On Traveling Alone (and writing about it)

Last January I flew to Minnesota to visit a friend who was a student at Hamline University. Hamline is one of the few colleges in the country that offers an MFA in Children's Literature and I was curious about the program and also wanting to support my friend as she presented her critical thesis.

I had the frequent flier points and my friend was graciously letting me bunk with her, but still I was little anxious about going.

I'm a wuss when it comes to traveling alone and this trip was a million miles out of my comfort zone. Flying in winter. Renting a car (something I had never done in my life). Going to place where I had never been.

Did I mention I'd be traveling alone?

But I bucked up and made the travel arrangements. A few weeks before I'd started working through The Artist's Way again. One of the things that hits you when you do the exercises (or at least hit me) is questioning why you do the things you do, shining a spotlight on habits and thought patterns and beliefs

and considering different possibilities for yourself.

Reflexively, I say I hate traveling, that I am afraid of jetting off to an unknown place--alone--but why? And what would happen if I pushed my fears aside... and embraced the adventure?

I asked myself this very question in my Morning Pages on the day I left for the trip. (Side note: morning pages are the first directive of The Artist's Way-- 3 pages, handwritten, stream-of-consciousness writing that Julia Cameron says all AW-ers must do each day.)

One year's worth of morning pages notebooks

I was already stressed out because my flight had been delayed and I was stuck at the airport, wondering and worrying if we'd ever take off and what would I DO and the worrying-spirals began spiraling and I was jumping ahead to future worries--what if I missed my connecting flight? and what if I had problems picking up my rental car? and what if I got lost driving to Hamline? and--

But as I wrote these worries down in my morning pages notebook, I felt them drifting away and suddenly, for some reason, I was writing about the scene in Harry Potter, where Harry is worrying about how he'll defeat a dragon and his teacher tells him YOU HAVE A WAND, and I realized that I too had a wand and the wand was called: a credit card

and then I felt better.

The rental car was small and low-to-the-ground and I felt like another person driving it, bumping along on the highway that led from the airport through the unfamiliar snowy frozen landscape, following the lovely, trustworthy (I hoped!) GPS lady voice.

The car radio was playing 1940s Big Band music and I was too anxiously gripping the steering wheel and paying attention to the road to even begin to think about changing the station, so I listened to 1940's Big Band music and found myself strangely soothed.

That afternoon, after a quick visit with my friend at Hamline, I drove forty miles from St. Paul to Northfield to spend the night with an old college friend, nearly kicking myself for making that extra bit of travel arrangement because what the hell was I thinking? MORE driving on unfamiliar highways? MORE time spent in the low-to-the-ground car listening to 1940's music?

I know what you're thinking. Why didn't I change the channel? Answer: I don't know. The entire trip was beginning to feel like the Twilight Zone and the music just added to the other-worldly effect.

After a fun visit with my college friend, anxious to avoid the morning rush hour traffic into St. Paul, I decided to stop at a cafe in downtown Northfield and eat breakfast. But this decision carried with it different anxieties... I'd be eating alone. In an unfamiliar place. Surrounded by unfamiliar people.

Geez, Jody, I thought. When did you become such a big baby?

Carrying my notebook like a shield, I went inside the cafe and ordered a cup of coffee and a bagel. I sat at a table and watched people coming in and going out. I wrote my morning pages. I could DO this, damn it. Sit here. Eavesdrop on conversations. Sip my coffee. Read the newspaper.

I read the entire Home Section of the NY Times, articles I still remember a year later. A story about a woman who collected African American art and nearly all of it was destroyed in a house fire. An article about a guy who wrote a book about set designs in Wes Anderson films. A story about expensive, one-of-a-kind knobs that made me question the interests of the audience of the NY Times Home Section but also, bizarrely, made me want to rush out and buy a bunch of new knobs because who knows. Maybe I could be the type of person who collects one-of-a-kind knobs.

Back in the car, 1940's music blasting, frigid and strange landscape rolling past, I followed the GPS lady voice to St. Paul.

I hung out at Hamline with my friend and applauded her critical thesis presentation. I heard lectures that kept my mind churning, that blew apart my preconceived notions of writing and reminded me why I write books for kids.

But it was the time alone--in the airport, in the car, in the Northfield coffee shop-the unfamiliar, the strange, the different, the confronting of my fears-- that shifted something inside me.

For years I had been pursuing a dream--the dream of having a book published--and I had done it!--but I was so consumed for the next couple of years with marketing and publicity and worrying over writing the next book and trying to sell it and nevermind the big changes happening on the home-front, with my youngest child about to graduate from high school-- and life was happening too fast and somehow too slow, and writing felt like a business and it wasn't a successful business, and I was depleted and forgetting why I liked to write in the first place and wondering what to do next and generally feeling stuck,

which was why I'd picked up The Artist's Way again,

which was why I'd forced myself, despite my fears and worries, to go on the trip to Minnesota.

When I returned home, I wrote in my morning pages:

What I know is that it's possible to craft another kind of life. It's possible to shake things up and try new things or go in a different direction or at the very least, step off the path you are on and try another. 

