HollyRobinson

Writer & Red Dirt Rambler

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How a Sunday Drive Led Me to an Island Home (Part III): A Hurricane, Cat Stink, and Super Sly Insects

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As I write this, Prince Edward Island is still in recovery mode after Hurricane Fiona washed out roads and bridges, collapsed barns and houses, uprooted thousands of trees, and left ninety percent of islanders without power. We were headed there at the same time Fiona was wending her way north and had to turn around. We’re thankful that our house made it through, and owe a huge debt of gratitude to our neighbors, who diligently replaced shingles on our roof and hauled the outdoor furniture inside before the storm, then checked the property afterward.

Surviving the Cat Stink

One reason I fell in love with PEI is that, wherever you go, you’ll likely have a vista of red cliffs and a beach, typically edged by farm fields of bright yellow canola or potato fields blossoming such a bright white, it’s like a million butterflies have landed on the green.

That beauty helped me survive our first season in the house.

Whenever there was rain or damp weather (pretty much every day here in the Maritimes, on the geographical edge of Canada), a cat stink mist rose to clog our noses and mouths.

“Where is it coming from?” my husband asked.

“I think everywhere,” I said.

We crawled around on hands and knees, sniffing. Kitchen floor? Yup. Rusty radiator in the living room? Uh huh. How about the sun porch? Check, check, and check: some previous owner’s felines definitely had one big cat party in here.

“Holy hell,” I said. “What are we going to do?”

We did it all: washing the floors and radiators, throwing bleach at the smell, and even pulling up boards and replacing them. We also sanded and repainted a lot of the walls. Mostly, the smell went away, but every now and then there would be a whiff and we’d fall to our knees again.

The Insects Rule

The other surprise obstacle: insects. I’d only ever been to Prince Edward Island in summer. Now, eager to try living in our house, I arrived in April to open things up.

The first insects to take up residence with us were black flies, clouds of critters with the supernatural ability to leave holes in your skin that would turn to welts. They were undeterred by any amount of insect repellent, even Deep Woods Off.

Next came the horse flies. Now, we have flies in Massachusetts. We even have greenhead flies, which send most tourists scurrying for the nearest airport. But I have never run from horse flies as big as the horseflies on Prince Edward Island. These were bat-size. I didn’t just sprint away. No, I did the kind of survival running those people do in movies about apex predators.

After that came the more ordinary house flies, which one of my neighbors called “shingle flies.”

“What are those?” I asked.

She gave me a look. “Flies that live in your house shingles.”

Right. Another dumb Come From Away question.

The flies were definitely living in the shingles of our house. They also seemed to be rising up from the farm below, where our neighbor raised cows and sheep. Whatever the official name of these flies might be, it should have included “Super Sly.” No matter how tight the screens were on the windows, or even if the windows were closed completely, they managed to sneak into the house. It became a nightly ritual to grab the flyswatter and smash five hundred flies with the bedroom door closed so we could sleep without buzzing. If we made the mistake of getting up at night to use the bathroom, we had to start all over.

Our fly-bashing skills proved handy for the next round of critters: the mosquitoes. We have mosquitoes in Massachusetts, too, but these were like the Cirque du Soleil of mosquitoes: risk-taking high fliers who could wriggle through even smaller holes than the shingle flies, out-fly the black flies, and leave welts on our skin the size of bread slices. One night I went outside to walk the dog and had to run for my life back into the house, driven by the deadly drone of a million mosquitoes.

Did we hate the island by then? Were we sorry we’d bought the old Homer Robertson house?

Stay tuned for a tale of ghost ships and the Mick Jagger of fiddlers…

How a Sunday Drive Led Me to an Island Home (Part II)

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Things move slowly on an island. By the time we actually stepped inside the house we’d bought sight unseen on Prince Edward Island (See Part I here), it was late October. The intervening weeks had given me time to hear lots of people tell me I was crazy.

“How could you buy a house you’ve never seen?” my mother demanded. “Besides, you don’t need another house. You barely take care of the one you’ve got.”

True. I am not a duster or a sweeper. I do not fold laundry or iron it. I subscribe to what my husband calls a Darwinian philosophy when it comes to clothing: if an item can’t survive being washed with different colors and dried at high heat with the towels, out it goes, usually in tatters. On the other hand, I have plenty of time to write, play with children and dogs, and hike and swim. And I desperately wanted a year-round house on Prince Edward Island.

“Why?” a friend asked. “Isn’t it cold up there in the winter?”

