I love to sing like a crazy person in the entirely self-imagined, mock-privacy of my car’s interior, where I either think people can neither hear nor see me, or just don’t care if they do. About twenty minutes after passing that gorgeous Magnolia view, I arrive at the northeast edge of downtown, directly below Capitol Hill where my office building is located. Part of this morning commute ritual is the search for a good parking spot. By some bureaucratic oversight, there are a few random patches of all-day, unmetered parking directly above 1-5 and about two blocks from my office. And every morning, those few savvy business professionals who have discovered and cultivated this land of secret parking, vie for whatever empty spots are vacated as residents and other lucky parkers vacate the area on their own way to work.

Over the last year and a half that I’ve had this job, I’ve seen the same group of early-morning parkers gather on the streets, making their laps around the block between about 8:00 and 8:45 am to fight for parking. I’ve seen newly vacated parking spaces stolen right out from under me, and I’ve been the thief myself on one or two occasions. I’ve assigned names to each of these parking community members and have even learned the preferred search times of each driver in order to time my own arrival in the neighborhood about ten minutes earlier than the rest of the pack. For example, Mean Green Prius Man always shows up at 8:15 or later, while Green Volvo Sedan Green Thermos Lady leaves her spot at precisely 8:46 am, every day, and returns at 5:00 pm. Old Man Porsche generally pops in about five or ten minutes behind me, so that we often pass each other and wave as we play our musical chairs-like game and seek-and-ye-shall-find. Some people are awfully unfriendly about it, while others give the all-purpose wave, the Aloha/Shalom of motor vehicle gestures. Though a spot to park my car is nearly always available within a few blocks if I am willing to espand my search zone, getting a spot in the right-out-front “happy strip,” as my co-workers and I like to call it, can really start my day off with a feeling of triumph and glee.

Sometimes shimmying my tank-like Volvo station wagon into questionably viable spaces takes a bit of what I like to call, “touch-parking method,” or require me to get out of my car to check, double check and recheck. In conversations with the local meter maid, I’ve learned that if only 1/3 of your car’s length is sticking out into an infraction zone, all is well—as long as that other majority of your car’s length is in the all-clear zone. I have become a master of parallel parking, Austin Powers-ing my way into some very tiny spaces with well-practiced precision.

Yesterday, I was working my way into a very tight uphill space, when Old Man Porsche walked behind me on the sidewalk. We waved at each other, recognizing one another’s faces from so many mornings passing each other in our cars. Old Man Porsche then walked over to the front of my car, held up his hands to indicate how much room I had, and then directed me into the sweet-spot of the parking space with his kindly hand signals. He smiled at me as he gave a thumbs-up and good-bye wave, and I mouthed the words “Thank You” before he walked away.

I felt warmed by that gesture of kindness all day, not sure why something so seemingly trivial had affected me so strongly. When I got home, I watched two neighbors walk in their front doors at the same time each without saying hello or even glancing in the other’s direction. And then it hit me: in today’s Go-Go-Go culture, there is so much we ignore, so much that we neglect. When we are each increasingly absorbed in our own little bubbles while glued to cell phones and computer screens, cultivating a sense of community just doesn’t seem to happen much. It may be minor in relation to my life and priorities, but sharing a moment with Old Man Porsche made us both feel that we belonged to a larger community and to each other.

I’m fortunate to have a ton of friends and a fantastic office-full of great folks to go to every day, to belong to a wonderful community of writers, to know my neighbors well and to feel like I belong somewhere. But in a world that values the potential to live life anonymously, I’ll take any and all connections I can get, whether it be a friendly hello at the dog park, a smile from a passing stranger, or a little parking assistance from an old man I see every day but have never met.

Again, I do want to be clear on what kind of line I’m drawing here and where I’m drawing it: I think everyone could benefit from experiencing the written word, in some form or another. The act of writing has long been good medicine for the soul, and there is something truly cathartic about processing a thought into words and seeing it suddenly exist in tangible form before your eyes. Anyone who truly wishes to commit themselves (pun intended) to the art of writing has my full and unabashed support. But that commitment to do the work of a writer is significantly more intense than most non-writer types could ever guess. Not only must you constantly study the craft, read and absorb as much literature as your brain can hold, sacrifice nearly all spare time and money to support the career, teach and speak and publish to build enough of a marketing base to keep your head above water, but you must do all of that in the face of constant doubt and rejection. And unless you are Stephen King or a celebrity author, you do it all for peanuts. I haven’t even mentioned the emotional turmoil and strife that, historically speaking, attach themselves to the life of a writer.

