Books

Okay, then, Amanda, let's start with easy stuff, like books. (In fact, I don't know if I can do anything other than easy tonight.)...I'm glad you loved Mrs. Kimble, and since you did I recommend 2 others by Jennifer Haigh: Baker Towers and her newest (still in hard cover, I can send you mine) The Condition.

At this point in the summer I hardly want to deal with anyone other than myself either. Of course novel characters don't count. For me I know it's about not wanting to share what little time remains of summer vacation with other people (especially colleague friends), losing time to small talk and then invariably transitioning to shop talk. It makes me tired and anxious to think about getting in touch with everyone I thought it might be nice to get together with over the summer (yeah, you'll have to come over for drinks by the pool!; let's get together over the summer while we're in good moods, yada yada yada)--and that's just the getting in touch. Never mind the thought of making those plans or following through. Forget it. I'm broke, I'm depressed, I'll be commiserating with them in mere days for 10 months. For these last days (8 week days, 2 weekends; I go back August 25) I plan on spending as much time as possible by the pool--maybe the beach with S and C--with a book in my hand. I've got 2 or 3 more on my want-to-read-this-summer list that I'd like to get through and know that while I'm engrossed in reading I'm not thinking about my bank account or the people I'm blowing off or going back to school. And somewhere in me still lives the hope that one of these times when I finish a book and think that was great, instead of picking up another to read I will grab the latest version of my manuscript and start writing again....

More and more I am coming to the conclusion that I do not want to have a second go-round in higher education or publishing or reinvent myself as corporate trainer. What I need to do is teach, and use my vacations and snow days and the nights I don't bring home lab reports productively, writing my novel, so that I might give birth to myself as a novelist. I need to make the transition from writer to author. Then I can leave teaching.

I'm sorry you're in a funk too, but think that maybe you just need to give yourself permission to be a little reclusive for a while. You've had a lot going on, A! All requiring composure and compassion and maybe you need now to show yourself some compassion, to give yourself that time to say f**k everyone else, I'm not answering the phone and I'm NOT feeling bad about it. Just a thought, but one I hope you'll not dismiss...

Love you, Barb

PS Congrats to your friend! Do I remember correctly that she writes romance? Or is it mystery? Why do I remember that she writes some sort of genre fiction?