“It’s no worse than Massachusetts,” I said, despite having zero facts on this topic.

“It’s not even on the beach!” another friend said. “If you want potato fields, drive to Maine.”

Also true. Yet “The heart wants what the heart wants,” as Emily Dickinson wrote, and I wanted this old farmhouse on Prince Edward Island.

(North Lake Harbor)

Because we lived so far away, I had to rely on the realtor to give me the name of a home inspector. And, because the home inspector could only come in the morning, we’d have to spend the night somewhere close to the house. I found an inn online—Harbour Lights Inn, located just outside North Lake Harbor, famous for its lobster and tuna fishing village—and called.

To my astonishment, the woman who answered was actually American; she and her husband were in the process of applying for their Canadian citizenship after two decades of living on PEI.

“You’ll love it here,” Pat assured me.

Because we were showing up in late October—well past the peak tourist season—she promised to give us dinner as well as breakfast.

“Oh, gosh, I don’t want to trouble you,” I said.

“Really, it’s fine,” she said. “Maybe I’ll come to the home inspection with you. I’ve always wanted to see inside that house.”

“You know which house we’re buying?”

She laughed. “Sure. That’s Homer Robertson’s old place.”

“That’s not the owner on the listing sheet,” I said, confused.

“Right, but that’s always going to be his house,” Pat said. “You’re come-from-away.”

Driving on Disappearing Roads

The drive to Prince Edward Island in late fall was markedly different from the one we’d taken in August. Traffic, sparse even in summer, once you get through the gauntlet of sun worshipers and fried dough eaters pouring into the beaches around Hampton and the shoppers zeroed in on outlet stores in Kittery and Freeport, trickled down to nothing. The views were different, too. Fall was still in full swing in Massachusetts, the trees putting on their typical fireworks finale in reds and golds, but by northern Maine the colors seeped away into bleak browns and blacks.

“Stephen King territory,” my husband mumbled as we turned onto Airline Drive, which goes through Washington County’s crumbling houses, hunting cabins, and tired looking churches.

The snow started falling in New Brunswick. At first it was pretty, powdering the wide vistas of rolling hills and the edges of the Bay of Fundy, but by the time we reached the Confederation Bridge, it felt like we were driving off the end of the world. I remembered the sign I’d seen that summer at East Point Lighthouse, claiming that nineteenth-century lighthouse stood at the end of the world, perched above the meeting of the tides between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Northumberland Strait.

As we left the bridge and began driving east across the island, the wind started howling. At one point it felt like some giant hand had picked up my Honda and shaken it before dropping us back on the road.

“Uh oh,” Dan said.

On Prince Edward Island, I’d heard that the “roads disappear” in winter. I’d scoffed at that. Hey, I thought. I’m a New Englander. We know snow!

But we didn’t know island snow. One minute, Dan and I were following a ribbon of tarmac; the next, a giant white sheet was drawn over the road and the asphalt disappeared. With such an abundance of farm fields, there are few trees and bushes holding the snow at bay.

“Can you see where you’re going?” Dan asked, white-knuckled beside me.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m just driving between the houses.”

Not that there were many houses. In fact, some of the towns are named for how many houses they have, like Five Houses just past St. Peter’s Bay. There were few cars to hit, fortunately, and at last we arrived at our destination. Harbour Lights Inn was a gray two-story house that would have had a fine view of North Lake Harbor, a small collection of colorful fishing shacks and cottages on a red sand beach, if the windows hadn’t been veiled by snow.

Pat and her husband Bruce had decorated the inn with an Asian theme, since Pat had spent so much time in China, and as we ate and admired the artwork and furniture, they filled us in on the neighborhood.

Homer Robertson, we learned, grew up on Munns Road, in the house directly behind the one we were intent on buying. Most people on Munns Road had grown up on the same road or nearby. Like many remote, beautiful islands, making a living on PEI takes energy and ingenuity. Bruce, for instance, was an historian who taught at the university in Charlottetown. Homer had run a store out of our house and did some farming. The house behind Homer’s was occupied by a woman painter who also worked as a hospital technician. Her husband, a retired chemist, raised sheep and cattle. That woman’s brother was a carpenter who resided at the end of our road, and next to him was yet another of their brothers, a lobster fisherman who also raised cattle.

When morning rolled around, Pat announced she was coming to the home inspection with me.

“Thank you, but you really don’t have to do that,” I said.

She raised an eyebrow. “This is my chance to see inside that house. You think I’m going to pass that up?”

Then, when I tried to pay her for our night at the inn and the meals they’d given us, she waved me off.