One year later I realize that I still haven't figured out my path, but weirdly, I am okay with it. I drive on, through uncharted territory, a little afraid but mostly curious about my destination.

Inspiring Blogger Award

YAY! I won an award! WOO HOO!

It's an award for blogging as you may have caught from the title above.

Side note: I love blogging. I started this blog a little more than four years ago because I'd gone to a writing conference and one of the sessions was about creating a brand for yourself and getting your name Out There and this all seemed like something I MUST DO AT ONCE. Very quickly into the process I realized that I didn't have a brand or want a brand and I didn't even know what the word brand meant exactly.

Also, it was going to be very very hard to get my name Out There when only like, four people were reading my blog, and those four people were my mother, my husband, and a couple of my friends.

Weirdly, I realized that I liked blogging despite the low readership. I'd been writing for a long time and I had this vision that the Me of 15 years before would appreciate the wisdom and experience and all around coolness of the present/future me.

I wanted to give back, I guess you could say. Help other struggling writers like that beginner me who were on the same often weary, mostly solitary journey to publication.

I thought I'd have a book deal in a few weeks and I was planning to gush about that on the blog. Instead, I ended up chronicling the next three years of NO book deals. Of rejections and angst and yearning and making peace and redoubling my efforts and failure and finally making peace again. And then I got the book deal.

Ha ha.

When I was teaching high school English and many days looking out a classroom of bored, sometimes overtly hostile students, I'd imagine that there was one kid who was listening and for that one kid, I threw my heart into the lesson.

That's sorta how I look at this blog. I've still got my four loyal readers (Thanks, MOM! Thanks hubby and friends) and a handful of others who've continued to read these posts, and I thank you all too. One of these lovely readers tagged me for this award.

Okay. It's not really an award. Maybe more of a Tag You're It chain-letter-y kind of thing. But you know what? I'll take it. Thanks Susan Brody over at The Art of Not Getting Published for tagging me and now I am going to pay it forward by:
1. displaying the award on my blog
2. linking back to the person who nominated me
3. stating 7 things about myself AND
4. nominating a few of MY favorite bloggers

Seven Things About Me:

1. I just got back from an awesome visit to St. Paul where I sat in on brilliant lectures and readings and discussions at Hamline University's MFA in Children's Literature program. I was there mostly to support my writing friend Donna who is a student in the program and was presenting her critical essay: "Psychic Distance in Non-Fiction Picture Books." (She did an awesome job.) 

2. While I was at Hamline, I met E. Lockhart, Anne Ursu, Jane Resh Thomas, and Laura Ruby! Later, I ate dinner with Carrie Mesrobian and Justina Ireland!  

3. I want to go back to school!! I forgot how much I love being a student, and this glimpse into the MFA program reminded me. I like taking notes and listening to writers speak about the writing process and the craft of writing. I like hanging around with people who like talking about books. 

4. I like listening to Carrie Mesrobian talk about sex and other stuff that was on her mind. For example: furniture. 

5. The only downside of the trip was I missed my dog. I missed my husband and daughter too, but they seemed totally fine--even a little giddy to be rid of me for a few days-- but my dog, my sweet Zooey--was the one I most worried about. 

Yeah. I can't believe I just shared that either. 

But look: 

(That's Zooey a few minutes after I came home. See how stunned and happy she is to see me? Please don't leave me again, Mom. Please please please is what she's saying there.)

I forgot what I was talking about. 

Oh yeah, number 6 about me. I wrote a book called Thin Space. But yadda yadda ya. 

I love that book, don't get me wrong, and I love that I wrote it and it was published and it's sitting on library shelves, but now I want to write another book and another book and another. 

7. I also have a cat.

(This is Zelda. She may have missed me too.
Or not.
It's hard to say)

And now here are a few of my favorite blogs:

*The Art of Not Getting Published. This blog is funny and smart and written by a writer who I am sure will one day be published and then she will have to change the name of her blog. Read it and you'll find a variety of good stuff about books and traveling and art and the law. (The writer is an attorney.) 

*Rachel Writes Things. I've been following this blog for a while. First, because I like the book reviews. Second, because many of the posts are about the writer's publishing journey. It's been very cool to watch her talk about the book she's been writing, and recently she's caught the eye of an agent. Next step, book deal. Crossing my fingers, Rachel...

*Mary Cronk Farrell's blog. I met Mary at a conference and then read her riveting book Pure Grit, the true story of American nurses who were taken prisoner during World War Two. Somewhere in there I signed up for Mary's newsletter, which links to her blog. Every few weeks I get an inspiring email that features the story of a historical or modern day hero.

*Stacked. This is THE blog you must follow if you love reading YA books. Two librarians, Kelly and Kimberly, write book reviews and analyze trends in book publishing and point out all kinds of cool--sometimes uncomfortable observations-- about teens and reading and life itself. 

And for a dash of fun, there's my new favorite,
*Carrie Mesrobian's Conversations with My Fake Boyfriend. If you're a writer and you're procrastinating, check out the conversations Carrie REALLY had with one of her fake boyfriends. Guaranteed to make you smile.

PS: Before you go about your day, I leave you with this lovely picture of ice circles drifting upon a Minnesota river: