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Question of the Month: Anniversary

by Susan Henderson on October 1, 2012

Tell me about an anniversary you’re coming up on. It could be a time for celebration, mourning or reflection.

A year ago this month, I started writing my new novel. I learned so many lessons from the first book, and if there’s anything I can truly say I’m good at it’s learning from my mistakes and not being afraid to change course. So what guides me this time?

First, I have a road map. Driving blind may have been the right process for my first book, but this time I have a stronger sense of my journey. I think of it this way… Say I plan to drive from my house in NY to my friend’s house in San Diego. It feels sensible to know the main roads, the shortest routes, and to sketch out some places I’d like to stop at along the way. Driving blind may get me there, but the map gives me more of a guarantee, and it will save a lot of energy, not just on gas but on the driver’s stamina. Having a map won’t keep me from experiencing surprises on the road—something out the window may catch my eye, there may be an unexpected forest fire that forces me to re-route or pick up an injured passenger. In fact, the most memorable parts of the trip are likely to be the ones I can’t anticipate, and the meaning I reach at my journey’s end may be quite different than anything I originally set out to find.

Second, I’m enjoying the process, each phase of it, however long it takes. My emphasis the first time around was too often on the final product—Will it sell? Will others like it? This time I’m not interested in getting ahead of myself. Right now, I’m in most private and creative part of the process, and I’m in no hurry to involve others. Each morning I get to my office, I’m struck again how lucky I am to call this my career, and  how much I learn by wandering around the fictional worlds I create.

And finally, I am determined to have balance this time. I’m eating healthy, I’m exercising, I’m giving my eyes a break, I’m getting fresh air, and I’m enjoying my family, who can interrupt me at any time because they know they are my priority over my work.

I’m really happy with the process this time, and I’m trying my hardest to write the book I’ve always wanted to read. It’s such a welcome difference from the torment I lived through with my first. But enough of my anniversary. I want to hear about yours. Tell me your story.

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Many thank you’s for links and press this past month: Steph the Bookworm, The New Yorker, Women’s Fiction Writers, Bokkarete, Fairfield University, Sara’s Organized Chaos, Remote Appeal, What a Feeling, Twylah, The Brain and Body, Bokverdami, 2251 Wall St, TwitTVivo, Gossip Pirate, and the American Library Association.

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Question of the Month: Pivot

by Susan Henderson on September 3, 2012

Tell me about your pivot from summer to fall, from vacation back to work.

Summer is almost over. I know this because there are acorns out where we’ve been barbecuing and because my kids are now very sensitive when I mention things like summer AP assignments and alarm clocks. It’s time to make the pivot from vacation to work, though I don’t feel quite ready for it. It’s been a good summer—nice to slow down and be with my family for larger chunks of the day, especially now that my kids are older and have a number of friends and activities to pull them away from home. So before I turn fully toward autumn, here’s one more look back at summer…

The beginning of my summer took a big shift when we learned my 16-year-old would be skipping his junior year and going directly into 12th grade in the fall. All of a sudden there were tests to take and colleges to visit. This was a real emotional letting-go for me. The window of time for my kids to be living at home already felt too short. But what I learned watching my son study for these tests and stroll through college campuses discussing theoretical math with professors is that he’s ready.

Once the college business was out of the way, there was plenty of downtime. The kids were busy with girlfriends and swimming and wandering through town with their friends. They took trains and subways on their own, searching out music stores, festivals, and pizza shops. They got busy with various projects—bottle rockets, a homemade Moog synthesizer, and pants made from duct tape. We visited the grandparents in Hawaii. And both boys went to camp—my 16-year-old to John’s Hopkins CTY camp for Number Theory…

…and my 15-year-old to Berklee College of Music for Guitar Sessions. Here is some of his ensemble work (click here if the embedded video doesn’t show: http://youtu.be/dMJdjMV8_D8):

The boys played a number of gigs—a Who tribute concert, a funk & reggae show, and a parade. I accompanied my oldest as a chaperone on his School of Rock AllStars tour, traveling to places like Webster Hall, Ryle’s Jazz Club, and the Gathering of the Vibes festival.

Meanwhile, my youngest went with a friend to the Dream Theater and Crimson ProjeKct concert, where he got to visit back stage with Adrian Belew and the oh-so-talented Julie Slick.

