Hooray! Hooray! Today is my day.
Searching for Tina Turner officially hits bookstores today. Kind of anti-climatic? Not! I’ve already been in one store and seen the poster and my book, my book, on the shelf next to authors more famous (hope that rubs off!) than me. But today is the official day. Today is the day my publicist sent out a press release. Today is the day I say, I did it, all day long.
Most, in our society, gauge success by money. This journey of writing has taught me that success is measured, often with “green,” but also in the joy of small moments where our big and little dreams come true.
I never thought that way before. Well, not that I didn’t, more that I didn’t focus on them—those minute successes. How many times do we ignore little successes and victories? A lot. Sometimes we celebrate them for others, but most of us forget to celebrate them for ourselves. I’m not talking birthdays, anniversaries and the like. I’m talking moments.
When my son was about 7 or 8, he was on a T-ball team. He couldn’t hit the ball, or if he did, it dribbled off the T and onto the ground in front of him. When, for some crazy reason we moved him over to regular softball, it was even tougher for him to hit a pitch. Every time he came to bat, my stomach knotted. I crossed my fingers; I prayed. I see him now, in my mind’s eye, dressed in his uniform, the bulky helmet on his head, the resigned look on his face as he walked up to the plate. He struck out every time. But I remember, too, the look on his face that day his bat connected to ball. He was so startled, that he stood at home plate and had to be told to run to first base! That was success for him. That dream come true.
We have successes every day of our lives: snagging a parking space right in front of the place we’re headed to, the smile from a stranger because s/he thinks we look good, getting to the bank just as it closes and the security guard lets you in, making it home before a big storm, eating without spilling food on our clothes, paying monthly bills and having money left over in the bank. Yep! That’s success.
The process, the whole journey of publishing has taught me that success exists in each step along the way: pulling myself together to follow my passion, writing the novel, finding a supportive writing group, pushing through even when it hurt, finishing the novel, submitting the novel, getting an agent, getting a publisher, my editor’s stamp of approval, finishing my edits in time, holding an Advanced Reading Copy in my hands, being Essence’s January 2010 book pic, Black Expressions Book Club choosing me as their “Star on the Rise,” my eight-seven-year-old mother reading my book–the first I’ve seen her read in my life, her telling me that my father would have been proud. Each one of those minutes is a success.
But the day I walked into a local bookstore and saw MY book on the shelf—ahhh, that was a personal success beyond words. So, just like I predicted, I cried in the store.
Today is the official “drop” date for Searching for Tina Turner. Today is the day when you or I will walk into a store and find my book on the shelf. We will thumb through the pages, read the first paragraph, and (hopefully) buy it. If you only knew; if you only knew. The Universe works in strange ways, but I am a writer and there are many stories in me.
The Universe has already decided on SFTT’s fate. I’m hoping she points me toward success, all kinds of success. Like my son stepping up to the plate, I’m a bit hesitant, but very resigned. I misinterpreted my son’s actions when he made his first hit. I thought that he was standing at home plate, because he was shocked and didn’t know what to do. I think now, looking back on that day, that he was taking the time to revel and enjoy his success, and I’m going to follow the example he gave me all those years ago.
I did it!
I said I was going to write a book . . .
Get it published . . .
Hold it in my hands . . .
See it on a bookstore’s shelf.
I am standing still, reveling in my moment. Thankful. Blessed. Whatever comes after, I can’t control. But this sweet moment, this January 27, 2010 . . . . I am filled with joy.
I crave immediate gratification.
I never wait for the movie to start to eat my popcorn. I rub the squares on my daily Lotto ticket before the store owner hands me my change. I take my ice cream straight from the grocery bag and eat out of the container. I finish my cereal before it turns soggy. I open my mail as soon as I pull it from my mailbox, wear new shoes home from the store, finish other people’s sentences . . . You get it, right?!
There’s something waiting for me in the lobby of my building. Something that makes me want to hurry to pick it up, to find out what’s inside. I think I know. But I’m going against character; I’m not going to rush. I’m going to savor the anticipation.
If it were Christmas, I’d think it was one of the gifts I ordered on line. But, I’ve received (and returned) a lot of that stuff.
If it were Valentine’s Day (from what friend?), or Mother’s Day (would my son do that?), or my birthday, I’d think it was a bouquet of flowers.
Or a special delivery letter.
