Below is the short result of this work. Take a moment (1:29 minutes, to be precise) to appreciate the simplicity of the scene, the peaceful atmosphere despite the pounding feet, the understated grace and integrity of the teacher, the sheer joy of simply being present that emanates from her and the students. There is nothing dazzling in the movements themselves, nor in the outfits—this was a series of informal practice sessions and classes with a mixed level group of students—but the overall effect is powerful. This is what our classes are all about, keeping something so special alive.

for the love of dance from Varsha Yeshwant on Vimeo.

The sunlight streaming onto the hardwood dance floor, the harmony of thousands of ankle bells in unison, the other-worldliness of the singing and movements, the red tassles of the bronze-colored hand cymbals, the warmth and dedication of the teacher, Gretchen Hayden, these images and feelings that Varsha captured are precisely what drew me in to class eleven years ago.

And yes, that’s me in one of the first shots. A side view of my pregnant self in 2010. Enough said.

My story is locked in some kind of fortress and hasn’t offered me an access point. All I am looking for is a little opening, a crack in the wall that lets me catch a glimpse of a specific scene, a snippet of dialogue, a view of a character in emotional turmoil, a whiff of a thali of food in someone’s home. All I need is a catalyst for words to start lining up in my head. Is it because I have yet to visit the specific locale and am lacking the visceral experience of place that I had for my first novel? But I should be able to break into some scenes regardless. Any good writer should be able to do this, no? Is it because I’m frozen by the knowledge that I’m setting out to write a book, as opposed to simply noodling around with an image and some words? Should I consider that perhaps this is just not the story I should be writing, if I can’t even find a little loose thread on which to tug? Is it possible that I’m not, after all, a writer?

I don’t think so. A quick Google search on “starting a new novel” (yes, such are the ways of procrastination) reveals two equally universal and parallel sets of feelings: hope and possibility on the one hand, and paralysis and panic on the other. So it’s good to know my symptoms are those of a normal sort. The inability to get started, the focus on research because it is easier than writing from scratch. The fear that I might not know how to write a good story, even though I have already done so.

So here’s the goal for 2012: to break through the wall. To put writing first, and not just writing in a vague sense, but actual put-words-on-paper writing. Not just mulling over characters under the pretext that they need to be fully formed before they can start acting. Not just gazing at gorgeous albumen prints of 1860s Lucknow saying to myself this is necessary in order to create a sense of place in my mind before I set my characters down in it. Not just outlining all the scenes of the first few chapters in order to feel I am making sensible progress.

And on the subject of breaking through walls, the second goal for 2012 is to crash through the barriers to publication and get my first book out there, into the hands of readers, whether a traditional (or “legacy” or print or “p-” or whatever) publisher wants to be the one to do it with me or not. It’s time to be the people, and take matters into my own hands. I have a wonderful, enthusiastic and creative agent by my side, and together I know we can make it happen. I look forward to sharing my first novel with you.

Here’s last week:

Monday:

Adults: Leftovers from a local Indian restaurant. I’ve found that, contrary to some expectations, it’s harder to cook on weekends than on weekdays, perhaps because I’m “on” all day on weekdays, but try to relax a bit on weekends, and spending time in the kitchen after ferrying kids to activities and doing my own extra-curriculars doesn’t qualify as relaxing. (Although K recently asked why I’m so tired often, when I have “plenty of time to rest.” Huh.) Hence there are sometimes leftovers from a weekend take-out night.

Kids: Leftover “sausage pasta,” as it’s come to be known in our house, and sauteed okra. (I use the chopped, frozen kind. Both kids like it. Says K: “I like how okra has slime in it. It gives my mouth a massage.”) One could go on a tangent about how kids should really just eat whatever the parents are eating, but I’m not going there right now. Besides, the Indian leftovers were pretty spicy.

