Like Rivers

Whether I am  working on a book or real life -- especially when (like right now) I am faced with making choices that test who I am and what my values are (as myself or as my character) -- it helps to keep this quote from Tolstoy in mind:

One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite qualities: That a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etc. Men are not like that… men are like rivers… every river narrows here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men. Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality, and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man.

We change, we flow. Sometimes we're shallow and mucky. All of us -- me, her, him, you. Putting yourself or somebody else in a box, with a label on it, is both stifling and untrue.

My yoga teacher talked about it yesterday in a different way -- about striving for union, or balance: trying but accepting; fortitude in working on what needs to change but serenity about what can't be changed; strength and flexibility.

Walt Whitman said, "I contradict myself? Very well, then; I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes."

Everybody wise seems to agree with this basic idea. So why is it so difficult to accept how complex we all are? I guess the fact that we need to learn it from so many teachers in so many ways shows how hard it is for us to learn it.

We are all so miraculous, and so flawed.

My character is shocked by her own passion, her jealousy, her weakness AND her strength, none of which she recognizes as authentically her, though they all are. Me? I am trying to flow -- to evolve and yet remain true.

How about you?

Love, 

Rachel Vail

ten years later

I just spent some time staring at the blue blue NYC sky, thinking how long ago and also how not long ago another bright September day was -- and wondered what to think about the passage of these ten years.

My kids have grown up -- no longer a wordless but intense baby and a soulful, wise little kid; they are now a poetic, charming, eloquent and still intense preteen and a soulful, wise young man. Me? I'm the same as I was, is my first thought. But no, of course that's not true. I'm older too; less certain, more hopeful. A bright blue sky isn't just glorious for me anymore but tinged with memory, now.

Also I stubbed my toe last night. And other stuff, both more and less wonderful than that, has happened, too. I baked some muffins, bought a house, planted some flowers, made some friends, wrote some books, danced a bit, sang a lot, drank too much tea and not enough Champagne. Ten years. It kind of feels like a blink. When I was in 7th grade there were lifetimes between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I'll write more about memories and frustrations and the confusions and heroism of then (and now) soon. Right now there's a book to write and a kid to meet after school, roller blades to buy for the other one and a possibly broken toe to ice (? or splint? Urgh, I have no time or patience for a swelling toe!) -- all the usual and, looked at in the bright but qualified September light of remembrance, wonderfully normal stuff of the day.

For now I'll leave you to Meg Cabot's blog note, which I just read for the third time -- and which brings me back again to the trauma and the resilience of that long/not-long ago day...

http://www.megcabot.com/2011/09/ten-years/

Okay, my purple toe is throbbing and my patient, waiting book is tapping its own toes, now.

Be safe, have fun, enjoy the day.

Love,
Rachel Vail

Hooray for Justin!

I'm on vacation/at the intense stage of writing my current book, so not much blogging from me right now -- but a friend just sent me a link to this lovely review of JUSTIN CASE with 2 especially wonderful things in it. First, this comment, which made me feel happy all over:

This book is seriously one of the funniest I’ve read in a long time. I laughed out loud while I was reading it, and I thought Justin was totally relatable. (He reminded me a little of myself. I’m a bit of a worrier, too.) I think anyone who enjoys the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books should definitely pick this one up. You won’t be sorry.

And also this bit of news:

2011-2012 South Carolina Children’s Book Award Nominee

Yay! Hey, anybody in South Carolina: I have never been to South Carolina but if JUSTIN wins, I promise to come visit and celebrate with you. And I will bring gummy worms. Not trying to buy your vote, of course. Just sayin'.

More soon.

Love,

Rachel Vail

PS Am thinking I should do a Back-to-School giveaway of JUSTIN books -- what do you think?

That Moment with the Scissors

I am often asked what to do about writers' block. I have lots of good advice on the subject. I'll list some if you want it later. But anyway, here's the thing:

Last night I did not take any of it.

You know that moment when you are not sure what should happen next in the book you are writing, and then there you are, scissors in one hand and your hair in the other?

Do you know that moment?

Well, so, there I was, and the advice I would give somebody in that position, in that moment, is PUT. DOWN. THE. SCISSORS.

But I clearly was not in an advice-listening mood.