I say all of this today because I find myself to be a glutton of punishment, as a writer anyway. I recall a panel workshop at a writer’s conference a few years ago when an author described the experience of completing the first draft of a novel only to realize in the very completion of it that her main character was the wrong gender—that all the novel’s problems could be cured by turning her male character into a female one. I listened to her describe the horror of dissembling her manuscript to accommodate the change, and hoped I’d never write myself into that kind of corner. Well, I’ve just written myself into the nastiest of corners, and I’ve no choice but to get my hands dirty and write myself back out of it.

I’ve been working on the first draft of my YA novel for over two years, and am within about six or seven chapters of completing the story. Smooth sailing from here on out, right? Nope. All this time, I’ve been unable to transfer the moody, intelligent, brave girl I hold in my head to the page. Instead, I’ve only managed to plop down this limp noodle of a tween, who barely holds her creator’s interest and can’t possibly fare any better with the average reader. The disclaimer here is that my first drafts are nearly always drivel; the real magic of my writing typically takes place in the slog of slave-like revisions, and that’s just how I work. But even relative to the “shitty first draft” method of writing to which I generally adhere, my limp noodle of a protagonist just wasn’t cutting it, and I couldn’t figure out why. Enter some tough love from my most reliable friend and writing partner, Kelly: sitting at our last manuscript meeting, Kelly uttered those fateful words “I know what you need to do to fix Fitz, but you’re not gonna like it. You’ve got to change the point of view.” Gulp. Horror. Dread. Dread. Dread.

Of course she was, and is, right on this one. I’ve written ¾ of the manuscript in what writers call the “Third Person Omniscient” POV, and instead, the story is calling out to be written in the First Person Limited” POV. For the laymen, this means that instead of an all-knowing, outside voice saying “Fitz walked away from her home, not knowing that her father watched her from an upstairs window,” that line would have to read “I walked away from my house, wondering if anyone even knew I was gone.” Or something like that, but anyway you get the idea. I’m 100% confident that this massive change is what will save my book, but making it happen is another matter entirely. I’ve decided to finish out the manuscript in the POV I started it with, to just finish the damn thing. And when I muster up the strength, I’ll re-write the whole sonofabitch in a completely different voice and perspective. It will drastically alter almost every aspect of the novel. It will be no easy feat–of that I am certain.

The process will be ugly and painful, and I don’t look forward to it. Book one of a planned trilogy, this bad-boy might never even see the light of day, no matter how hard I work on it or for how long or how good it is. Like all things publishing industry-related, it’s a total crapshoot. So why do I do it? Why do I furiously devour every YA novel ever written in the first person for inspiration, why do I toss out two year’s worth of work just to start over again nearly from scratch? Why do I suffer and toil and tear out my hair over a piece of work that might only live out its dark eternity in the back of a desk drawer? Because I must. Because I have dedicated my life to this nonsense. Because I have no other choice—because it is what I was put on this planet to do. See—that’s the difference between real writers and writer-wannabees. Every real writer endures this sort of struggle because there is something inside us that drives that engine toward the written word in the face of abject abuse and suffering. Real writers know that there may very likely never be any monetary or critical reward for the effort, but that the endeavor itself is rewarding enough to stick with it.

Having my debut book published next year is fantastic, but it’s not what makes me feel like a real writer. Pulling a stagerring eight all-nighters in a row to finish revising that book, however, does make me feel like a real writer. Seeing the novel I’m currently working on make it to print might not validate my efforts entirely, but the effort itself is what validates me, and my identity as a writer. Most days, that self-validation goes an awfully long way, and I’m thinking it might just be enough to sustain me through the daunting task that lies ahead.

Fifteen years ago, I took a trip toNew Orleanswith my dad to do some camp recruiting and also to enjoy that region of the country in all its pre-Katrina splendor. While we were there, we ate the most incredible foods, soaked in the rich culture, and spent a good deal of our time exploring our shared interest in photography, taking pictures that even now still decorate my walls with timeless intrigue and beauty. Dad and I loved travelling together whenever we had a chance, and I recall that particular trip being the most memorable because I was finally maturing enough, a junior in high school, to really participate in intelligent conversations with my dad on a peer-to-peer level.

