Pruning Shears and Red Pens

February--This is the hot mess that is my beloved butterfly bush. God, I want to get my pruning shears onto the thing. And not just the pruning shears, but the limb lopper, as well. Okay, maybe not the limb lopper, which extends to seven feet long and is generally reserved for trees--but definitely one of the larger pruning tools in the garage.

The first time I owned a butterfly bush was back in Virginia (*sniff* I miss that place so.). We planted three in a corner of the yard, just in front of a stand of impenetrable wild blackberry bushes. The butterfly bushes were a triangular oasis in that unkempt place, a little bit of gaudy, fragrant deshabille among the thorns. I had only heard of butterfly bushes, and imagined them to be magical things. And they really are rather magical in the way they attract hundreds of butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. The scent! Rich and sweet. If you think of a rose as smelling like a woman's subtle perfume, the scent of butterfly bush blossoms is like a faceful of flower candy.

Imagine my distress when the landscaper told me that, every year, I had to cut away nearly all the bushes' limbs, down to a height of between fourteen and eighteen inches. I was stunned. It sounded so brutal. So violent.

Come February, my only confidence in the project came from the fact that the landscaper told me that if I didn't do it the bushes' growth and flowering would be very poor. On a sunny day, I headed up the hill with my pruning tools and gloves, and our beloved German Shepherd, T.J. (He was there to help me be brave, bless him.) In the spirit of sensitivity, I would love to tell you that I timidly snipped and snapped with the smallest tools, cutting off the old wood with a delicate hand. But I did not. First, I apologized to them for the pain I was going to cause, and then I went after them like I was out for revenge. I had those three large bushes trimmed down to their proverbial nubbins in no time flat.

It was...fun.

Knowing that I'm slicing and dicing those poor limbs for a worthy cause helped my enthusiasm, but that doesn't really explain the pleasure I took from it. The whole exercise felt very cleansing. Renewing--both for the bushes and for me.

It shouldn't surprise me, I guess, that I'm able to draw a distinct parallel between my now-mania for pruning bushes (and those troublesome clumps of decorative grasses) and my burning desire to hack my current novel-in-progress to bits with my electronic snippers.

Right now this particular manuscript is at about 95 thousand words, headed for at least the 100K mark. It's big, and floppy, and well-aged at this point. Is it bearing fruit? Well, mostly. Is there dead wood? I suspect there's plenty.

Many, many writers I know hate the editing process. Me? Last week I ripped out a parallel-plot section of the novel that was about 6K words and rewrote it so that it's now 11K word, and only re-used about 1500 words of the original section. (If you know my work, you know I'm a sucker for parallel plotting. No distressingly long paragraphs of exposition for this girl. If I want you to know about something I want to tell you ALL about it. Dammit. And you're welcome : )

My love of editing holds me back, frequently. Everyday I have to stop myself from starting at page one, and rewriting until I get to the end. Didn't some famous writer like Hemingway actually do that? Madness. That's the way I write short stories--but we're talking about an hour or so of editing every day for a story. Writing a novel that way would add months, even a year to my process. So, some days, I futz around with editing a chapter or two before I get down to the real work. Right now, the real work lies in ending the book.

Writing the original story is much more difficult for me than editing what I already have on paper. Really. Writing is painful for me. It's all tied up with fear and judgement and more fear and more judgement. Now that I think about it, I could be doing a lot less painful things--like editing other people's work. But, no. I really do like having written. That's the point. Seeing the thing done. Then I get to play with it. Enjoy it. See it as something new in the world.

There's a saying that should be tattooed on the forehead of every barista in every coffee joint where writers work. It's been attributed to writers from Nora Roberts to Jodi Picoult, but it really is just a truism:

You can't edit a blank page.

Just like you can't prune the hell out of a bush that hasn't yet bloomed.

Instead of maundering on about the comparison, I'll go ahead and set myself a little challenge...to get those 6 or 7 K words done in the next couple of weeks, before I take the shears/pruners/clippers to my favorite bush in the garden. If I don't get it done, the bush will be a sad thing this summer, with far fewer blooms, birds, and butterflies. And I won't get to go mad, mad, mad with sharp things. Which, in the end, would be the real shame, yes?

Origins: Nora Roberts's Northern Lights

I confess that--for much of my adult life--I was a book snob. There were certain categories of books that I had stopped reading because I had decided that they weren't, well, serious. Romance novels were in that category. I'd read tons of Phyllis Whitney as a teenager (Spindrift is just the best title, ever.) and teen romantic adventures like "Debby Does Broadway" (yes, it's a real book, and it has nary a sex scene in it). But I left those books behind when I discovered horror novels and a really fascinating drug reference guide that--forever whatever reason, surely innocuous--sat on my parents' bookshelf.

Nora Roberts's novel Northern Lights was a transformative read for me. I was skeptical when my Grand Rapids Press editor sent it to me on a whim. Roberts is one of the best-known, bestselling writers in the world, but her reputation isn't exactly literary. Northern Lights is a murder mystery with a love story between two broken, lonely people at its heart. The scene, a small Alaska town, gives it a unique spin.

I fear this sounds incredibly condescending, but I was thoroughly surprised by the cohesion of the story and the very high quality of the writing. I don't know why--Roberts had already written an enormous number of books by then (2004). Her prose was clear and concise, her characters engaging and complete, the story extremely compelling. Most of all, I found the novel very entertaining.

Before I was through reading, my attitude toward my own work underwent a huge change. I think it could be called a paradigm shift. It wasn't that I wanted to write romantic suspense novels, but that I knew I wanted to write something more tactile, more fun than what I'd so far produced. I had long had some kind of Platonic ideal of what my novels should be like: they would have beautiful language and express, in delicate ways, Big Thoughts. Now, I'm not out to change the world, or offer profound thoughts, or influence opinions. I want to give a reader a few hours of satisfying entertainment. I feel a huge sense of freedom. If a reader closes one of my novels with a sense that they've read a tale well told, I'm more than happy.

Not long after I reviewed Northern Lights, I reviewed Luanne Rice's novel, Summer of Roses, and again experienced a sense that I was in the hands of a writer whose work was going to be important to my development as a writer. Like Nora Roberts, Luanne is a writer who is underrated by those who would eschew novels of family drama and troubled relationships for more (ostensibly) highbrow fare. Now, I'm a huge fan of her work. I can't recommend Rice and Roberts highly enough as role models for anyone who wants to learn how to create characters who live on the page and are engaged in realistic interpersonal relationships. (If you're thinking you want to write the next Waiting for Godot--maybe they're not for you!)

Has there been anyone in your life whose work or example caused you to have a paradigm shift?

Oh, and if you blog, or are a writer who is considering starting a blog, check out Tia Nevitt's Wednesday piece. Tia's a real pro--listen to her!

MONDAY: Sweet treats and surprises for all the little buckaroos! (And a paperback copy of ISABELLA MOON to the first commenter who can tell me what song/band the sweet treats line comes from. No fair Googling!!!!