Being Present

Growth is messy.

I uploaded this photo of our ravine without taking a really good look at it. I was fixated on the late afternoon sun peeking over the hill and treetops, and thinking "light! life!" *cue angelic chorus* But seeing the whole image, I'm reminded that there's much more going on here. Buttressing the trees is an enormous amount of undergrowth. It's a 40-foot-deep ravine, full of rock shelves and dirt. The bushes and plants lining it are either completely dead or struggling for life and light. Among them live snakes and rabbits and probably coyotes. Turtles, toads, and spiders. Ferns and flowers. And a lot of prickly plants that keep me from getting anywhere close to the heart of the ravine. It's a living, breathing metaphor.

But metaphors are by definition profound, yes? They carry weight. And seriousness.

I did actually come here to be serious today. It's the end of 2013, and a girl's thoughts turn to the oncoming year. Oncoming. Like a freight train with a big, brilliant light bearing down on me like an out-of-control fireball. (Do I sound anxious? Maybe a little. I've tried to make anxiety my friend, but it hasn't worked so well. I'm working on just accepting it as a badly-gagged, handcuffed-to-me companion.)

I have so much to look forward to this year. My daughter has graduated from college and is, she hopes, headed for grad school. My son will move on to high school. The farther they move ahead, the less I will need to fret about the details of their lives. (They hope so, anyway!)  BLISS HOUSE, my next novel, will be published in June. My Sweet Husband has hinted at exciting new projects. With some luck, the perennials will bloom again in the garden. Every day that I wake up alive will be--like a sacrament--an outward sign of God's grace.

This year, as I thought about how I want to frame my thoughts about the coming year--a resolution, if you will--I read Laura Lippman's compelling essay about her one-word resolution for 2014. (Link below.) In the past I've distilled my resolutions into a sentence or two. As fond as I am of lists, I have a short attention span and can't deal with too many boxes to check off. Coming up with just one word has been a challenge, but I like the simplicity of the idea.

Perhaps it's an age thing, but I really do see the future coming at me at a furious pace. I think about it all the time. I find myself counting years and the things I might stuff into them. How many books can I write before I die? If I have grandchildren at all, will I be too old to enjoy them? What if Venice sinks before I can get there? Will I really never travel in a first class cabin on a trans-Atlantic liner? Will I really never become a voice actor or an architect? What if I die and my office is still a disaster and how will anyone find anything? All my life I've imagined that there is a right way to do things and a wrong way--What if I've been wrong all this time? Will I have a chance to get it all right?

Anyone who has ever sat alone in a room with a therapist knows that this kind of projection is a direct route to disaster. It's fine to have a bucket list--but it has to be a list. Not a guilt-heavy scuttle full of anticipatory regret. Anticipation is the thing, isn't it? The dangerous thing that comes in both positive and negative flavors. But anticipation of any sort overlooks one really important detail: the present.

It's a lesson I have to learn over and over again. Take care of the present and the future will take care of itself. It's an old axiom, but so relevant. The passage of time is unrelenting. Age is unrelenting. But the present is always, always with us.

How many times have I betrayed the present? Worried about my next book contract or story instead of focusing on the page in front of me? Looked surreptitiously at my phone while my son was telling me a joke or one of his famous random factoids? Missed a transcendent moment in a film because I prefer to multitask with a puzzle or my needlepoint? Do my hands always have to be busy? What does that accomplish? I'm wont to shy away from intensity. I can't sit still for it. As I child I was called sensitive, and cried so readily at books and films that I was accused often of having crocodile tears. (Don't get me started on dog movies.) I'm suspicious of things that bring me too much joy or too much pain. It feels unbearable sometimes. But if I continue this way, what will be the end result of living without intensity? What will I miss?

The child will grow and leave. The garden will die away, and I may not see it again. Can we live and grow without the fullness of experience? Yes, of course we can. But is it as good as letting ourselves be immersed in our own lives, or reaching for the limits of our experiences, testing the boundaries of joy, or even pain? I don't think it is.

