The Backdoor...

Most backdoors are unlocked. Making popular the phrase "They got in through the backdoor," which usually meant it was someone who probably would have been turned away at the front. Still, there are countless success stories about people who were audacious enough to try the backdoor in many different fields of endeavor. I got into journalism that way.

The first was through a backdoor at an automotive trade magazine that -- unknown to me -- a current columnist had just walked out of for a spot on the National Enquirer only days before. Me, I had no idea. I was just doing a calling campaign through a list of local publishers, asking if they needed any writers. Well, it just so happened they did, because there was no one to cover that vacated column at the moment. OK, so I didn't know much about car parts, but I took it as a "divine appointment" and jumped into the journalism profession. I worked there a few years, covering features, interviews, trade-shows, several columns as well as my original, and finally held a position as assistant editor by the time I left.

I had to leave. I was living and breathing the aftermarket car industry when what I really wanted to do was write fiction (or, at least, inspirational non-fiction). Besides that, there wasn't a lot of romance and excitement about doing a feature spread on a company that manufactured lug-nuts. Which is the one that finally put me over the edge.

One late night (everyone worked late in that company, if it wasn't done, you didn't go home) when I couldn't -- for the life of me -- think of one more interesting thing to say about lug-nuts, I noticed the initials of that company were C.I.A.

Something in me snapped.

I suddenly didn't care what anyone thought of me, anymore. This was no place for a woman who wanted to write mysteries and family sagas. I could lose my mind (maybe even my gift!) if I had to come up with one more clever phrase to sell high performance chrome headers, and the like. So, I did a Sam Spade-type noir spoof about that company, and called it "Inside the C.I.A." Something that would probably get me fired, no matter how long I had worked there, but I couldn't help myself. I didn't even have the decency not to use real names (except for my own -- are you kidding? A byline on something like that could swamp my reputation).

Mine was the last lonely car in the dark parking lot that that night when I finally left the office, and it was an hour long ride from the outskirts of LA just to get home. But doing something halfway creative for a change had energized me. I actually felt liberated, and wished I had left a long time, ago. Getting fired never looks good on anyone's resume, though. But I was still done. Finished. Over with all this. If it wasn't so late, I would have crafted a resignation letter and left it on the publisher's desk. He called me the next morning, but -- hey -- I was expecting that.

"C.I.A. loves it, and so do I."

"What?"

"We're going to hire an artist to come up with some kind of spy-type character to put with the piece."

"You're kidding…"

"And I'm giving you a raise. What are you doing home at this hour?"

"Well, I…"

"Nevermind. I know you worked late, so take your time. Not too long, though, we've got that product catalog to start on."

I didn't leave for another six months. And then only because my husband took a job in another state and we had to move. Even so, I still continued writing my original column and that darn product catalog through the mail, for nearly a year after that.

Which taught me something. When you do get in through a backdoor, somewhere, there are almost always strings attached.

Catching Starlight…

One of the most frequent questions asked of writers is where their ideas come from. The usual answer is the newspaper, other things going on around them, or even some scene that seems to pop into their head of its own volition. But the more amazing thing to me is what writers do with their ideas.

A writer takes up an idea in the same way a sculptor picks up a lump of clay. What he or she does with that raw material is where I think the true talent comes in. In the end, after there is a book to show for it, a reader might never even recognize that first original wisp of an idea that started it all. Many times, it has been cut out entirely, and is no longer there anymore.

Still, that original spark was like fuel for the fire, and -- like fuel -- has managed to take the author from point A to point B, with enough impetus and gathering speed to sustain the entire journey. It's an addictive thrill, actually. After a while, an author can become so adept at looking over their little mental collection of ideas, they almost remind me of golfers deciding which iron to use. One can even become quite obsessed with pursuing the perfect hit.

I once had a full-blown scene flash before me while driving somewhere mundane, of a woman digging a hole in the middle of the night all by herself. The ground was like rock and she was breathing hard, making little headway with all her effort. There was a bright moonlight, and the pale gray sweatshirt she was wearing kept riding up to show a line of bare white skin every time she stabbed the shovel into the ground. She was digging a grave out there… I knew it.

I have no idea where that all came from, but it was a very intense moment. For a long time I thought it must be some pivotal incident in a book I was going to write. Except that happened many years, ago, and she never ended up in one. But I imagine she'll fit in somewhere, down the road, because she still pops up, now and again. Maybe she'll look over at me one of those times and say something. And that will be it.

