I Don't Want to Lose

I don't want to lose a single thread

from the intricate brocade of this happiness.

I want to remember everything.

Which is why I'm lying awake, sleepy

but not sleepy enough to give up.

Just now, a moment from years ago:

the early morning light, the drift, sweet

gesture of your hand

  reaching for me. 

I Don't Want to Lose

I don't want to lose a single thread

from the intricate brocade of this happiness.

I want to remember everything.

Which is why I'm lying awake, sleepy

but not sleepy enough to give up.

Just now, a moment from years ago:

the early morning light, the drift, sweet

gesture of your hand

  reaching for me. 

Want to go on vacation with me?

WE HAVE A FEW MORE SEATS AT: The Ed and Alta Smith Good Karma Writing Retreat in Maui 

DATES:

Feb 6-11

WHERE:

Wailea, Maui (it’s on the sunny side of the island)

There are a lot of fancy hotels (like, literally, the hotel from White Lotus Season 1) and also cheap condos (hell, yeah, airbnb!) in the area. 

You can also find plenty of other accommodations nearby FOR A LOT LESS. I see a lot of 2-bedroom condos listed for $350 a night. So get on THAT.  Seriously. I’m happy to matchmake roommates. Many of you have been in zoom classes together. 

RETREAT FEE: $2,000. 

SO TO RECAP:

You will have to pay 2K for the retreat. (As always I am totally up for payment plans. Or “this is all I can pay” plans.) 

And then you also have to get your airfare and hotel/airbnb. (I have a couple of scholarship rooms, for a couple of nights, and maybe more coming in - I’m on a waitlist for openings.) (A friend has donated resort points.) 

You will NOT have to rent a car. I will have people doing airport pick-ups and drop-offs as well as pick-ups/drop-offs in Wailea (if you choose to stay somewhere other than the Andaz). That said, if you see yourself in a white convertible Mustang, go for it. I SEE you.

WHAT WILL THIS BE LIKE?

It can be what you want/need it to be! I’m going to be offering a late-morning daily meeting for writing talk and prompts, and a daily evening workshop. But also excursions and special guest talks. But hey, if you get there and start writing and decide you want to spend the five days on your balcony with your laptop, that is fine. You can be ALL IN. Or partially IN. Or “tell me when it’s happy hour” IN. I will also be available all-day to take a look at your pages, to cheer you on, to talk writing in a hot tub. 

CAN I BRING A PLUS ONE? 

Absolutely. Obviously your plus one will not be charged the retreat fee. But can still attend the “social” events. Erik is threatening to take you all on hikes. 

DO I HAVE TO COME WITH PAGES?

Nope. But you can if you want to. 

DO I HAVE TO TURN IN WORK DURING THE WEEK?

Nope. But you can if you want to. 

MORE.

Airfare from Portland to Maui (eg) is $350. Lodging ranges from $175 to as much as you want to pay. 

WHO'S GOING TO BE THERE?

My T.A., Erik Grove. Erik’s wife. Yours truly. Plus the husband and the daughter. Plus a couple of special guests. I don’t want to announce them until they’re 100% solid. But they’re people I know. And you will like them. 

Basically I’m inviting you all to go on vacation with me. 

HOW DO I SIGN UP?

Find me on my socials and message me. I’ll let you know my Venmo/PayPal/Zelle handles. Pay the fee to save a seat. Or, you know, some of the fee. 

WILL THERE BE LEIS?

There will be leis. 


Wave!

Are you guys listening to The True Crime Enthusiast podcast? Because I'm a little obsessed. 

QUESTION: What are the names of the books in your Archie/Gretchen series?

Hi! Thanks for asking. This is SUCH a good question. And one that I get asked A LOT. So here you go. (I moved away from the "heart" theme three books in, and I think this confused some people. I'm sorry!) In order. 

