don’t want to do that.  I think about the weeds I’ve been pulling.  They fight me to come out of the ground, just like this book fights me too.  When I finally do manage to yank out the weeds, a ball of damp dirt covers their roots.  It’s that root dirt that sticks to me. 

I look down at my hamburger and French fries.  When there’s just ketchup and mustard under my fingernails, I can wash that out quickly.  But when I’m pulling weeds … well,  I wonder if that’s why most women wear fingernail polish … so that no one can see their root dirt underneath.

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.  

This is a post I promised months ago.  Since I never got around to finishing it, and I figured you had forgotten about it, I was going to forget it too.  But when an apparently disgruntled American purposely crashed his small plane into a seven-story office building in Austin, Texas, Fort Hood came to my mind.  And that made me decide to finish this blog post.  It’s about my tiny bit of work covering the Fort Hood massacre for ABC’s Nightline.

“Military police have suspect cornered in bldg at Ft. Hood.  Police say 2 shooters opened fire, killing 7 people, wounding 12.  details still coming.”

My friend and investigative reporter Nanci Wilson posted that on Facebook at 2:23 PM on Thursday, November 5, 2009.  Within seven minutes, at 2:30 PM, I hit send on an email to Teri Whitcraft, the national law and justice unit producer at ABC News: “Let me know if y’all need help.”  Four minutes later, Teri wanted to know how long it’d take me to get to Fort Hood. 

I grabbed a bag of Zapp’s potato chips and started cramming them into my mouth.  It’d take an hour and a half to get to Fort Hood.  And if I were called in to work, only God knew when I’d have a chance to eat again.  I’d need the energy of food to do my job.

At 2:46 PM, Teri emailed me that she thought they had everything covered.

I put away the potato chips, turned on my laptop and sat down to type up my notes on a meeting with one of my sex book sources, but what I was really doing was watching the Fort Hood updates on CNN … and Facebook.  At 3:52, Nanci posted a call for blood donors at Scott & White hospital in Temple, Texas.  At 4:01, she reported that the death count was up to 12.

I couldn’t think about sex research under these circumstances. 

* * *

That’s what I wrote on November 13, 2009.  It’s factual. 

Below is what I’m writing more than three months later.  It’s based on hand-scribbled notes, limited emails and cell phone records, and my now shockingly vague memory.  I never thought that night would become vague.  But it did.  I guess that’s what stress does.  Still, I do have snippets of memory.  Their lighting is as detailed as if I were watching them on a theatre screen.

* * *

I wanted to be at Fort Hood covering the story.  That’s how I know I am a journalist, not simply a writer.  When the big story breaks, I want to be there.  It makes me feel like I am doing something about “it.”  Maybe I can’t stop the tragedy, but at least I can inform the people and maybe we can learn something and make changes that prevent such from happening again.

Since I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing, I changed clothes and walked out the door for the gym. 

Ten minutes later, I turned the ringer on my cell phone to its highest decibels, placed the phone on top of my purse, told the owner of the gym to let me know if he heard my phone ring, and climbed on an elliptical trainer to warm up for my workout.  At 5 PM, Karl, the gym owner, started me on my actual workout.  For the next hour, I lifted weights inside, I ran laps outside, I checked my phone, I lifted weights inside, I ran laps outside, I checked my phone. 

With all the phone checking, I felt like I was a prima donna saying, “Hey, everybody, look at me,” when I really knew the truth – I wasn’t going to be getting a call.  But that didn’t stop me from continuing my routine, lift weights inside, run laps outside, check the phone.  By 6 PM, my clothes, my hair, and I were soaked with sweat, and I was spent.  Of course, that’s when it happened – my phone rang.  In seemingly three leaps, I crossed the length of the gym and grabbed the phone.

Jeanmarie Condon, senior producer for ABC’s Nightline, calmly asked if she was interrupting me.  “I’m at the gym.”  She apologized.  “No, I just finished my workout.”  She wanted to know if I could work and how fast I could get to Killeen or Temple, Texas, homes of the medical centers that were treating the gunshot victims.  Without thinking, without asking permission, I stepped into Karl’s office and took it over, searching for pen and paper.  Karl handed them to me as Jeanmarie gave me my instructions – get to one of the hospitals, find friends, family, victims, someone with solid knowledge of the event to go on Nightline that night and talk about the shooting.

