BlogLily

I’ve just gotten dressed so I can do Lisa’s questions about reading in style, liking to imagine that I’m being interviewed on television while I answer questions like that, or maybe that I’m at a really good dinner party, where the food’s great and the wine even better and people are laughing and talking and my husband looks so happy because he’s sitting next to his friend Olivier and they’re talking about soccer or skiing and he doesn’t actually have to discuss anything that doesn’t interest him. And then the gorgeous man or woman sitting next to me, the one with the dark brown eyes (or maybe they are green or blue or grey) and the nice smile turns to me and after telling me how great my outfit is, asks me……

What are you reading these days?

I consider saying that I’m not doing much reading these days because I’m trying to write as much as I can. And maybe I do say that, but my companion’s eyes don’t glaze over and they murmer, Oh, I’ll bet you’ve got something on your nightstand that you’ve been reading a bit of.

And they would be right, because they are generally right (and it is a good outfit, by the way, the one they’ve admired, consisting as it does of these really gorgeous microfiber thigh high boots (let it never be said that we neglect fashion here on bloglily), and a short-ish black pinstriped wool pencil skirt and a nice plain black v-neck sweater, which sort of compensates for the slightly bad girlness of the boots and skirt).

I am reading War and Peace, in the new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. It is a really, really good translation, and it has fabulous notes, including notes right at the bottom of the page that translate all the French party talk the Russian nobility indulged in. I am on page 94 and have just finished the part where one of the heroes comes into his inheritance, despite the machinations of his half-brother. Yay! My feeling about War and Peace, by the way, is that although it weighs in at 1215 pages, it is best thought of as four novels (it is written, in fact, in four parts) — four big, sprawling, wonderful novels, full of life. I think more people would read it if it came in four actual physical volumes.

And then I ask my dinner companion what they are reading, and how far they are, and what the book is about and whether they would recommend it. And who might that dinner companion be, you ask? Why, any of you, of course.

Despite the cheery paper, what I really want to talk about today is how sometimes the holidays can be really hard.  They were devised, of course, to help us through the worst part of the year — a time when there’s not much light, the weather is not conducive to moving around, and it’s really hard to get a decent tomato. Stone fruit is long gone, and so are the endless days of summer.

Although the holidays were meant to make December easier to bear by giving you an excuse to drink brandy-laden drinks, in many ways they (both the holidays and the brandy drinks) make them even harder. The enforced cheeriness of office parties and unthinking co-workers and friends often enhances the pain of those who are encountering the real difficulties of life — death, poverty, loneliness — in December. And for all of us, the cultural whipping up of desire for material things can make you feel physically ill.

There are some strategies to help you negotiate this. One is to be sensitive to the possibility that the people around you are having a hard time, and to do what you can to make that easier. Or to just be neutral, and not make things harder by assuming that everyone is in a happy, elfin, north pole place.  And whether you are in difficulty or not, an important thing to do is to choose carefully — you are not, after all, a victim of the mall, and no one is forcing you to shop or to go to parties. You might not be able to say no to some things — books among them — but you can say no to a lot of other stuff.

Whichever it is for you this year — whether it is a difficult time, or a north pole time — if you are to make this month bearable, or even good, you must try to be alone with yourself some — in a good way, not in a dour, isolated way. Doing that is the spiritual and psychological equivalent of standing up straight, with your weight evenly distributed on your feet. When you stand that way, no matter how hard the gales blow, you won’t fall.

In my case, that time alone involved wrapping a bookstack for myself. For many years, I waited for other people to do what I most wanted and when, inevitably, they did not, allowed myself to feel unloved, or at least, misunderstood. And then I woke up and realized that this trap was a terribly foolish and damaging one. It is far better to give yourself your own bookstack (and here you can replace bookstack with any other thing you wait around for, including permission to do things you want to do like write, or travel, or lie around and read, or learn how to play the piano, or change jobs).

And so, to sum up, today’s two points:  Remember the holidays can be sad and difficult and do what you can to make that better.  Don’t wait for other people to tell you it’s okay to do the things you want.

No one in the world would have known I wanted these exact books, because I didn’t know until I started looking around for what I want to read in the new year.