“I don’t take money from friends,” she declared.

So off we went to see what I hoped would be our island retreat, accompanied by a friend.

Anne of Green Gables Could Have Lived Here

The house was built around 1900, and as the realtor wrestled the key into the lot, I held my breath. Many of the houses we’d looked at on the island had been “renovated” in ways that stripped away all of the original woodwork and character in favor of paneling, dropped ceilings, and linoleum.

Not this one. Stepping into this house was like stepping back in time. We entered through a tiny yellow sun porch furnished with a trio of ragged lawn chairs. The dining room had an enormous oil stove for both cooking and heating and was separated by a wall from a galley kitchen. There were no appliances, other than a tiny gas stove and refrigerator.

What there was, though, was the original woodwork around the door frames and windows, and the original pine floors. Some of the floors had been painted a pleasing green. The floor in the main living room wasn’t pine; it was oak, I guessed, laid in an elegant interlocking pattern. The windows were nearly as tall as I was, flooding the living room with light.

“Oh my God,” Pat exclaimed behind me.

“What?” I asked.

“The furniture,” she said, scarcely breathing. “It was handcrafted in Vermont.”

I examined it then—I’d been too busy looking at the house–and realized the chairs and couch were the sort of elegant, Mission-style furniture I’d only seen in the Sundance catalog.

“That makes sense,” said the realtor. “The current owner is from Vermont. He’s including the furniture in the sale,” she added. “Dishes and artwork, too. Everything.”

“Everything? Really?” I asked.

She shrugged. “He doesn’t want to bother moving it.”

Upstairs, the bedrooms and hallway were wallpapered in floral patterns. “I feel like Anne of Greene Gables,” I said.

“Or we could be in Little House on the Prairie,” Dan said, swatting away a cobweb.

The only anachronism was a bathroom jimmied into the original landing at the top of the stairs. There, a toilet was raised on a wooden step to allow for the plumbing below it. It was framed by one of those same tall windows.

“We’ll call this The Throne Room,” Dan said.

A Bolt Hole for The End of the World

The inspector continued crawling around in the usual places inspectors go: the basement, the attic space, etc., pointing out the plumbing fixtures, oil tank (ancient), and wiring (even older). The house was surrounded by a trio of barns, one small, one medium, one big enough to park a crane inside, and here we discovered more unexpected items: antique tools and boxes of literature about the end of the world.

Most of the literature seemed to be warning of the world ending in 1982 after a series of global disasters—earthquakes, tidal waves, and violent storms—brought about by all nine planets aligning. “Oh, yeah,” Dan said, skimming a pamphlet. “’The Jupiter Effect.’”

I had no idea what he was talking about. Apparently The Jupiter Effect was a bestseller by British astrophysicist and science writer John Gribbin and astronomer Stephen Plagemann, who predicted devastation for our planet because the gravitational pull of the sun on all planets lined up in a row would trigger sunspots, solar winds, and an increase in the Earth’s rotation, all of which would cause things like an earthquake along the San Andreas fault that could level Los Angeles.

“Wow,” I said. “So this guy from Vermont believed the end of the world was coming. That must be why he bought this place. It was his bolt hole.”

“Right,” Dan said. “And now it can be ours.”

We looked at each other. An island bolt hole, with all furniture included?

“We need to think about this,” Dan cautioned.

“Good bones, this house,” the inspector said when he shook our hands. “But you’ll have your work cut out for you. Pretty much everything needs updating, including the roof.”

“That’s a lot of money,” Dan moaned.

“We don’t have to do it all at once,” I said.

“I don’t know. Maybe there are other things we should do with that money,” Dan said.

Maybe he was right, I thought.

A Singing Beach Clinches Our Decision

We said goodbye to the realtor, Pat, and the inspector, and headed home. As we started to turn west toward Souris, I spotted a red dirt road across the street from the end of our road.

“Wait. Let’s see where that goes,” I said.

Dan grumbled, but down that dirt road we went, bumping through the ice-crusted ruts. The weather had turned clear and the sky was a hard metallic blue. The road was only about a quarter-mile long; at the end, I parked and we followed a path over a small dune.

On the other side of it was a stunning beach. This wasn’t like the red sand beaches of the North Shore, but pale pink, with the texture of table sugar. I scuffed through it in my boots and was rewarded by a tinkling whistle.

“It’s a singing beach!” I exclaimed.

Dan looked out across the Northumberland Strait. “What’s that?” He pointed to a hilly looking land mass.

“Cape Breton Island!” I was nearly cartwheeling with excitement. I might have done, except for my boots and my down jacket. And my age.

Though, at that moment, I could have been ten years old again, or twenty. This was our beach, at the end of a red dirt road, at the end of the world, and it was close enough to walk to from our house.

Yes, dear readers, we went through with the sale. In the next post, I’ll tell you all about the good, the bad, and the ugly of moving into a place my niece immediately dubbed “The Murder House” when she visited from England. Stay Tuned for Part III.

How a Sunday Drive Led Me to an Island Home (Part I)

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The beach at the end of our red dirt road

I never meant to buy a second home. I certainly never intended to buy one on an island a full 11-hour drive away from my house in Massachusetts.

By that time I’d been coming to Prince Edward Island, Canada, for a decade, ever since I was an impoverished single mom looking for a cheap place to bring my kids on vacation. I couldn’t afford Cape Cod, or even New Hampshire. Prince Edward Island was cheap because it was far, though it didn’t really sink in just how far it was until I actually made my first trip here.

To get to PEI from Massachusetts, you basically drive through so many miles of pine trees in Maine that the state motto should be “Maine: The Infinite State.” Then you drive even more miles through New Brunswick’s rolling hills and Bay of Fundy Views, until finally crossing the architectural feat that is the Confederation Bridge across the Northumberland Strait and landing on an island of red cliffs and lighthouses and lobster suppers. (The first time I came here, the bridge wasn’t built yet, so there was the added excitement of trying to make the ferry and missing it, then having to wait another hour with cranky kids in the car.)

That first trip to PEI was with my friend Emily and her children. We were both divorced and struggling, and we rented a rent-a-junk sort of van that garage bands use to move their equipment, only instead of equipment, we had four kids in the back under age 10. Having this brood basically required us to keep tossing juice boxes and crackers into the back of the rattling van during our odyssey, and stopping by the side of the road more times that we could count to let them pee, since apparently they couldn’t all pee at the same time at gas stations, as requested, which led to Emily and me to imagine one or more of them being gored by moose or eaten by bears. Fewer children would be easier, but still.

Anyway, we landed on the island around midnight. This was back in the days before GPS, so we had to navigate using a map and a flashlight (because the interior van lights were busted) to our destination. The last part of the drive involved a bumpy dirt road which fired up my fantasy life again, only this time I envisioned a serial killer waiting for us in our rental cottage, but I was too tired to care at that point. We managed to make the key work in the lock and let ourselves inside, where we all fell into beds without even undressing.

In the morning, I woke to the sound of fiddle music. I sat up and pulled the curtains, and realized our serial killer’s cottage was actually on a sparkling blue bay lined with great blue herons and tall lupines in bright Disney colors. The fiddle music was coming from across the water, where I could see a church spire, tall and white but spiraled in red like a barber shop pole.

I was instantly besotted with the island, and have been coming for over 20 years now.

After I’d successfully introduced PEI to my second husband, Dan, the first house we bought on PEI was a tiny box, a summer cabin with a separate shower room created from an old ice cream stand. Some years later, Dan and I were staying at a friend’s house on the east end of the island when we happened to run out of milk. (We still had kids in tow, though only two at this point, and already teenagers.) We left them sleeping and drove a few miles to the only store in the area.

“Let’s take a different way back,” I suggested.

It was then, on one of those narrow roads that bisects the island south to north, that I saw it: a field of bright yellow mustard, planted between potato crops, and an empty house across the street.

Mustard fields in flower between potato crops across from our house

“That’s my house! Stop the car!” I yelled.

“The house was like the poor cousin of the famous home and museum of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of the beloved Anne of Green Gables books and a steady tourist magnet, especially for Japanese women who all seem to be compelled to buy those red pig-tailed wigs with sunhats so they can pretend to be Anne. It sat, square and simple, overlooking potato fields in front and sheep fields down behind it, with its own three crooked outbuildings. And it was for sale.“

“We have to call,” I said, pointing to the real estate sign.

My husband sighed.

In the U.S., if you call an agent about a house, you’ll have a meeting in ten minutes. But, because this was PEI on a Sunday, nobody was in a hurry. “I’ve got the family here and we’re about to go to the beach,” the agent explained, not at all apologetically.

The house was abandoned, clearly—some of the windows were boarded up. “How much is it? And how many bedrooms and bathrooms?” I asked, pressing my face to the windows. There were the ubiquitous lace curtains, unfortunately, and I couldn’t see a thing.

“Five bedrooms, one and a half baths.”

“I’ll buy it,” I said, ignoring the sound of my husband choking behind me.

“You’ll what?” the agent asked.

“I’ll buy it.” I made an offer. “See if the seller will accept that.”

“Don’t you want to see the house first?”

“I can’t. We have to drive back to the U.S. tomorrow. I’ll see it during the inspection,” I said, and gave him my phone number and address.

“It’s ours,” I said, turning back to my husband. “We found our house!”

“It could be a nightmare inside,” he warned. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“It could be,” I agreed, but I was sure this was it…

(Stay Tuned for Part II: What We Find When We Step Inside, Including Literature about the End of the World.)

Why We Write: Desk Ecstasy

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I recently cleaned out the basket where I toss magazines I don’t have time to read. Naturally, in the process of valiantly trying to cull through old issues, I found several I couldn’t put down and spent more time reading than cleaning.

During this episode, I stumbled on a terrific profile by Alexandra Schwartz in the February 3, 2020 issue of The New Yorker. (Side note: Why didn’t I read this one? I mean, shouldn’t a pandemic be the best possible reason to read every magazine you’ve been hoarding?)

Schwartz’s profile is of literary critic and memoir author Vivian Gornick. One line in particular would have brought me to my knees if I hadn’t already been kneeling by the basket. In describing Gornick’s desire to become a writer, Schwartz says:

“She had known desk ecstasy, the feeling of the world disappearing as you till your mind for the page, and once you experience that it’s hard to do anything else with your life.”

Could there be any better description of why we write, even when we doubt our ability to put words on the page or convince other people to read them?

I first experienced desk ecstasy as a teenager. Convinced I could make good money writing romances, I submitted stories to a romance magazine despite the fact that I’d never even been kissed. I never sold a single story, but it didn’t matter. I wrote those stories while on lunch breaks at a furniture factory where my job was to staple plywood backs onto wooden dressers. (My apologies to anyone out there who bought one. I’m certain your neatly folded clothes went straight through the dresser when the back fell off.)

So what if the factory was hot and loud? I had created a magic portal I could escape through.

Still, I tried hard not to be a writer when I went to college a couple of years later. My obsessive reading led me to plow through nearly every book in our tiny town library by the time I was sixteen, but I majored in biology, determined to have a “real” career. Medicine, maybe.

However, during a single elective course in creative writing, I once again experienced desk ecstasy. This time I couldn’t give up writing. I have never once looked back at this decision with regret.

I have known publishing rejections—too many to count—and successes. Ultimately, though, that score sheet fades in the face of what matters most: the ability to make the world disappear by creating new worlds of my own.

The Art of Revising a Book

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Recently, I stayed in an Airbnb where someone had tied the top tissues of all of the Kleenex boxes into bows. My first instinct was to laugh because they looked so comical.

Then I thought, “Good for you, taking so much pride in your work.”

Writing well is the same as doing anything else well: whether it’s yoga, cleaning, running, doing your taxes or the dishes, the beauty is in the details. You must take the time to write your book with care and attention. That means revising it, sometimes many times.

“How long does it take to write a book?” my students often ask, and of course there’s no easy answer.

Self-published authors, especially those who write genre fiction like fantasy, romance, or crime, turn out two or even four books a year. Literary writers—i.e., people who generally are up for prizes like the Booker or National Book Award—often take many years to write and publish only one book. Most of us are somewhere in between.

When I sent my latest work-in-progress (a thriller set in Spain) to my agent, her response was “Do it again.” I picked my ego up off the floor and used her (detailed!) editorial letter to revise the book, making changes to every chapter and almost every sentence. It had taken me a year to write the book. It took nearly another year to revise it.

After that, I had to twiddle my thumbs for four months before the agent sent it back to me with notes on THIS draft. Her editorial letter this time was easier to swallow, since she said it was “85 percent there.” (Naturally I was hoping she’d say it was 100 percent there, she already had an auction going, and soon there’s be a Netflix series. A person can dream, right?)

I spent another six weeks on the next revision, reworking a key plot element and fleshing out one of the characters by adding some backstory. Then I went through every page again, often reading them aloud to tighten sentences, scout out awkward or repetitive words, and catch inconsistencies. Many of the pages, like that bow on the tissue box, had only one or two changes, but those changes made the novel shine.

So, whatever draft you’re on, take your time. There’s no rush. Agents and editors at traditional publishing houses are basically looking for ways to say “no,” so you must submit your best, most polished work. And, if you’re self-publishing, remember that your book is representing YOU. Readers won’t come back for more of your writing if they’re disappointed in your first book.

