page proofs

I just sent off page proofs to New York. This means that not another word of the book I’ve finished will be changed. I did something I didn’t expect. I took what I thought was some worldly wisdom out of the book, deleted it. When I wrote the worldly, warning words, I was adamant about keeping them in. I don’t like sticky sweet romances. I feel like they’re a lie. But in rereading the story again, I decided that I wasn’t being fair to the character, who couldn’t know what he would do in the years ahead, and that I was killing hope, that we begin everything with hope. Time or circumstances may change that, but hope is one of the most beautiful things in our lives. We’ve never dare to anything without it. So I dropped lines that were foreboding, showing what the future would hold. I decided they reflected my own cynicism. I don’t want to be a cynic. I want to keep  aspects of a child, but not deny the wisdom of my years.

What are you looking for when you read? An escape? Realism? Adventure? Why do we read fiction?

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sweet

Listening to the liquid silver voice of Sarah McLaughlin as I drive along the freeway. Her songs are sad; they make me remember failed relationships. I think of that place with another where you stop trying. It’s before I don’t care, way before, but it’s a bad sign. I think, if I had any advice to give, I’d said, darlings, don’t get cynical with one another because once you allow that, it’s too hard to get back to where the healing sweetness is.

Are relationships harder to sustain than they used to be? Is romance real? You tell me.