On the airplane heading home from Louisiana while my dad read a book in the seat next to me, I pulled out my little spiral notebook I had packed with my homework and, as if by involuntary reflex or some divine guidance, began writing a story at the most furious pace, not stopping to think or decide what to write next; the words flowed in a frenzy from my fast-moving pen and when it was all done, I sat up and looked at the filled pages in disbelief, as if I hadn’t just written them myself that very moment. I had written a story—a rather good one if I do say so myself, relative at least to the kind of angsty, amateur schlop I tended to write at that nascent stage of my writerhood,—that seemed to come from nowhere. Unlike most of the other things I have written and continue to write, this story waltzed right into my head fully formed, and, before I could even anticipate how to write it, there it appeared on the page in front of me. The first line of that original draft read “Her name meant grace in a language she knew but never spoke.”

Over the years, I put that story into verse, took it out and put it back into prose, tried to lengthen it into a novel, and tried a variety of other tinkerings in my quest to “finish Grace.” Nothing really ever seemed quite right, and so I left it on my literary mental shelf to collect creative dust for the past seven or eight years.

And then two weeks ago as I was flying home to Milwaukee to spend the ten-year anniversary of my father’s death with my family, I was trying to work out some really pesky revisions by hand in my little notebook, waiting to reach the altitude where I could turn on my laptop. Leaning over that rickety tray table with pen to paper, “Grace” came back to me and wove herself into the scene I had been trying to fix for weeks. Of course some of the details and most of the storytelling had evolved into something more refined and appropriate to my novel, but the meat of the story was the same, and it fit perfectly. Grace had finally found her home.

Funny how ideas can live in a writer’s brain for so many years, lying dormant, or not, before finally emerging, transformed by time and thought, to breathe new life into an old project, or bring something time-honored to a new piece. I can’t say how or why it all works, and frankly I don’t want to know. Part of the power of this seemingly divine literary intervention is its mystery, and I’m not about to try fixing what sure aint broke. However it all works, I’ve decided that even though that original first line has long since dropped away, the title proved to be an aptly chosen one. And boy do I hope that the surprises will keep on coming.

Every year when December hits, I can’t help but return in my mind to the winter, now ten long years ago, when my dad died. The seemingly endless Wisconsin winter, the days and nights spent at his bedside, the constant fear and turmoil. It’s hard to believe that ten of these anniversaries, these nostalgic melancholias have passed, each one a little different. Some of them have snuck up on me, while others loomed in the foreground like some long-awaited and predestined winter storm. I suppose I wasn’t sure what to expect this year, but at the very least I knew it wouldn’t be easy.

As this past Friday, December 16^th approached, I planned to lie low for the day and maybe watch Dad’s favorite movie, Jeremiah Johnson and maybe even build a fire though it never really gets cold enough here in Seattle to actually need one. Usually on Dad’s birthday or the anniversary of his death, I try to do things that he loved doing—watch Star Trek and Jeremiah Johnson, eat spicy Thai food, play with the dog outside, do some writing and reading. It makes me feel good to find some joy in what would otherwise be a devastating day by carrying on the silly traditions that made him so happy, and it makes me feel twice as good when, every year, I realize that those are the very same things that make me so happy in my everyday life.

But last Thursday when I got home from work, juggling the groceries and mail and dreading the day that would follow, I got a call from my brother, Gabe. He’d been thinking about Dad, as we all had, and feeling funny that we were all scattered across the country, apart on such an important day. Wanting us all to be together, he suggested that our brother, Dylan, and I fly home the next morning so we could experience with each other something that only the four of us will ever understand. Several frantic phone calls, 80,000 of Gabe’s frequent flyer miles, and twenty minutes later, the flight had been booked and my bags were packed. And the next day as we sat in front of Gabe’s fireplace, drinking in the cozy winter night and watching my sweet niece bounce and giggle on our laps, we did exactly what felt right: we shared stories about Dad. Laughed and cried and remembered how incredible we felt in his presence. It wasn’t an easy weekend, but it was the best it could have possibly been because we were together.

It was hard to leave home to come back to Seattle this time. As our family grows, it gets more difficult to stay so far away, and as the distance separating the present from the fantasy-like time when my father was still alive expands, I only miss my family more because they are my strongest connection to him. But back at my desk, writing and sipping tea, listening to music I know my father would have loved, I remind myself that I will hold on. I’ll love him stronger every day, love myself in his absence. His death hurts every bit as much today as it did ten years ago, if not more. No–I can say with absolution that it does hurt more as time passes; as my life unfolds I findi myself missing him worse than ever before, thinking about what he’s missing and what I continue to miss in his absence.

