Four Days Until "Day Trips From Portland" Release!

My travel guidebook Day Trips From Portland: Getaway Ideas For the Local Traveler will be available Tuesday May 17.

And...Announcing my new and improved website, and new home for this blog, www.kimcooperfindling.com.

See new site for book tour info and all details, including excerpts from both Day Trips and my second book, Chance of Sun: An Oregon Memoir, due out in August.

Blooming Eventually will continue at the new site....see you there!

Toodles!

OQ Essay Contest Reading Tomorrow!

I will be reading my essay "The Friday's Trilogy", which won the 2011 Oregon Quarterly Essay Contest, tomorrow night on the University of Oregon campus, Gerlinger Alumni Lounge, 7 p.m. The event is free and open to everyone! See here for details.

P.S. Two weeks until the release of my travel guidebook, "Day Trips From Portland"! I'm on Amazon.com! Far out.

"Day Trips From Portland" Actually Exists

The doorbell just rang.

There is nothing quite as exciting as receiving a box of books with your own name on them.

Yipppeee!!

The actual release date for my book "Day Trips From Portland: Getaway Ideas for the Local Traveler" is May 17.

There are two events scheduled so far.

May 24, Camalli Books in Bend, 7 p.m.

June 20, Powell's on Hawthorne in Portland, 7:30 p.m.

More to come!

Coming Soon - Day Trips From Portland, Oregon

Publishing May 17 is my travel guidebook, Day Trips From Portland, from Globe Pequot Press.

Rediscover the simple pleasures of a day trip with Day Trips from Portland, OR. This guide is packed with hundreds of exciting things for locals and vacationers to do, see, and discover within a two-hour drive of the Portland metro area. With full trip-planning information, Day Trips from Portland, OR helps makes the most of a brief getaway.

Stay tuned for more news about release events and more!

I Won the Oregon Quarterly Essay Contest

I won the Oregon Quarterly Northwest Perspectives essay contest.

I had to write that twice because I still can’t quite believe it.

Yesterday I received a very unusual phone call, especially in these days of ubiquitous electronic conversation.

“This is my favorite phone call of the year,” said the magazine’s editor. “You won the essay contest.”

In response, I said nothing. I was too shocked.

I’ve entered this annual literary contest maybe seven times and never even been a finalist. And I won! Hot damn.

My essay is titled “The Friday’s Trilogy” and it’s an excerpt from my book, Chance of Sun: An Oregon Memoir, to be released this summer. It’s about one of the worst periods of my life, when I bottomed out in Portland 16 years ago.

Here’s what judge Debra Gwartney of Pacific University’s MFA program said:

"(I chose) The Friday's Trilogy, which I found to be fresh, alive, exciting and bold writing. I had some trouble following the first few sentences, but once I was in, I was in. A compelling piece of writing, heartbreaking and redemptive. Hard to pull off without being sappy, and yet she does."

“I’ll come back to earth soon,” I said to Guy Maynard at the end of our conversation.

“Well, don’t come back down too soon,” he said. “Moments like these are too few in our world.”

There will be a public reading of winning essays on the University of Oregon campus, May 4, 7 p.m.

That's a Wrap

Well, I did it. I wrote a book in nine weeks. I knocked out a 250-page, 65,000 word book in 60-odd days. Sent off to editor-land yesterday.

(Actually, apparently I got a little carried away, because I accidentally wrote 75,000 words. Dammit. Would this not have been a fine opportunity to taste the strange fruit of underachievement?)

Here’s what I learned in the process:

Writing is easy.

Writing is the best job in the whole world.

Writing sucks ass.

Writing is a hateful, evil, miserable affliction. Why didn’t I become an accountant, or an anesthesiologist, or an exotic dancer? Why, why, why?!

Stress brings out my over-dramatic side.

Writing a book in nine weeks will kick your ass six ways from Sunday, but nothing on earth is harder than parenting, which is what I had been doing with the majority of my time prior this project. Therefore, writing is easy.

Thinking—thinking is what is bad. Must stop thinking.

You might believe that for you to pull this off, everything extraneous will have to get out of the way. But life will just keep on coming.

My God, does this truly have to be this hard?

I really like almond butter and honey sandwiches.

There is a dust bunny the size of Texas under my desk.