Possibly the very best thing I did last Christmas in the gift department was make bookstacks. I made them for my husband, my children, my mother, my brother Mike, my sisters in law, my brothers in law, my mother in law, my nieces and nephews. I got so carried away I even made one for myself. They weren’t all new books — a lot of them were books I read last year, or books that were half price, or used.

I loved making them and I am going to make them again and show them to you again, and really, isn’t that a good thing to be doing when you write a blog that is at least purportedly about the subject of reading and books?

That’s the before picture you’re looking at, the slew of books I need to make some sense of. Soon, an after picture.

Oh — tagging! I am not finished yet asking about how people plan. I’ve been struck by how balanced all of you are about planning, how determined you are not to take on too much, promise yourself too much. There are many wise blog posts out there about how important it is to be balanced in your living and planning. It is incredibly inspiring.

For example, Ms. Make Tea, who is a law professor, and a writer, and a very, very smart woman — and whom I have built up a little fantasy about — you know, she lives in sane and beautiful New Zealand, she raises her child without a lot of fuss, she knows a lot about things other than the law. What a nice life it looks like.

And then there is Anna, who knits and writes (obviously, given the name of her site), and makes me wonder how she juggles the projects she works on.

And then mischief mari, from whom I recently acquired the loveliest book bag (go check out her site — cookies! cute stuff she sews!)

Ann Darnton, at whose table I always have a nice time — a woman who knows more than a thing or two about getting things done, and has guided a lot of people in the right reading direction. It’s a rich, interesting site, and a great place to spend time thinking about what you’re reading, and what you might want to read next.

Perhaps you are wondering what I have been doing lately.  Perhaps you don’t really care.  But for those who do, I want to announce that I have been improving my vocabulary in two ways. 

First, I have been spending an awful lot of time on free rice – and am currently at a 46 (no 47!!), for those who are keeping track of how close to 50 you can get.  50 is the highest score possible on free rice, and it is unattainable, unless you cheat.  I have considered cheating, but it seems so uncool to do that on such a worthy site, one which donates so much needed food while you marvel at the fact that there is a word that means “splittable” — fissile, as in “that piece of chocolate cake looks so fissile.” 

The other thing I have been doing is not anywhere nearly as worthy, but does involve cleaning out my email, so it’s semi-worthy.  I am the recipient of half a dozen emails a day asking if I would like to have my penis enlarged, a question that never fails to make me laugh.  But the thing I love about these emails, beyond the zealousness of the enlargers, is the remarkable variety of words there are for the penis.  I’ve been keeping track, although because this is a family blog, I am not going to give you a list.  Just know that it has reached 37.  My favorite of all so far is contained in the email that invited me to obtain a “bigger sword to fit in her scabbard.”  It’s just such a weirdly chivalrous way of looking at it. 

 And that’s all I have to say today.

Having revealed to you that my children think I smell like Disneyland, I have decided I might as well tell you some other stuff that’s always been in my no-fly zone. One of those things is how I feel about my work as a lawyer. I don’t think I’ve ever actually written anything about my job. There are, of course, a lot of reasons why most of us have decided NOT to write about our jobs, so it’s hardly surprising that this is not my number one topic. For one thing, jobs can be very boring. They can also be places where unpleasant things happen. Also, people get mad when they learn you are writing about them. My co-workers happen to be almost universally pleasant, so there’s nothing too interesting to say about them. And, alas, the stuff I work on is usually not all that interesting to people other than me, and the few geeky lawyer types I work with who like to discuss it with me. Plus, the rules of ethics that govern my work say that lawyers don’t talk about their clients. And court lawyers never, ever talk about the cases they work on.

But I do want to say a few things about what makes a job an ideal job, things that have nothing to do with the specifics of the work I do. That is because this morning when I was walking into my office, I realized that I really love my job, and am incredibly lucky to have found it.

It was not always like this. When I first started practicing law, it was at a big law firm that seemed to ration out the amount of air you were permitted to have in your office every day. At around 2:00 p.m., the air was almost gone from my beautiful office, the one with the fabulous view and the really luxe furniture. I’d gasp for breath and then…. reach under my desk and pick up the novel I’d secreted there during the two minute lunch break I allowed myself to dash to the bookstore and get a lifeline to the world. If I fanned the pages a little, and maybe even read the first chapter, I could just make it to 7 pm, when I’d go out to my car in the parking garage the firm had kindly paid for me to park in, so I could more easily spend my whole life working for them.