I grabbed my scribbled three words of notes, my purse, and literally ran out the door.  Ten minutes later, I began booting up my computer, while shedding clothes for the shower.  I washed my hair, barely blew it dry, found some semi-clean jeans and a shirt, threw them on, as well as a speck of makeup, went back to the computer, printed out directions to both hospitals, grabbed notepads and pens, put on shoes that I could run in and stand in for hours, threw a jacket in the car, and 40 minutes after getting the call, I was backing out of the driveway on the road to Fort Hood.

As I drove, I thought about the class I was to teach on Saturday – the Art of Interviewing.  I thought about what I’d tell my students about this night, about these sorts of circumstances – high pressure, big stories, national tragedies, what to do, how to prepare oneself, chaos, competition.  Oh, gosh, the list was endless.  And I hadn’t conducted interviews in months.  I reminded myself of my job – find people to interview, not interview them.  Breathe deep.  Relax.  Remember you’re a professional.  You know what you’re doing.

As I write this, in my head, I see myself water skiing.  I think about skiing whenever I get stressed.  It calms me, though I’ve only gotten to ski twice over the past 30 years.  Despite that, I know that when I set my right foot into that boot of a slalom ski, slide my left foot into the rear binding, and hold that single-handle rope in my gloved hands that I am going to get up first try.  Why?  Because I’ve done it that many times.  I know the fundamentals. 

I can feel my arms stiff and straight, my back strong, my stomach tight, my knees bent, the rhythm in my body as the ski bumps over the water, how my knees absorb the shock, how my arms lift and move like a guy wire, how my body leans, my ankle muscles stretch, how I chew the cinnamon-flavored gum in my mouth in perfect rhythm to the water, and how I scream with ecstasy because no one in the boat can hear me over the roar of the engine.

And in my mind, now, that’s what I saw when I drove over the bridge of Lake Travis.  I knew I could do this job.

This is part one of My Road to Fort Hood.  Until I post part two, if you’d like additional information about my coverage of the tragedy, please click here to read Fort Hood Notebook, a piece I wrote for the Texas Observer.

Over the past few days, I’ve heard from a friend struggling with juggling work, motherhood, marriage, and graduate school and a client struggling with her writing.  I understand.  I struggle too. 

Right now I’m struggling to write this because I’m sitting in Whataburger.  Let me back up.  For years, I had a set writing routine.  I’d wake up, check my email, shower, check email again, get dressed, check email again, and walk out the door to Whataburger — hence, the Whataburger cup on the home page of my website. 

I’d order a number one meal (Whataburger, fries, and soda), fill up my cup with ice and Diet Coke, sit down at one of my three favorite tables (next to the door or windows), pull out a hard copy of my previous day’s writing, and start editing.  By doing that, by the time I left the WB, I knew exactly where I needed to began writing, what I wanted to write, and how I wanted to start it.  And, and this and is important, I thought about that opening all the way home so that all I had do to when I got home was flip on the computer and start writing. 

Other times, I’d take my laptop to Whataburger and start writing there, sometimes getting so lost in my work that I’d stay for hours.  I’d “wake up” to realize I’d written through an entire Whataburger shift change.  I loved that.  I loved that the Whataburger employees found my work and me intriguing enough that they’d let me sit for hours and leave me alone.

But as some of you know, I moved, which meant a switch in Whataburger’s.  While my new WB is filled with great employees, I’ve never felt comfortable working here.  Only one employee seems curious about my work, and that’s because he wants me to edit his school papers for him, which I would do if he’d ever remember to bring them to me.  Plus, this store is too small to let me take up a table for hours.  And the clientele is different.  Musicians and homeless men frequented my old Whataburger.  Retired corporate executives and blue-collar workers fill this Whataburger.  Some people would consider that an improvement.  I don’t.  They don’t feed my creative juices.

I remember sitting in my old Whataburger when Jennifer Gale walked in, her brown hair flowing over the shoulders of her apple red Christmas sweatshirt.  For those of you who don’t know Austin, Jennifer was a transgendered homeless woman who frequently ran for mayor.  She was a sweetheart.  I can say that from personal experience because as she walked out the door one day, she stopped, turned around, came over to me, and with a big, beautiful smile on her face told me how much she loved my eyeglasses and that she hoped I had a wonderful day.

Jennifer Gale

Such kindnesses don’t happen at my current Whataburger.

And, indeed, Jennifer made my day wonderful.

I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t feel the emotional support at my current Whataburger that I did at my old one.  And I’m sure I’m projecting myself on my friend and my client when I say that often we find ourselves struggling when we feel like we’re not getting the emotional support we need. 