There are a lot of really, really bad websites out there.

There isn’t much that can’t be cured with a dvd of Entourage, coral-colored toenail polish and vodka.

(However) Drinking and writing is not a good idea. No wonder Hemingway shot himself.

This is a piece of cake! Hell, I could have done this in six weeks!

My kids rock. Instead of resenting that Mommy was irritable and totally out to lunch, they bragged about me on the playground.

Capt. Daddy is a superhero. Of course, we already knew that. That’s why he wears tight shirts and funny shoes with toes.

It is totally possible to write a book in nine weeks, keep the children alive, turn 40, throw yourself a big-ass party, navigate your mother’s cancer diagnosis, talk your husband down from several mid-life crises, launch your eldest into Kindergarten, spend a week in NYC pretending you are a rock star, question the entire structure on which your adult life is based, and, in a strange finale, get locked out of your house by your three-year-old when you are in the hot tub.

But I don’t necessarily recommend it.

Still—once you’ve run the gauntlet, wow, what a rush!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go slip into a coma for several days. Or at least until the school bus comes.

Phoenix Rising

I suppose it’s about time to tell you all I got another book deal.

I know, huh?

Three weeks ago, I received an e-mail from an acquisitions editor at a press back east. He’d been searching for someone to write a travel guidebook about Oregon for one of their series. He came across my bio on the Willamette Writer’s website. Then he “followed me around the internet.” He read various essays and articles posted on my website, my Travel Oregon blog postings, and this blog. He thought I’d be perfect. He thought I was funny. He’d like to talk to me about offering me a contract.

I sat there in front of the screen for a long, stunned, surreal moment. Then I forwarded the e-mail to Capt. Daddy, adding a few excitable expletives. Capt. responded instantly and wisely—“call him.”

A week later I traded my signature on a contract for an advance. Now I have to write the book by Nov. 15. Not even kidding. But never mind about that. I’ve been writing professionally for ten years. Surely I can churn out 65,000 words in eight weeks. No problem.

The amazing part is that for years all I’ve been told is that to get a book deal, writers have to burn up the keyboard relentlessly pitching agents, chase after editors with finely-tuned elevator pitch in pocket, be willing to offer publishers one’s first-born child and grandma’s gold coins. I did all of that. For years. It didn’t work. (I even sacrificed the first-born child—ha, and ouch). But something must have worked. Because ten years into this little song-and-dance, two publishers in a year came to me.

Because of the tight turnaround on the travel book, both it and my memoir (about growing up in Oregon—how coincidental) will be out at the same time—next spring.

Far out.

This photo is of a painting my dear friend and fellow writer Suzanne Burns made for me three years ago, after I set fire to my first memoir and pretty much figured my dreams of publishing a book were dead. It’s been hanging in my office since, guiding me to places I couldn’t see coming. Suzanne saw what I couldn’t yet—with work and faith, something new would come along.

Someone suggested that with two books coming out, I should change the name of my blog. Nah. Lots more blooming to do. I might have to update my bio again, though. That book fire really is starting to feel like it harbored the Phoenix instead of defeat.

Happy New You Part IV

Long overdue for an update to my blog profile. I've been confusing people with the whole book burning thing.

So here's me, modestly refreshed:

Me: mother, wife and writer watching 40 climb the front steps like a peddler pushing time and me with nowhere to hide. The writer part used to come first, the 40 used to be a 30, and marriage and motherhood were abstract activities I thought I’d try someday. Ah, growing up. If only it was the thrill promised when we were six.

I started this blog to chronicle my quest to publish a book. I’ve published all sorts of other things—articles, essays, even poetry. I wrote a first book. Then I set it on fire. I am now neck-deep in edits on a second book, and have a publisher interested. But as my mother says, “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings.”

So the question remains—will I bloom, eventually? Or will I ditch the whole writing thing, adopt a xanax habit, abandon my own identity and live the rest of my life vicariously through my children? Hmm, let’s find out.

Nuts

A couple of weeks ago while I was tutoring at the college, my blood sugar crashed. I emptied my wallet of quarters and headed for the vending machine, wondering if I would find any sugar-free, protein-laden options.

