It is such a glorious day here today in Brooklyn. I know that sounds mushy or even trite, but I mean it: glorious. I awoke and actually did my morning pages like a good girl. Then I knew the second thing (after feeding the cats) was to write to two colleagues of mine, Eileen and Samone, who have been just an awesome amount of support to me as friends, creative hearts, and human beings. I wrote it out and got a reply from Eileen, a published author who has been fiercely throttling me to write! write! write! I quickly opened up the email and in it she wrote: This is a test. If you are reading this you are not writing! I had to laugh and shut down the email system, grabbed my notebook and went out to write and to eat a bagel.
Leila had come home in the meantime and we needed milk and Equal, so I jumped at the chance to get out for a walk, too. I went out to a new bagel shop in the neighborhood and sat down with my plain bagel with a schmear of cream cheese and a small coffee with the ever present shot of Equal. I ain't a tellin what happened while I was sitting there other than to say that four big parts of the novel came sloshing out. I was feeling very frustrated over the structure of this baby and then I made a connection as I went over all my notes. There it was. Again, I believe in the Stephen King philosophy of not speaking about the dish until it's prepared and cooked - at least once - all the way through.
Hoorah! I remember Eileen saying a month or so ago that the writing of the piece is the most fun. Huh? I thought. I find it excruciating or at least not really fun. Sitting there staring at the well-formed, heart beating object of a fetus in my possesesion in that bagel shop (ew, weird image), I knew what Eileen meant. Now I was at a place where I got to put the puzzle pieces together and to ride with or without a seatbelt or saddle through the adventure. I felt suddenly like I did when I went into a theater to see a movie I knew I wanted to see; it had intrigued me enough to see it. Now I had a piece of work all my own.
I owe Eileen big.
I text messaged Leila once out of the bagel shop because I was going to walk to the Promenade and I thought she might want to also. The weather was good, sky clear, and I was wearing a thermal top, hoodie and jean jacket with my jeans, so it was a good day all around and not the frostbite ones we had had the past two days. Leila wanted to go and I asked her to bring my gloves with her. We met at Winn's and started walking. Leila is a fashion stylist and is doing a shoot tomorrow for Miss Universe. Wow. She says it like she has to dress a lanky teen from Staten Island, nothing big. Wow. So we are walking to Barnes and Noble when she tells me, "I made a contribution to your blog."
Stunned.
My girl laid down two hundred dollars of her hard earned bucks for her old Ma to write a novel. We were in a Tibetan shop when she said this and I turned to her, nearly knocking Buddha off the wall. "Oh honey!" I exclaimed and hugged her. I always knew both my girls believed in me, and that is simply priceless in itself, but this young woman took $200 out of her bank and laid down a few instrumental cobblestones to line my street of dreams.
I am so grateful and humbled.
We kept walking and she spotted a clothing store she loves, LF. She said she wished she had the magazine's letter stating the shoot she was doing because she sure would love to pull some clothes from there for Miss Universe. We went in and Leila started talking to one of the young women who worked there and I left them alone. My girl was working. Suddenly she started pulling items and I asked what was up? "They are going to let me use their clothes for the shoot."
Hoorah!
Now we are sitting amongst $6,670 worth of fabrics, jewelry and shoes. The stylist is on her way.
Like I said it's a glorious day.
Now I need to feed the cats. They think the broad and the babe better get their shit together and do some real work.
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