But I hold on. I hold on to his memory, the sound of his laughter and the feel of his beard against my forehead. I hold on to all the things my brothers and I inherited from him. I hold on for dear life to the knowledge that next year, when my first book comes out, his legacy will spread and live on in the hearts of those who come to know him through my story, all because I held on and wrote. Wrote through the tears, the struggle, the sleepless nights, and the last ten anniversaries.

                                   -Ezra Klein, The WashingtonPost

Sitting at my desk this morning and running through all my start-of-day emails and Internet rounds, I stumbled upon a video that snapped me right out of my early morning, overslept-by-45-minutes haze. I saw the reenactment, caught on and made into a lovely piece of film (view it below), of one of my own experiences that I later captured in a poem (read it below), as I—a poet—am wont to do. I inched closer to my monitor, both hands resting on it’s tripod feet against my desk, angling it and shifting it so I could see as best as one can see things on an old desktop computer in a fluorescent-lit office building. It was breathtaking to see my own descriptions of that experience and my own memories of it, come back to life on a screen in front of me, breathtaking in that truest, most literal sense of the word. Magnificent.

I felt an immediate need to get outside. I feel this way often, working my day job inside a dark little cubicle on the seventh floor of an office building that could be any office building. What dim and damp light makes its way from the mid-NovemberSeattlecloud cover often just barely gives the windows of our office a blueish glow, so that the only light I see by is artificial, hollow and plastic in tone. The recycled air gets hot, and stuffy in the afternoons, giving me the intense urge to at least just press my cheek against the cold glass separating us from the outdoors. And when I get home, throw on my wellies and wool hat, clip on Mona’s leash and head back out the door, I feel the evening wind, the kiss of winter, pressing against my cheeks. Then I can breathe again, purge the office stuffiness out of my lungs, and look up to the sky to see what I can see.

Often, I walk during my lunch at work. I’ll go with a friend, or I’ll go by myself, minding no bother to the rain or cold, just to get a break in the day, a dose of the outside into my body. It isn’t much, walking through the city, but it’s something. Indeed, I’ve spent the vast majority of my life living in and loving the outdoors, feeling equal parts capable and challenged by outdoor recreation endeavors. Hell, I spent well over a month traveling by sea kayak through the southeast coast ofAlaskaat the age of 17. I was raised in the wilderness of the Northwoods of Wisconsin, taught to appreciate and respect mother nature. As a child, I spent days on end just enjoying the woods and water—no TV, no video games, no distraction or busywork.

And now here I am, that wild little girl all grown up, living in the city all these years. The thing I love so much aboutSeattleis how quickly I can move from one environment to the next within its borders. Today, I’ll drive out of downtown proper after work, head into my neighborhood of Magnolia, and end up atDiscoveryParkwith my dog, where we have the splendid expanse of 534 acres to roam, all within 30 minutes door to door. That expanse is what saves me, what allows me to appreciate glimpses of nature wherever I can find them, such as I did on the day I experienced the impetus for the below poem, one of my very favorites.

The Overflow on the Other Side

Those birds must have been swallows,
those that filled the straight-edged gaps
in downtown’s sky with their undulating
connect-the-dot blackness.

All the street-stranger neighbors and I
let our umbrellas dangle, get bumped
by winds at our thighs. We jerked our chins
to the skyline so we could watch
this hybrid clan, this school of fish/swarm
of shivering gnats signal the apocalypse
in the air above the streetlights
and stunted sidewalk trees.

I’ve never seen birds move and shake
that way together, slamming bodies
against each other, reaching to fly nearest
a skyscraper window, then crashing back
the opposite way. One end of the mass
pulled back, and under, like the ocean
as she calls back a wave. The overflow
on the other side spilled all across to spread,
this pattern repeating strobe-quick.

But the apocalypse didn’t come.
And soon this cloud of bird
dissolved away, as if all liquid
in their bodies evaporated, all sinew
dried to ash, pushed apart by winds.

The birds abandoned their colony,
and on the street we birdwatchers
were made strangers again.
Umbrellas were righted and perched.
The rain was just rain.

And here, on video, that surreal phenomenon of nature captured by others who felt as compared to share it as I have. Watch, my friends, and enjoy. And then go outside and let that early winter air creep into your lungs and refresh your spirit.