The “sausage pasta” is a simple concoction, liked by all 8 of us (our family and Next Doors) and easily made in large quantity. For 4 people: Saute a chopped onion with two cloves of minced garlic and a sprinkling of hot pepper flakes. When the onion is translucent, add in a 28 oz can of diced tomatoes, with juices. Simmer, uncovered, until most of the liquid has evaporated, approx 20 minutes, stirring now and then. In the meantime, place 5 sweet Italian sausages in a pan and pour in a half cup of white wine. Prick the sausages with a fork first. Cook, covered, until sausages are cooked through. Make whatever quantity of pasta you need (I tend to use rotini or fusilli). Mix everything together, and sprinkle with grated Pecorino Romano. The whole thing takes about half an hour, if you have three burners going at once.

Tuesday:

Crêpes. This was a bit of an extravaganza. Delicious outcome, but I don’t recommend doing it unless you have a couple of hours to devote to it. We had friends over, which is how I justified the effort to myself. But I was beat by the end of the evening.

I made about 40 crêpes, using the basic crêpe recipe from the Joy of Cooking, and quadrupling it. (A crêpe pan is not necessary, as long as you have a good non-stick pan.) Everyone had two savory ones and two sweet ones. For the savory ones, I prepared a variety of fillings, and made them to order, as it were. Gruyère, fried eggs, ham, sauteed spinach with garlic and red peppers, and sauteed mushrooms with fresh thyme. A slight sprinkling of fleur de sel in each. Accompanied by salad for adults, and steamed broccoli for the kids, who seem to object to lettuce.

Side note: Admittedly, “crêpes” is a difficult word to pronounce if you are not a native French speaker. But hearing “crayps” is painful to me. Try saying “creppe” instead. (The “s” is silent, and the “e” is a short “e”, as in eggs.) Although then, I suppose, you run the risk of not being understood by most people.

Wednesday:

Sauteed salmon with balsamic glaze, recipe from Epicurious.com. Quick, simple and delicious. Accompanied by quinoa, and green beans steamed and then sauteed with shallots. If you organize things right, this whole meal can be made in about half an hour. A bit longer if you have a baby clinging to your leg. Consider opening a bottle of chilled Vouvray. If aforementioned baby is in the picture, consider chilling it (the wine) in time to partake of it while cooking.

Thursday:

I was out at a meeting with my writing group. Husband had a leftover portion of boeuf bourguignon that I pulled from the freezer (recipe next time I make it) and egg noodles, with a salad. The kids had a couple of chicken drumsticks briefly marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, ground cumin and salt, with okra and egg noodles. I had a lovely evening out talking about books and writing, and eating good food with whose preparation I had nothing to do. And no, I don’t dangle my participles.

Friday:

Another good meal to feed all eight of us, with leftovers: Mark Bittman’s “anti-roast-chicken” as we call it. This is a good alternative to a roast chicken, with more going on, yet not much more effort. I’ve become a huge fan of Mark Bittman, who has the New York Times Magazine food feature now. This recipe was printed in the March 13, 2011 issue. Bittman calls it “Braised and Roasted Chicken with Vegetables.” The recipe is like so (copied here in case it disappears from online accessibility):

2 tbsp olive oil or butter (he actually calls for chicken fat, reserved from chicken-skin croutons, but good grief.)

2 skinless chicken leg-thigh quarters

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 skin-on chicken breast, split in two

3 leeks, trimmed, cleaned and chopped

4 carrots, chopped

6 celery ribs, chopped

12 to 16 oz cremini, shiitake, button or other fresh mushrooms, quartered or sliced

3 to 4 sprigs thyme or rosemary (I tend to use both.)

Chicken-wing meat (I don’t find this necessary)

Chicken stock (Bittman recommends making your own. Which is great and all, but in the interest of time, I use the boxed stuff.)

