I can sit, I’m very good at sitting

My Greenland book is being dedicated to my husband, but the way things are going, I’m starting to wonder if he should get a co-author credit.

Last night I whined a lot (kind of a yucky spectacle now that I think about it) about not knowing what to do with some characters I’ve invented, and BF listened patiently and made suggestions. He gave me ideas that I’m probably going to use. This often happens when I talk through my writing with him, and I feel so guilty every time, because I feel like his help means I’m not writing the book myself from top to bottom (which is what my name on the cover implies I did). Sometimes it takes a village to write a book, I suppose, but the guilt remains. BF himself thinks the guilt is silly. He’s happy that I can use things that he says. He’s not going to use them, he points out, and besides, I’m the one who has to put all the words into sentences and so forth.

He advised me to read the first book of R.A. Salvatore’s Dark Elf trilogy, Homeland, because he said it might give me some insight on how to fill the vast middle of the book with, you know, plot. So I’m reading it. It’s an interesting experience; I pretty much never read pure fantasy and this is my first outing with Salvatore, and I find it addictive, thin, and not ultimately that enjoyable – like Baked Lay’s potato chips. But I can’t stop reading it. It’s also a world that I find really useful, what with the underground cavern, the high-intensity world-building (that aspect, at least, is done very skillfully), and the political intrigue. These are all elements I need to bring to my book.

***

I read a little about Jim Henson the other day, because it occurred to me after watching The Great Muppet Caper for the 80th time (and bursting out in song without intending to for the 77th time) that his vision would have been a difficult one to sell to anyone with the capacity to buy it. “I want to do a prime-time variety show with these goofy puppets. We’ll spin off feature films. They’re not for children, exactly, but they’re really funny and…” Yeah. Get outta my office. But still, he did succeed, spectacularly. And from reading about him it seems like it just took a lot of work, a lot of years of effort, one after another after another, until he did succeed. He was forty before The Muppet Show went on the air.

So even though I feel like 30 is awfully old to have not yet figured this thing out, a routine of life that I can manage and keep at and enjoy for long periods (longer than 4-6 months, anyway), I know that ultimately I’m wrong. It’s all living, even this haphazard thing I’ve done for almost a decade out here in the world; it’s all building something, even if it’s something that shelters only me.

I’m reminded of a scene in Magnolia when Robards’ character is talking about life and regret. He says, in agony, “Life is long. Life isn’t short, life is long!”. I think of that a lot. It seems short, with the bigger sweep of time and history that we know about, but it’s not. It’s long.

From the example of Jim Henson I take with me: always keep plugging, don’t give up, and maybe you’ll realize your dream after all, no matter how insane it seems. (And for God’s sake, if you have an infection that hangs on and gets worse for a couple of weeks, go to the damn hospital. Everyone will miss you terribly if the worst happens.)