Or a thick invitation to a swanky party.
I got this great email from a friend today. Her emails are like poetry, and I wish that she would hurry up and finish her own, beautifully written novel. This is what she wrote:
“Is the book in bookstores yet?
Have you seen one on a bookshelf?
I wish I could be with you when you do.
Will you take someone, or go alone?
What a sacred moment.
Ooooo whee!”
We all know that life is full of ”sacred moments,” but I never thought by writing a novel, getting it published and having it in the hands of hundreds of thousands (set that intention!) that there would be “sacred moments.”
The first time I see my novel on a bookstore’s shelf I’ll probably be alone, but I’m going to be dressed up. I’m going to stand right there in front of that book and cry. I’m going to sob so hard that the clerks will come over to comfort me (or maybe to escort me out; that Jackie will do anything to sell her books!). I’m going to take the book and turn its cover to face the aisle (feel free to do the same when you see it). When I leave, I’m going to giggle so hard that passersby will stare.
I’m going to do a little dance and pat myself on the back, because, I DID IT!
Then I’m going to call my mother. I’m so blessed that, at eighty-seven, she’s still alert and full of vitality. She called me yesterday and told me that she’d been crying all morning long. “Is everything okay?” I asked, concerned that her arthritis had given her trouble during the night. “Everything’s fine,” she said, “I’m crying because your book is so beautiful.”
Of course, I acknowledged her extreme bias, but still a sacred moment.
Okay, I’m out the door, into the elevator and down to the lobby. Three heavy boxes stacked on the red gurney behind me. I stab the tape with my key, and right there in the lobby I open the boxes. Books! My books!
A sacred moment.
Christmas is almost here. Isn’t it still autumn? No. Or time to baste the turkey? No. Didn’t we just elect the first black president of the United States? Yes—a year ago. Sentimental carols, endless commercials urging us to buy NOW, countdowns to the last shopping day, ubiquitous (and sometime raggedy) Santas. The scent of pine and spruce. Like Proust’s madeleines and hot tea brought back memories of days spent with his aunts, the scent of Christmas trees on a crowded lot brings memories back to me: my first bicycle, my sister and I dancing to Johnny Mathis in front of our Christmas tree (sleigh bells rings, are you listenin’?), days spent shopping for my kids and hiding presents in plain sight, waking up before dawn, wrapping paper strewn over the floor, flames dancing in the fireplace, sticky buns and grits soufflés, hot cider, kisses under mistletoe.
Do your remember when you were a kid and crazy cartoon characters threw clocks in the air, insisting time flew? Those cartoons were funny. How could time fly? How could a clock, ticking or otherwise, sprout wings? If throwing a clock into the air made time fly, then shouldn’t we have been able to stretch our hands and catch that damn clock, stop it if need be, turn back time?
What time, what year would you turn your clock to? A special birthday, the birth of a child, the year you made the decision to move or stay, the day you proposed or accepted marriage, the day you said the words and broke up with your one true love? Would you turn your clock back to an age when you thought you knew everything, but didn’t? Would you take all the wisdom gained, that one glimpse into the future, and use it like a crystal ball to change your life?
I haven’t the slightest idea what I would change if I went back in time, or maybe I do, but I chose not to ponder those moments long gone. The past is dust, a good friend once told me. And so it is.
These days, I prefer to concentrate on the moment. Sitting in a living room in Austin with good writers and great friends, salsa dancing in my bare feet, sipping good wine, yakking on the phone with girlfriends, driving ninety miles an hour–music blasting on the stereo, watching the rain beat against my window, spending Thanksgiving with my son, feeling the heat of the sun on my face, standing by a Christmas tree lot breathing in the scent–full and green and timeless. I prefer to concentrate on and enjoy the minutes of my life. They are sweeter, fruitful; dreams tucked into seconds, so that when time flies I have felt those moments before they turn into hours, days and years and know how blessed I am.
I love this quote, almost an explanation of writing, from James Baldwin’s 1955 Notes of a Native Son,
“One writes out of one thing only—one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from the experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.”
Whenever I tell people about the novel, they (strangers and acquaintances) always ask, “Is it about you?” No. Yes, the main character and I both drive fast and can cook up a storm. And though there are events that happen in the novel that might make my life a bit more interesting, nope, it’s not me.