I know that’s happened to me over the past few years as I’ve struggled with my sex book.  People who once supported it turned against it.  One person even told me that the book is going to destroy my career and … well, I don’t want to say what else she said.  But perhaps worst of all, the person I depended on to be my biggest, loudest-cheering champion gave me such harsh critique that I lost my self-confidence.  Initially, the harsh critique was done in the name of making me a better writer.  At first, that’s what it felt like – hard critique to make me better.  But over the years it seemed to turn into cruel, unnecessary digs intended to make me doubt myself.  And that’s what it did.  Like the cliché acid, it ate away at my self-confidence.  The scars run deep and red. 

I’ve thought about that a lot over the past hours … ever since I got the email from my client … saying her writing wasn’t going well … that her work (in essence, since I’ve been coaching her) is missing its former elegance, that it seems forced and clunky. 

She’s right.  And I know the reason why.  In the name of making her a better writer, I froze her with my harsh critique. 

“Stand up and shake,” I wrote her back.  “Literally.  Just stand up and shake me off.  Then go read my blog about writer’s terror.  Don’t think or worry about me.  Just write.  Just write for yourself … for your soul … like nobody’s listening.”

That’s what I said last night.  Today, all I’ve been thinking about is my mentor Ben Masselink.  Ben was my favorite instructor in the University of Southern California Master of Professional Writing Program.  All Ben ever told me was go, go, go, go, go, you can do this.  You’re almost there.  Go, go, go, go, go, go … though Ben usually said it with a ton of typos as he pecked out the words on one of his black Underwood typewriters. 

So, to my client, I want to say I’m very sorry that I’ve made you doubt your talent. Truly, I have been hard on you because I do believe in you and do believe that you are talented.  In fact, you might be the most innately talented writer I coach.  I’ve been harsh on you because I thought you were strong enough to handle the critique and because I wanted to prepare you for the harshness of this industry.  I still believe you are strong enough to handle the critique, but I failed to remember that we all need a Ben Masselink in our lives.  So, girl, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.  You’re almost there.  You can do it.  I believe in you.  Go, go, go, go, go, go.

And to my friend, I believe in you too.  I know it’s hard.  I wish I were there to help you juggle.  But I know you can do this.  Go, go, go, go, go.  Or, as Ben told me, “YOURE GOING TO DO IT!!!!”

No, you ARE doing it.

USC classmate, friend, and novelist, Mitchell Sam Rossi, me, and our beloved mentor, Ben Masselink

I don’t need no stinkin’ pity. 

I guess that’s a rather harsh reaction, but the other day someone responded to my New Year’s Eve Confession saying he had no sympathy for me, that instead of seeking sympathy I should look at what all I’d accomplished in my career, and, and – this is the part that got to me — that I should lower my dreams.  That’s the very kind of thinking I don’t want in my life. 

Let me back up a bit.  And forgive me if I’ve already told you this story before, but years ago I mentioned to a yearning-to-be-published author that I’d received literally 200 to 300 rejection letters from literary agents and editors.  She looked at me like I was crazy and responded, “Give it up.”

Okay, maybe that wasn’t her exact quote, and as a journalist I believe in giving exact quotes.  But that was the gist of her brief response — after two or three hundred rejections it’s obvious that you’re not going to make it as a published author, so just give it up.

I looked at her like she was crazy.  I was not going to give up my dream.  If I did, that’d guarantee I wouldn’t fulfill it.  And I’m so glad I didn’t take her advice because it wasn’t long after that that I sold Wasted.  We know what happened to Wasted — New York Times bestseller, Violet Crown Award finalist in the nonfiction category, three printings, and finally, finally, 11 years after publication, Wasted made it into profit territory. 

I began writing this blog post almost two weeks ago.  I have a tendency to do that a lot lately – start writing something, get what I think is halfway through it, then take a break and never finish the piece. 

With this post, I came back to it a week later and thought, hmm, the first 300 words stand on their own as is, though there was one really bad transition, which I’ve deleted.

But despite the fact that the first 300 words stood on their own, I wanted to add more.  I wanted to write about what that no-pity “someone” said to me.  (That’s something I tend to do – write too long.*)  So now, nearly two weeks after I started this, I’m going to diverge from my usual blog post formula and go a bit more into reporter mode.  In doing so, I’m going to talk a very little about my sex book, something I’ve been refraining from doing until it gets closer to actual publication.  I’m going to do that because that “someone” was one of my sex book sources.

I’ve known him for four and a half years.  And from now on I’m going to call him Howlin’ Wolf.  I won’t tell you how Howlin’ Wolf and I met.  That will have to wait for the book.  But in those four and half years, we’ve become friends, though distant friends, meaning we rarely see each other but we keep in touch through email.  And, obviously, he reads my blog posts.  After reading “New Year’s Eve Confession,” he emailed, “Interesting.”