Mr. H had some great gigs, as well, and it all culminated over Labor Day weekend at our annual BBQ of Rock, where family and guests jammed all night. (As always, if you want to see the bazillions of photos I have of all these events, just friend me on Facebook.)

I’ve been taking summer at an easy pace—a little editing, a few appearances on conference panels, some visits to book clubs and libraries, a trip out to California for the Squaw Valley Alumni Reading Series. In general, though, I dropped work whenever my family asked me to, and I spent a lot of time reading for pleasure, including Wild, The Fault in Our Stars, Gilead, Await Your Reply, Tomato Red, Giovanni’s Room, and Great Expectations. Lots of family movie nights, too. Some favorites: Dr. Strangelove, Stormy Weather, Metropolis, Stand By Me, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Glory, Rear Window, Good Will Hunting, and The Last King of Scotland.

It’s felt good to slow down and put my writing aside for family. Soon, though, it will be time to get into work mode. How am I making the pivot? I’m starting with a big clean of my office—moving my desk, taking everything off the bulletin board, mopping, removing the clutter. When my boys go back to school, I’ll be anxious to get back to that first draft and take it to the next level.

So let’s hear from you. Tell me about your summer and what your plans are going ahead.

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Some thank you’s to those who linked here or talked about my book: Caffeinated College Kid, Paula Bomer, Romancing the Writer, Shine Your Light, Birds and Blooms, Literary Olympiad, Paperback Swap, Skype-an-Author Series, Boeklover, Book and Media Kristiansand, Reading Room, Leserommet, Heather Lambie’s Self Editing, Barnes & Noble, KM Bookmarks, Bokverdami, Drinking Diaries, and One World. A big thanks to NME (New Music Express, over 7 million users a month) for posting the book trailer for UP FROM THE BLUE. How cool is that? And finally, a thank you to Cath Rine, who took this photo at the airport in Oslo, Norway!

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Question of the Month: Summer Rush

by Susan Henderson on July 2, 2012

What kinds of plans do you have for the summer?

Last summer in Tanzania with my then-9th-grader.

Our summer has only just begun. For those of you who are my friends on FaceBook, you know that my 10th grader is going to skip his junior year and graduate early. This was a decision we made with strong recommendations for it from his school, but what it also meant was cramming all of the things that are normally spread out over the junior year into one month. His ACT and SAT II Subject Tests were right on top of his finals and AP exams, giving him less than two weeks to study for them. After school let out, we visited his top college choices. All of this—tests and tours—went amazingly well; it’s just that we weren’t prepared. We were thinking it was almost summer and about sleeping in and about what we wanted to do with our downtime.

So now we are finally getting around to summer—still busy, but all things of our own choosing. The boys (including my husband) are playing more music, and soon, my oldest (Can I still call him my 10th grader a little while longer?) is going on tour with the School of Rock AllStars. I’m psyched to be chaperoning this year! All the proceeds go to the Love Hope Strength organization, a cool group of musicians and cancer survivors who have a goal of building the bone marrow donor list. Click the AllStars link if you’re interested in catching one of the shows!

So I was busy in June, too. I wrote, of course, and my brother visited (so much fun!), I gave a reading at the Syosset Library, and I finished the first draft of my new book! Next week I’m off to Squaw Valley, California to do a reading, and then I’m on that tour bus with twenty teenagers.

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Some thank you’s this month to Bermuda Onion for the kind review of the audio version of my book, and to The Five Borough Book Review who didn’t like my book but I like the reviewing style all the same… so why not plug her blog?

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Hope all of you are spending time doing what you love. Here’s to summer, sprinklers, growing tomatoes, lawn concerts, and meals outside by the grill!

I’m going to close with a video of my boys (on keys and guitar) with their two best friends (also brothers) practicing a Frank Zappa song. They’re growing up!

And one more: the boys performing The Who with their School of Rock (my guys are again on keys and guitar):

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Question of the Month: Homestretch

by Susan Henderson on June 4, 2012

Any advice or encouragement for someone who can see the finish line?

I’m hoping to have a completed first draft of my new book within a month or two. I’m trying to stay focused, though my kids come first (always), and we’re currently involved in all the end of the school year madness with AP exams, finals, regents, an ACT test, SAT II subject tests, not to mention concerts and award ceremonies.

In January, when I was making good progress toward the middle of my new book, I had such confidence in my vision and my abilities. The strange thing, now that I can see the finish line, is that I’m full of insecurities.

I remember this same feeling would come over me when I was a rower in high school. I would train hard for race day and go in with a competitive attitude and muscles flexed. But when the coxswain shouted that she could see the finish line, I’d suddenly be aware of the fatigue, my fear of losing, the thought that maybe I wasn’t strong enough or talented enough to compete at this level after all.

So this is where I am, hoping to go strong toward the finish line and fighting this voice inside my head that’s scared I’m not good enough to pull it off.

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Next month I’ll share some photos and wisdoms from recent conferences and panels I was a part of, but for now I’m going to keep my focus on finishing this draft.

Some thank you’s to those who posted about my book: LeftBrainWrite, June, Suderblog, Readers and Reference, The Mom Cage, and South Taranaki Library. Hope to see some of you this Monday, June 4th, 7pm at the Syosset Library, where I’ve been invited to help kick off the Adult Summer Reading Club. And then I’m going to beat back this fear and doubt and get myself across the finish line!

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Question of the Month: Holing Up

by Susan Henderson on May 7, 2012

Talk to me about how you free up time and emotional space for your work, how you say no to distractions, requests, and so on when you really need to focus.

I was going to show a little snapshot of my work-in-progress—my pinboard full of drawings and sticky notes, the stacks and stacks of research books, the 150 single-spaced pages that make up the book so far—but as many of you tease me about all the time, I’m just not one who likes to talk about my work until it’s done. So rather than sharing a photo of my work, I’ve shared some of Joseph Campbell‘s (notes we came across as we were cleaning out his Greenwich apartment). I’m fascinated by works-in-progress and seeing a person’s thought process. I like how organized and balanced Joe’s ideas are, and I like the little arrows on this next one…

My New Year’s resolution was to have a first draft of my book by the time my boys were out of school for the summer. I suppose that’s still possible, but I’m not going to rush it. I want to get this right. I want to get it as close as possible to how the story looks in my imagination. (Do you know what I mean? You know how our ideas seem amazing and bigger than life until we start to scribble them down?) So I was well on my way to meeting my deadline when a fabulous new idea gripped me, and it’s taking some effort to really explore it and rework the shape of the book to include it. I need all the time and focus I can get that doesn’t belong to my family, and this means I have to be disciplined about not adding any more to my plate.

I suspect many of you struggle with this same problem. Each month I get hundreds of requests to read new books, provide blurbs, submit essays to anthologies, edit this, promote that, speak here, introduce this person to that person, write a letter of recommendation or a proposal, and so on.  There are only so many hours in any given week, and it’s easy to carve it up and give it away thirty minutes at a time. Pretty soon, you’ve given away any time you meant to devote to writing your book, and if you’re not careful, any more favors you say yes to will have to cut into your family time.

I’d love to hear what works for you. How do you keep out the distractions when you need to focus? And how are you doing on those goals you set back in January?

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I hope to see many of you this month at the Backspace Writers Conference (I said yes to this commitment many months ago). I’ll be on two panels (one literary fiction panel and one mystery panel) and then I’m staying through cocktail hour. The Backspace Conference is a great meeting of writers, agents and editors with all kinds of practical advice. If you’ve never been before, I hope you’ll consider attending. Friday, May 25th at theRadisson Martinique (32nd and Broadway) in New York City.

A few thank you’s… Thanks, as always, to those who’ve reviewed UP FROM THE BLUE at Amazon and GoodReads, and to those who ordered the new audiobook. Thanks as well to these bloggers for reviewing the Norwegian and Dutch editions of the book: Les Mye (Read Much), Bokanmeldelser, Bieb Blog Vlissingen (Flushing Library Blog), and Ly Books (Read a Book). Your words mean so much to me (and I get such a kick out of how Google translates them)!

One last note… On Wednesday, Mr. H and I will have been married for 20 years, and for 25 years he’s been my best friend. We’re not big on celebrations in our family, so the most we’ll do to celebrate is go out for dinner. But what I really like are the ordinary days—hearing about his day, going for walks, sharing a cup of coffee, working in the yard together, laughing, calling the dogs up on the bed, and just enjoying the company.

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