One Week Until My Book Comes Out

My new book, DRAMA QUEENS IN THE HOUSE (Roaring Brook/Macmillan) comes out next week. Tuesday, March 25, 2014 to be exact. I've been working on this particular book for nearly 10 years. The most intense work, of course, took place in the last three years since I signed my contract and went to work with my editor at Macmillan. The book has morphed and shape-shifted more than once during that time! And now, finally, here we are. Book launch ready. The book. And me. With only a week to go, I'm doing the things I know to do like: finalizing lists of all the people I want to share my excitement with, checking to see that local bookstores have ordered it, talking with their event coordinators to find out what I can do to help sell the book, agreeing to do some guest blogs and book give-aways -- those kinds of things. But am I ready?

Yes. And no. Excited. And terrified. I love my main character, Jessie, and her crazy nontraditional family. I'm so glad I got to go along with Jessie during a really important year in her life -- one where she has to deal with a lot of change and where she discovers some really cool things about herself and her place in the dramatic world of her family's theatre company. Jessie and I share a sense of humor, but she's a lot more outgoing than I am. And her family? Uh, yeah. A LOT more outgoing than I ever dreamed of being.

So as I sit here, crossing to-do items off a long list, I find myself feeling like the girl in the picture above. That picture of me was taken when I was Jessie's age -- 15, about to turn 16. Pretty smart, a reader, an artist, more introverted than extroverted except when I was performing. Then a miracle happened. All my self-consciousness disappeared and I became whatever character I was playing (from head cheerleader on pep rally days to my first dramatic onstage role as Tessie Hutchinson, the wife and mother who is stoned to death in Shirley Jackson's THE LOTTERY). When I defied my mother and the rules of my mother's religion and played that role (which, incidentally, won a best actress award at a regional competition), I had never even been to see a live theatrical production. That was about to change dramatically -- let's just say from then on the theatre was in my blood and nothing was ever the same again. Did I stop being introverted when I wasn't onstage? No. Not then, not in all the years since.

But the theatre gave me a voice. Maybe I should say -- gave me many voices to choose from. And the performance of those voices led me to writing poetry and stories and novels. And that led me to teaching and directing, which led me back to performance and writing and publishing . . . 

There's a lot to be excited about. Next week my book comes out.  It's the first I've written that draws its inspiration from my many years in the theatre and I hope it won't be the last. 

Macmillan:  us.macmillan.com/dramaqueensinthehouse/JulieWilliams

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Drama-Queens-House-Julie-Williams/dp/1596437359/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1395176055&sr=8-1

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/drama-queens-in-the-house-julie-williams/1115382352?ean=9781596437357

Tangled Up in Zen

The claim of the author of ZENTANGLE® BASICS (Suzanne McNeill, a certified Zentangle teacher) is that Zentangle "turns drawings into artistic design while reducing stress and improving focus." Traditional Zentangle was developed by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas and is used as a learning tool for school children, stress reduction for adults, and it helps develop dexterity. Cool!

I don't know about you, but I can use all the stress reduction and focus improvement I can wrap my frenzied brain (and hands and eyes) around. Not that my life is particularly stressful at the moment. It isn't. But I can create stress for myself out of . . . well . . . anything. And I've got to admit, I have a hard time focusing when the world outside my window is turning greener and greener and greener. Focus on the weeds, I mutter to myself as I'm trying to draft my daily poem. As in PULLING them. Yeah, right.

It's SUMMER in Minnesota! Hallelujah and pass the BBQ ribs. Grilled steak. Corn on the cob. Not to mention the Weed&Feed fertilizer stuff for the yard. And all the gardening equipment. Curse the fact that I was too unfocused to start plants from seed and dropped all that cash at local nurseries . . . yeah, they probably need the $$ given the economy but so do we so maybe next year I'll . . . Ahhhh.

We've already had three sets of spring/summer visitors. Our friends Rose & Rick were here from Illinois, our daughter, Jennifer, popped up from Chicago for a long weekend of art-making and talk (wonderful), and most recently, my friend, Marilyn, made a pilgrimage by train from L.A. It was Marilyn who got me thinking about doing Zentangles (or as they say in the jargon I read: "tangling" -- I love that). As usual, I assumed my interest in it was for HER. You'd love this! I said, sincerely believing myself. Well, actually, I think she would. But it wasn't until after she'd headed back home that I realized the designs looked a lot like doodling I used to do when I was in boring classes in high school and college, and even more like doodling I did later in boring meetings at boring jobs, doodling that I've lost since I don't sit in classes and meetings any more and if I do, I make danged sure they aren't boring ones! So I ordered the book. Okay, okay, I ordered both of McNeill's books (ZENTANGLE BASICS and ZENTANGLE 2). Yeah, all right, I also ordered TOTALLY TANGLED by Sandy Steen Bartholomew. (I am single-handedly trying to right the economy.)

Long story even longer: I am hooked. Took me back a bunch of years. Brought me forward. Yup, it's relaxing. And it's so much fun to do. It's kind of addictive but in a good way. After I did a bunch of the patterns in little squares like they tell you to do, I started venturing out. I filled in a sketch I'd done for one of my "Woman at a Crossroads" mixed media pieces (that's the one above). And, inspired by the cover of Sandy's book, I tangled one of the girls I frequently draw. Here she is.

I'm fairly smitten with her now that she's all patterned up, where before I had been known to wonder out loud as I doodle, Why do I keep drawing these faces???