A comment like that says to me that the person didn’t really like what I wrote, but wants me to draw out their not-so-positive feelings.  It’s a bit passive-aggressive, but it’s games playing that I’m used to simply because I’m frequently passive-aggressive. 

“Your (lack of) comment is interesting.  ” I passive-aggressively wrote back.

Howlin’ Wolf replied that he was concerned that I was feeling low.  “I just care about you and want you to be in a better frame of mind.”

I read lines like that and find that it’s no wonder that he’s one of my editor’s, my test readers’, and my favorite “characters” in the book.  Apparently, though, I didn’t answer his sweet email.  At least I can’t find a reply. 

The following day, he emailed me again with some sex news.  Perhaps I didn’t react the way he wanted because the next day he wrote me again about my New Year’s Eve blog.  I don’t know if Howlin’ Wolf realizes this, but often, when I don’t respond the way he wants, he’ll send me another email commanding a response:

 “You know more about me than anybody in this world EXCEPT me, and as a result of that I feel like you should accept and understand me as a TRUE friend when I say I had rather tell you my honest feelings, than tell you what I think will pacify you.  I’m almost sure this will piss you off initially, but if you are still mad at me after a few days of thinking about it, then I guess our friendship wasn’t that solid after all.  I’m not sure I feel as much sympathy for you as I did in the first reading.”

Sympathy?!  I don’t want no stickin’ sympathy.  Sympathy wasn’t what I was striving for.  Oh, yeah, I reacted.  And if I’m truthful, the word in my brain wasn’t sympathy; it was pity.

I forced myself back to his email.

“I think some of your worries and problems were self-inflicted—”

Duh.  Of course, they’re self-inflicted.

“—and maybe your ‘career expectations’ bar was set too high from the get go.”

What?!!!  That’s exactly the kind of thinking I’m trying to get away from. 

“If you want to know why I feel this way, I’ll continue.  Otherwise … oh, well.”

“Sure.  Why not tell me?”  I greeted his passive-aggressive words with more of my own.  “I assure you, I can handle whatever you have to tell me.  Odds are, I’ve heard much, much, much worse.”

As I typed, a comment from an Amazon reader flitted through my mind.  That reader wrote that I, Suzy Spencer, am “THE WORST WRITER IN THE HISTORY OF WRITING.”  Man, that’s saying something – worst writer in the history of writing.  (By the way, the all caps were the reader’s idea, not mine.)

Anyway, back to the subject.  I believe my response to Howlin’ Wolf caused him to soften his comments back to me, rather than say what he really intended.  He wrote that I should focus on the successes I’ve had and not compare myself to the likes of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling – that that sort of success is rare. 

Duh.

He then talked about his days as a pilot:

“I was a far cry from the Tom Cruise ‘Top Gun’ type of guy.  But you know what, Suzy?  I had fun, lived where I wanted to live, enjoyed what I did and made a decent living doing it.  And that’s all the majority of us can ask for expect.”

Quietly, I went ballistic.  How does one go quietly ballistic?  I fumed like a cartoon character blowing air out of her ears, but I didn’t say a word.  To me, that very thinking – that settling for what that majority expects – is what sabotages a writer.  We have to believe that we’re that special one that’s going to make it big.  If we don’t, we’ll give up when so-called friends hear we’ve had 200 to 300 rejections and tell us to give up.  We’ll give up when we read that we’re “THE WORST WRITER IN THE HISTORY OF WRITING.”

And I don’t know about you, but I don’t intend to give up.  I see that “giving up” a lot in writers these days, especially writers of a certain success and of a certain age, i.e. writers like me.

They’re beaten down by the lack of recent success, by the never-ending financial instability, by the diminishing ability to be paid for our words, by the confusion in the present state of publishing, by the very long-term viability of our industry, and even by the near zero availability of health insurance (at least in Texas).

Just this week, a writer who would be considered a success by Howlin’ Wolf sighed that we’re “dinosaurs,” then whispered the fear that we all have:  “Will I ever be published again?”

That’s the state of writers right now.  That’s the very thinking I cannot be sucked into.  If I allow myself to slide down that depressed hole, the odds bury me barely alive.  And I won’t be published. 

I told Howlin’ Wolf that I don’t want to be content, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have fun along the way.  I do. 

