Nick Cave, George Glass Loves Lily Snow, Fear, Zoloft, and words.

Obsessing: I suspect that it's something all writers do, but I do it a lot, and right now I'm obsessed with Nick Cave, nothing new there, but I'm writing this novel, George Glass Loves Lily Snow, and it's about a boy, George, who wakes up on his 13th birthday with another boy's memories in his head. This other

boy, Wesley Howard, died thirteen years prior on the same day in the same hospital two minutes before George Glass was born, and like all my fiction, this book is derived from my greatest fear, the loss of my beautiful boy, who is twelve this year. 

After he was born, I was overcome with fear that something terrible would happen to him... I had visions of gas chambers, mothers with crying babies, fingernails scratching the walls, everyone wailing, desperate and dying. 

I was responsible for this new, amazing child, and I found myself out of my body, hovering over my backyard, watching myself talk to people, analyzing how I was doing. Did I seem normal? Did I make sense? Was I speaking words how people speak words? I was holding this baby in my arms, and I couldn't enjoy him. I couldn't breathe. 

I went to see a shrink and decided that after almost twenty years of refusing anti-anxiety medication because I thought it would make me less creative, I would give it a try. I needed to breathe. Zoloft. It made me physically sick, nauseated, and I had awful dry mouth, but I would do anything to shake the fear that paralyzed me.

Now, twelve years later, the novel, the fastest I've written, first draft January to April, is nearly revised, my third novel (Lost in the Beehive) has been accepted, and I've weened off the Zoloft. 

I've put down the words for my fourth book, inspired by the parents I know who have lost children, inspired by my worst fear, inspired by Nick Cave's documentary, One More Time with Feeling, about the loss of his fifteen-year old son, Arthur, in 2015; Inspired by the album, The Skeleton Key, and the book, The Sick Bag Song, and I'm going to see Nick Cave in June. 

The last time I saw him, I passed a copy of my first novel, The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, to a roadie in the hopes that they would pass it on to him. He's in there along with David Bowie. He's the doctor at the end of the novel. It was 2010, I believe, and back then he was a different person because his son was alive. His music was different. Everything was different.

From The Sick Bag Song:

"In a studio in Malibu, Johnny Cash sat down and played a song. He was partially blind and could barely walk. I was there. 
I saw a sick man pick up his instrument and be well.
With regret I have seen the opposite too. Pick, pick, pick.
I have seen well men pick up their instruments and be sick" (19).

It's our lack of longing that gets us in the end (35).

My words are my instrument. Thanking Nick Cave today for his words and his music. He sings, "I'm down here for your soul," but really, I think, We're down here for his soul.
    

How the birth of my son changed my life as a writer, & 5 tips for making it work

I even had another MFA student tell me that I couldn’t do both--motherhood and novelist.  “You can’t have it all,” he said. 

Batman

After my son was born, I realized that my former view of the world was incomplete.  I had only thought about my characters from the perspective of the child, but after I had my son, I understood the fears and complexities of motherhood.  I had never loved another person as much as I loved my son.  I was terrified of what the world might do to him.  I understood “mama bear”.  I understood that I had to protect him, that he was my responsibility.  I revised my first novel manuscript with this new perspective.  Mind you, before his birth, this ms. had been rejected by hundreds of agents, and it took me a long time to fully understand and revise the book based on the gravity and miracle of this new perspective.  (I hardly had time to take a shower.) 

My revised novel had a depth and perspective that had been lacking in earlier drafts.  

            My son opened my eyes.  He made me a better writer and human being.  I remember first talking to an agent in 2006, walking back and forth with him in my arms, hoping that maybe this agent would be the one.  (She would be, but not for another two years!  ... long story, and lots of rejections along the way.)  

When I got my first book deal, my son was just three, and we were

Fun in NYC with my former editor, Sarah Knight.

at the beach together.  He was screaming, "Yay, Mom!"  We spent a lot of time at the library, so he was thrilled at the idea of seeing my book in our library.  (As was I.)  Then, we went to New York City and he met my editor.  That was pretty amazing!  At my first book-launch party, he came up on stage with me while I read from The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors.  Today, he's a voracious reader and creative writer in his own right.  At ten years old, he's gotten to meet scores of writers; he's also had the opportunity to listen to panels on setting, character, and everything in between... and he enjoyed it.  He also read my second novel, Above Us Only Sky, and I'm relieved to say that he liked it.  Having my son read one of my novels is a "pinch me" thing.  Unbelievable.  

         My second novel, Above Us Only Sky, is dedicated to him.  He gave me new eyes with which to see the world.

            I had thought and I'd been told that motherhood would be a hurdle to being a successful novelist.  I even had another MFA student tell me that I couldn’t do both.  “You can’t have it all,” he said.  "You won't be able to do it."  He was wrong.  I can.  So can you!  Today, I'm published, and he's not.  Today, I balance the worlds of writer and mom.  They’re intertwined. There is nothing better than being my amazing son's mom, and I wouldn’t be the writer I am if it weren’t for him.  

Five Practical Tips for Being Mom and Writer
1. It seriously does take a village.  In order to write, I had to leave my house so that I wouldn't be distracted by everything: even if someone was watching my son, I'd start thinking about laundry and dishes and the two-hundred other things I needed to accomplish.  

Find a quiet retreat.  I had some neighbors who let me work in their house while they were at work.  It was free.  I was a half block from home, and I didn't have to buy anything or reek of coffee to work there.

2.  Don't beat yourself up.  You can only do so much, and your baby is only going to be a baby for so long.  It goes by way too fast.  Chances are, you won't be able to write every day, maybe not every week, and that's okay.  Family comes first!

3.  Whether you have postpartum depression OR you're the

happiest new mom on the block, make some mom friends.  Seek them out.  You'll sift through and find some keepers, and those keepers will end up saving you in a million ways, and if you're like me, your friendships will last a lifetime.  As your child gets older, maybe all the kids will have a playdate at Kim's house, and the next day, it's your house, and the next day it's Annie or Marie's house.  The fact is that you'll have some time to write, and your son or daughter will have lifelong friends.

4.  When you have time to yourself, WRITE.  Don't do the dishes.  You can do those later.  Don't write bills.  Do those later.  You're the ultimate multi-tasker.  You know it!  You got this!

5.  As a professor once told me: If you only write one page a day, you've written 365 pages that year.  That's a novel.  Don't stress.  Write.  Revise. Query.  Repeat.  Write.  Revise.  Query.  Repeat.    

"Here comes the sun, and I say, it's all right!!!!!!!!!"

The tourists are back, and this year with their arrival, I have also received my FIRST PASS Pages for my novel, ABOVE US ONLY SKY.

This is the final step before the book goes to print for the first time for the Advanced Reader copies, also known as galleys.  These first soft printings will be sent to independent booksellers and other important folk in the book industry.  We'll also be hoping to garner reviews from other novelists and reviewers.

I still do not have a set publication date, but we should have galleys soon, and I am looking forward to enjoying this summer.  Relaxing, working on something new!!!

This is my third year living at the beach.
I have finally become a "summer loving" girl.  When I write

ISBN #

on the beach, I am really focused, my mind is clear (unless some asshole is blaring a boom box or climbing on a sand dune or flicking cigarette butts on the sand).  But when it's good and clean and pure, it's phenomenal.  I guess that "clean" is the word.  I can focus.  Clear my cluttered mind.  Ahhhh.

READ MORE ABOUT Above Us Only Sky at www.micheleyoungstone.com

Who's Hot for Teacher?

Teaching is NOTHING like this.

It ought to be Teacher Appreciation week every week, but as it now stands, it's this week, May 6th through 10th!  That said, I'll state the obvious.  Teachers make ridiculously low wages.  I speak from experience.  I taught middle and high school for eight years.  I passed all those national and state tests, and I had my master's degree in my specialty area.   My husband, who has a bachelor's degree and works in the corporate world, kept getting pay raises.  I did not.


What did I get?  
1.  Less autonomy.  I had to have my lesson plans approved.  
2.  Less creative input.  I eventually memorized every eighth grade standard of learning because I was required to write it on the board with the day's "schedule."  
3.  A time clock.  Punch in and punch out.  
4.  Teacher work days, days I needed to grade, but was required to

Can you imagine teaching in heels?

attend seminars that had nothing to do with my job.  
5.  Distrust from my superiors, who would take a child's word over mine, and who would make me keep a child who was disrupting my class right there in the classroom with the rest of my students.  
6.  Longer school calendars for the same pay.
7.  The expectation that I should work LONG after the school day had ended.
8.  A growing wage gap between myself and my peers.
9.  More tests to administer.  More accountability.  Less input.
10.  Burned out.  I left teaching to pursue my dream of writing.

This is what we want.

When I first went back to school to get my MFA in creative writing, I remember taking night classes and grading my students' essays on my fifteen minute break during my 7 to 9:40 class.  I was never without a stack of papers in my hands.  I graded papers on weekends.  I remember one weekend, laying on the beach in Nags Head and a gust of wind blew my students' papers across the sand.  I scurried after them.  Fortunately, so did the other folks on the

beach.  We gathered up the moist sandy pages.  If it were a work of fiction, I might toss them to the wind.  I don't know, but as it was, I worried about how those stapled sheets of paper looked and how I'd explain handing them back in that condition.  "Ms. Young has a life outside of school?"  They'd be confused.  

I couldn't buy beer or wine at the grocery store without getting odd

looks.  I was a teacher.  I was held to a higher moral code but once again, paid a pittance for my efforts.  

I LOVED my students.  Otherwise, I wouldn't have lasted as long as I did.  

Teachers are college-educated state and private employees who spend the greater part of their days with our children.  And you know, as well as I do, our children are wonderful and special, and our teachers, whose classrooms are too crowded and who are underpaid, who have to deal on a daily basis with discipline issues and oftentimes stressed parents, need a little love.

Yes, they only have this one week, and NO, it's not enough... so, as this year winds to a close, do something thoughtful and kind for your child's teacher or for a teacher friend.  

Say THANK YOU.    

Brew Pub Recommendation

The Brewing Station, mp 8.5 just past the Wright Brother's Memorial on the sound side of the Bypass.  Not only is the beer brewed on site, but the brewery is the east coast's first wind-powered brewery!  The Pub has been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, AND the building is a work-of-art.  Make sure to look up when you get inside, and check out the pirate ship in the enclosed outside area, complete with corn hole and stage.  This is a local and tourists' favorite.  You will DEFINITELY be back for more..