Second full day on Tybee Island. 6 pages so far toward my daily goal of 10. Margaret snapped this pic of me happily typing away. One of my characters whom I pictured staid and reserved and very serious, turns out to be irreverent and a little kooky. I’m glad she didn’t wait any longer to let me in on her true personality or I would have been in trouble.

Alex just arrived, making five of us here now, so we had to stop and catch up with one another and eat the chicken soup Mary Kay just whipped up for us.

 Mary Kay gave us a little tour of the island last night. Here we are wearing our Tybee Island hats, getting ready to watch the sunset from the dock behind this restaurant. Tybee has such charm. It reminds me of some places I’ve visited in the British Virgin Islands. Very unpretentious, lots of palms and live oaks, and adorable little cottages filled with personality.

We played three games of Scrabble last night, which was so much fun, but I believe we’ll be brainstorming tonight instead of playing games. We all have plenty yet to accomplish. And it’s rainy and gray today, so I’m not tempted to go out on the beach, which is a good thing. More later. . .

People sometimes ask me how I deal with the isolation of writing. I’ve recently been in touch with a former co-worker from my days as a hospital social worker and communicating with her reminds me of what it was like to work with other people. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that! The hospital had a large social work department and my memory is of a deep bond between all of us.  We did some emotionally difficult work, but we had each other to turn to for advice, support and—often–laughter. The work was so rewarding,  and being part of a family of fellow social workers made it even more so.  Nevertheless,  during the years I worked there, I was writing my first novel in every speck of my free time.  I adored my job, but I had a passion for storytelling that wouldn’t leave me alone.  

Alone.  That word brings me back to the question of isolation. One writes alone. It’s certainly true that most writers tend to be more introverted than extroverted. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re shy or that they can’t be outgoing. Rather it means that their minds and spirits are fed by that precious time alone. They need it.  They can’t create without it.  That is certainly true of me, but I also need frequent doses of  other people in my life. On the Myers-Briggs Personality Type scale, I fall smack in the middle  between Introversion and Extraversion.  While great chunks of time alone are necessary for my writing, they’re also. . . well, lonely. 

I’m lucky that I live with someone who is also self-employed, so it is a bit like having a co-worker. John and I work in different parts of the house, but we stop to chitchat occasionally or to gripe with each other over computer problems or talk about our work. It also helps that we’re both in creative fields and seem to have similar requirements for alone and together time and that we’re both committed one hundred percent to what we’re doing. There is never the temptation to just goof off during the day.  

So while it’s great having John nearby, the thing that really saves me from a sense of isolation is having friends who are also published novelists and who are as serious about their careers as I am. I’ve been lucky to have always had this outlet. When I lived in Virginia, Emilie Richards and Patricial McLinn and I got together frequently to brainstorm and talk shop. And I’ve blogged often about the retreats I go on with my group of writer friends here in North Carolina. We stay in touch by email and between our getaways, we meet for lunch whenever we can.   I go home from those meet-ups renewed and ready to get back to work. When you work alone, it’s critical to find a way to connect with other people, not only to avoid insanity but to help you feed the creative well.

It’s hard for me to remember what it was like to have genuine co-workers. . . and to work for someone else. What I miss most about it is, frankly, the financial benefits of a “real” job:  The security of a regular paycheck,   help with the health insurance premiums, and most of all, an employer to pay half of that killer 15% FICA payment. (Do not quit your day job until you’ve thought all this through!)

Yes, it’s costly( and sometimes lonely) to work all by myself. But getting to work at something I love? Priceless.

Well, there’s killing your babies, as I discussed a couple of posts ago. Then there’s burying them, and that’s what I’m doing with my Work-in-Progress. Some of you voted on titles for it (I was, for the time being, calling it The Glimmer Child), and you know how excited I was about it as I worked on the proposal. I realized a couple of days ago, however, that I was going to have to let this story go. I still love the concept, but as I worked on the outline, getting down to the nitty gritty details, I knew the story was too “out there” for me to write right now. I’m not abandoning it forever; it will be tucked carefully into the basket where I keep other proposals I’ve set free for the time being, to be revisited at a later date. The reason for this decision is career-related rather than emotional. Thousands of new readers discovered me with The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes and Before the Storm, and I’m afraid of disappointing them with a story that’s too much of a departure from what I’ve written in the past. After helping me weigh the pros and cons, my terrific agent left the decision to me, and I knew she’d support me regardless of my choice.

Even though the decision had to be made dispassionately, it wasn’t without emotional ramifications. I’ve worked hard on this proposal and the idea for the book has been with me nearly a year. It’s hard to let go of something you love–a story that feels like your baby and characters you’ve come to know and care about like family. I spent most of Friday night grieving the decision, and I still feel a twist in my heart when something reminds me of a treasured aspect of the story. But I woke up Saturday morning feeling strong and resilient and ready to create something new.

I’m at the beach for a week with Bren Witchger, and there is no better place for me to be as I go back to the drawing board. Bren’s at work on her current WIP, so we’re brainstorming, scribbling, and popping chocolate-covered espresso beans. We’re on the marsh side of the beach road this time. We can see the ocean between the houses across the street, but the view of the marsh is soothing and evocative and I love watching the water shift between low tide to high, when it comes through the grasses nearly to the stilts of our beach house.

I’m going back to work now. Some new folks are worming their way into my imagination, and I’m looking forward to learning their passions and fears and secrets. I’ll let you know how I make out as the week progresses.   

Years ago, while working on my fourth book, Keeper of the Light, I hired writing consultant Peter Porosky to help me brainstorm the plot and structure. I lived in Virginia at the time, and Peter lived nearly an hour’s drive away from me in Maryland. He’d read my initial outline and we got right down to work, talking about characters and storyline. I already loved the story I had in mind, but talking about it with another writer was thrilling. Peter would never tell me what I should do, but he talked about what worked and what didn’t and prompted me to come up with my own solutions. (An ironic aside: one of the many twists in Keeper of the Light came to me during this conversation when Peter accidentally referred to one character by the name of another, which started a whole series of “what ifs?” in my mind and ultimately changed the entire story!) When I left Peter’s house, I got in my car and started the drive home, stuffed full of ideas, my mind a thousand miles away from the road. It’s hard to describe the excitement I felt. If you’re a creative person, perhaps you know what I mean. You hit on an idea, and it begins to take off, spinning out in a dozen different directions. It’s not only your mind that’s reacting to the thrill of discovery. Your entire body feels engaged and your fingers itch to get going on the project. It’s a creative person’s Nirvana.

Anyway, I was driving home and I finally noticed a sign along the highway for the Baltimore-Washington Airport. Huh? I struggled to pull my mind back to the here-and-now and realized I’d gotten on the highway going north instead of south. Totally oblivious to my surroundings, I’d driven a full thirty miles in the wrong direction. I didn’t cuss or fret. I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I ended up at the North Pole. I was working on a story!

So yesterday, I was driving home from Starbucks. My car should know this route automatically by now, even if I’m not paying attention, but no. I ended up in Wake Forest, a town way north of where I live. I stopped at red lights, avoided pedestrians, and stuck to the speed limit, but my mind was clearly on a North Carolina beach with some new characters who have stolen my heart. These folks are not only affecting my driving, but the rest of my life as well. I can’t tune them out. They have so much to say to me and they’re full of surprises, forcing me to take notes when I should be sleeping and making me blurt out things like “Oh, wow!” in the checkout line of the grocery store and not even feel embarrassed about it.

People often ask me “What’s your favorite part of writing a book?” This is it. The Nirvana part. The writing while driving part. Even at $4.30 a gallon, it’s worth it.