Working on those edits, pulling eight—yes eight—all-nighters in a row, I wasn’t so sure I could make it through to the other side of yet another no-holds barred revision of a manuscript I’ve been working on for nearly ten years. But I did make it, and in fact I’m really rather proud of the work I did during those endless nights.

I learned something about myself as a writer then: I am a warrior. I am a badass. I am a tiger in a hobbit’s body. I am a fierce protector of social justice and preservation of those few remaining, however Liliputian, vestiges of intelligencia and human kindness that cling to life in the modern world. I am a forager. A scavenger fish. An island. A one-woman show. A Holly Go-Lightly with bigger boobs, more common sense but equally poor history with men. I am a girl who wishes she had paid more attention in Latin class in high school and college. I am the kind of girl who takes Latin classes. I am the kind of girl who writes about the experience of taking Latin. At my very core, I am a writer. I can’t minimize or deny that part of my identity any longer, no matter how tough it gets, how much doubt I have, or where the process takes me.

I talk and write a lot about my writing, complain about not having time to actually write. But no longer do I feel this way, because I’ve been doing the work of a writer. I used to talk about never believing that I am a good writer, a real writer, a successful writer. While I’ll still likely never believe I’m a good writer, I like to think that such an indefinite uncertainty will keep me honest and force me to always challenge myself as an artist. But as of today, this week, this month, this year, I don’t doubt anymore that I’m a real writer. I know I am. I’ve earned my stripes.

It no longer matters what kind of success I achieve, who stands behind me, or how many years will stretch out before me in this life—one things holds firm and fast: I have been made real by putting in the hours, the training, the passion it takes to be a writer. And there’s no stopping me now.

Victoria came for a visit to Seattle last spring, and on her last night in town we went out for a fun sushi dinner. A couple of sake bottles in,Victoria asked me one of the most difficult questions of my life. She leaned across the table and said, “If you could have your dad back, but be the person you were when he was still alive, would you do it?” The easy answer is “yes.” Yes, I would do anything in the whole world to get him back if even just for one minute, one last conversation, one more hug.

But, my eyes glazed with a moderate buzz and my head fuzzy with thoughts of alternate realities where alternate Tanyas live alternate lives as non-writers, I found that I couldn’t really answer that question with conviction. The truth is that I am proud of who I am now because I’ve fought damn hard to get here. Without experiencing the trauma of losing my father and the subsequent struggles to carve out some happiness and security for myself, I can’t imagine who I would have become. I am a stronger, tougher, steadier person because of my father’s death and I wouldn’t want to give any of those qualities back.

By this point in the conversation,Victoria and I both had tears in our eyes and were holding hands across the table, drunkenly telling each other how much we loved each other and each other’s deceased parent. Our poor waiter had no idea what to do, and kept hesitantly checking in on our table throughout the evening.

This morning as I set about getting my work day started, I got sidetracked with a little Youtube meandering through old Gillian Welch/Emmylou Harris songs. Along the way, I watched a Mary Chapin Carpenter video and remembered, hearing her powerful voice, how much my father loved her music. I listened for a few more songs, trying to place the melodies back to our homes in Milwaukee and Tucson, where my dad loved to play his music throughout the day, believing that music belonged in the role of permanent backdrop to our family saga. Were my father to have lived, would I be able to appreciate his favorite music in this way? Or would I have turned my nose at it because it’s not really my cup of tea? I’m fully aware that many of the memories I have of my father have been turned halcyon, whether they deserve that status or not, in the years since his death. Everything he loved and did and stood for has become something to mimic, worship, and adore.

Without my father’s death, I am convinced that I wouldn’t have become a writer; I’ve been certain of this for a long time. And without writing, I wouldn’t be able to explore my grief, my opinions, and my views of the world as I have done. There’s just no way I’d be the person I am without writing as my primary identity.

On that note, and on the note of carrying on the traditions my father started in our family, I’d like to share a really incredible organization with my readers. It’s something my dad would have gotten behind, and something I’m damn proud to get behind myself. Check out what’s going on with Help Harry Help Others, a cancer research fund founded by an 11-year-old boy with an inoperable brain tumor. This is exactly the kind of writerly crowd I like to be a member of.

Long since had passed those dreams of having my booked picked up a mega-house like Harper Collins or Simon & Schuster, earning seven-figure advances, and making the New York bestseller list (hey–a girl can dream). Though I never stopped believing in the value of the story, I was prepared to face the possibility of not seeing my life’s dream accomplished—at least not this round. Gordon and I once again promised each other to keep doing what we could to promote the book, for a little while longer at least, and then went back to our halibut, beers, and Jeopardy.

