Rewriting Paris

Working on a story, I needed to have a character tick off a few well-known works of art, and I wanted the paintings to be from different periods and movements. Although I'm pretty familiar with -- well, dozens of artists and their works, I began browsing the Internet for inspiration.

As I went through several of the most famous artists -- Van Gogh, Da Vinci, Monet, Picasso -- I looked at their work with interest, but mostly, just searching for the right name.

Then I glanced at one particular Van Gogh painting, "L'eglise d'Auvers-sur-Oise," and at the credit following the painting's name: "Musee d'Orsay, Paris."

Even before I read the credit, of course I knew I'd seen that painting in person. I took A.'s picture in front of it! (No flash, of course.) But actually reading "Musee d'Orsay, Paris" made something sink in that I don't think had fully hit me before. Much as I've thought back on my trip to Paris -- relived the visit to Giverney, tromping the old Rive Gauche cobblestone streets, muttering "Pardon, excusez-moi" as I squeezed through packed cafes -- looking at this photo of a painting on the Internet was the first time I froze and thought, "Oh my gosh. I really went there."

Before, I would breathlessly say, yes, I visited the place I've always seen in many of my favorite movies (Charade, Moulin Rouge!, Casablanca) and read about in some of my favorite books (A Moveable Feast, Tender Is the Night, Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well, set just outside Paris). But it took seeing on the Internet a painting I saw in person to shake me into the realization that, sightseeing aside, going on that trip was a pretty significant event for me as a writer.

Before going, I'd always just kind of ignored the fact that I'd never been anywhere outside the country. Since I was little, I had traveled up and down the east coast of the USA, hitting almost every state this side of the Mississippi. I knew I was more than qualified to set stories in any of those places.

But I wanted to write about things a little bit more exotic than rural Pennsylvania or the outskirts of Atlanta. How could I really feel I was doing my job as a writer if I only described what I thought a place would be like, based on photographs from National Geographic, or other writers' descriptions? If I'd never set foot in one of the world's busiest cities (hey, I don't remember New York from when I was eight months old, so it doesn't count)? If I'd never been any place where the primary language wasn't English?

Although I have only left the country once, and I have a very long list of places I'd like to visit, just this afternoon it finally dawned on me that going to Paris accomplished a little bit of my goal.
Not only did I get to experience some of the best museums in the world, and get a tempting little taste of life in the City of Light, I got a jolt of confidence from my time there, too. I feel somehow more qualified to be a Real Writer. I've eaten at the same restaurants where some of the greatest writers ate. I've visited the cemetary where some of the greatest writers are buried. I've walked the same gardens where some of the greatest writers strolled.

My ultimate goal for my Paris experience is to turn it into a manuscript of poems. Poems, even more than photographs, are what I believe really capture a moment. I believe I had some moments worth capturing, as I suddenly realized -- thank you, Van Gogh -- all over again today.

And I want to relive those moments over and over and over again.

The Inevitable Kiss-Off

I really hate form rejection slips.

I really, really hate getting two in one day.

Prose Like Buttercream

Last night I watched a romcom, a total chick flick, with a couple of great chicks. The movie made me smile, made me laugh, made me sigh (like any normal chick) over romance and weddings. But mostly, it made me think, "I could write that. I could write that even better."

Yes, alas, it made me want to try my pen at chick lit, one of the few genres I haven't touched in my hundreds of false-start story experiments. It made me want to write happy, quirky, semi-predictable love stories where everyone says only clever or awkward things, live in apartments entirely too large for their salaries, dress impeccably, and figured out relationships in the span of ninety minutes.

In other words, froth. Like buttercream squirted out into little rosettes.

Excepting what I wrote in elementary school, one stab at a humorous novella in middle school, and one farce I wrote for AP English, I've always felt the need for a deep overriding theme in my fiction. No comedy, no pure entertainment. We've gotta have pain and grit and Big Issues in fiction! Occasionally this has led my mother to ask me if I'm depressed.

But I think I could write a chick flick if I decided to. In fact, I think I will. It would be such a nice change of pace, and I think I might actually get it done before too much time had passed because I'd enjoy it, instead of feeling bogged down and moody every time I let myself slip into the story. I'll keep working on other projects, but I've never managed to have just one...or ten...projects going at once.

I'd like to shake things up a bit. While I work on a screenplay centered on a marriage that's reeling after an affair, I'll sidetrack into this story to whip up a dashingly suave modern-day Prince Charming, who, of course, will chase after the heroine (a young woman who has great hair and even better luck). I do realize I'll need to come up with some sort of problem to drop in the heroine's lap. But instead of having her dealing with, say, her beloved sister's tragic death, it'll be something along the lines of a funny little love triangle involving the childhood friend who has just popped back into her life, or her plight to find a decent sub-letter for the the summer. Something light.

Bring on the buttercream.

The Planning Stage

When I sit down each week to plan new story ideas, I worry that I haven't got enough "real world experience" or specific expertese to be the best person to write any given story. I haven't worked for some bioengineering firm or traveled through the Middle East sampling ancient tribal couisine. And naturally I would never try writing a story about either of those things.

What I've done is divided my story ideas into several catagories, and I base the articles I'd like to write on what I do know a bit about, and maybe even more importantly, what I am interested in. My "Kids/Families" story list is pretty long, and boosted by my 8-year-nannying resume and previous stints working at preschool summer camps. I've got a bunch of wildlife, nature, and animal (and especially horse-related) articles in the works, too. And I also have quite a few travel story ideas, although so far, my expertise there is pretty much limited to the Eastern Seaboad!

I want to be a writer because that's where I think my talent lies, in addition to my interest. So I'm pretty good at twisting a querry letter to make it sound like I really know what I'm talking about, even if my knowledge comes primarily from research and a only few minutes of firsthand experience! But I am confident that as I write more and research more, I'll pick up more areas of quasi-expertise.

If all goes according to plan, soon I'll be debating which experiences I will have to leave off my next cover letter for lack of page space, instead of fretting over the few that I have so far.

Long-term, I'm not too concerned about my writing future. It will happen. It's just the here and now that is so challenging, especially as I'm still having to convince myself, much less editors who don't know my name, that I actually deserve to write a certain story.

Before too many more months, though, I hope I'll have a tidy list up upcoming publications, and the confidence that comes with them.

Yes Soliciting!

I get so excited whenever I get a new manuscript or query ready to mail off. Regardless of the fact that it will probably come back a little worse for wear in a month or two, I love the anticipation I feel each time I lick another envelope. There's always hope. And if that fails, there's always next time....

There's a metaphor for sending off manuscripts that compares the work to a child going off to its first day of kindergarten. I doubt I feel anything like the anxiety that hits mothers at the start of the school year. Or maybe I'm just going to be a really laid-back mom.

Because, no matter what publication I'm soliciting, I don't expect rejection. It always kind of takes me by surprise, and sometimes it stings, while other times I just shrug and get another envelope to send the piece out to another magazine. And get excited all over again.

I like to tell myself to savor this stage of my career while I can -- while editors don't know who I am, while they aren't yet knocking down doors to get to me.