A couple of years ago, one of my resolutions was to do only one thing at a time. This year is not so different. Still, there's an urgency that wasn't there before. It's not just a question of reining in my attention disorder, but of filling my life with, well, life. Not stuff, not travels, not particular experiences--those things may come, of course. But I want to be ready for whatever it is that shows up right in front of me. I want to live it one taste, one touch, one scent, one tear or giggle at a time. I choose to be present.

New Year: Same life, better-lived.


--Laura

(Link to Laura Lippman's excellent essay on her one-word resolution, which I found terribly inspiring.)

Too Close

Sometimes we can be too close to a thing.
Over the past few weeks, when I've only been putting between three and four hundred words a day on the next Bliss House manuscript, I've felt as though I were operating a kind of microscope in reverse. Observing tiny dots of detail backwards through the lens, not exactly certain how they will work in the universe at large.

Or maybe a better example is a pointillist painting. Pointilism is a school of art that uses tiny dots to create a larger image. One of the most famous practitioners was Georges Seurat. Here's a detail from one of his paintings, A Sunday on La Grand Jatte.

If you look closely, you can see that the figures are not well-defined. The woman's eye appears only to be a suggestion of an eye. The young girl has no features on her face at all. Only shadows. Pointillists didn't blend their colors--they grouped individually colored dots so that they would create another color altogether.

Seurat's work is highly stylized, but when viewed at a distance, the painting looks much more like life.

While the lengths of my paragraphs vary, you might imagine 300-400 words as two long or three relatively short paragraphs. Or you might think of it as a brief conversation between two characters, which is what I worked on today. In that conversation, a new, minor character is introduced, but his presence and actions will have a huge effect on the protagonist/narrator's life. But I spent the majority of my writing time on his mannerisms, his speech (or lack thereof), and the assumptions that Charlotte (the protagonist) makes about him. I suspect the reader won't think much about him when he first appears. He seems insignificant. Collectively (bear with me here!) he is a moustache, tight skin, paint-stained clothes, a haircut from another era, a nervous laugh. He is a character whose significance will only be apparent after another 10,000 words.

Two days ago I was working on a single dinner party scene. And before that, an intense marital negotiation that lasted only a few seconds.

But too many days of small movements forward on the book are beginning to wear on me. How long, I wonder, did Seurat labor over the shape of the rose on a man's lapel? Did he immediately move on to the flower on the woman's hat? Or did he pencil in the small boats on the river. (I'm just guessing, but I suspect he had the entire painting sketched and measured out well before he picked up a brush. I don't outline my novels all at once, and then fill in the prose. But that's a whole other blog post--at least.) It's time for me to step away and at least sketch out the next few chapters. I fear I have lost my way. Though this happens with every book I write. The middle gets muddled for a while until I can re-focus on the big picture again.

This is a good time for this to happen. With the edit coming next week, I still have a few days to read what I've written and see how the pieces fit together. (More on that, soon!) 40,000 words in. Not quite halfway. I'm ready to peek at the big picture. (I know. Terrible pun, that. Can't be helped.)

Oh, and happy Friday the 13th!

--L.

(Fiction word count: 475)

Not Quite the Gift of the Magi

The next eight days or so are going to be very compressed for me. I have word that the first edit for BLISS HOUSE should land in my inbox on or about December 18th, and after it arrives I will need to hide myself away for about a month to work in those changes. I'll also be working in a lot of changes of my own that will tie it into the next Bliss House novel in the series. But for some reason, the people in my life don't think it's a great idea to put Christmas off until I'm all done with the edit. Go figure. So I'm playing Santa, 8th grade room mother, cookie maker, and gift wrapper and shipper until the book gets here. Anything that doesn't get done before then...won't.

Today I did a reasonable job adhering to a semblance of a schedule: getting the boy off to school, dropping off a car to be serviced, working out, writing, kid pick-up, errands, piano (another blog!), making/serving dinner, walking the dogs. I even snuck in a ten minute power nap. You'll note there wasn't a lot of Christmas-themed activity there--no cookie-making, no Santa. Somehow I meant to do those things. I knew I wanted to do a blog, too, to be consistent. So instead of checking things off my to-do list tonight, I started writing a very complex blog about Twitter (a subject I've covered here before), figured out how to save a screen shot (No, it's not 2002. I know.), realized I didn't have all the numbers I needed, and had to stop because there was no way I'd get the piece done before I passed out from exhaustion.