Now this next sentence might sound absolutely awful, and that’s not what I intend.  I wrote Howlin’ Wolf that “I had a blast covering the Andrea Yates trial and stretching and learning, and that’s exactly why I don’t want to be content.  I want to stretch and learn and strive to be Top Gun.  I realize that’s not for everyone.  But it is for me.  And if that wasn’t the way I am, you and I would have never met, because I never would have taken on the challenge of writing a book about sex.  … I would have contented myself with making a comfortable living writing tabloid trash, mass-market paperback, Texas-based true crime books.  But, hey, where’s the fun, the challenge, the daring, the growth in that?

“And don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about – you do that in your sex life.  I just prefer to do it in my career.”

That probably sounds like I’m cutting down my true crime career and true crime writers.  I don’t want to do that.  I am most grateful for what true crime has given me – challenges I never dreamed.  And I admire what true crime writers accomplish on miniscule budgets with often ridiculously tight deadlines and with little respect from others.

But, for me, I also feel like “been there, done that, time to try something new.”

I could go on and on about what Howlin’ Wolf said next, about how he asked me if I equated contentment “with a certain level of success” with having “no incentive to improve.”  And, again, if I’m being honest, I do want to go on and on with that.  But I can tell that at this point, this blog post is getting boring.  So let me just get to the point.  And that point is that I find irony in the fact that the very people who have encouraged me to be content with less have not fulfilled their dreams.

The writer, who told me to give it up after 200 to 300 rejections, as far as I know, has never published a book.  And Howlin’ Wolf, well, since he’s one of my sex sources, I’m going to digress a moment and say that for the past four years he has admitted that he wants to get me in bed.  That ain’t gonna happen.  In fact, when I think about the men who have encouraged me to be less than I dream, they have all been men who have said they wanted me sexually.  And, they are all men who didn’t have a chance with me.

Man, that sounds vain, and it’s an embarrassing and maybe inappropriate thing to confess.  But all I’m saying is, writers … women … or anyone for that matter, when someone is encouraging you to give up your dreams … or lessen your dreams … or wants you to lower your standards … just maybe, just maybe they have a not so hidden motive.  Maybe their motive is for you to give up like they did.  And, more important, maybe their motive is not in your best interests. 

I’m here to say you don’t need their stinkin’ input.  Dream big.  Work hard.  Stretch.  Grow.  Challenge yourself.  Enjoy.  And most of all, don’t give up.  Shout it from the sky, “I don’t need no stinkin’ pity.”  Then get back to writing. 

*  I point out my short-fallings and mistakes so that my coaching clients can see how harshly I critique my own work.  As such, I should note that I’m using sympathy and pity as if they are interchangeable.  Though Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary defines sympathy as “the act or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings or interests of another” and pity as “a sympathetic sorrow for one suffering, distressed or unhappy,” and though Word says the two words are synonyms, in my opinion, they’re not interchangeable.  My reason for saying that is connotation.  To me, sympathy has a kind connotation.  Pity has a negative connotation.  As proof, I offer you the phrase “pity party.”

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

Brooke Warner

I’m digressing ridiculously.  Back to the point.  Brooke and I seemed to “get” each other.  I loved her ability to get into a writer’s soul and bring out the best in them.  I don’t know what she liked about me.  Maybe she liked to laugh over the escapades of a ridiculously uptight, white Southern Baptist writing about Americans’ alternative sex practices.  Anyway, the second year we ran into each other at the Writers’ League agents conference, I was moderating a panel and Brooke was one of the panelists.  I blatantly announced to our audience that I wanted Brooke to edit me someday.  She sweetly reciprocated and announced that she wanted to edit me someday.

Then, as my sex book morphed from an overview to a memoir, and as I struggled to reveal myself in the book, I wanted to hire Brooke as my writing coach.  What I’m about to write next might cause me to lose some coaching clients, but it’s the truth — part of me still wishes I’d hired Brooke.  I think she’s that good.  I especially think that today after discovering her blog and an old post of hers on writing memoir.  Every bit of her advice is smart.  I especially appreciate what she wrote about transparency:

Transparency.  This includes honesty, truth-telling, and being vulnerable.  For some people this comes so naturally that it’s a nonissue.  For others it’s like pulling teeth.  Many writers don’t realize how much you have to put yourself out there until they’ve delved into some memoir writing.  Most memoirists, other than those who don’t even know the meaning of the word shame, will freak out at various junctures.  This probably means you’re writing a good memoir.

It’s those last two sentences I love, because, man, I’ve certainly freaked out at various junctures of writing my sex book … and will continue to freak out as I go into rewrite.  So maybe that means the book will be good.  And maybe that means Brooke will be proud.  I hope so, because she’s one fine woman, editor and coach.

Click here to read Brooke’s memoir entry in its entirety.