And it did feel like I was spending my whole life there. If I got sick, I’d throw up in the bathroom in between drafting documents for the transaction that had to end by the new year, which meant that Christmas didn’t really happen. You also had to write down every single thing you did for a client. And heaven help us if you, like me, couldn’t remember all the stuff you did for the client. Then you had to try to reconstruct it without feeling like you were going to go to jail for fraud, which meant you wrote down very little of it.

Awful, difficult job? Well, yes, although some of my best friends are from that time and I worked with a lot of really smart, committed lawyers.  But I still occasionally have a little post traumatic stress syndrome moment when I have to turn in my monthly time report for the court where I work. Unlike the timesheet I did at the lawfirm, this timesheet is a simple matter of writing my name and the days I was out. Even now, ten years after I turned in my last REAL timesheet — the ones I always felt fraudulent turning in — I can’t turn in this faux timesheet on time. I am usually the last person at the court to get it in to the kind patient personnel worker who must wonder what on earth is wrong with me.

So, on to the perfect job. The first thing that makes my job perfect is my boss. He is smart, kind and humane. He says thank you. He gives you credit for the work you do. He opens the door for you. He repeats praise he hears of your work. He takes you and your co-workers out to lunch to celebrate birthdays. He knows the names of your children, your husband. When you get sick he asks if you feel better. He doesn’t intrude. One of the best things about him is that when something goes wrong, as things inevitably do, he doesn’t spend a lot of time blaming people. He just wants the mistake fixed. And he delegates in a way that very few people know how to do: he gives you something to do and then he waits for you to do it. He doesn’t offer a lot of advice, and he doesn’t do much more than tap his fingers politely if he thinks you are taking too long to get him what he asked for. He is loyal. If he has hired you to work for him, you are right in what you say and do. He has always backed me up in meetings, and gone to bat for me when I needed it. I have never experienced that kind of loyalty before, and it is one thing that makes me stay exactly where I am. It’s an extraordinary privilege to work for a person like this, particularly when that person is also very smart, and very sensible.

The other thing I love about my job is that I have really great colleagues. They are all people who’ve decided that the world of big law firms is not for them. It’s not easy to give up that world, by the way. You make a lot of money and you have a lot of perks, and you sometimes get to do very big, interesting, complex cases, and you also have a kind of status you don’t have when you work at a job like the one I have. People who give that up turn out to be quirky, and interesting, and fun. And they give you great advice about things, and also listen well.

Then there is the Civic Center in San Francisco, which is where I work. It is not always civil around here — this is the place where the homeless, and the precariously housed, congregate. There’s a lot of uncool street behavior — mentally ill people shouting incoherent things as you walk down to the vegetarian restaurant to get a salad, crowds of dicey-looking people lolling around in front of the library and using the bathrooms there to perform basic acts of sanitation, like showering in the sinks, which makes the library not always the best place to use the restroom. Being aware of this world, though, is essential to a person who works in a job where human tragedy comes to you many layers removed, on paper, in language that often obscures how difficult life can be for the many Californians who do not live the charmed life I do. That my life is charmed is something I remember every single day, and this simple, astonishing fact helps me perform the work I have to do with as much efficiency and integrity as I can muster. This morning I realized that even though over the years I’ve thought about leaving this place to make more money elsewhere, or have more time to spend with my children and write, I won’t actually be leaving here until I’m old enough to retire. Short of that, they’re going to have to carry me out in my chair and forcibly pry my card key out of my hand. And those are my Friday thoughts about being a lawyer.

Have a great weekend.

I think the people at Guerlain might have been taken aback by the conversation in the car on the way to school this morning in which there was some discussion about the lovely Acqua Allegoria floral perfume I was sporting.  It was not, actually, my intention to smell like Disneyland.  Nor was it my intention to smell, as the perfume critic/child said hastily, when he noticed my shocked look, like the “outside of Disneyland,” as though a little distance from the House of the Mouse might make that comparison less troubling. 

But at least they meant it as a compliment, which is how I’m going to take it .

This slight post, you must realize, is just an excuse to tag more planners.  (Ah, Stefanie, you thought maybe I was not going to tag you?  Wrong.  I have a Tag Plan.  It involves a happy half hour browsing through my blogroll and thinking about how lucky I am to know so many smart, funny, impressive people before choosing a group of them at random to browbeat into saying a word or two about how they plan something, anything, that matters to them.  The holidays.  Building a huge office building.  Finishing a novel.  Discovering the source of the Nile.  Getting a poem out into the world.) 

meeta, whose blog was a place where I got to write about my obsession with packed lunches, before I discovered I couldn’t keep that up and breathe at the same time.

 If you have ever run out of things to read, all you really have to do is consult the right hand side of dark orpheus’s blog.  There is an awful lot of reading going on over there.  Naturally, I would like to know how all that gets done.

Jana, who draws and paints almost every day.  Lovely, lovely watercolors and sketches.  Some days you do not want words.  And then you go here.  I wonder how someone who is so visual makes a plan. 

I realize this is only four blogs, but what wonderful blogs they are! 

Having badgered so many people into revealing how they plan, I figure I’d better post my own plan for the month before it gets too much further into December. I’m going to begin by showing you what my November plan looked like. I’m sure you won’t need to do more than glance at it to understand why it made me feel like a total loser, not even four days into it. There is certainly such a thing as being overscheduled and overorganized. Here it is:

You know, I’d never ask someone who worked for me to adhere to a plan like that, one with so many requirements, so many teensy little boxes to be checked, so many chances to fail. And I’d never give anyone THAT many things to do in one day, and then follow it up with another day full of the same or more things. Nor would I tell them what a sorry loser they are when they flailed under that ambitious plan, which is sort of the tone I took with myself when I couldn’t keep up.

Why am I so mean to myself? Beats me. We are often so much harder on ourselves than we are on other people. Time to stop that. And yes, I’m talking to you, dear reader.

So, I began at the beginning: the starting point and, in fact, the reason planning exists, is because of goals. You have a goal, you need to get to it, so you need some kind of plan. This sort of thing is different from calendaring, which is a tool you can use when you plan, but it’s also a tool you can use just to make sure you get through your life without forgetting to pay your car insurance. Although a calendar can be — and alas often is– full of unpleasant things — a plan should be fun. In fact, if the route to the goal isn’t pleasurable and worthwhile, the whole thing will collapse. Therefore, I have banished the obsessive, daily list of too-many-things-to-do, and the mean talking to myself.

One of my important goals is to do meaningful work as a writer. I want to write well, and I want to have what I write go out into the world and entertain people and make them happy. My other important goal this month is to have a sane and happy holiday season.

I began my plan by sketching out a list of things that make for a good holiday — choosing gifts that let people know I’ve been thinking about them, giving a party, going to listen to music, and doing something for other people. Those are things that matter to me. Others might find them excrutiating. Good thing we all get to be us, and not each other!

The writing goal involves moving forward. Two pages a day. And this month, moving forward also means sending out some stories I’ve written, writing a non-fiction book proposal (which I might want to wait until January to do), proofing my novel carefully and for the last time and considering whether it needs a few more chapters, writing a synopsis, and then sending out queries to agents. I don’t know if I can do all those things this month, but I’m just going to get started. And that’s the innovation I’m most excited about (maybe it’s not an innovation — maybe a zillion people do this — but I’ve never thought of it before). I’m not going to make more than two days’ worth of things to do to get to those goals. I wrote up a list of things for Monday and Tuesday and here it is Tuesday, and they’re not all done. Instead of starting Wednesdsay with stuff undone, I’m not going to write another date on the list until I finish the ones that are there. When I do finish, then I’ll put another couple of days’ worth of stuff down. And I’ll take as long as I need to to finish that stuff.

I also made a no fly zone, which I’m quite happy about. No cards (I know Courtney loves cards — but I find I have no time to sleep if I write cards), no last minute party going, no stepping in and buying gifts that my husband has said he’ll buy. Oh, and the best of all: NO MAKING FOOD GIFTS. What a swamp that has been in years past, when I’ve made hot chocolate mix, and jam, and individual pound cakes and [shudder] a lot of complicated crap from Martha Stewart Living — all things that take a lot of time, and are never as much fun as I think they’ll be.

Here’s what the goal sketching looks like:

And here is my modest two days’ worth of stuff to do to get to those goals. And here it is hours to Wednesday and I’m not done. And I don’t feel like a bad person at all because there’s nothing waiting for me to do until I decide I’m ready to write down some more. And you know what? I might actually erase a couple of things I’ve discovered I don’t really want to do right now.

And now, more tagging: Show Us Your Plan!

Dani, whose work in progress always seems to be progressing so beautifully. (How do you read so many books?!)

aphra–I know she’s taking a little break for the month, but come January, maybe she will be planning up a storm.

Cole, who cracks me up and makes me think, and must have some spin on planning that’s going to do both.

bookie — do you and dani have the exact same system for reading a million books and writing so well about them? I want to know.

bora, fellow writer, fellow Berkeleyan, fellow luster-after-fabulous-korean-storage-containers. I’m sure she is a fabulous planner.

jade. How can she have her finger in so many pies? (In fact, go check out the pumpkin one she’s just made!)

carl has actually already answered this question, because he’s a Master Planner, but I’m tagging him anyway, because I can.

alison — always a lot on her plate, always a lot of projects in the air. I’d like to know how she keeps it all going.

sharon, at exlibris – how can someone who’s responsible for cats and daughters — six total — have such an organized and beautiful reading life?

George Simmers is a remarkable man, and his blog, Great War Fiction, is an incredibly rich source of information about the Great War. How he does it, I do not know. But I would like to!

And no, I am not done with this tagging thing, which I am finding incredibly fun. It’s just that my fingers are about to fall off.

Happy Planning All!

See that link to your left? The one that says “Writing Stats”? It’s a page I updated regularly for about six months last year, when I was finishing The Secret War, which I thought I’d finish in October, and actually finished in December. (It used to be at the top of my blog, but this month it’s on the side because it’s DECEMBER! Time for the holiday template.)

When I read over this writing record, what struck me the most is how things don’t always go the way you plan, and often that’s because your plan asks for too much, too soon. Still, it is very encouraging that even though things don’t go according to plan, they do get done.

Part of my plan involves writing regularly. A month ago, I went to see Richard Russo give a lecture in San Francisco. One thing he said was that he doesn’t try to write more than two pages a day. Before he said that he warned the audience that he was going to sound very, very lazy. And maybe it is — but it’s do-able, and after a year you have what is basically a novel. So maybe I’ll try for two pages a day. They don’t even have to be decent pages — at least, that’s what Richard Russo claimed and I like him, so am going with that.

And now, planners of the blog world, I want to see how you plan — how you sketch out your path to a destination. Mine’ll be up tomorrow, with any luck.

Debbie, who perservered through years of raising children, moving a couple of times, designing and remodelling a house and still found a publisher for her book, Scribble, which is the most wonderful picture book and a fabulous holiday gift for children and is available here. Debbie is also one of my oldest friends, knows what I looked like when I was eighteen (god!), knows where my skeletons are buried, and still lets me come visit her in Connecticut. She has bee-you-tea-ful handwriting, is an architect by training and I’m just guessing her plans are works of art.

Gail, who manages huge projects in her job, and looks like she is completely untroubled by all that responsibility and who, besides, has been a kind, quiet, and very effective reader of pretty much everything I have ever written.

Mike, the writer of the first blog I ever read, and a man I admire hugely

Nova, whose blog about writing always, always makes me glad I stumbled across her one day when I was clicking on that “next blog” button on wordpress.

unrelaxed dad, who is actually pretty relaxed and is about to have a baby! YAY! babies rule.

Pauline, who is so elegant a writer and thinker

HMH, who cracks me up and is sensible, canny, and encouraging. It must be because she goes out there and gets her hands dirty.

Susan, who writes so beautifully and lives in my neck of the woods!

Sandi, who has written and published some of the funniest books I know and who has been encouraging and so kind because she knows how to write emails that sound exactly like I think she must talk

aerophant, who blogs every single day and sometimes twice a day — things that are so suggestive and funny that you know the rest of her writing must be wonderful too.

The litkit, who’s got a plan to get her writing done soon! (yay LK) And my neighbor too.

Bikeprof who suddenly produced an entire novel in a thrilling six month or so period and is now sending it out and enduring the slings and arrows of rejection

Dorothy who reads and writes about her reading and teaches and rides a bike and is so kind

Ben, who works in my building and has the richest life — full of beer, and dogs and writing and funny, true observations

Jeff, one of my favorite Canadian guys. He’s very funny, and loves hockey and is passionate about his life.