CONCLUSION

Sometimes I Forget I’m a Writer

“Write what should not be forgotten.”

~Isabel Allende

Lives Charmed came out in the fall of 1998, and I kept at it. By 2016, I’d been working on a memoir about Jesse and my divorce, stealing minutes and hours whenever possible while running my retreat and ghostwriting/editing business. Too close to my own material to see when enough was enough, I’d amassed over two hundred thousand words. Painstakingly and too urgently, I edited out half, believing and hoping—but not at all sure when I let my mind go there—that it was finally time for “The End.”

Streamlining is intoxicating. Killing your darlings, a high for an organizational freak like me. But pieces were lost in the frenzied pace—some of the heart, the raw emotion, the essence of what I’d started out to share. In trying to do too much, I’d shortchanged the whole. I no longer loved her. But it was too late to back out. My agent had already scheduled meetings with publishers later that week. As I packed my bags for LAX, for a book I no longer believed in, my friend Martha Beck listened to my concerns and echoed my hesitation. “Don’t even go,” she warned over the phone. “Cancel your trip!”

Remind me not to ignore Martha’s advice in the future.

“I love the publishing stories,” one CEO/publisher exclaimed. “I want more of those!”

“But it’s not a writing book,” I said. “I put those stories throughout to highlight the struggle of two artists trying to make it, but this is really a divorce memoir.”

The editor sitting to her left was going through her own messy divorce and didn’t want me to close the book with a love story. “I want you alone in the end,” she said. (Challenge: I’d just gotten engaged to my now-husband.) “Can you write less of the happy-ending stuff and more of those writing debacles?”

Holy fuckballs.

On the same day across town, a second publisher said, “Cut the writing stories. I’m dying for more divorce details! Can I see a picture of Jesse online? He’s so bad-boy cute!” Four of us stood around a computer and looked up pictures of my old family. Surreal much?

Reminiscent of past rejections for Lives Charmed (“You need more famous people!” “You need more unknowns!”), none of this made sense. Gutted, I called Carol, Diane, Betsy, and Danielle sobbing on my way to LaGuardia.

When you can’t see the forest through the trees, get the hell out of the forest. It was hot and dry and dusty in there, and I couldn’t smell the sky. Over the next few weeks, my feelings of disappointment turned to an ache to look up, away from the page and the screen. To feel the clouds across my face and see new vistas and old friends. And sometimes . . . often . . . to do absolutely nothing.

Nothing. Why didn’t anyone tell me how nice it is doing nothing? Soon, days went by without thinking about my book. There was a lot of sitting under trees, watching insects fly, napping. To my shock, I’d somehow let go, given my book back, at least for now, to God, my muse, the ethers—whatever. You guys figure it out and then let me know. Or don’t. I’m good.

“You mean that thing you’ve been working on forever?” friends said.

“Yep. If I’m happy anyway, maybe that’s the point.” And then I poured myself another glass of hibiscus tea for my next appointment of feet in grass. No one knew what to say, which was also lovely. Sometimes not planning or knowing feels like floating.

The dogs dug it. Our walks were twice as long. Diane didn’t even try and hide her glee. Our phone chats rambled without adherence to a watched clock. With Tosh in college, my time was freer than it had been since our teens.

My sister, Carol, of course, had the best response. The one I sometimes hear myself tell a client: “No writing is ever wasted. It’s healed your divorce. It’s healed your kid. It’s healed you. It’s made you a better storyteller. It’s made you a better teacher, a more compassionate person. Trust that.” Even when Carol whispered, “Perhaps its job is done,” I agreed. Perhaps so.

And then I felt even lighter. Daily. Hourly. Pretty much all the time. Was this the answer all along . . . to not write? To not give a flying fuck? To lose the thing you think you need more than air itself to find your breath? I didn’t know this unattached, wordless Linda existed. But I liked her very much. Her freewheeling self hung around and made my life awesome for half a year.

Ernest Hemingway said that there was nothing to writing: “All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Without the words and open wounds, I figured the new me might be here to stay, which had become A-OK by me.

Then one day, a thought floated through: I used to be a writer. Is that passion gone forever? Because I think I’m starting to miss her.

I’d forgotten. But I was remembering.

Then one morning: Why am I awake at 5:00 AM? That’s my old life. The girl who never slept. Because she was wired and WRITING.

That’s when I heard them. The words. Followed by others. They were back as if they’d never left. And the odd thing was . . . they felt good.

Oh. Oh? Oh! My. Lord. There you are! You’re here! And I’m here! And I’m not bleeding or tired! God, it’s good to see you. But . . . listen here. If this continues, we’re going to go to bed early and play by some new rules because that old no-sleep thing and no-time-for-friends thing . . . that was crackers, and we’re too old for that!

I was grinning, though. Real wide. I almost stopped to ask the words where they’d been, but I was already headed for my desk. They could keep their secrets. My desire to write was the only why I needed. Grateful they’d been gone, I was elated they were back. I couldn’t wait to find out what they had to share. It seemed I had some stories to finish.