If you were wondering, no, tangling is NOT the reason I'm not working on a writing project. Tangling is what's keeping me from chewing my nails to the quick as my completed YA novel makes the rounds looking for an editorial home. On that basis alone, I recommend it.

Now, if it were winter (or even fall or early spring), I'd be working on novel # 2 or novel # 3. But did I mention? It's summer in Minnesota, I finished a novel (hallelujah and pass the black-eyed peas) and my agent's doing her magic with it, we counted 26 goslings sailing across the pond with their adoring parents (geese can be annoying, but they are the BEST parents), the red-winged blackbirds must have babies in the reeds because they keep attacking the egrets as they come to fish in the shallows, the weeds in our gardens are waving at me, the deck needs painting, and next month more welcome visitors are coming!

Woman At a Crossroads

Aren't we always? At a crossroads, on a journey, in the flow, at a threshold . . . and hopefully fully present in the right now. Something to aim for anyway. I think I'm "most present" when I'm doing artwork. There's something about standing at the table, letting the materials I'm using drive the decisions about what to do next that makes me feel very grounded and HERE.

Writing is different for me. What I love most about it is the way the characters and the story take over. I sit down to write for an hour and the next thing I know, three hours have passed and I haven't stretched or done my floor exercises, not to mention how I completely forgot about the laundry or the weeding that needed to be done TODAY. You know the feeling -- where time does that weird stretch and contract thing.

Time alters when I'm doing artwork, too. But it's a different experience. Like flying with your feet firmly planted on the ground (or in my case, the concrete floor covered with a too-thin for comfort carpet and -- by my paint table -- two "cow mats" -- yup, what cows stand on in the barn to be milked). Purchased at your local (if you have one) farm supply store, cow mats are about 1/10 of the cost of gel mats and you don't have to worry about spilling paint on them. They're so ugly they benefit from spilled paint. But they WORK.

Am I at a crossroads? I'm not at one of those huge, life-changing ones like friends who are moving or retiring or changing jobs. But still . . . I recently completed one of the young adult novels I've been working on ever since my first book (ESCAPING TORNADO SEASON, HarperCollins) came out. I sent it off to my fabulous agent and now it is out there "looking for love." I have two other YA novels and an adult murder mystery in process but I needed a break after finishing my Jumble story. That's when I'm so glad I have the artwork. Right now it's a series of mixed media collages called "Woman at a crossroads" -- they are on stretched canvas (using vintage maps, acrylic paint, graphite pencil, marker, wire, beads, ribbon, fabric, decorative paper, hand made paper). The one above (20X24") was a birthday gift to my friend of so many years I hesitate to put the number down. Let's just say, since we were 13! On the collage posted below (20X20"), the woman is attached so that she can be turned to face any direction on the compass. I have two others partly completed, not quite ready to be posted.

Of course, daily writing practice goes on regardless. To kick things up a notch, I decided to try drafting a poem a day at the end of my morning journaling. Inspiration: all the people who were doing that to celebrate Poetry Month. I'm a little slow on the uptake, so it took me until April 20th to get going! I'm happy to report that I have 37 drafts waiting to be worked on (yes, some days I wrote more than one). Seeing through the eyes of a poem is a great way to start the day, so my hope is to keep this as a part of my morning routine as long as I can.

Do any of you flip-flop back and forth between writing and visual artwork like I do? I'd love to hear from you about how that works for you and what challenges arise from doing both!

Gathering Branches

I've become obsessed with branches.  It started harmlessly enough in a couple of small mixed media pieces I did using old family photos adding sticks and wire as a means of hanging them.  The next thing I knew I was doing another and another, each one larger and more complex (and using more branches).  Maybe I should say it's an obsession with wood, because I've added in driftwood and bamboo and big old sheets of plywood.  I even took apart an old shelf unit and nailed it to this one.  And don't get me started about how much I love the bark of trees.  (Don't worry -- I don't strip the bark from the tree.  I only pick up dead wood!)

I'm sure this will run its course, but in the meantime, I'm working on a series of Family Tree collages, searching as always for the stories hidden in familiar photos and behind the surface in other people's family pictures.

This one is titled:  What She Said, What She Did

It's 2ftX3ft (plywood, canvas board, repurposed shelving, branches, wire, beads, vintage hardware, vintage lace, ribbons, digitally altered vintage photos,  acrylic paint, handmade and decorative papers).

Family stories are what I write about, too.  And they're what I gravitate to in the books I read, whether poetry, fiction, or memoir.  Nothing fascinates me as much as the complexity of family relationships and the stories that are either passed from generation to generation or are suppressed until someone with a lot of curiosity (sometimes called being really nosey) comes along to dig them out or make them up as she goes along. 

This piece, titled "Leaving Camp" uses some of my husband's family photos to explore the experience of the Japanese American internment camps in this country during WWII.  

I don't just gather tree branches. I also love to rescue vintage photos from yard sales and estate sales and thrift stores. At first, it broke my heart to think such a personal thing as a family photo album could end up on a sale table. But after I started working with them, I realized that each photograph of people I've never met has multiple stories to show and tell, a wealth of material I use over and over in my collages and assemblages as well as in my poems and stories.

I am always deeply grateful when people let me use their family photos in my artwork.  It feels risky, even dangerous at times, because unless I'm doing a commissioned work, I'm not really thinking about telling their story. But there are countless stories embedded in the richness of the old photographs, and I always hope to uncover some kind of emotional truth as I work and play with the images.