Onwriting

I’ve invented a new verb: onwriting. It’s when a novelist ‘finishes’ their novel but can’t actually bear to let the characters go, so she keeps writing their story. I’m currently about 140 pages into the onwriting of Orvieto and I can’t seem to stop. 

Yesterday, I realized that onwriting is actually a good thing, and not just some weird, unbalanced hobby of the crazy novelist. It’s keeping me writing fit - working out daily at my keyboard, honing my comedic timing, my dialog, my storytelling, and thus playing a vital role in my writing health, just like going to the gym is crucial for my physical wellbeing. So it’s actually important and I don’t have to stop. Sweet! Because those characters: did I mention I can’t let them go?

When I’m not onwriting, blogging can play the same role. I realize it doesn’t really matter to me what I blog about, I just want to write. I want to make people laugh, and think, and nod their heads yes, that is exactly how it feels to be a human on the planet in this time, and feel that sense of connection that a good writer can generate by distilling ordinary human experience into the perfect paragraph. I want to write gorgeously, so I stop my readers in their tracks, so they want to re-read my sentences because they are so beautiful. Like any skill, that stuff doesn’t just flow out of the pen unbidden. You have to work at it. Really hard. Every day. Onwriting is building sweat equity on the page. And I’m not nearly at gorgeous yet.

I’m in Los Angeles with my High School Junior on our first trip to look at colleges. I splashed out on a hotel on Venice Beach so she’d have the best experience possible. From the first time she saw L.A. last summer, she knew she wanted to be here. Flying in this time just confirmed it for her, something about the shimmering sprawl, the endless waves of city fanning out in all directions, no edges in sight even from a thousand feet up. I pointed out the Hollywood sign to her, and we tried to identify the actual Downtown among a number of downtowns. So immense, diverse, and exciting for a kid who’s grown up in the bubble of Marin.

Ten minutes on Venice Beach and she had new shades, a new nose ring, and a new town. She doesn’t know which college or what major yet, but she knows she wants to be here. And I think she’s right. L.A. would not be for me, but our kids have this strange knack for being utterly unlike us. Who is this kid? My frequent thought when she was small. Now it’s more like look who this kid is! I love her for her excitement, her thrill at the new and adventurous, her easy certainty about what’s right for her. 

We’ve always travelled well together. Me, I get excited the moment I smell jet fuel from the 101. She’s a little less thrilled about the process, but loves now to be elsewhere. And loves to go home. After annual trips to Ireland since birth, she’s a pretty savvy traveler and can find her way anywhere. I rely on her iPhone navigational skills to help me get around foreign cities. Last year she directed me out of Florence on a busy Sunday afternoon. Yesterday she got me seamlessly from LAX to our hotel. But there’s always something to learn.

As we passed through the checkpoint exit of the rental car place, the attendant asked me to sign one last piece of paper. What’s this now? I asked, as I signed. Existing damage to the car, he said. I hadn’t even checked it. I could have been signing anything. Ok ma’am, you just signed away your daughter. We will take her now. Thank you, have a nice day.

Always read what they’re asking you to sign before you sign, I advised her as we drove away laughing.