1. Heat the oven to 350. Put the butter/olive oil/chicken fat in a roasting pan or Dutch oven over medium heat. Sprinkle the leg quarters with salt and pepper and add them to the pan, flesh side down. Cook, turning and rotating the pieces as necessary, until well browned on both sides, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove, then add the breast halves, skin side down. Brown them well, then flip and cook for just 1 minute or so; remove to a separate plate.
2. Put the leeks, carrots, celery, mushrooms, herbs and chicken-wing meat in the same pan and cook until the vegetables are tender and beginning to brown, 10 to 15 minutes.
3. Nestle the leg quarters among the vegetables, meaty side up. Add enough of the stock to come about halfway up the thighs.
4. Put the pan in the oven and cook, uncovered, for about 1 hour. (Stir vegetables if they threaten to brown too much.) When the thight meat is tender, raise the heat to 400 and lay the breast halves on the vegetables, skin side up. Continue cooking until they are done, 20-30 minutes longer.

Bittman recommends transfering the vegetables to a platter, slicing the breasts and shredding the leg and thigh meat, and placing on the vegetables. I forego all this presentation, and just serve out.

Accompaniments: brussel sprouts sauteed with butter, pancetta and lemon juice, and mashed potatoes.

Bon appetit.

My mothers’ note continues:

“No, I’m serious. Herewith verbatim from our local weekly rag reporting the 8 most popular toys/games, already out of stock! (Estimated family spending on each kid: 240 euros, or roughly $320.)

(Note—I’ve translated the rest from the original French.)

“To help you make the right choice, here is a selection of the most popular toys:

1. “Toutou Rista: this toy is a smash hit with the younger set. Toutou Rista, a plastic dog, swallows Play-Doh, then expels it through its bottom. The object of the game is to pick up the greatest number of turds in a given time. Price: 20 euros ($30). (Note: Turns out this originated in Germany, under the much better name Kackel Dackel, and apparently the following video of it went viral. Amazing how much I miss out on by not having spare time on my hands.)   
2. Monster High: these new horror dolls, along the lines of Barbie, are inspired from classic monster movies, such as Dracula. Several models, such as Abbey Bominable. (Note: I looked these up on Amazon and found the following other names: Dead Tired Ghoulia Yelps Doll and Spectra Vondergeist Doll with Pet Ferret. Apparently these are hot here in the US as well. I must be living under a rock.) 
3. (For boys) Beyblade Tops: little boys are tearing these warrior tops away from each other. The basic idea: plastic tops shaped like miniature tanks battle in an arena, and the first to stop is eliminated. Euros 70 for two tops and an arena. (Sez my mother: I suppose that could cover two kids. Figure the profit margin on this no doubt China manufactured diversion…)

Following this, my mother asks: Is it only France that’s obsessed with a) body functions, b) “tendance” (i.e. knowing what’s been deemed popular will guide you to making the right choice, like a robot, without thinking), and c) strict separation by gender?

The answer is a) well, the French do take it to an extreme, that’s for sure; b) nope, that’s flourishing on this side of the ocean, too, and c)… huh. Yes, there are of course the gender stereotypes, and the lists of toys/games for boys and toys/games for girls. And most kids think certain things are for boys and others for girls. But I was pleasantly surprised when I checked out the top list by gender on Amazon, the go-to site for shopping. (I mean, do you even bother going to stores in December? I have a handful of independent, quirky stores I still frequent, but for the bulk of the purchases I make in December, most of which are for the various children incorporated into our lives, Amazon is it. And apparently this year Cyber Monday—the first Monday after Thanksgiving, for the first time outstripped Black Friday for the most dollars spent.) Seven of the top ten in each list are identical. The differences: girls get a portable karaoke machine, “Baby Alive Crib Life Twins” and Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows DVD, while boys get Spynet Stealth Video Glasses, LEGO Mindstorms and Matchbox Smokey the Fire Truck. On Amazon’s French sister site, the ratio is reversed, and there are only three items in common between the two lists.

