Write, darn you!

One of the things that surprised me when I became a published writer is that everyone I meet is going to write a book. They're going to write it when:

* They retire.
* Their kids are older.
* Their life gets easier/less stressful/less busy.

Here's my response to those who are "going to write" - if you wait until your life is at the perfect place for you to write, you will never write. If you are going to be a writer, then write now. Your life will always be filled with one thing or another. We live our lives like goldfish, growing to the size of our container. If you can find 15 minutes a day where no one is pulling at your sleeve and you're conscious, you can write.

Now, you may not write your Great American Novel. Fifteen minutes a day is probably not enough. But you NEED to write SOMETHING. Look out your window and describe a bird in a tree or your kids playing in the yard. Think about a memory and jot it down. Take your 15 minutes to go back and edit the snippet you wrote yesterday. Start an outline or cast of characters for that novel you plan to write.

Writing involves the act of getting words and images out of your head and onto the paper. They need to be honed, so that the words you spilled out become the best words for what you're trying to say. If you don't practice this every day, you will never build your writing muscles. If you don't build those chops, then even if the perfect timing DOES exist and you end up on an island retreat with a laptop and all the time in the world, it won't matter because you won't know how to get stories out of your head and out where the world can appreciate them.

I write every day, although I don't always work on the book. Once a week, I write and deliver my column (What a Day) of about 600 words. Sometimes I'm asked to put together something for the choir, or for Tina's ranch. I also need to keep this blog up-to-date enough to keep people's interest. And then there's Snoopy.

Snoopy is one of my two horses (I also own his mother, Frostie), and I started a blog about him because two years ago, he broke a bone in his leg, and documenting his surgery and progress helped me deal with the enormous frustration I felt from being medically ignorant and having to pull information out of veterinarians. He's got a few followers, one of which is the last doctor I took him to - he's a lameness specialist and actually read all of the blog posts before talking to me. Can I just say I love that man?

Anyway, today I decided to update his blog, even though there's nothing spectacular going on in his life. I'll do some writing on the next book, sure, but I felt the need to flex my muscles in that direction.

Because I write every day.

Christmas faq: Whadja get?

How was everyone's Christmas? That is, everyone who celebrates Christmas. Not to offend, you know.

Mine was pretty good, except that I had the Cold of a Thousand Faces. For three days, it was a Sore Throat, one that hurt so badly I barely got any sleep. On Christmas Eve, it became a Stuffy Head, which meant I didn't feel like having my traditional glass of wine for dinner or glass of sherry while I stuffed stockings. On Christmas Day, I was treated to Runny Nose, inconvenient as hell when you're wandering around to different houses to exchange gifts. Boxing Day was for Sinus Headache - I felt like someone was boxing my brains out.

And now, I'm sniffly but better, all thanks to the good Drs. Motrin, Sudafed, Halls, Afrin, and Excedrin. Better living through chemistry, I always say.

As for gifts, I was apparently good this year. No gold stars, but there was no coal in my stocking - oh, wait, I stuffed that. I got a nice gift card to a day spa, some iTunes cards, a few t-shirts and scarves. It was all pleasant. But I received one present that made me laugh, cry, and count my blessings.

Let me explain.

A few years ago, Dale got me horseback riding lessons for my birthday. One set of four lessons. I took them, but wanted more, so I took more. I took more, but I wanted to ride more, so I leased my trainer's champion trail horse. That led to going to horse shows, which ultimately led to my buying Frostie, breeding her, raising Snoopy, etc. As you can tell, the whole thing went from a little costly to a lotta costly pretty quick. Dale didn't say Stop, but he is the most laconic man in the universe, given to waiting until the last minute before he says, "So, did you think that was a good idea?" or something like that.

So I didn't really know what he thought about it all. He rarely accompanied me to the horse shows, or went to the ranch.

And then, for Christmas, I got this:

It's my trainer's horse, Copper Kist, the belt buckle I won, and all my ribbons. He went to the ranch, got them all to help him take the photos, put it all together, and had it framed. In other words, he spent a lot of time and effort, recording a memory for me. He may not have said it, but he was proud of what I had done.

THIS Christmas, I got a large, flat package from Dale and Marcus. I opened it and found:

Dale acted fairly nonchalant, but Marcus was beaming. Father and son had collaborated on a collage of my debut novel, complete with reviews from Amazon (five stars!) and the front and back cover of my book.

Wait... the front and back cover?

I tried to be tactful. I told them how wonderful it was, how much I loved it. But sooner or later I had to ask, "Did you cut up one of my books?"

"We bought it first," Dale replied, as if that made it perfectly reasonable.

I really adore these guys, and I love what they've done, and I love that they're so proud of me, even if a small portion of my brain wants to scream, "You tore up a perfectly good book! You could have scanned the covers! Agh!"

Luckily, it's Christmas and I can just feed that portion of my brain some more fudge to placate it.

How about you? Whadja get?

If I like to eat pickles, should I write about it?

I really meant to post this earlier, but something detained me –exhaustion. Yesterday, I spent the day taking care of animals, in one way or another.