Yay—Smokehouse almonds. $1.25. I plunked my five quarters in and watched the little metal corkscrew arm make its slow rotation…and then stop. My almonds dangled there, caught on their own packaging. Then, strangely, a nickel dropped into the coin return.

I gazed at it in my palm for a moment, wondering what the heck I was supposed to do with it. Was five cents the returnable deposit on my risk? And how was it that I hadn’t realized that I was taking a risk in the first place?

Stubbornly, I went back to my bag and got more coins. I didn’t really want to pay $2.50 for almonds, but if I don’t eat, it’s possible that I’ll suddenly begin to stab my students with their own writing utensils. In went another $1.25 in quarters. This time, the twisty arm rotated, making its low whir, and two bags of almonds dropped to the bin.

Out of curiosity, I pressed the “coin return” button, and received two dimes and a nickel.

I scooped up my loot and headed back to my post, unable to shake the feeling that the whole experience was metaphorical somehow. Sometimes the world withholds your almonds. You do what you’ve been asked to do and get jack in return. Sometimes you get unexplained gifts that you’re not sure even you understand. Other times you get everything you’ve asked for and much more. And sometimes, you just get caught on your own packaging.

Vending machine as karma.

This week, the almonds are good and stuck. But I am waiting for the coins. I know they’re coming, sooner or later.

Glory

On Monday, I walked to a meeting. The route was a stretch of Nye Beach in Newport, Oregon. The destination was a local pub. The person I was meeting was my publisher. On my back, I carried 160 pages of paper—my book manuscript, completed last week and fresh from the printer.

The sun shone brilliantly, there was barely a breeze. I was all alone. Two miles of packed sand, open Oregon air and exercise lay between our rented beach house and my fate.

Of course, fate doesn’t work like that. There isn’t really one defining moment that sets a course of everlasting glory in a regular life. Glory comes and goes, is persistently fickle. Every happy ending is interwoven with the beginning of another new challenge.

I thought about a lot of things on that two-mile journey. How much outside validation I need from my writing, and if I can learn to just enjoy its creation and appreciate the successes that appear. My family, and what really matters. How rooting around in your past and trying to craft it into something salable is as dangerous and messy as my friend Jessica said it would be when I started this project. And, just what the heck might happen during the next two hours.

But when I quit thinking and looked up into the stunning sky, at the powerful surf, breathed the sea air, I thought about how lucky I am. How incredibly metaphorical this walk was! My story about growing up on the Oregon Coast was literally on my back as I marched down the Oregon Coast to deliver it to someone who would decide its worth. Sort of like the pearly gates, but with kites and sandcastles.

Judgment is still to come. But on the walk back, after a great discussion, with a pint of Oregon ale in my belly and my backpack much lighter, when the beach glowed even more marvelously and I felt like skipping over the sand, when I located my chickens chasing seagulls and Captain Daddy ready to hear my story, I simply chose to revel in the glory for however long it lasts.

I knew the true worth of that paper-bound journey, and almost didn’t care what anyone else thought of it at all.

Chapter 238...

...in which our heroine is nearly finished with final edits on her book. In between fits of terror, she is quite jublilant.


Honestly, she is.


(Well, she's sure it's coming, anyway.)

Up next:

Rockin' the Bard

Of particular interest to anyone who has ever made-out in the back of a school bus...or wished they had...

An essay from my upcoming book, Chance of Sun: A Perfectly Imperfect Oregon Upbringing, is in this month's Oregon Quarterly Magazine.

Rockin' the Bard

"God It’s Such a Drag to Have to Live in the Past"

The other night I dreamt I was pregnant with my ex-boyfriend’s baby. This is impossible for many reasons, not the least of which is I haven’t laid eyes on him since 1996. (Oh, and my ten years of marriage, though I guess that doesn’t stop everybody from getting into this particular pickle).

No matter—in the dream, this situation was very real and posed many problems in my current life. Did I shun the boyfriend, stay with Captain Daddy and hope he’d agree to raise my love child? Did I ditch my family and go live with this baby’s father, to raise our illicit bundle of joy together? Maybe a baby was what we always needed. Maybe a baby would make him faithful, magically force him to appreciate me and love me as he never did all of those years ago. Maybe a baby would encourage us to put aside the self-destructive behavior towards which we’d been so prone.

In the dream, my boyfriend held me, spoke soothingly in my ear. He promised me everything. Of course we would raise this baby together. Of course there would be love, joy—all of my heart’s desires and more.

I awoke with Captain Daddy on my left and Chicken Little on my right in the bed I’ve slept in for well over a decade—far from Portland and the past. Far from pregnant, for that matter. I knew immediately the meaning behind the dream. The baby is my book. My ex-boyfriend makes a small but illustrious appearance in my story—the chapter he dominates marks the arc of the narrative. It was the lowest, most dangerous and chilling time of my life. And I do feel like, by writing about it, by publishing it, I am giving birth to it again. I am bringing events long-ago put to rest back to life. It’s unsettling, to say the least.

But as Chicken Little woke beside me in bed, threw an arm around me and kissed me a sloppy good morning, I knew the answer to the dream’s central question. Of course I would stay here. To write about the past, to unearth it, to put it on display is to bring it back from the dead. But I don’t have to go back and live with it. I can pull those things out of my personal history and still keep my feet firmly planted in the life I crafted from the Phoenix’s flames.

Still, for the better part of the morning, I couldn’t shake the image of my ex holding me so tenderly, gazing fondly into my eyes. Everything was going to be okay, he seemed to say. This time, there would be a happy ending.

Missing: Life Force. Please Return. Reward: Chestnuts Roasted on an Open Fire

This whole book thing is sucking the life force out of me.

I know, I know. It’s what I’ve always wanted and I should be able to find the joy in it and by complaining I sound like a big fat whiner and nobody likes a whiner.

Captain Daddy and I got mired in a teeny, weeny Marital Moment about this the other night. Here’s what I said, roughly, over a beer at the local pub:

The bottomless soul-searching necessary to unearth the history and truth that will make these essays good is like letting 100 angry leeches feast on me from the inside out.

Sacrificing organic creation for “sit down and create something beautiful about Topic X—now GO!” is like the Bataan Death March for the fragile artistic soul.

When I sit down to write, it hurts. Metaphorically, but also physically. Like someone is taking bites out of my head.

Half of what I write is complete crap anyway and ends up in the file on my computer I named “shitcan”.

At the end of the day I want to slip into a coma and sleep for like 17 million hours.

When the chickens run past me screaming naked with peanut butter smeared on their bodies and hitting each other with sharp objects all I can manage is to stare at them blankly as if they are a bad television show that I would turn off if only I could muster the energy to locate the remote.

And I am feeling, well, just a little bit done. As in DONE. But I can’t be DONE, because I am not done. And there’s something to be said for showing up and persevering, but sometimes maybe there is wisdom in knowing that one is just DONE.

At which point, Captain Daddy gave me a rather bored look which implied that he’s heard this all before, and perhaps I was overreacting just a tiny bit, as well as maybe whining in that particularly irritating “my pain is bigger than your pain will ever be” melodramatic self-pitying shortsighted way.

And he mentioned gently that part about this being my long-lusted-after dream. And that lots of things in life are hard work, especially things that are worthwhile.

Which made me pout.

But I know he’s right. (Don’t tell him, because he’ll just do that “I was right” happy dance and I’ll have to throw spitballs at him made of tinsel.)

Do you think I just need a break, and beautiful things will bubble back up to the surface? Or is my coma permanent? Yesterday I took a rest by addressing 125 Christmas cards and holiday shopping for three hours in a 14-degree snowstorm, but the answer to this question did not become immediately apparent.

Blooming Eventually, Repeatedly and Currently

The meeting with the publisher went very well. If all goes as discussed, my book will be on the shelves next fall.

It’s the strangest sensation.

Driving home, my brain was short circuiting. I have every reason to think that this is actually happening, after so many years of it not happening. I am going to publish a book. And yet…that moment is not quite here, not just yet. When does one actually bust out the champagne? When the book goes off to the printer? When it’s released? At the launch party? When it’s positively reviewed? Sells well? When the next book deal comes?

I said to my mother, “I just realized that there will never be one final moment of victory. Just incremental triumph.”

“Like life?” she said.

Which reminded me of a message a friend sent me a few weeks ago responding to this blog. Here’s part of it:

The way I look at it is that women are ready to bloom at any moment. We are not the annual flower that blooms once in a lifetime, whose beauty is awed but is fleeting and temporary. We are perennials - ready to bloom over and over with the proper amount of care (love, sun, etc!). It is the person who thinks they have bloomed once and it is over who begins to molder. Sometimes we are dormant, but the bloom is always in there waiting for the proper care to bloom again.

Now is a perfectly appropriate time for the champagne. Ahead lies more uncertainty and certainly more work, but it’s too easy to skip the small triumphs while waiting for the big ones. I’ve done enough of that in the last nine years. There is always something to celebrate, and I intend to start toasting. Care to join me?

Thanks to Jennifer for the comments.

A Bloodcurdling Halloween Horror Story

Imagine a dark and blustery night, a room cast with shadows. A writer polishes her working manuscript. The publisher has asked to see what she has so far. (Plot Twist). She adds fancy words, changes the formatting, calls on the universe for extra powerful positive thinking. The wind blows like a demon out her office windows. Will this be the realization of a ten-year dream? Or just another disappointment? Zap – she hits the send button on Halloween night (well, not exactly. Three days later. But it makes a better story this way).

Then she waits.

The publisher receives the manuscript and reads 50 pages within 36 hours. He emails the writer, responding with words so enthusiastic some are unfit for print. He loves it. Really loves it. He fell in love with the character, her growth and setbacks and little triumphs. Thinks maybe his press can’t do this book justice.

It is the email she’s waited a decade to receive.

But she doesn’t receive it. Unbeknownst to her, it languishes in her junk mail alongside a sales pitch for Discovery Toys. She doesn’t want any Discovery Toys. She does desperately want a book published. She waits, biting her nails, cursing every doctor who never gave her xanax. Would the publisher have responded by now? Maybe not. Maybe she’s a terrible writer. Maybe he hates her. Maybe the universe hates her. Maybe she should sell Discovery Toys.

She waits.

The publisher waits.

The email waits.

The wind blows.

Finally, six days later, before she’s had her first cup of coffee on a Tuesday morning, she opens her junk email box. What is this? Could it be? Such amazing things said? About her work? But the date—last Wednesday? Dear God, no! The horror, the horror! Do emails expire? Has he changed his mind? Has he decided she’s ungrateful, crazy, delirious on xanax? She emails him back immediately.

She waits.

Shouldn’t she be celebrating? Not yet. Not until the junk mail universe has righted itself. Blasted junk mail universe! She spins in anxiety. She neglects her children. She forgets to take the trash out. She drinks just the tiniest bit of vodka.

Finally, the publisher emails her back. He wondered why she hadn’t responded. He hasn’t changed his mind. They have a lot to talk about. He’ll see her next week.

Stay Tuned for A Terrifying Tale of Gut Wrenching Distress!: Getting What You’ve Always Wanted

Plot Twist

As those of you following along know, I began writing a novel a couple of months ago. It’s my first attempt at fiction. The process started off with a gleeful bang (see A Puzzled Thanks), a phenomenon all the more personally delightful because of the fact that I was suffering through what seemed to be the death of hopes to publish a book of narrative non-fiction ever in this lifetime.

So I threw myself wholeheartedly into fiction; forgot all about essay, for the time being anyway. And what should happen? I came across a publisher who is interested in publishing a book of my essays.

I know! Can you believe it?

Two major thoughts about this fascinating turn of events, from a meta perspective. First, the universe has a funny way of handing over the goods as soon as the protagonist finally begins to work on letting go of her need to acquire them.

And secondly, words of wisdom from so many mentors over the years are absolutely true: keep writing. No matter if you can see where you are going, no matter if it looks as if you won’t ever get there, keep writing. Because: when ten years into your writing career you quite out of the blue happen across a publisher, and he just happens to ask you a question you thought you’d never hear, maybe something like “do you have a book-length collection of essays?”, you want to be darn skippy sure you can answer, “Heck yes I do.”

No guarantees on this one, I should note. I have a lot of work to do and it must please. But I am very hopeful. And no matter what, I will remember this moment as a big fat reminder that dreams should be stuck to, but never clung to. No matter which way the winds blow, you will be fine; but never stop working for the thing that will make you leap around in your very own kitchen.

I am quite certain I will complete that novel, by the way. The whole thing is there in my head just waiting to come out. But I shall be a bit distracted for a bit working on that which I’ve always loved: writing essays.

Too Old For The Party?

“No one is going to publish a first novel by a 45-year-old.”

This little curse was spoken recently by one of the members of my writing group. Today it reverberates around my skull. So many of my cohorts seem to lately feel our age like an ankle shackle, while still recognizing that in the grand scheme of things these are the glory days we will lament in another twenty years.

Writing group ranges in age from 35-41; none of us (obviously) has been on Oprah and each of us wonder if we ever will. Two of us don’t seem to care. The other two pretend not to care but really do. One of the first category uttered the curse, perhaps as a way of shrugging off his own fear, perhaps as a way of taking the reins of his own destiny (announce that failure is already yours and you are probably right).

Another member said, yes, her agent asked her age when he took her on. “It matters,” he reportedly said. “Publishers want to know how long their investment might pay off.”

Is this true? I have been to a lot of writing conferences at which I’ve learned a litany of limiting factors that affect the publishing business, but never has anyone said, “Old people don’t get book contracts.”

And yet, we are nothing if not an ageist society. The biological clock ticks for much more than the ability to child bear. We love the young genius. We worship the freshness and vitality of youth; we desperately fear its fading.

So thank goodness (again) for Malcolm Gladwell’s “Late Bloomers” (see Late Bloomers), for pointing out the mature geniuses in cultural history. To believe him, success is still possible for us decidedly past the summer of our youth (Of course he's sitting comfy in the young genius group).

At the end of the day—call me a foolish optimist—I still believe that good writing matters more than the age of the person producing it. And I think it’s really dumb to quit at 38, so I won’t be, just in case you were wondering.

I’ll need a bigger advance, though, to pay for the airbrushing on my book jacket photo.

Yippee Ki Yi Yay

If writing were riding, I’d have fallen off the horse and landed in the ER more than once. I seem inclined to cling, stumble, plummet to the ground: Then get back up, like some sort of indomitable horse-loving fool. (Or head-injured, masochistic fool—you decide).

Here I am: back in the saddle.

In an effort to get back on the trail, this week I have:

• Submitted an essay to the NY Times’ Lives page


• Pulled out my children’s book manuscript and read it to the chickens (they love it. They giggle and ask for more. Too bad they aren’t publishers), identifying weak areas to work on.


• Brainstormed a YA novel idea. Do I know how to write YA? No. Do I even know how to write fiction? No. Does that matter right now? No.


• Sunk my teeth back into the paid work I neglected during book edits (newspaper article writing, magazine copyediting, exhibit copywriting)


• Blogged. (OK, I always blog. But it’s got to count for something)

So: enough with the life analysis and on with the living, already. I’ll keep you posted, unless the NY Times calls, in which case I’ll be doing cartwheels in the yard and drinking champagne. Possibly simultaneously.

Play Nice, Now

Yesterday at the park we ran into a classmate of Chicken Little’s and his mother. We got to talking about the preschool, how the kids like it, which days they attend. Hers—Monday through Thursday. Mine—Monday and Friday.

“How does that work?” she asked.

It took me a minute to figure out what she meant. I babbled about how some weeks it’s hard to get all of my work done with only two daycare days, but she just looked at me and then gestured at the chickens, capitulating, “Well, they seem perfectly well adjusted.”

What she’d actually been asking was if two day care days were enough to adequately socialize my chickens.

Ahh, the dangerous waters of early motherhood, where total strangers worry not whether their own 18-month-old is getting enough time with his mother but whether your children are turning into batty old hermits.

I don’t worry about that, by the way. If Chicken Little and Chicken Noodle turn into batty old hermits it will be family tradition more than conditioning and therefore, unavoidable.

I do worry that two daycare days a week will have serious impact on my dreams of publishing a book. Especially since I don’t even know what sort of book I want to write next and I realize how very much hard work and time it takes to get published. And, there is a deadline on even this two-day plan. Captain Daddy and I have a deal. In five years, he retires, and I get a job.

But none of that matters, really—because (the chickens’ socialization be damned) I wouldn’t have it any other way. I want those little demons home with me. So two days is what I have. The only choice is what I do with them.