Makes you wonder, though, how much of writing you choose, or how much of it chooses you. Or maybe that's simply the way our brains work if ever we exercise them enough in those creative directions. Writing fiction is the most fascinating activity I have ever been involved in.

But even after having spent so many years at it, I still have no idea where the gift stops and the craft begins. Which is as it should be, I suppose, if you are going to spend so much time spinning things out of stardust.

I love harvesting among the stars.

What's happening on the farm today… I'm glad we have no animals here, right now, other than the dogs who are inside with us. Because today we have broken all records for heat since they have been keeping records in this state. So, another day when we are just waiting… waiting… and waiting… in the cool dark house. Not pitch dark. Just a sort of twilight dark from having draped blankets and sheets over all the doors and windows.

STILL NOT FLYING TODAY...

I have often wondered why I am so much slower than everybody else. Could have been my upbringing (I was sickly), or delayed education (I chose travel over college in my early years), or even my propensity for independence in not wanting to take the long road if another one looked shorter. To tell the truth, some of those short roads were pretty steep.

Now I have come to a place where a lot of people got there before me by taking the easier (more normal) route. Their road might have been longer but it had signposts. Sometimes even a few helpers along the way. They definitely had a lot of company -- and companionship -- while I have been literally lost for months (even years) on end, all by myself. I have even been stalked by things that wouldn’t dare come near a good-sized group. A couple of times I thought I was dead.

Eventually, I arrived (a little battered and worse for wear) even though my colleagues' reaction to me always tends to be more startled rather than amazed. I’m working on that. Trying to mind my “P’s and Q’s.” But it isn’t a easy for someone of my age and experience. Not like it would have been in my youth. And it's been so long since I’ve driven anything, the old models are obsolete. Now, everybody’s driving things you wouldn’t believe. Or flying. Some are even coming amazingly close to time travel. Take my last six computers for instance...

Those marvelous machines could do so many things one practically had to have the brain of a jet pilot to actually take advantage of them all. Just understanding the manuals on them could take years (most people don’t even go there), and then you’d never get anything else done. Which is why I simply mastered the few things I needed for my work, and let the rest go. Who in the world has the time with life being as short as it is? You might say I contented myself with taxiing up and down the runway all those years instead of actually lifting off the ground to at least see what the thing could do. I admit I literally wore out six machines and never tested the boundaries on any of them. But no matter. As they say, a person can only chase one rabbit.

But imagine my surprise when I found out after much ranting and soul-searching (not to mention a heap of money) that my current machine actually has the capacity to diagnose its own problems and fix itself. Almost like humans. I am amazed and grateful. And totally shocked that most other people have known this for quite some years, now. At any rate, I finally have the capacity -- and know-how -- to get myself out of the ditch if I slip off the runway, again. Still not flying, though.

Wonder if I’ll ever.

What's happening on the farm today: Am finally getting into the routine of milking four goats without slaying myself. Maybe I'll actually have enough energy left over to make yogurt next week. Or maybe ice cream. Cheese is a long way off, yet, though. The girls still aren't very happy about having to share...

10 Reasons I Know It’s Time...

I know it’s time to get back to work, again. I know because:

1. All the comments I have left on other people’s blogs for the last month have been embarrassingly long. Sometimes even off subject.

2. Too much indulgence in my daily routine has given me “I” problems.

3. I have begun to make mountains out of molehills. Who cares how I finally came to memorize that i equals the square root of minus one, when you don’t even need that kind of equation to balance a checkbook these days? Good grief, where have I been? We don’t even need checkbooks anymore.

4. The last three books I read for pleasure didn’t give me any pleasure.

5. I burst into a crying jag in the middle of a crowded theater during a movie that was supposed to be a comedy. It lasted all the way through the mall and back out to the parking lot, until my husband was so concerned he asked me if it would help to go to Paris.

6. I didn’t take him up on it.

7. I began spending hours at a time reading through titles over at the Gutenberg.org site looking for... I don’t know what I was looking for.

8. I used up an entire day reading a nineteenth century beauty manual, complete with recipes for potions that included ingredients which are not only unavailable today, they are illegal.

9. I became overly excited that an accidental war correspondent for the seige of Mafeking was a woman related to Churchill.

10. I’m still excited about that.