Bottom line: A book takes as long as it takes to make it the best it can be.

3 Key Writing Lessons from Vertigo

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I was doing an online yoga class at home when the mat came up to meet me. Literally, one minute I was in forward fold, head dangling, and the next I was feeling the mat smack me in the forehead. When I looked up from the floor, I thought the ceiling fan was on full-tilt. Nausea kicked in.

It was like the worst college bender I’d ever been on, only I hadn’t been drinking. What the heck was going on? Was I having a stroke?

The dizziness passed after an eternity. But, when I turned over, the whole thing started again. I hoped it was only a bad flu.

It wasn’t a stroke or the flu, but vertigo, which affects about 40 percent of adults in the U.S., according to the University of California San Francisco. The condition is defined as an “illusion of motion,” and has many causes, from migraines to inner ear infections. Even certain medications can cause it. If the condition persists or worsens, you need to see a doctor to make sure there isn’t some potentially fatal underlying cause, like a tumor.

In my case, the vertigo was caused by benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), brought on when tiny calcium carbonate crystals break loose in your inner ear. It’s called “positional” vertigo because that’s what triggers it: certain changes in position. I learned that the hard way when I bent down to shave my legs in the shower and fell, nearly plunging through the glass door.

Some exercises can throw the crystals back into place and stop the vertigo; a particular favorite among physical therapists is the Epley maneuver, which involves moving the head in a series of precise positions. You can also tame the condition with OTC drugs like Bonine or meclizine.

About a year after the first vertigo attack, I had another. This time I was quicker to accept my limitations, like no speedy staircase descents. And, although vertigo is the opposite of fun, I also embraced the lessons it taught me about writing:

1. Being Quiet Helps You Think

I’m the sort of person who multitasks nonstop. With vertigo, sometimes all I can do is sit still in a dark room. While it should be obvious to writers that being quiet helps you think, I never fully realized the importance of doing this until it was enforced. During my last vertigo episode, the idea for a new novel came to me in a flood of images. I’m now 50 pages into it and going strong.

2. Moving Slowly Sharpens Your Writing

Lots of writers (including me) set stern word count deadlines. But the best books take time, sometimes lots of time, for you to revise scenes and even sentences. Slowing down can make your writing shine.

3. Being Afraid Never Solves Anything

The first time I had vertigo, I was terrified that I was having a stroke. Being scared never solved anything, though, so I saw my doctor, even though I was terrified she’d find something was horribly wrong with me. The same goes for writing. You will start out on your project with great enthusiasm, but at some point you’ll be afraid. Maybe you’re afraid the plot isn’t working, or you’re scared to publish because you hate the idea of negative reviews. Push through the fear. It takes courage and persistence and hope to live a healthy life, and the same is true of writing.

What about you? Have you gone through any life changes or health scares that have helped your writing?

On Dogs and Writing

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It’s raining again. This is the third day in a row where I’ve had to take the dogs outside beneath wind-lashed trees, my supposedly waterproof jacket soaking up water like I’m wearing a newspaper cape. I’ve tried to get the dogs to use the yard to do their business, but they’re having none of it. So around the block we go.

The truth? Owning dogs has taught me a lot about consistency, accountability, and, well, sheer doggedness–all good qualities if you want to be a writer. Just as dogs need to be walked every day, those manuscripts won’t walk themselves.

It’s a chore, walking the dogs in bad weather, and even sometimes when the weather is fine. There is all of that stupid fiddling around with harnesses and leashes and poop bags and treats, for starters. Then there’s the sheer tedium of seeing the same sights on the same blocks where I live, unless I drive the creatures somewhere so they can run off-leash, chasing squirrels and rabbits, barking to let me know they’ve almost caught their own dinner for once.

Likewise, sitting down to write is a chore. Other, seemingly more important tasks call to me as I’m walking over to my laptop. We’ve run out of milk again. There’s a Himalayan range of laundry to be done, and my car needs an oil change.

But, as the rain soaks my shoulders, I walk the dogs past the house next door and marvel at the new Halloween decorations. I spot a flock (Or is it a gaggle? A murder?) of wild turkeys strutting across the street, the male spreading his tail like a fan big enough to power a shrimp boat. And then I run into a neighbor with his dogs, and as the dogs nose about, tails wagging and happy to be part of a pack, we exchange town gossip. I return home wet and chilled, but happy and ready to start the day. Awake.