I love characters that live on after a story ends, and I wonder about them as I would a long lost friend. I confess that there have been times that I’ve awakened in the middle of the night, or stopped in the middle of cooking or taking a walk and wondered what the heck happened to so-and-so, better known as a good character from the last book I’ve read. I’m hoping Lena Spencer Harrison, the heroine in Searching for Tina Turner, will be a character that sticks with readers for a while, but more importantly I hope she inspires readers to be unafraid of new beginnings. Whether I did that for her, or she did it for me, makes no difference. Freedom from fear was what I gained from telling her story.
My divorce was an emotional nightmare. There are snippets of those emotions—fear, insecurity, doubt, despair—in Lena. But as a writer, I did Lena the courtesy of letting her be her own person and stand up to those demons that were a larger component in Lena’s search, any woman’s search after divorce: What the heck do you do after your marriage is over? Who are you now? How do you navigate through the world as one, not two or four or five, after decades of being part of a family? Lena is part imagination and part inspiration from women I met who were going through the pain and confusion of divorce, the release that must accompany it and the focus—no, insistence—on new beginnings and reinvention.
It takes time, effort, introspection, good friends and maybe a little wine, or even a therapist or coach to figure out the next steps once a woman leaves her marriage, especially if it was a long-term marriage. And even with expensive wine, it’s still painful. You can’t wallow in self-pity. (Well, you can for a while, and Ben and Jerry’s New York Superfudge Chunk does help.) The most important thing to do is care for self, not to the point of exclusion or isolation, but to the point where you begin to put yourself first, make decisions based on how they will affect you. Because if you’re okay, those around you, your kids, your parents will be okay. Think. Take yourself back to childhood or high school when dreams were a dime a dozen, and you tossed them around freely and without a thought because there was always another dream to dream and the time to make them all come true. Think about what you’ve always wanted to do—paint, write, travel, act, sit with your child (no matter their age) and sing. Or go where you’ve always wanted to go—that city or country, that skyscraper or seashore you see in your mind’s eye on a cool evening when the breeze gusts around you.
If you don’t see divorce as a new opportunity, then you’re allowing yourself to be a victim. And we all know what happens to victims.
This is what I like about Lena Harrison Spencer, fictitious character of my mind: she declares herself not as victim, but as survivor. A choice close to my own heart.
I found my old typewriter the other day. It’s a Royal—gray with green keys. I don’t remember the exact Christmas or birthday that my parents gave to me, but it was when I was a teenager. I was a Catholic schoolgirl—twelve years being taught by the Sisters of the Presentation—but I learned to type in public school one summer of freedom (from my uniform) at Berkeley High. It was my first time in the classroom with boys since eighth grade. It was my best summer ever.
My finger muscles still hold the memory of those drills: asdf jkl;asdfjkl;asdfjkl;asdfjkl;
My typewriter, like my fingers, is full of memories, too: onion skin paper so thin and crisp, carbon paper, smudges on my fingers, the black and red ribbon. Thumping keys shifting from upper to lower case, paper ripped from the cartridge (in anger or error), crumpled papers on the floor, keys that clacked even when I had nothing to say.
I loved typing (I still do). Those forty some-odd keys were my substitute piano. Somehow, sitting in front of the typewriter I felt proper and important. Business-like. Accomplished. Words and ideas leaping from brain to fingers, appearing like magic, turning blank paper into a poem, a story, a report, a letter, an application, a list of things to do and places to go.
I typed for my father: his reports for his social club—he was the secretary. Back in those days, I thought typing was what the secretary should do. I was the secretary’s secretary—second in command. He hunted and pecked. I typed—40 words a minute.
Term papers. White-out. Fancy ink erasers.
I typed for my college boyfriend. Love. Papers for his political science class with him looking over my shoulders or pacing the length of my parents’ living room, making me even more nervous than I already was. I’ve lost track of how many papers I typed for him. I remember the pages rolling out of the cartridge, him proofreading, the ding for the right hand margin, the way the keys stuck as they neared the end of the page. My parents peeking into the dining room when we became too quiet. The cartridge sliding in one inch for every paragraph, the tab button, the cartridge speeding to the next sentence.
College all-nighters with girlfriends, each of us sharing my typewriter to finish up term papers—me typing, them talking. Coffee, cigarettes, No Doze.
I wrote my first stories on that typewriter. I wonder now if I have the patience to type even one page. I’ve become that impatient, that much of a cut and paste writer.