Over the next few days, I indulged in some serious existential crisis-ing, allowing myself to question my place in the writing world, doubt the quality of my writing, and generally feel thoroughly, pitifully sorry for myself. But after a few days of this nonsense, I snapped out of it and remembered something important. I remembered that I love writing (warts and all, almost 100% of the time) and that just because my memoir wouldn’t be my debut book, didn’t mean it wouldn’t still happen for me some day, somehow.

Most writers have at least one book in the drawer before getting a book deal, and I was certainly prepared to have a shitty manuscript (or several) rendered unusable and tossed aside during my career, but I just didn’t want it to be this book sitting in the darkness of that proverbial failure drawer. The story of this book—my family’s story—is an important one to tell, and I’ve built my life around it; seeing it fail inevitably rattled my sense of self-worth.

Still, I love being a writer, and if continuing on this path meant letting go of my memoir, at least for the time being, I was willing to do it. On my way home from work that Friday evening, I decided that I would do my best to let it go, place it longingly in that drawer, and hope I’d be able to get it out to the world at some later, more established point in my career. God willing.

But later that day, that very same day, I got an offer on my book. Gordon called, I cried, and suddenly the whole world turned upside down in the most delicious way. Just like that. I blew out the candles on my 30^th birthday cake knowing that I’d done it—I was going to be a published author, straight-up legit and for realz. And then another offer came in, and for a glorious moment in time, there were several publishers fight over my work. I feel incredibly lucky to have found such a good home in Skyhorse Publishing, and can’t wait to represent their name in the world.

So today, my dear friends and family and readers and colleagues and internet folk, I am so thrilled and proud to shout from the digital rooftops that A Real Emotional Girl will be published in the Fall of 2012, made possible by Julie Matysik at Skyhorse Press. My book, at long last, will exist! In hardcover, no less…

When people ask me how one might accomplish the daunting task of writing a book, I have an immediate and definitive answer: The one thing I know for sure is that you don’t do it alone. This book has taken me 10 years to write and publish, and in that time I’ve been lucky to have the support and guidance of so many brilliant, wonderful people. I suppose I’ll be writing a formal acknowledgements and dedication page for my book soon, but I’ll go ahead and take a practice run at stating my gratitude here, just to make sure that it sticks good and proper:

My father is at the center of this book in a lot of ways, and all of this has been for him. Of course his story is what drives the entire manuscript, but he is also responsible for the creation of the book itself. The whole damn thing was his idea, and his faith in my writing was the sole reason I continued putting pen to paper even when I hated it. My mom and my brothers, who have stood with me through this new life without Dad, will never know the extent to which I value them and love them—words cannot do such love the justice it deserves. Thank you, the three of you, for helping me share our story.

To Kelly, my writing partner and literary soul mate, thank you for talking me down off all kinds of ledges during teary late-night phone calls, laughing with me during sleep-deprived, delirious brainstorm sessions, and walking with me as we take over the world, one page at a time.

Thank you Gordon and Andrea for keeping the faith and pounding the pavement. I couldn’t ask for better agents, and I definitely couldn’t ask for better friends. Thank you to Julie, my editor, for taking a chance on a newbie writer with almost too much fire inside her to bear.

And to you, my friends and family, my teachers and students and readers, my peeps. Thank you all for the support and encouragement you’ve blessed me with, and for being the voice on the other end of the line. Imagining the moment about a year from now, when I hold that book in my hands and page through, it will be you who I think of and silently thank. You brought me here, kept me going, pushed me to write every time I knew I ought to. Thank you for that–it has totally, totally paid off.

And. Here. We. Go.

Stephen King says that “Good books don’t give up all their secrets at once.” I think he is correct about this in two separate aspects, actually. Good books don’t give up all their secrets at once for both the reader and, as it happens most often in my experience, for the writer as well.

The kernel of the idea that eventually mutated and grew into what is now my nearly completed novel has taken quite a few turns since it first appeared in my imagination almost 20 years ago. But since that initial inception, the theme and overarching message of the book and the whole series (it’s gonna be a trilogy—if I can muster the courage and persistance) has remained largely intact and untouched. Until now.

When I was in Wisconsin two weeks ago to visit my family at our summer camp, Birch Trail, I reconnected with one of my dearest and oldest friends, the delightful Dani Steele. This summer, Dani is doing a totally kick-ass job as Birch Trail’s Head Counselor. In the winter months, Dani works as one of the most passionate, talented elementary school teachers I’ve ever known. Because the genre of young adult fiction is still such new and strange terrain for me, I took the opportunity to bounce a few ideas off her because she knows my audience so well. Instantly, she helped me see that although the message of my series was alright, it needed something more.

Initially, I set out to make a statement that is contrary to almost everything I’ve read in other popular YA fiction—I wanted to say to kids that although we wish it were otherwise, there are sometimes bad things that happen to good people, or bad people who do bad things and you have to be careful, have to know how to navigate the world, such as it is. But Dani ever so gently guided me to understand that there needs to be something beyond that, something that can give kids the hope they need to push through those bad times. As suddenly as one could imagine, the missing puzzle piece clicked into its rightful place in my mind. There was indeed something more that I wanted to say, sitting there right at the precipice all along: that even though things do get really sad or really scary sometimes, and even though it often feels like it will feel that way forever, it won’t—things get better. You go through rough times and you emerge on the other side of them a better and stronger version of yourself. That is the ultimate message I hope my readers will glean from the story I’m creating; it’s the most important one, too.

As we spoke, drifting in and out of other subject matter as the night wore on, I kept coming back to that central message and wondering how I’d neglected it all this time. It’s so peculiar and so interesting to see how things emerge and evolve as time goes on. The trick is, apparently, to have the presence of mind to allow those things to happen, to be flexible and open to all the twists and turns that take place before, during and even after the words make it to the page. I suppose I could extend the metaphor to the whole endeavor of life as a human being, but let’s not get into that just now.

Stephen King also says that it is ideal to spend no more than one month writing each book. Well I can’t say I have any real experience working at that pace; my first book took me over eight years to write and though I wasn’t actively writing every single day of those eight years, I did live with it every day and in some form or another worked toward its completion. And this current, hopefully-soon-to-be-completed project of mine is moving into its third year. I can’t imagine trying to fit all that research and rumination, all those various changes of creative direction (not to mention the actual writing) into one short month.

I should clarify, though: I can’t imagine it now, but this coming winter I’ll have to live it. Because (if all goes according to schedule) the first book of my YA trilogy will be completed by the end of this fall, I’m going to embark upon a new writing challenge. I’m going to take on a grandiose task that is sure to be a great and terrible adventure and try—really try in earnest—to write my next book in just one month. Of course, I’ve been researching and ruminating and plotting and planning everything out for some time now, so I won’t exactly be starting from scratch. But because I don’t think I’ll be able to and certainly not want to live with such a bleak, solitary story as my next project centers around, this seems the best method.

I don’t know how it is for other writers, but I am downright terrified by this plan. This will definitely be something new, something difficult, and something totally thrilling. What I know for sure is that it will be a learning experience for me, trying to keep myself open to all those aha moments without many outside influences and in such a limited time frame.

But, first things first. I’ve taken the incredible bits of advice Dani gave me, and let them marinate in my head for a few weeks. I’ve been writing at furious paces lately, seeing it all settle into place with greater ease than I anticipated. I wouldn’t say that the book is exactly writing itself, but it appears that when all the necessary elements finally arrive, the whole thing moves along rather smoothly.

Hey, when it’s right, it’s right. Right?

Yesterday, I received some news that is both good and bad, and in the complex amalgam of emotional responses that I experienced upon hearing said news, I realized that my life would never again be the same. I’ve learned that there are all different kinds of loss—some big, some small, some real, and some imagined. I suppose this one is rather small on the scale of life, but it sent me reeling nonetheless.

I’ve been pretty vocal about my lifelong insomnia, especially here on this blog, because consistently getting only two hours of sleep a night is pretty tough to ignore; sleep deprivation is no joke, my friends. Aside from feeling exhausted, nauseated, dizzy, unfocused, and creatively impotent, I noticed that in a really bad bout of insomnia, my body often issued it’s own form of protest by succumbing to a malady of ailments. My immune system tends to shut down pretty significantly after about eight days of insomnia.

Of course, I have tried just about every homeopathic and homespun remedy, have humored every well-intending piece of advice, all to no lasting avail. In the end, I had resigned myself to the fact that if I want to sleep like a normal human being (i.e. more than two hours each night) I would have to take sleeping pills every single night for the rest of my life. This all seemed pretty standard practice according to my doctors, and I really had adjusted to the routine of taking my pill every night (a non-addictive, low dose medication—totally safe) and waiting for it to kick in.