I'm time-challenged. Seriously, I have no concept of the passage of time or how long it actually takes me to do things. Sure, I know how long it takes me to drive into town and back. And I know it takes me 40 minutes to get dressed and out the door from the moment I step into the shower. (But I almost always figure I can get it done in 20, which means I'm late for pretty much everything.) I can poach salmon in 8 minutes, and bake a pizza in 13. Don't ask me what time dinner will be, though, because unless I'm cooking something that comes in a box (which I almost never do), it is sure to be almost exactly 15 minutes later than I tell you it will be.

The time thing is another part of the ADHD life package. It's a wonder I get anything completed at all. So you can see why I have to be serious about getting Christmas done a week before Christmas day arrives. And already I'm a day behind!

This was my plan: put up a short, sweet little blog about something silly I did earlier this year when I went to buy a gift for my beloved, then spend the rest of the evening checking off my to-do list. Because I'm stubborn, and want to keep my plan even after I've blown it up (I do this all the time--drives the people around me crazy.), here's my little story.

Beloved Husband and I don't make a big fuss for Valentine's Day. We've always celebrated it at home, with the kids, having decided long ago that crowded restaurants do not a pleasant evening make. We don't exchange big gifts. Just small, fun things.

One of the things I bought for Beloved Husband was a custom coffee mug from the delightful Zazzle people. They'll let you put pretty much anything you want on any surface, but a mug seemed safe. I ran across a sample that said, "In Love With...[insert name here]" I thought it was an adorable idea. So I ordered him one.

You can see that it says, "in love with Pinckney." And I am.

I confess I had a moment's pause when I ordered it. Should it say "in love with Laura?" Or "in love with Pinckney?" I chose "Pinckney" because, well, I didn't want to be presumptuous. Of course, I assume he's in love with me. He tells me so all the time. But it just seemed pushy to me, to give a man a coffee mug that proclaims that he loves me. We've been married 23 years, but I still like to keep a little mystery, make sure I don't take too much for granted. So I gave him the one that proclaimed my love for him.

Reader, he was astonished! And unwilling to take it into the office. Though we did get rather a laugh over the notion that some of his students might not be too surprised to see he actually does have a high opinion of himself.

The mug did get used often, but always accompanied by amused comment. I was careful not to give it to the kids or guests. That would really be weird, yes? It began to bother me a bit, seeing it there in the cabinet. So plain in black and white, and yet so...complicated.

Finally, I decided to take the pressure off of myself and get him a proper mug for Father's Day. (No worries, he does not think I'm presumptuous.)

They make a pretty cute pair, yes?

Oh, and if you've never read O.Henry's classic tale, The Gift of the Magi, it's here, in its entirety.

--L.


(Fiction words written: 364)

Permission to Create

If I don't do it, who will?

If you're walking down an empty street far away from the nearest fire station, and come upon a burning house, you're going to have to ask yourself this question if you suspect someone inside needs rescuing. The question is also going to come up if you're the only adult in the house and a (relatively) giant spider needs to be removed from the bathroom wall. There are times when we as individuals have to act--or the job just doesn't get done.

But when it comes to writing, the question hardly ever needs to be asked. There are plenty of people capable of writing novels, essays, news stories, video games, treatises, poems, etc. And there's only one meaningful difference between a writer who has a book, or books, on the shelf, and the people who only imagine that they might: the writer has given himself or herself permission. (This also applies to any artist or craftsperson.)

Permission is a funny thing. We first look for it from our parents, then try to elicit it from our peers as we try to validate our first timid choices. As adults, we sometimes continue to look for permission and validation from other people, even though we are supposed to be the authority in our own lives. I'm talking about giving other people the power to decide if we should be allowed to act. And I'm not talking about permission to do something dangerous--climb a mountain, jump out of a plane or race motorcycles. I'm talking about asking for permission to use our creativity. Permission to sit around and MAKE STUFF UP. Do mental fingerpainting. Amuse or edify ourselves and others. How messed up is that?

The worst part is that there isn't really anyone there for us to ask. Seriously, has anyone ever said to you, as an adult: "You want to draw a picture/compose a song/make up a dance/make stories up and write them down on paper? No way! That's stupid. No one will like it. No one will want to see it, or hear it, or read it. What are you thinking?" If they have, my advice would be to get away from that person very, very quickly. Chances are though that there is no one telling you this stuff except the voices in your head. (The secret is that they're all your voice, disguised as other people. Weird, huh?)

I battle those voices every day. Every day is a new opportunity to shut them up and give myself permission. Okay, opportunity is a bullshit way of saying it's a really big challenge that I come up against every time I sit down at the computer or open a notebook. The writer who says he or she has never had that experience is either a freak of nature (in a good way) or a sociopath who is incapable of self-doubt and introspection. It's a huge deal. It's that moment when I have to take a deep breath and say, "All that matters right now is that I get the words down on the page." It happened the first time for me when I was 22 and sitting at a banged-up, used desk in a St. Louis studio apartment that I couldn't afford without my parents' help. It was only a handful of words, and I was scared to death that someone might see them. And scared to death that no one would ever see them. I was alone, but I felt like every person I had ever known was watching, and judging. Finally, the pencil met the paper. Nonsense ensued, but no one stopped me. I was stunned and giddy.

The act of creating is reliving that moment every day. If you're of a certain age, you'll remember that shampoo instructions always read, "Lather. Rinse. Repeat." (Eventually we learned that just one lather and rinse per shampooing was necessary--the repetition was to sell more shampoo.) The act of creating is new every time you sit down to do it. It only starts to feel natural if you make it a habit.

Some days I give myself permission readily. Some days I screw up and find myself divided, withholding permission from myself as though I were my own rotten parent. But if I want to keep getting those books on the shelf, I have to be the adult who gives herself permission every time.

But if you just can't do it, if you absolutely cannot give yourself permission to create whatever the hell good stuff you want to put out there today, I have something for you: You can borrow my permission until yours is ready. Here it is. Take it. It's free, and it's real. You don't really need it from me, but you can have it until your own is ready. Think of it as a head start.

--L

(Fiction words written: 350)

Ground-Feeders

The snow was so deep that I had to put on my rain wellies to keep my socks dry when I went outside to feed the birds Friday evening. Thursday, I had added a big scoop of sunflower seed to the main feeder and jerry-rigged a broken suet feeder so the more adventuresome woodpeckers (we get many down woodpeckers at the feeders) could stop pecking at the treated post and eat suet, instead. I have a third feeder that holds thistle for the smallest birds, clingers, like wrens and finches. But by Friday afternoon, the sunflower seed was nearly gone and the ground-feeders were on the hunt.

Juncos are ground-feeders who adore thistle. They stray from the feeders and come hang out on the porch, looking for seed. So, of course I put a little out there for the pleasure of both the birds and our (indoor) cat.

Here's a junco. They're pretty cute. (From Ohio-Nature.com--I couldn't get a good shot through the window.)

The masses of birds (cardinals, juncos, woodpeckers, pigeons, tufted titmice, plus one squirrel) were the first thing I noticed when I looked out of the window at 6:45 a.m. Sure, there was plenty of snow. But substantial snow cover means ground feeders can't find food easily. I feed birds all year round, though winter and nest-building season in early spring are the busiest times. I used to stress out about feeding too many squirrels. Honestly, we don't have that many that hang around the feeders. With 12 acres of woods, and plenty of forest around us, we get only the lazy few near the house. What I do mind are the chipmunks and moles who tunnel all around our house and yard (and in my garden!), drawn by the grubs that feed on whatever the birds leave behind. A few years back we had a professional mole trapper come, but after he charged us $250 for catching 10 or so, he gave up, saying that he could never make them all go away because of the huge population. I deal with them tunnel by tunnel when they show up in the spring.

I was glad I'd banked up the feeders Thursday since I didn't care much for going outside on Friday. My obsessive driveway scraping rather wore me out so that I started dreaming where I was sitting Thursday night around 10:30. At one point Friday afternoon I was trying to remember where I'd seen lines of men in gray overcoats carrying giant, yellow, symbol-covered, triangular traffic signs in their arms as they paraded up and down a city street. Then I remembered that brief dream.