Years later, taking it from its case, those memories are back, and I feel nineteen again. Flighty, skinny, full of hopes and dreams, a whole life in front of me.
Now my typewriter sits in my office, like something from an archeological dig, tinier than I remembered. It still thrills me with its possibilities. It smells the same. Like ink and dust and late nights, term papers and a boyfriend’s faint cologne. The red and black ribbon still works. The keys require pressure and intention. The clacking is the same.
asdf jkl;
My sister reminded me the other day to think of life as a bus ride, and events or people (friends and enemies) as passengers. There are passengers who stay for the ride—all the way to the end of the line (whatever that is). Some stay on for a few stops. Some get off, then get right back on a few stops later—for a while or the rest of the trip . . . You get it, right?
To the best of my knowledge (I’m still waiting for her to fill in the gaps), my sister has been a scientist, a model, an improv actress, a stand-up comedienne, and a TV writer. She’s the risk-taker I wish I could be. I’m sure my sister didn’t have writing in mind when she shared her wisdom, but her bus metaphor—at least for me—applies to MY writing.
My personal “bus trip” has been far less exciting than my sister’s, but taking a cue from her, I took a risk—my way. In 1999, I challenged myself to get back to the creative writing I loved as a girl. Every quarter, I received the fat catalog of classes at UC Berkeley’s Extension program. Every quarter, I flipped straight to the section on Writing. One class in particular kept catching my attention: Exploring Your Creative Potential. The intention of the class, so the description went, was to discover if one could write. I knew I could write—business stuff. I knew I could tell a story—that had been my joy as the oldest of my ten California cousins—complete with chapters, sound and light effects.
I don’t remember how many times, I circled that writing class with a bold felt-tipped pen, ripped the page from the catalog, pinned it to my bulletin board and didn’t enroll. But, I do remember the last time I found that catalog in my mailbox. I marched up my steep driveway, through the kitchen and up the stairs to my office and fussed: “put up or shut up, Jackie.” The time had come for me to either take the class or stop pretending that I ever would. In retrospect, I used family—three kids, a husband who traveled a lot—job and home as excuses. In retrospect, forcing myself to manage all of that and write was one of the best choices of my life.
From the day my editor, Karen Thomas at Grand Central Publishing, accepted Searching for Tina Turner in 2008 to the day it will “hit the streets” this coming January, this ride has been the best. My publishing journey has taken two years, that’s the front story, not the back story to my ride on the bus. I got on when I enrolled in my first class in 1999, I got off when family life took precedence. I got on again with more classes, workshops and writing dates. I got off because I was scared that trying something new in my ‘50s would prove me a failure. Then I got back on, because everything we do has the risk of failure. I had to remember what I told my kids: it’s okay to be afraid, just don’t let the fear keep you from doing.
At the onset of this publishing journey, one of my fellow Finish Party writers stressed the importance of maintaining an even emotional track because there were bound to be crazy highs and miserable lows. I can’t believe how true her words have been. I’ve tried to follow her advice, most of the time. I jumped for joy when I saw the Searching for Tina Turner cover art. I shed tears when I saw the marketing blurb in the Grand Central Publishing sales book. I labored over ideas for my next book while proofreaders edited. I giggled all the way from my mailbox to my doorstep to my kitchen table after seeing my galley copies—my name in print. I know I’ll break down the day I walk into a bookstore and see my book on the shelf or someone buying it or a reader crying where I cried, laughing where I laughed. But the highs and lows come before publishers give the big thumbs up.
Like passengers on the bus, some agents were vaguely interested in the novel, others declined right away (with nice letters or poorly photocopied generic responses), two asked for a reread then passed on the manuscript a second time, and one—thank you, Richard Abate—stayed on for the whole ride. That was hurdle number one—well really, hurdle number one was writing my book—but there’s no denying there were a number of hurdles in between.
I like the idea of the bus as a metaphor for writing, or life. It means I accept people and situations for who and what they are, the constancy of comings and goings. I’m enjoying the ride, savoring the words of congratulations, and trying not to take rejection (too) personally. I’m working hard to understand that “getting off” the bus isn’t really a rebuff; it’s just the natural course of life—the inevitable shifts and changes. The thought of life as bus ride makes me focus on the here and now and value every experience, every person for “getting on” in the first place.
Thanks for joining in on this fantastic ride!