They are:

HEARTSICK

SWEETHEART

EVIL AT HEART

THE NIGHT SEASON

KILL YOU TWICE

LET ME GO

The birdcage

 

When my mother was dying, she bought a bird.
It was a finch. Or maybe a parakeet.
She named the bird “Vida.” That’s Spanish for “life.” My mother embraced language with the recklessness of a poet, without fear of jinxes.
My mother put the bird in a cage.
It was a pretty cage. An Asian antique, all varnished wood, about the size of a carry-on roller bag.
But life finds a way, and Vida was an escape artist. She squeezed through the varnished wooden slats and fluttered around our apartment until my mother cupped Vida in her hands and slid her back through her cage door.
We had a problem. The space between the slats were too wide, or maybe the bird was too small.
My mother came up with a plan. She bought thin copper wire and hand blown glass beads and she started weaving the wire, over and under the slats, around the cage, threading beads along the way, filling the gaps.
If this sounds like it wouldn’t take long, you have never attempted to thread wire around a bird cage. Each trip around took twenty feet of wire. Then, a centimeter up, another circle of wire. Over and over again.
It took hours, every day. For the better part of a week. Friends and family would come over and help, fingers bleeding from the wire. We couldn’t do anything about the cancer ravaging my mother’s body, but we could sure as hell find a way to keep a bird in a cage.
Have I mentioned the cat?
Her name was Girlfriend.
She wasn’t our cat. She’d just appeared at the door to our apartment one day - a huge long-haired dog of a cat - probably a Maine Coon. She swaggered into our living room and stretched out on the couch.
Girlfriend wasn’t her real name. Her collar didn’t have one listed, just a telephone number. And she didn’t seem lost. So we never called it.
“Hello, girlfriend,” my mother called her. And it stuck.
After that the cat came to visit several times a week.
There is a superstition about cats visiting the dying. If a cat shows up and sleeps on your chest, you’ll be dead by morning. There’s science behind this it turns out - people who are dying have elevated body temperatures - and there’s nothing cats like more than a warm place to nap.
So maybe the cat knew that my mother was running hot.
We took to leaving the front window open, so the cat could come and go as she pleased.
When we came home to the empty bird cage we thought at first that Vida had managed to escape again. Then we found a single small green feather on the living room floor and Girlfriend grinning in the corner.
Maybe Vida made it out. It’s a nice story, right?
Maybe Girlfriend ate her.
We never found a trace of the bird, except for that one feather. The cage was wired as tight as a drum.
Life is mysterious.
I know this: My mother died a few weeks later.
I didn’t see Girlfriend again until after the funeral, after all the well-wishers had come and gone. Then one day she sauntered in. I burst into tears. I had missed her. I called the number. “Do you have a cat?” I asked.
“Yes,” a man said.
“I think I have it,” I said.
The man gave me his address and I carried the cat to a big old craftsman style house about five places away from us around the block. I was seized by a crazy desire to keep that cat. To explain that the cat had been ours, my mother’s and mine, and that my mother had just died and I would soon be moving, and could I take the cat with me to my new apartment?
An elderly man opened the door. “Milton!” he said when he saw the cat.
Girlfriend, it turned out, was not a girl.
“He gets out,” the man said.
Milton meowed at him and the man took Milton from my arms and held him close.
I never saw Milton again after that. I moved to a new apartment. Then to a new city. But, twenty years later, I still think of him fondly - or rather her, our cat, our Girlfriend.
Vida’s cage hangs in my home office, where I write.
Sometimes I think, maybe I should buy a bird?
But that’s ridiculous, right? These choices, they lead to heartache.
Instead - in the cage - there’s another kind of bird — it’s not real - it’s an old Christmas ornament - but it’s precious, because it was my mother’s.
We all hold onto things.

 

 

Oh hi.

So my socials keep getting hacked. Which means that this is our Plan B. Right here. I see you. And I will be better about updating here. I HAVE NOT BEEN GOOD ABOUT THAT. 

Let's try it. 

Want to? 

Some thoughts about how to make a living as a writer.

in

Learn to write when you don’t want to.

 Read your work out loud to as many people as you can.

 Take risks. Make yourself nervous. Tell yourself you can cut those parts out later (you won’t; those are the best parts).

Write the book you want to read.

If your Voice of Reason tells you it’s too similar to something else, or too dumb or too smart or too familiar, put your Voice of Reason in a box and bury it in the back yard.

 Leave out the parts you’d skim in other books.

 Steal from everyone.

Know that you will get published. Hey, I promise.
It’s just a matter of getting your book in the right hands.
So if/when you’re rejected, celebrate; you’re that much closer to your book deal.

Finish the book.
I’ll say that again: Finish the book.
If you can finish the book you’ll vault ahead of 99% of the people who say they want to write a book. That’s millions of English majors. Over your shoulder.
We are all authors.
Write like you talk. Your voice is amazing. Your voice - your particular experience in the world - that specific thing that makes you who you are - no matter what you’re writing about - thousands of people - maybe tens of thousands - maybe hundreds of thousands - have been waiting, all this time, for you.

 

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