Natasha Alexander » friends

Double Win!

Natasha — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 02:03:57 +0000

This week I won a contest on Christi Craig’s blog: my own copy of Linda Cassidy Lewis‘s novel The Brevity of Roses. I’d already read and enjoyed the e-book, but I admit it, there’s something special about actually holding a physical book in your hands…

Also, through this contest I’ve discovered Christi’s lovely blog and am happy to add her to my list of favorites and new friends.

All in all, a good week. Now if the shot I got in my knee this morning would start working and if Tropical Storm Emily would remain off-shore, I’d call it a terrific week.

Close to it

Natasha — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 15:05:00 +0000

One of the beach cottage rental places in town has a sign that reads “There’s not much here, but what there is – you’re close to it.” The highlight of New Year’s Eve is a giant lighted beach ball being lowered from a fire truck ladder onto the beach, followed by some fireworks.

Ringing in a new year can be pretty darn low-key around here.

I’ve enjoyed reading my blogging friends’ new year’s writing resolutions and watching hordes of people in brand new Lycra work-out clothes stride purposefully along the beach swinging their Christmas hand weights and matching water bottles.

I hope the writing resolutions last longer than most of these exercise routines. Another two, maybe three, weeks and the beach will be back to normal again, crammed instead with lunatic fishermen and young women with prophetic visions, as the January fitness fanaticism fades. At least I hope so.

I’m not much one for new year’s resolutions – the last time I made them was years ago when I was pissed off and wrote up lists of resolutions for my family members to follow. You can imagine how well that went over with them.

And yet.

I’m sitting here applauding (and reading!) Cathryn Grant as her debut novel, The Demise of the Soccer Moms, hits the streets. And sending another shout out to Linda Cassidy Lewis for deciding to go indie with her debut novel, The Brevity of Roses, during 2011.

I want to join them.

Which means I damn well better finish writing something. I have two works in progress: one that lacks a compelling ending, one lacking a ‘keep on reading!’ middle. They need tender loving care to become something more than a mess of good intentions and unconnected dots.

So that’s what I’m focusing on in 2011: TLC for my WIPs. And getting at least one of these puppies out there into the larger world.

Did I just make a new year’s resolution?

Yeah, I think so.

Yes I did – or close to it, anyway.

Happy New Year, Ya’ll!

The man in the green house

Natasha — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 03:32:54 +0000

Before moving to the South, I lived in a nice upscale Boston suburb. I was pregnant when we bought the ‘barn red’ Cape Cod style house and moved out after my son started college. My street featured lots of curves, stone fences, big wooded lots and old houses — a quintessential New England small town.

Right after moving in, someone — I think it was his next door neighbor, the woman who tied her dog to a tree in the front yard and used way too much salt on her food — told me to watch out for the man in the green house. He was kind of creepy, she said. Might have snapped a bit after his wife died.

Over the years, I spent a lot of time going down the street — pushing a stroller, walking the dog, riding a bike, driving to work. And each time, I’d pass the green house.

Sometimes I thought about the creepy old man as I walked or biked or drove down the street. Mostly, though, I was so busy racing from one thing to the next that I didn’t have much of anything on my mind but my ‘to do’ list.

There was a rock ledge in front of the green house, and every year the man would plant red geraniums in the little crevices so an unexpected blast of color erupted from the rocks all summer long.

I was driving home one day and passed the green house. The man was lying in the front yard, his legs leaning at an awkward angle against his front steps. It took a few seconds for the scene to register in my brain and I’d already driven several hundred yards by the time it did.

I pulled into a driveway to turn around and a minute later I was getting out of the car in front of the green house.

“Are you all right?”

The man looked at me, then sat up and smiled. “Oh! You startled me. I’m fine – sometimes my back acts up. If I stretch it out like this as soon as it starts I can usually nip it in the bud before it gets too bad.”

He scrambled to stand up and held his hand out to shake mine. “But thank you so much for stopping to ask. I appreciate your kindness.”

I told him how much I looked forward to seeing the geraniums in the ledge and what a beautiful garden he had.

He thanked me again and told me to stop by any time I wanted. He became Don, not the creepy old man in the green house.

Every day from then on when I passed the green house and Don was outside, I waved. He’d wave back. Sometimes I stopped just for a minute to admire his flowers, say hello.

Fifteen years.

I wasted fifteen years not getting to know Don, shutting him out until he had a back ache on his front yard.

How many times, I wonder, had I done just that — get some misguided notion of a person, an idea, a place — and shut the door before realizing what could lie on the other side?

My loss.

I think I can

Natasha — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 21:49:20 +0000

Today is the mid-point of National Novel Writing Month. I’m closing in on 30,000 words and should be able to hit my 50,000 word goal by the end of the month, lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

Will I reach THE END of my novel by November 30? We’ll see. Right now I’m in the throes of the middle. And it’s hard going here.

The supremely insightful Merrilee Faber and her post today, Middles are like macrame, showed up just in time. She put it so beautifully:

Middles, to me, are like a big macrame project. You get hold of this subplot in one finger, and then you grab that subplot and tie them off, then you pick up some character development and weave it through, and then you grab the main plot in your other hand, and don’t forget the theme, that needs to show up as a splash of colour, and then…

At this point I have a bunch of tangled strings in my hands and I’m hoping that I can pull them together into a more or less cohesive whole. Getting through the middle is the trickiest part of writing for me now, but I think I can.

Last week I read an article on the 9 most subversive children’s books ever written. I don’t agree with the author’s choices, of course. Any list that leaves out Daniel Pinkwater is just plain wrong. Still, the author points out that in The Little Engine That Could, the little engine that ultimately Can and Does is female. I’m pretty sure if the story’s feminist little engine could hold a pen, she’d be doing NaNo, chugging ‘I think I can’ while racking up the word count.

So here’s to NaNo, here’s to W.I.N.O.S., and here’s to making it through the middle — whatever that middle may be.

Just say it: I think I can.

W.I.N.O.S.

Natasha — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 02:38:33 +0000

I took this picture at a neat little art gallery/shop in Berea, Kentucky during our last road trip. Unfortunately the place was closed, so I didn’t get a chance to peek inside the book or at least purchase a package of the cocktail napkins, which looked like a real bargain at $4.95.

But I can improvise. Here on the East Coast of the U.S., it is 9 PM right now. I am lifting my glass ( inexpensive California chardonnay) to you, my fellow W.I.N.O.S., in praise, gratitude, humility and a load of hooey for traveling together on this writing journey, NaNo or not.

And I propose a toast: Care to join me each evening at 9 (your time or mine – or what the hell, both) for a quick toast to all the friends we’ve made in blogland and beyond? (W.I.N.O.S. is gender-neutral, in my book. That “W” can stand for Writer, Wing-nut, Whatever — and that should cover most of the bases.)

Ya’ll in?

Cheers!

(If you need a laugh with your wine and you are on Facebook, check out the NaNoWriMo page, where hundreds of people are offering (with varying amounts of shame) short summaries of what they are writing this month. Enjoy.)