I lit a candle. Took a deep breath and thanked the muse. Then I entered the trees. And I started again.

THANK YOU for spending your precious time with me, with us! What a fantastic surprise it was for me that morning to find that the divorce memoir I thought I was returning to was, in fact, the impetus for the book you hold in your hands.

Sometimes we need time away to let the pieces—and even the universe—fall into place. Many of the clawing-my-way-to-the-middle writing stories I’ve shared here were originally scripted for that memoir of my divorce and subsequent midlife mess. When Beautiful Writers stepped forth and introduced herself, I loved her right away. I hope you love her too.

Trust your delays. Creativity is mysterious. “Until it’s done, it’s not done,” says your book. Writing time is never wasted time. With space and patience, the chaos and confusion and blind alleys you run down start to make sense. You’re better for all the back-and-forth. Blessings in hindsight.

Lives Charmed had some stellar successes, but it did not become a runaway bestseller. That’s a roller-coaster tale for the next book. (You didn’t think we’d go gently into that good night, did you? My bestselling author friends—some from upcoming episodes!—will be back to share the magic and mayhem of our journeys after publication.) But the process of giving life to my first book opened countless doors and utterly transformed my world. For starters, I got to leave the toilet scrubbing job I’d taken at Trader Joe’s market on an extended stay in Los Angeles while promoting the book. As much as I appreciated going from $12 an hour to a writer’s living wage, I would come to miss those customers. In a surprise plot twist, the constant stream of people in my checkout line was so dear I found that I deeply loved humanity after all. Another lesson I’d have missed had I not published.

Birthing that book radically altered how I saw me—what I was capable of—and how others saw me. Through publishing, I was embraced by a loving national media, befriended authors whom I’d long idolized, and became the features editor for a magazine for years, where I had the profound pleasure to write celebrity cover stories through the same spiritual and environmental lens I’d been using. It wasn’t long before I was ghostwriting bestsellers for world-changers, a hard (omg!) but fun gig. And, Lord, did those connections and that financial stability come in handy when Jesse fell in love with someone else and bailed, and I had to save the kid and the “farm.” I crawled back to my favorite childhood place, Carmel, and launched my retreat business. Once again, in helping others tell their tales, I was the one who was saved: kid, farm, and all.

Along the way, I’ve lived, loved, published a green book, released a top iPhone dating app because, well, that seemed logical, and spoken on the TEDWomen stage (about said app). And, of course, I stumbled into hosting a podcast that has led me straight to you.

As I look back on it all, I still get teary-eyed thinking of the scared college dropout I once was who was terrified that she’d let her parents down. Still, to this day, when a writer with her master’s or PhD looks to me for support, I think, How on God’s green earth did I get so lucky?

Because I had the ache, I had what it takes. And so do you.

One of the things I’m most grateful for is how Lives Charmed led me out to the forest of New Mexico, where I befriended Thomas One Wolf.* Writing that book taught me how to channel my power and launched my voice as a megaphone for Mama Earth, the cause dearest to my heart. I’ve since had the privilege of meeting, working with, and interviewing inspiring people who are changing the world thanks to their words. In helping magnify their voices (often influencing them to add environmental themes to their books), I’ve found that the power of our pens has supercharged ink. How often have we heard that “the pen is mightier than the sword”? Never doubt that your words have the power to travel far beyond the confines of two covers.

In closing, the book in your hands is printed on Forest Stewardship Council® paper made from sustainably managed forests. Choosing BenBella Books as my publisher was the easiest decision—in great part because of their enthusiasm for my desire to print on FSC paper and to joint-donate a portion of our royalties to FSC’s tree-saving foundation. The most exciting call of my life came recently when my contacts at FSC, a group I’d watched for many years from afar, asked me to be an FSC Ambassador. Within twenty-four hours, they’d loaded my picture and bio onto their website and told me that one FSC lead had been so motivated after our call that he’d been awake most of the night. Imagine that. The brainstorming we did together to help save forests caused him to lose sleep. I didn’t see that one coming. But you know what? It may take half a lifetime to find your people, but they’re out there. It takes as long as it takes.

I hope you’ll follow my tree-hugging adventures on social media and over on BookMama.com. And that you’ll consider publishing your books on FSC paper or other eco-friendly options. I look forward to hearing about your journey.

For now, I’ll close with a question.

Do you sometimes forget you’re a writer? Ahhh. Unclench your stomach. Breathe into your gut. And know that anytime you need encouragement, my writerly friends and I are here on the page and on the airwaves, ready to remind you of this heartfelt truth: You are a B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L. writer. Full stop.

Your stories are alive. Your desire has purpose. And your soul knows the song. Follow what you know, one small step at a time. It’s my hunch that one day you will likewise wake up with all of the clarity you’ll need.

Write on!

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

~ Carl Sagan, scientist, astronomer, author

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*Thomas is no longer with us. But I recently discovered (and fell in love with) a treasure of a coffee table book, Spirit Walk, by Julie Morley devoted to Thomas One Wolf’s wisdom.