I wrote some fiction, finishing up a chapter that will be in a book that will eventually be another BLISS HOUSE novel. (BLISS HOUSE is a fictional, haunted Virginia house built after the Civil War. It is stuffed full of stories, and I'm not sure how many novels it will take to tell them all.) I've been struggling all week to get a good solid block of writing time in, and I finally did. In order to do it, I had to turn off my phone for 3 hours. I thought it might kill me, but I did it! And it was definitely worth it.

So, the birds are fed and the pages are written. For now. It was a good day.

Below is a gratuitous pic of Miss Nina, our cat, as she looks out for birds in the snow. I posted it on Facebook, but I like it so much, I wanted to share it here, too. Plus, it looks like she's balancing a tree on her nose, which is all kinds of awesome.

--L.

(Fiction words written today: 1296)

Ice and Rain

There's something about an incoming snow storm that makes me feel like nesting. Instead of writing, I spent most of the afternoon scraping our very long driveway of 1/4 inch of sleet. There's a large hill involved, and my beloved had yet to return from teaching his last classes of the semester. I confess I was also thinking of the predicted several inches of snow. It's one thing to have snow on the driveway, but quite another to have a thick layer of ice below it that must melt before the driveway is passable.

I didn't ask the boy to help right away. I liked the solitude of the afternoon, the rhythmic sound of the shovel blade against the asphalt. The road that runs along our property is steep, so I was able to watch the progress of the light traffic. The school bus had no problem, and neither did the Amish children in their horse-drawn buggy as they headed to their homes near the orchards. (They attend classes at a house a couple of miles away.) I worked for about an hour and a half with the dogs playing nearby. By the end of that time, the road had become more treacherous and a Jeep and a pickup truck were both stuck on the hill for a good amount of time. The drivers figured it out, finally. One made it up the hill, the other backed down very slowly. Scout, our Rat Terrier/Rottie mix, barked his encouragement, and thus assured that none of the drivers pulled in our driveway to ask for his assistance.

The sleet had turned into a light rain by the time we reached the gate, and I called the boy outside to help clear the parking area up near the house. He was excited--mostly, I think, about the prospect of popcorn and hot chocolate at the end of our task. We worked for another 1/2 hour, while the dogs got soaked and chewed on sticks. The boy was not delighted when I headed down the driveway again, pushing away the small amount of sleet/snow that had accumulated all over again. But I felt compelled. I wanted it clear, clear, clear. When I reached the bottom third, I looked up to see him wearing a look of disbelief. I'm always engaged in overkill--a perfectionist at heart. Of course it was a Sisyphean task. As I type now, hours later, I can hear more sleet against the window. I had been thinking never enough, never enough. But sometimes we just have to say enough is enough. I called the dogs and we trudged up the hill again to go inside.

Now we are cozy. Beloved is home. School is cancelled for tomorrow. It was definitely enough.


(Fiction word count today: 0)

Can You Unplug?

How hard is it for you to unplug? To turn off your cell phone, computer, tablet, television (yes, television counts)?

I'm finding it increasingly hard to do. The last few days I've found myself obsessively checking Facebook and Twitter. I've begun to suspect it has something to do with my addiction to natural dopamine. In the last few months I've had to cut out all caffeine, the darkest chocolate, long naps, and most alcohol (no one is up for exercising in the evening after a glass or two of wine). Dopamine is all I have left--well, perhaps I still get a little adrenalin rush when I know I'm running late, but I'm going to discount that because I don't really go many places. When I see those tiny number icons and text alerts, my heart goes pitter-pat and I drop everything.

Other excuses I have for staying plugged in: Children. What if they can't text me if they need me?; Friends. Ditto for them.; Email. Vital VITAL information about work, friends and family news, and shopping comes through every hour or so. My spouse is a good sleeper. I stay up late. Solitaire relaxes me. Netflix relaxes me. And then there's reading! I have Kindle, Nook, and Pages on my iPad. It must be nearby ALL THE TIME. As far as the television goes, sometimes I like it for company in a distant room because I'm alone with the critters in the house much of the day. But I really don't need the actual television. Every other screen I own--laptop, tablet, desktop, phone--can show me all the films or television shows I want.