So what is the point I’m trying to make? I guess I expected to share my mother’s outrage about the shopping options being presented to those who are in the market for gifts for children, but ultimately, it doesn’t seem that bad to me, from where I sit in New England. Sure, there are horrendous things out there whose very existence as a product one could spend money on and actually present to a child is abhorrent, such as Justin Bieber nailpolish or American Girl Cootie Catcher Kits, but all in all, I don’t feel bombarded with insistent messages about the poop-scooping, gender-specific popular toys I need to be buying for my children. At first I thought: maybe that’s because I rarely watch television and when I do, it’s pre-recorded, so I never actually see commercials. But my parents don’t have a TV (gasp!) so that can’t be it, if I’m to compare with her experience.  And then I saw this: “No Hit Toy to Brighten Retailers’ Christmas” on today’s New York Times. It seems that this year is singularly lacking in must-have items, as retailers have cut down on toys overall, fearful of ending up with too much unsold inventory. As a result, “classics” are in, and shorter supply is leading to higher prices. Not a bad retail move.

Anyhow, enough musing. Here’s some of what I did end up purchasing for the various children in my life (and there seem to be many, although only two biologically related to me), all between the ages of 14 months and 10 years this holiday season. Perhaps this will be of help to some of you late shoppers out there.

Harriet the Spy, one of my all time favorite books from my childhood, by Louise Fitzhugh;

Milles Bornes, the French classic road race card game;

Sleds, because, after all, we are in New England;

Water bottles from Crocodile Creek (indestructible and highly functional and cute);

Dresses from the Tea Collection, delightfully on serious sale for one day only;

Tech Deck mini-skateboards and ramps;

Silly slippers from Garnet Hill, half off on the day of my purchase;

Guidebooks for an upcoming trip to Mexico;

Snorkel set, also for Mexico;

Art supplies, for a future art teacher;

Tintin, the original series in French;

Tintin in English translation;

Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings, a fun fold-out book with textures, for babies/toddlers;

Earlyears Farm Animals Bowling set, a set of plush animal bowling pins and soft ball.

You see, one of the key things that enables me to do anything, include (and perhaps especially) maintain my sanity, is the symbiotic relationship my family has developed with another family. (And this is no hyperbole. If/when my book is published, they will be among the first to be acknowledged.) Because four adults raising four children is collectively far, far easier than two adults raising two children and, completely separately, two other adults raising two other children. Now lest you think this is something it’s not, or that you’re going to get some voyeuristic glimpse into other people’s bizarre behavior, I’ll point out that our two households maintain a strong degree of separation. There is no mixing of finances, no swapping of spouses, no juicy stuff like that. We don’t even know intimate secrets about each other, although we do know things like what brand of toilet paper the other family uses, because we routinely do each other’s shopping errands.

What makes our arrangement of shared child chare and shared meal preparation and shared errands so functional is the very fact that we did not set about to do this on purpose. We were not good friends who decided to try to mesh our lives because we thought we made for a perfect match. It’s a relationship that grew out of convenience and necessity (and the tantalizing aromas of massive vats of Vietnamese pho traveling up the HVAC system of our previous home), and it was possible because—and here’s the incredibly lucky part—it just so happens that we have eerily similar values when it comes to our homes, our children, our use of money and time, and our food.

The other family, whom we refer to as “Next Doors” (and who were “Downstairs” in our previous home), happens to have two children, L and E, of about the same ages as ours, happens to have attended the same college (although we did not know each other at the time), happens to have uncannily aligned interests, and happens to have similar personalities, i.e. Ms. Next Doors is very similar to me, and Mr. Next Doors to my husband. Ms. ND and I are able to have entire conversations around logistics by uttering only a few, incomplete sentences, while other folks look on in bewilderment.

“Oh, it’s an early release day, so could you…”

“Yeah, sure, but the baby…”

“No problem, I’ll ask the sitter…”

“Oh then bring them over here…”

“Won’t that mean…”

“Right, ok, why don’t you do it then…”

“Perfect.”

All this compatibility was complete coincidence, and discovered over the course of a couple of years after they moved in to the apartment below ours over ten years ago. (Now we live in two side-by-side homes with a shared yard and trundle beds in the older kids’ rooms for easy sleepovers.) In this, we were all supremely lucky, and I am reminded of this daily, when Next Doors takes my children for the half hour gap between my departure for a writing group meeting and the return of my husband from work, or when there is someone to stay with my youngest so I don’t have to wake her from her nap to go pick up the oldest and thus am spared a cranky baby, or when I can spend the two hours of quiet time when one child is asleep and the other at an after-school class doing some writing because I know that Next Doors will be providing us all with a fabulous meal and I don’t have to think about making dinner.