My cousin, Jeff, who is a chiropractor and nutritionist as well as the founder of North Suburban Wellness in Illinois (and my new hero!), suspected that there might be an identifiable, underlying cause of this long-running insomnia. After discussing my sleeping habits with Jeff during my last visit home, he ordered some tests for me. Just as he so skillfully suspected, it turns out that I have a cortisol imbalance, wherein my cortisol levels shoot up between 9 pm and 1 am every night, with great consistency; just when my awake-time chemicals should be dipping down for the night, I have this crazy second surge of them, which is why I am always my most productive and creative self during those vampire hours, and why I have trouble falling and staying asleep. Sounds alarming, but this is actually great news because I finally have an answer–all those sleepless nights and fruitless visits to every doctor under the sun might very well be behind me. This cortisol imbalance can be treated and monitored, which will hopefully resolve some or most of my sleep issues (nightmares and such are another matter entirely). Essentially, my circadian rhythm needs to be manually controlled with medication, and this is—to my great delight—entirely achievable. 
 
However, the underlying cause for my adrenal glands to be doing releasing the cortisol hormones so unnaturally is, lo and behold, a rare kind of allergy to gluten. Gluten?! I. Am. Devastated. All my favorite foods! In the long run, of course I know that this is good news because I will likely feel a whole lot better, sleep like a normal person, and loose some weight if I cut out gluten as best as I can. Still, I can’t deny how saddened I am to have to significantly decrease the intake of basically everything I like to eat. Once I complete an expanded food allergy test to determine the exact severity of my gluten intolerance, I’ll know a little more clearly just how strict I’ll need to be in my new lifestyle. For now, I am willing to embrace this gluten-free lifestyle, and am indeed enthusiastic about giving it an earnest go. To be able to put a label of an actual medical condition on something so mysterious and elusive feels incredibly validating, and the thought of getting a full night of sleep without narcotic sleeping aids certainly has me feeling motivated.

The downside of this diagnosis, however, is quiet steep. Anyone who knows me can attest to my love of all-things carbohydrate. Bread products of all kinds? Yes please. Pasta? Buckets of it. Can’t get enough. I told my friends at work that I feel as if I’m losing a lifelong friend by cutting gluten out of my diet. Perhaps this speaks to some degree of dysfunction in regards to my relationship with food, but I don’t care. So many of my favorite comfort foods and time-tested, fan-favorite recipes are no longer viable options. Since I don’t have anything as serious as celiac disease and my gluten intolerance is relatively manageable, I don’t have to worry about trace elements of gluten or cross-contamination. But knowledge is power, and knowing that a bowl of pasta keeps me from sleeping and living my life as I’d like to makes it pretty hard to indulge in such a craving. I’m trying to think of gluten items as a “sometimes treat.” We’ll see how that goes.

Sure, it’s far easier to be gluten-free these days than it was even five or so years ago, and if there is one good place to be gluten-free, it’sSeattle. I don’t have to give up everything I like, but I do have to find new ways to cook it. Maybe more tricky ways, and ways that may not always work well the first go-around, but I don’t have to abandon good things like gnocchi for life! My dearest supporter and culinary wiz, Kelly, told me to think of this as a something like an episode of Iron Chef, in which I have things I *can* use rather than things I can’t. It’ll suck for a while until I sort out what I can and can’t do, but I think I will eventually find the balance that helps me eat well AND sleep well.

I’ve cleared out my pantry and refrigerator, quickly become an expert label-reader, and am working on saying goodbye to some treasured friends: soft, mushy bread, heaping piles of pasta, my favorite cereal, flour tortillas, baked goods like mom’s pie crust and chocolate croissants. I realize that pretty much everything getting slashed from my diet is the processed, bad-for-you stuff anyhow, and that this new lifestyle will be a far healthier one. I guess I shouldn’t complain, but I can’t help ranting just a bit.

I’m going to continue educating myself and will hopefully find good replacements for my favorite stuff. In the meantime, I’m busy mourning the loss of real spaghetti, Frosted Mini-Wheats Fruit in the Middle, Tats Sandwiches, and my mom’s pie crust. I’m feeling the sting of grief just a little bit here, so if any gluten-free folks out there have alternative products and recipes that aren’t sawdust-awful, please share to ease my suffering.