Then there's the biggie: I work on a computer. The only device that's almost always as close to me as my phone is my laptop. That's where I do my thinking, where I compose my stories. (Though I prefer to write non-fiction/blogs on my desktop.)

I'm exhausted with it all. But apparently not exhausted enough to put everything away for a day. Or even an hour. If I'm stern with myself, I will keep my phone in another room during writing hours. I can still hear its little cries, calling to me. "I'm here! Here I am! I can make you haaaaaappy!"

Have you read Hamlet's Blackberry? It's an excellent (short) book on connectedness and technological dependence and its costs. Tiffany Shlain is prolific on the subject, and there are plenty of articles out there. And here's a new piece on how tech-deprivation can cause high anxiety.

I have lots of work to do over the next several months. Don't we all? With the winter holidays coming up, my life is pasted with to-do lists. I'll be receiving edits on BLISS HOUSE (my novel that's coming out in June) in a matter of weeks. One of my biggest goals is to get the second Bliss House novel drafted by Christmas. That means a lot of uninterrupted hours. Can I do all these things and maintain a vibrant, trying-to-be-a-witty-information-provider presence online? Did that sentence even make sense? The answer is probably *no* to both.

I'm thinking about it, though. Exploring those connections. Trying to figure out what's feeding me and what's not--what's feeding my creativity, and what's draining it.

A girl can't live on dopamine alone. I'll keep you posted. Let me know where you are on this journey.

--L.



(Fiction word count today: 350)

Wishlist Anxiety

If you know me, you know I'm all about the lists. Here's a pic of a list my daughter wrote on one of my lists earlier this year. It cracked me up because the poor child has suffered my lists for all 21 years of her life.

I don't make lists for absolutely everything, though my life would be way more organized if I did. Lists get made when I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed. (Just plain ol' overwhelmed is my natural ADHD state, of course.) But now, at this important list time of year, I am stymied. Yes, I've made my Christmas gift-giving lists, organized into Friends, Family, Professional Contacts, and Service People sections. I have a list of the traditions we want to make sure we observe during the Christmas holidays. I even have a list of what gifts need to be shipped, and where. But I can't get my own wishlist to my husband to save my own life.

The Raging ADHD Package comes with a hefty supply of personal clutter. Oh, I have all the stuff. Endless, endless lists of stuff. I used to worry that I didn't have hobbies--earlier in my life it was all writing and toddlers. Now I'm all out of toddlers (thank goodness) and I imagine that I have all this extra time to do things. So I do them for a while. And then I do something else. And that something else requires stuff. I really do like to do all these things: make bread, take photographs, play the piano, garden, do needlepoint and embroidery, read, read, read, play with electronic things and watch films, do large puzzles (this is a NEW thing), play golf, take hikes, travel. Oh, and Legos. I love to build those Lego buildings. It's too embarrassing to go on. It's not like I abandon projects regularly. Sometimes I put them on pause for a couple of weeks. Or months. But I always come back.

My life is so full. Of family. Of work. Of friends. Of love. And words. Goodness, I love words. It's one of the reasons I'm writing this post instead of putting together a Christmas wishlist for my sweet, generous husband.

So here's my next list project:

1) Do One Thing At A Time.
2) Finish That Thing.
3) Rest and Appreciate.
4) Start the Next Thing.

I spent a lot of time one night this week trying to explain my list anxiety to my husband. Now that I recall it, it probably sounded a lot like whining. One of our family stories is about our daughter--who was four or five at the time--bursting into tears because there was too much icing on her cupcake. We tried hard not to laugh. But it's true, isn't it? Sometimes we can't handle it when we're too blessed.

My cupcake is overflowing with goodness. It's time to take a step back and appreciate it. Appreciate the non-stuff in my life. Work on balance, gratitude, and calm. It's not about the wishlist. It's about the love behind the request. I'm one lucky girl.