Likewise, the writing can be a slog fest. There’s that chapter that doesn’t move the narrative forward, and the dialogue sounds as wooden as that grade-C science fiction movie my husband insisted on watching last night. There’s a dumb but possibly essential flashback that’s weighing down a scene.

But, if I sit here long enough, I’ll toss the dull chapter and shine up the dialogue. I’ll tighten the flashback or jettison it altogether. And, by the time I look up, with hair in my eyes and shoulders aching, it’ll be four hours later and I’ll feel better. I might not get all of it done, but every sentence written or edited means progress. I feel happy. Awake.

After dinner, I’d rather sip wine and watch Netflix, but the dogs want to play. They eye me expectantly, tails going like metronomes, toys between their paws. And so I slide off the dining room chair and sit on the floor to toss a stuffed sheep across the room for one dog to fetch while I play tug-of-war with the other, whose favorite toy is a stuffed dog with a grin just like his. Eventually the dogs slide onto my lap, press close and warm, and we rest.

Then it’s time to take the dogs out again. We watch the moon rise between the pine trees and listen to the barred owl call. Tomorrow, with luck, we’ll get up and do it all again.

Why Do You Want to Write a Book?

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A few nights ago, a new neighbor dropped by. She came late in the evening and stayed so long that I figured she must want to ask me something, but didn’t know how.

Sure enough, she finally said, “So, I’ve been meaning to ask. How do you write a book? And how long does it take?”

There are no easy answers to those questions. Every writer approaches the task of putting words on the page differently. Some authors churn out three or four books a year. Then there are those who spend a decade crafting a single manuscript.

I told her this, then added, “A better question to ask is why do you want to write a book?”

She looked startled. “I don’t know. I guess because I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I used to love writing in college.”

“Right, but why do you want to write a book? And why this book, in particular?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated, and swallowed the rest of her wine. “It just seems like writing would be a fun thing to do.” She stood up. “Anyway, it’s getting late. I’d better go.”

Obviously, she wasn’t finding the conversation helpful. I wondered later if there was something I could have said to satisfy her, but didn’t come up with anything.

The question of “how” to write a book has a million answers. It basically comes down to doing whatever works for you. All books are created by putting one word down and then another and another.

But you can’t successfully write a book until you’ve figured out why you’re writing it. It helps to picture your ideal readers. Who do you think will read this book, and what do you hope they’ll get out of it? Come up with a simple, straightforward answer to that, and you’ll have an easier time clarifying your goal and writing toward that end. For instance:

  • I want to write a book for my family so they understand our family’s history better
  • I want to write a book to show that people who have been through hardships can still be successful entrepreneurs
  • I want to write a horror story that will give my reader goosebumps
  • I want to write a novel that will make women laugh and know they can move on from their mistakes

And so forth. The more specific your answer to “why I’m writing this book,” the easier it’ll be for you to write and revise your manuscript, because because you’ll know where you’re headed.

If you’re still not certain, check out the reader reviews on Goodreads of some of your favorite books that are similar in genre to the book you’re writing. Many readers say what they’ve loved about particular books—and what they don’t like. Choose some of the reviewers whose opinions line up with your own, imagine them reading your book, and tell them why they’ll love it.

Now go write!

CAPE DISAPPOINTMENT: SHOULD YOU GIVE UP ON YOUR NOVEL?

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Last month, I flew to Oregon to visit my daughter. Our mission, in part, was to find her a wedding dress, but because neither of us is much of a shopper, we spent more time blissfully hiking than pawing through racks of sequins and tulle.

One of our best hikes took us through Cape Disappointment State Park in Washington. The trees were cathedral-size, the lush ferns were waist-high, and every rock and branch was softened by moss. Hiking is always a walking meditation for me, and this was no different. Maybe it was the name of this place–Cape Disappointment!–but the darkest, most closeted rooms in my brain were suddenly lit up and I found myself facing the question I’d been avoiding: Should I give up on the novel I’m writing?

The thing about writing books is that they’re a bit like putting together Ikea shelves, as debut novelist Virginia Hume noted when we appeared on a panel together at the recent Newburyport Literary Festival: even with a plan in front of you, you don’t know if a particular piece will hold together until you actually build it. This can be a frustrating, time-consuming process.

In a span of fifteen years, I published a memoir and six novels of contemporary fiction (along with many other ghostwritten books). Then I had the bright idea to spend four years researching and writing an historical novel that still hasn’t sold.