I grew out my bangs years ago, as my (okay, quite subtle) rebellion against my mom, who has always had bangs and who always had my hair cut in bangs.

I cut bangs yesterday as my (fine, equally subtle) rebellion against not knowing what happens in the next scene I am writing. Or against nothing happening, maybe. Or against nothing. Just stalling. Just possessed by an intense need to cut my own hair.

I am not new on the planet. I know this is a bad idea. I stood there actually thinking bad idea don't do it don't do it don't do it until I did it. Maybe even as I was doing it.

My son just woke up, saw me, had a conversation with me and didn't once scream what did you do to your hair? or Why do you look so weird today? And since he is both 12 and extremely observant -- and also therefore on a hair-trigger of horrified embarrassment at the oddness and awful awkwardness of his mother -- I am thinking either I did a good job or it's more subtle than I thought.

Also I woke up knowing what the scene maybe should be.

If I were to meet a girl who is in a fairy tale, and she were to ask me if I had any advice for her, I would definitely tell her: A girl in a fairy tale should never take the short cut through the woods. That way trouble lies.

Of course, that way is also where adventure lies. And story.

So maybe she would be better off not taking my advice. Hopefully I am better off, having ignored my advice, too.

If not, it's just hair. It will grow back. Please don't stare.

Love,

Rachel Vail

Bath Time with the Debt Ceiling Negotiations

"I have a question about the debt ceiling."

"Okay."

"It needs to be raised, right? The ceiling?"

"Yup. It's not an actual ceiling. But yes."

"Everybody knows it needs to be raised?"

"Uh-huh."

"Because they are bumping their heads on it?"

"Kind of."

"Do they know how to raise it? Like, do they have the tools and stuff?"

"They just need to vote to do it."

"So why don't they?"

"Because, since it would be really dangerous to NOT raise the debt ceiling, some people are trying to get their political agenda enacted as the price of passing it."

"Oh."

"Do you know what that means, political agenda?"

"No. Is it like if you said hey buster don't open that car door while we're speeding down the highway! and I said I am opening it unless I get another cookie?"

"Yeah. Kind of."

"Woah. So did they get the extra cookie?"

"Well, at this point it's like if I said okay fine you can have another cookie just close the darn door. And then you said actually I'd like that other cookie and also my brother can't have any cookies for the rest of the year and I want a whole bag more cookies and no chores and also I want pony."

"Wow. All with the car door open on the highway?

"Yes."

"Are they grown ups or kids?"

"Um..."

"I bet their moms are gonna have a talk with them after this, with very Not Proud faces on."

the deepest secret nobody knows

I don't really care that much about Roger Clemens's perjury trial but there is something here in this segment of an article just posted on the New York Times website that I absolutely love:

The federal judge presiding over Roger Clemens’s perjury trial declared a mistrial because the prosecution revealed information Thursday that he previously deemed inadmissible.

Keep up with the latest news on The Times's baseball blog.

Go to the Bats Blog

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The United States District Court Judge Reggie Walton abruptly stopped the trial and scolded the prosecution for playing a videotape of the 2008 Congressional hearings on performance-enhancing drug use in baseball. The part of the tape that worried him included comments made by Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, about the credibility of Andy Pettitte, Clemens’s former best friend and teammate, who is expected to be one of the star witnesses for the government.

Pettitte testified that Clemens had admitted to him that he used human growth hormone in 1999 or 2000.

The prosuction also played for the jury a part of the Congressional hearings in which Cummings read an affidavit from Andy Pettitte’s wife, Laura. In the affidavit, she said that her husband had told her about a conversation he had with Clemens about Clemens’s use of human growth hormone.

THERE IS SOMEBODY IN CONGRESS NAMED e. e. cummings???

And he is reading stuff aloud? Into the Congressional record?

See, and I thought I was as surprised as I could get about Congress today.

Love,

Rachel Vail

Words, words, words

I just had to figure out (for a character) what the clear membrane covering a fish's eye is called. Nictitating. A nictitating membrane.

I think it's my new favorite word. Nictitating. I'm going to use it randomly, inappropriately, as much as possible today.

That's so nictitating!

Nothing, just nictitating -- how about you?

What's your favorite word?