While our circumstances are particularly fortuitous, it is within anyone’s power to make the effort to help build a community, a neighborhood, a little ecosystem of co-assistance. Everyone can cultivate other people and families with whom there can be exchanges of favors, shared errand-running, car-pools and child-minding. Everyone can go the extra step now and then to lend a favor, a helping hand, and what better feeling than to know that there will be a resource to draw from when one is in need? An extra 5% effort on the part of one person can mean a savings of 95% effort for the other. It’s no skin off my back to double a recipe and feed an extra household when I’m cooking anyway, and it saves Next Doors a lot of effort.

We live in a world of fences, fragmentation, wariness of others. We are off-grid, wireless, disconnected in the name of greater connectivity. We upload to the Cloud and work remotely. But the human-to-human connection, the physical sharing of goods and services, meals and bulk rolls of paper towel, the in-person network to which one gives when it is easy to do so and from which one takes when it is necessary, are the connections that make so many of the daily details manageable, and so many of the greater achievements even conceivable.

I’m not sure what answer I gave her. I know I felt the need to give her some substance, some words of advice, a recipe she could hold onto and pull out whenever she does have children, a household that needs more tending, a cause for which she feels driven to volunteer, other demands on her time that take her away from her own creative work. That’s what I would have wanted had I been in her place, asking someone else. I suppose I made something up; it was probably neither eloquent nor useful nor satisfactory, although I know it was truthful. I have been to writers’ conferences in which a handful of established and successful authors have sat on a panel and fielded questions from hopeful writers, and on hearing their answers I’ve thought to myself: well, that’s not very helpful. And now I fear that, should I ever be honored enough to sit on such a panel, I will let others down in the same way. But I understand why.

It’s a question I ask myself a lot these days, and it comes in two parts. Part 1: How on Earth did I do it? And Part 2: How on Earth do I continue to do it? And now that I am no longer on the spot, that I have had some time to mull it over, I realize that the recipe is one that is unique to me. It’s a melange of my personality, my background, my circumstances. It won’t fit exactly for anyone else. There are no neat tablespoon measurements, no fixed stirring times. My ingredients:

Dogged—some might say stubborn—perseverance

The compulsion to use every shred of time toward accomplishing something

The belief that 20 minutes is enough time to accomplish something (this ingredient was given to me once I had children)

Patience (this was an ingredient I had to plant and nurture, not one I already had in my pantry)

Organization

(As you can see, none of these are particularly creative.)

I took all these things, and then I linked as many parts of my life as possible to some aspect of my creative pursuit: I take kathak dance classes (through which I get my exercise), I volunteer for the Chhandam Institute of Kathak Dance, I incorporated the dance into my novel, and I enrolled my older daughter in a class that I teach. I’d like to say that this was all the result of a well-thought out plan, but no. It’s just how things happened.

The truth of the matter is, I just cram it in wherever I can, between work-related conference calls and school pick-up, during the younger one’s nap times while the older one plays with a friend, at a café while rehydrating and having some lunch after a dance practice, in the evening after tucking the little ones into bed and before their father returns from his martial arts class. As Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife, said in a March 2002 interview on Writer Unboxed: “All my life I’ve been doing my work in the intervals between making a living and living my life.” (And if I could write a book half as beautiful and haunting as hers, I would feel fulfilled.)

And yet my version of cramming it in “wherever I can” pales in comparison to what I’ve read from other writers. I don’t have daily word-count goals, I don’t write at a specific time of day or week, I don’t get up an hour before the children as many writers suggest. I don’t think much about my creative projects while doing other things like shopping for groceries, I don’t compose dialogues among my characters while driving, because during those times I usually have chatterbox children with me, or I’m planning out family logistics or meals, or I just want to let my brain float. I don’t tend to work once the kids are in bed because that is my time to spend with my husband, and to catch up on other things like reading and reconnecting with friends on the phone. And honestly, I don’t always feel inspired to be creative. The pressure to produce something in a limited time can be counter-productive. Sometimes I manage to set aside a couple of hours to work on my book, and my mind is blank. But for me the key is to honor my decision and make sure I use that time for something at least related to writing. I read agent and editor blogs, I think about a blog post of my own, I daydream about ways to market my book once it’s published.

There is much room for improvement, and for increased efficiency. And so, while I’m not unhappy with my system, I am curious, and would still ask the same question of others: how do you sustain a creative life or even a creative project in the midst of children, work, home, and the other demands on your time?

I’m not going to try to fight the established system, at least not this one, not right now. It seems reading logs are a nation-wide phenomenon. Instead, I am trying to stock K’s shelves full of good books, in the hopes that she’ll one day get so immersed in one that she will forget to ask me repeatedly how long it’s been, and when is it 20 minutes, and how can it not be twenty minutes yet, and can I just stop now?

In my quest for copies of some of the books I loved as a child, I naively entered “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” into the Amazon search field. What I found was a list of dozens of options, including the “Movie Tie-in Edition,” a “Guide for Using The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in the Classroom,” a “Read-Aloud” Edition, (what happened to just, you know, reading aloud from a regular book?), a “Family Guide” to the book, a graphic novel version, a “Teacher’s Guide,” the “Official Illustrated Movie Companion,” a “Full-Length New Dramatization,” a “Devotional Quest Into the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” and a “Movie Storybook,” all in just the first two pages of results.

Whoah. All I want is just the regular book. But even once I managed to whittle down the results to what I thought was the original text, I was confronted with the next major decision: which edition to get. Because it turns out there is a vast array of cover designs, each one of which seeming to promise a completely different experience, and as children most definitely do judge a book by its cover (or at least mine does—don’t they all?), it is a matter of extreme relevance what the cover looks like. (Side anecdote: when I was about 10 or so, I had a hardcover book on my shelves called “Illustrated Minute Biographies.” That was the extent of the title visible on the spine. Because there was also a small image of Abraham Lincoln as well as a battleground scene, and because one side of my family hails from the Boston area, I always read the word “minute” here as the interval of time as opposed to a synonym for very small. How does this make sense, I hear you ask? Well, I assumed it had to do with Minutemen. You know, from the American Revolutionary War. And since at that age I had no interest in that aspect of history, I immediately dismissed the entire book. Years later I encountered it, read the full title, and realized that it was in fact a collection of 150 minute—as in very short—biographies of famous people. I read most of it, and learned a lot. )

Anyway, Back to the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Here are the first four editions I considered. (And I’ll preface this by saying that I mean no disrespect to the cover designers. I simply tried to approach this from what I imagined would be the viewpoint of my child.) First I give you my impression, and my prediction of K’s reaction. Then follows her actual reaction, which I solicited later:

The 2005 HarperFestival edition:

My take: In this one, apparently, Aslan has accidentally meandered into Hogwarts. I suspect my girly daughter will be completely put off by the armor-sporting, blade-wielding boy and the archer. She is NOT a Harry Potter fan. That said, since most kids her age are, I give kudos to this one, and the 719 reviews attest to its popularity. If it gets children to read the book, then it’s a fantastic cover. Just not the right one for my kid.

K’s take: “Looks a little weird, the scary face and fighty guys. Maybe when I’m in middle school I’ll like that kind of thing, but not now.”

The 2004 Harper Collins edition (which, on closer inspection of the description, is only 48 pages long. Hmm. Ah yes, now I see, it is “based on the text…”):

My take: Here a cold and miserable boy has apparently lost his way in Sweden and ended up among a cast of soulless, mean and/or spooky creatures. K will not go for this, either. At least the previous edition had a beautiful lion’s face on the cover.

K’s take: “I don’t really know what the experience of the book is. I might want to read it, but I might not. I would look through the pages first, though, and then decide.”

The 2009 Harper Collins Deluxe Edition:

My take: The lion running with two children on his back holds some promise, but the bleak, mushroom-colored background and the twin pair of strange, semi-naked horned creatures clutching waving stems of beet greens will be a turn-off.

K’s take: “No, because it looks a little crazy. I don’t like the two people swinging from branches. I don’t think I’d like this book based on this cover.”

Then there’s the Harper Collins Childs 1998 edition…

… in which the wardrobe in question appears to have been constructed by Pa and placed in the Little House on the Prairie. This conjures up entirely the wrong images for me, but as K has not yet read that series (hmm, I should look that one up, too), this is irrelevant. Still, I don’t think she’ll be keen on this one.

K’s take: “This looks like it would be in the Amazon. Why is there a lion in the Amazon? That doesn’t make sense. I don’t think I’d be interested in this.”

So there you have it. A wonderful, magical, classic, transportive text, and I don’t know how to entice my child to read it. My own copy, a few decades ago, was a plain-ish one, but I remember a combination of intriguing looking magical characters along with normal-looking children, and a pleasing blue-ishness. But perhaps what mattered most was that it had been my older brother’s copy, and therefore I felt honored to be in possession of it. So there’s hope for K’s little sister, at least!

“Too literary.” What does that even mean? And “too literary” for what? I ask this not out of anger at all, but out of genuine curiosity. (In fact, I found this to be a tremendously encouraging rejection.) If my work is too literary, how does one define some of the far more esoteric, languid, artistic works out there?

The supposed definition on Wikipedia is anything but. Which is funny, when you think about it, because who out there felt enough of an urge to put in an entry without actually having anything substantial to say, whether factual or opinion-based?

A common differentiation is made like so: literary fiction as opposed to commercial fiction. I.e., fiction for the purpose of being “writerly” as opposed to selling well. (And by well, the implication is: money-making.) So then, is something that sells well automatically excluded from being literary? Of course not. Then there’s the definition of literary fiction as being that which is not genre fiction, i.e. not romance, not science fiction, not chick lit, not horror, etc. What, then, of historical fiction? That is most definitely a genre, one with with ardent devotees and clubs and societies, but surely fiction set in another time, aligned with historical events and mores, can be literary?

Former agent extraordinaire Nathan Bransford offers his own definition, which I quite like: “In commercial fiction the plot tends to happen above the surface and in literary fiction the plot tends to happen beneath the surface.” (Although by this definition, mine is not literary fiction. Not to give anything away, but stuff does happen. Plottish stuff. People do bad things, heroic things, destructive things.) This ties into another school of thought, that genre fiction is plot-based whereas literary fiction is character-based. Hmm. Maybe literary fiction leads the reader to some kind of realization about life or the world in addition to entertaining him/her with a story?

The one characteristic of literary fiction that is consistent regardless of the definition is that it is increasingly hard to place for publication. And I wonder, how much of this can we attribute to the shortening of the public’s attention span, the desire for instant gratification without expenditure of much effort, the frenzy of activities that threatens our ability to curl up onto a couch and spend some serious time with a book, and how much of it is due to the publishing and media industries not yet having found the ways to present and promote and enrich literary fiction through innovative methods that are more connected to how people spend their leisure time and source their media now. And how much of the onus of the latter lies on the publisher as opposed to the author? And so I embrace the challenge of pushing my “too literary” novel, FAINT PROMISE OF RAIN—and the related artistic products it may inspire—to be something “successful” in today’s media and entertainment world. Call it hubris, naiveté, hopeless optimism, whatever you’d like, but I have to see this as an opportunity for creativity.

Not so with the second book. No no no, not at all. We’re starting from scratch here. You’d think that having spent 8 years writing one novel, I’d have an idea as to how to begin another. And yet I find myself reaching up into my shelves to pull out my writing-related books. Surely one will tell me how to go about creating a main character, no? Somewhere I must have a how-to-write-a-novel book, right? Internet, come to my rescue!

And then there’s another issue. No pun intended. What “should” I be writing, from a publishing career standpoint? Should I stick to the same genre as book one? Is it ok to try to publish something completely different? I have another project, a collection of linked short stories, which I’m having fun writing. They are diametrically opposed to my first book. For one, they are short stories, not a novel. They are set right near where I live, not thousands of miles away. They take place now, not five hundred years ago. And best of all for me, they don’t involve any research. I have the complete freedom to just write. Don’t get me wrong, I love the research I do for historical fiction, but it’s also refreshing and liberating to be able to write a scene without looking up what type of bird lives in such and such desert, and what material homes were made in at a certain time and place. I get to exercise an entirely different writing muscle. But, I worry. If I’m lucky enough for my first book to see reasonable success, if the public receives it warmly, am I tempting fate by trying to feed it something entirely different? And then, how much should I care about this? Shouldn’t I just write what’s in my heart, and not worry about how much it makes sense from a career standpoint? Ack!

My agent is encouraging. She suggests drafting a paragraph on Book 2 of my sort-of-series for her to include with her pitch to editors, and meanwhile she is encouraging about short stories, saying she’d be glad to help me place them for publication. A woman after my own heart, pursuing multiple angles at once. And so, here we go. Launching Project 2 and Project 3 (or, more realistically, Project 58 and Project 59) simultaneously. Wish me luck! In the meantime, fingers crossed that we send out the first manuscript on sub to editors next month.

Onions: we are inundated with them. Sweet Vidalia onions. Giving them away to friends and neighbors. However, I did use some with a good chard recipe. I liked that the recipe included chopping and using the chard ribs, which came out both sweet and slightly crunchy. Quick and yummy.

Green peppers: sliced and laid out on a bed of semi-cooked potatoes underneath a delightfully fresh haddock from the farmer’s market, then popped together in the oven as per this recipe, with charmoula sauce. A hit for everyone from age 13 months to… well, to the parents.

Chard: see Onions above.

Blueberries: the BEST recipe. Hand box to neighbor and, about two hours later, receive a tart. I suppose I could ask her for the recipe, but really, why?

Rhubarb: cooked down into a compote and served with pork tenderloin with a fennel seed and sage rub. Fabulous! The baby was all over this. And vice versa, by the time she was done.

Zucchini and summer squash: sliced lengthwise, tossed with olive oil, fleur de sel, fresh ground pepper and herbes de Provence, then roasted. Served with above-mentioned pork tenderloin.

Dandelion greens: Simple salad with feta and a lemon-based dressing. Thanks, Mark Bittman.

Watermelon (from a partner farm in Georgia): It has spent a few days hanging around our floor like the family pet, and serving as a toy for the baby, who derives great enjoyment out of thwacking it with both hands and watching it roll around. At the moment it is wearing her sun hat. (She also can spend long periods of time rummaging through our laundry basket, alternating between pulling our unmentionables out and then piling them back in, and occasionally pausing to chew on a sock. Don’t worry, this is laundry that has come out of the dryer. She actually doesn’t discrimate between the clean and the dirty, but her parents do draw the line somewhere.) Anyway, back to the watermelon. We’re expecting 16 children between the ages of 1 and 10 tomorrow (with accompanying responsible adults), and I suspect they’ll make short shrift of the watermelon.

Beet greens and collards: Being cooked down tomorrow morning with a large quantity of collards, according to a recipe titled “Your Mama’s basic greens” in Holy Smoke! The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue. Accompanying North Carolina pulled pork with Carolina dip and Carolina slaw, and home made BBQ sauce, all adapted from Holy Smoke. (It’s 9:30 pm and the smoker has been lit, in preparation for some overnight smokin’. The chef is trimming the pork butts, and punching some holes in an empty bean can to rig some kind of cover for the chimney in case the forecast of thunderstorms overnight ends up being accurate.) To be supplemented with grilled lemon-lime chicken, for those who for whatever reason have sworn off the pig.

Eggplant and fennel: waiting to be used.

Happy Fourth, folks.