While I wait (im)patiently for the right editor for that manuscript, I’m working on a new book. This one is a novel of psychological suspense set in Spain. I love it, but when I showed it to my agent, she sent me back a detailed editorial letter that basically said, “Do it again.” (Her notes were spot on, btw.)

Hiking in Oregon, I pondered this novel and what it might take to whip it into shape. It seemed fitting to be on Cape Disappointment, pushing my old mom legs to keep pace with my daughter’s ultra marathoner’s muscular limbs, wondering if I should give up.

A Quick History and Geography Lesson

Cape Disappointment is a headland located at the southwest corner of Washington. Here, the powerful Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. The enormous amount of sediment carried by the river creates the Columbia River Bar, one of the world’s most dangerous maritime channels. Since 1792, the bar has been responsible for sinking some 2,000 ships.

The first non-native person to discover the Cape was Spanish explorer Bruno de Heceta in 1775. In 1788, the English Captain John Meares tried to find the Columbia, but because he thought he’d only found a bay and not the river’s mouth, he dubbed the area Cape Disappointment. A few years later, Lewis and Clark navigated their way here by land.

Bottom Line: When Should You Quit on a Novel?

How do you know when to quit on a novel?

I’ve written various manuscripts that have ended up in drawers or filing cabinets. I’ve even written books that I literally threw into fireplaces. It isn’t ever doubts about myself or the fickle publishing marketplace that lead me to give up on a particular book project. Rather, it’s a lack of interest. I get bored.

So, when do you quit on a book?

Here’s the simple answer: When you can’t stomach another revision or have an idea for a better book.

Ignore the market. Follow your own vision and go where your passion leads you.

On Cape Disappointment, I admired the view and thought about this new book of mine, and found myself eager to get back to it as I descended the trail. Always a good sign.

Do You Need an MFA to Be a Successful Writer? 3 Things an MFA Won’t Do for You

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This weekend is the Newburyport Literary Festival, and I’m thrilled to be moderating a panel called “Inspiration to Publication: The Journey of a Debut Author,” with editor Sarah Cantin, agent Susanna Einstein, debut novelist Virginia Hume and publicist Jennifer Romanello.

This event will attract mostly aspiring writers who are curious about the life cycle of a novel, and one of the questions they’ll probably ask is whether you need an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in creative writing to succeed. Many authors take that path, and I’m one of them.

My own reasons for earning an MFA were unusual. Most graduate students enter MFA programs hoping the degree will lead to college-level teaching jobs, an agent, or a publishing deal. I went because I earned an undergraduate degree in biology and wanted to study literature. My MFA gave me time to write, deadlines to produce new work, and an audience who could critique my manuscripts. One of my professors even referred me to his agent.

So, was it worth it for me to get an MFA? Absolutely—but with one important caveat: I didn’t have to pay for my degree because I landed research and teaching fellowships. If I had to pay for the degree today, I might not do it, especially if I had to take out loans. Here are three reasons why:

1. An MFA Won’t Guarantee a Teaching Job

Many people enter MFA programs under the illusion that, because it’s a “terminal” degree like a PhD, they’ll be able to teach at the college level, but these days teaching jobs are in short supply. Even if you do get a college-level teaching gig, it’ll probably be as a lowly adjunct faculty member with no job security. You’ll earn less money than most bartenders.

2. An MFA Won’t Help You Earn Money with Your Writing

I’ve been a freelance writer for over 25 years now. And guess what? It’s not because I have an MFA. My first paid writing assignments were thanks to my biology degree, because editors were willing to take a chance on me for science and health articles when they saw that credential. Later, I wrote mostly for women’s magazines, not because I had an MFA, but because I was married with children and could turn out funny essays and parenting articles. More recently, most of my income is from ghostwriting books for celebrities, business executives, doctors, etc.–and I land those jobs because of my journalism experience. Have I earned even one paid writing gig because of my MFA? Nope.

3. An MFA Won’t Get You Published

While it’s true that some of your MFA professors might have agents who are willing to read your work because there’s a personal connection, they won’t take your manuscript because you have an MFA. It’ll still have to be a commercial manuscript, one they can pitch and sell to publishing houses. And guess what? If you write commercial fiction, your MFA professors and classmates will probably tell you it’s not “literary” enough.

The bottom line? MFA programs will give you deadlines, writing mentors and peers, and the kind of intense focus on craft that can certainly make you a better writer. However, you can also become a better writer for a lot less money by attending writers’ conferences and writing workshops, taking courses on social media and digital publishing, and joining community writers’ groups that will give you feedback on your manuscripts.

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