About Stoner: My Apology to a Dead Writer

The writer John Edward Williams has been dead since 1994, but I am apologizing to him anyway. Months ago, I began hearing many amazing things about his 1965 novel, Stoner, which details the life of a midwestern English professor of little fame and consequence. Curious, I bought the audio book just before embarking on one of my many trips between our house and St. Louis. I listened for two or three hours. The prose was easy and declaratory, if it was also occasionally as lethargic as its subject. Its subject, William Stoner, lived in the dull sepia tones through which I sometimes view the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Yawn. I found myself bored and a little irritated. Eager to be the literary rebel, I declared it--on Twitter, no less (how mortifying)--to be "An English professor's wet dream." I did not mean it in a nice way.

I don't particularly like snark. It's nasty. I like it even less when I drag one of my prodigious size 9s through it. And this time I really stepped in it. No, my pronouncement didn't get any kind of reaction from my Twitter friends/followers. I was smugly alone in my witty criticism. How appropriate.

I'm suspicious of books that other people proclaim to be amazing, and will either avoid them completely, or read them long, long after their popularity has peaked. I'm not sure why. It's not that I don't trust other people's taste or opinions. I'm pretty sure it's just the contrarian in me--I really am the sort who is skeptical of any club that would want me as a member.

Why did I continue listening to the book if I thought so little of it? Because I did listen to the whole thing--I even backed up a few times to re-listen to particular sections. At first I just didn't want to give up on the book. I tell people all the time not to bother finish books they dislike, but I have a very hard time doing it myself. Then, about halfway through, I found myself turning it on every time I was in the car alone. And I became vaguely resentful when I had to turn it off when someone else got in the car with me. I finally finished it Monday as I sat in the parking lot of the post office, unwilling to go inside until it was over.

William Stoner is born to a Missouri farmer and his wife, and has an unremarkable childhood/youth. They send him off to the University of Missouri (Columbia) to study agriculture, but he finds himself so moved by his first English literature class that he begins to drift--almost unconsciously--into the English program. It is with the same sort of unconsciousness that he meets and marries a delicate young woman named Edith, and begins his career as a teacher. The action moves little out of Columbia, changing only when Stoner goes to St. Louis to meet Edith's parents. Stoner's is a small universe. Microscopic even. He suffers travails in academia: disappointments, small intrigues, betrayals of trust. He is passed over for promotion. He writes a single book that is published without fanfare. He and Edith have a child. Edith turns on him, turns on herself. There is no great, plot-driven drama here. Yet it is an enormous drama, of import only to its players. It is a drama of small details. Of the individual threads of one man's life.

(photo: University of Arkansas Libraries)

Williams keeps a dogged pace. As I listened to the opening chapters, I kept asking myself why I should care about this colorless man. His world was colorless. The descriptions seemed colorless. But the doggedness finally wore me down. I began to anticipate the pacing, and tried to anticipate the plot. At times the story became so painful in its prosaicness that I wanted to turn it off in the same way I want to turn off a film when I know some beloved animal is about to be poisoned by the bad guy. I could feel Edith's meanness, could feel Stoner's withdrawal and the cool pity of their friends. Having some experience of academia, my heart broke for him each time it scorched his vision and crushed his naiveté.

Maybe dogged is not the best word. Measured is perhaps better. Every sentence, every paragraph is carefully measured. I knew that William Stoner would die in the end, and I knew exactly when it would happen. Williams keeps no secrets, and rarely surprises the reader. It's not necessary.

I sat in the parking lot of the post office and listened to those last words of the story. I'd stopped feeling like I was a bitch for dissing the book. The act of finishing it, of seeing Stoner's life through to the end, gave me an intense feeling of having been forgiven. It also gave me a powerful refrain that I know will continue to haunt me--I won't share it here because it belongs to the book, and hearing it (or reading it) is a kind of reward. An illumination.

I was trying to think of books to which I could compare Stoner. I came up with Evan S. Connell's novels Mr. Bridge and Mrs. Bridge. Connell was an actual midwesterner who was Williams's contemporary (Williams was born in Texas). They, too, are measured (even episodic) books that explore the lives of unremarkable people. I recommend them as well--but do skip the Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward film. It's a poor reflection of the novels.

If there's a Stoner film in the works, I don't think I want to know about it.

So, my apologies, Mr. Williams. Wherever you are. Thanks for the excellent, thoughtful read.