Many people know I have horses. Two, to be exact: my 12-year old mare, Frostie and her 5-year old son, Snoopy. When people find out I wrote a book, their first question is often, "Does it have horses in it?"

No, as a matter of fact, there are no animals at all in Freezer Burn, at least not the four-legged kind. It was a conscious decision; I wanted to portray Peri as not being a natural nurturer. She's been married three times, is 50 years old, and has no children. I needed an explanation for that, and it seemed an easy progression to see her as someone who can't keep a goldfish alive.

She's a sympathetic gal, and has a good relationship with her BFF's kids, but has just never had the desire to have her own child and watch them grow. This is an important point in the book, because there's a subplot involving Peri thinking she might be pregnant. She has to confront her non-maternal instincts as she wonders what kind of upheaval a child would bring to her life.

Upheaval – with animals and kids, it sometimes comes down to that, doesn’t it? Unlike Peri, I'm the kind of gal who needs animals around. I like the feel of a cat settling into my lap to be rubbed, or the dog poking his nose into my hand to be stroked. When I am cleaning up their messes, or vacuuming the fur off the couch, I tell myself, "When this one goes, I'm not getting another one." But I lie. I can't live without a four-legged critter around.

As I was trying to get out of the house yesterday, our cat, Katie, came out of her litterbox dragging her tushie on the linoleum. It could only mean she had some, um, debris stuck in her fur, debris that I had to clean up before I could get out of the house. This cost me an extra 15 minutes. Upheaval.

I was trying to get out of the house in order to meet the horse transport company that would take Snoopy to a lameness specialist. Snoopy broke a bone in his leg last year and is still limping. His diagnosis and treatment has become such a big deal, he has his own blog to talk about it (http://thatsmysnoopy.blogspot.com), but the Reader's Digest version is that we traveled from Chino Hills to San Marcos for more tests.

This is the route we took:

And this is how much it cost me:

Taking Snoopy to San Marcos was not exactly in my schedule, either. I had to rearrange Tuesday's writing to meet Wednesday's deadlines early, and then cancel Wednesday's lessons, just to have not one, but two specialists tell me that, theoretically he's healed but realistically he's lame. Since horses can live for over 20 years, it will be a long time before I say, "When this one goes…" Again, upheaval.

The upheaval of pets in my life is what kept animals out of Freezer Burn. I know of many books where animals figure prominently into the storyline, and I love reading them. But I was more than a little anxious about writing a cohesive murder mystery. I actually made an Excel spreadsheet to keep the clues and suspects and subplots straight. Threading an animal into the mix didn't make sense.

We're always told to "write what we know" and I know (and love) animals, but I preferred not to add them to this book. I may add them to another story, but only if they fit into the plot.

Is there anything (a hobby, a skill, a passion) that you know intimately, but choose to keep out of your stories? Why?

Seasoned Greetings!

For those of you who are wondering, I found a good book for my dad for Christmas. I couldn't find one about World War II - frankly, I can't remember which ones I've given him, so that war may be history for gift-giving. So I settled on the Depression, somehow fitting for his personality. It's The Forgotten Man, in large print. We'll see if he likes it.

In the meantime, I have boxes of decorations cramming my living room, all screaming for me to get them out and put them on display. We got the tree on Sunday - I've discovered I'm extremely allergic to it, but I've got to trim it anyway. But what am I doing instead?

The annual Christmas letter.

This is how I began my foray into writing. About 9 years ago, I told Dale I wanted to write books, so he got me a laptop for Christmas. I piddled about with it for a few months, writing a snippet here and a paragraph there, but mostly using it for engineer-type work. Then, when Christmas rolled around and I thought of the sameness of all the notes I wrote in each card, I decided to try my hand at a Christmas letter. Not the kind where boasts are made about everyone's achievements, but not a parody, where the house burns down and the kids flunk out of school. Just something light and airy, with a little humor and a lot of gratitude that our house didn't burn down and our son is still learning. Most important, it needed to be one-page.

I was completely shocked at the response. Everyone who received a letter thought it was the best one they'd ever read. It began a holiday tradition - what would be in Gayle's letter this year? Family squabbles ensued, when spouses would bait their letter-writing mates with, "Why can't you write a letter like Gayle's?" One year, one of Dale's cousins told me, "I hope you're writing more than just this letter. You should write a book."

What a great idea!

I've posted this year's letter and photo on my website: http://www.gaylecarline.com/gcxmas08.html. Between you and me, I've read better and funnier letters, but this one's okay.

As for the photo, we managed to get the picture taken in only 1/2 hour and 16 shots. You see, Frostie (the red horse) kept trying to bite Mikey (the dog) on the toes, which made him try to jump from the table. So we swapped him and Katy (the cat), whom Frostie immediately tried to vacuum with her nose. My husband, Dale, is pushing her head away from the cat, who would like to kill us all for putting her through this indignity. The only one behaving is the black horse (Snoopy), who is usually the nippy one. For those of you who know horses, the chain across his nose explains his good behavior. We do this every year!

Happy Holidays!