Things I wish I'd written

I heard an interview with Jeanette Winterson on NPR the other day, and knew I had to get her book, "Why be Happy When You Could Be Normal?"

I'm only on page 25, but I've already highlighted passages and tonight in the bath there was one that had me saying, "Yes. THIS."

Here it is:

What you are pursuing is meaning - a meaningful life. There's the hap - the fate, the draw that is yours, and it isn't fixed, but changing the course of the stream , or dealing new cards, whatever metaphor you want to use - that's going to take a lot of energy. There are times when it will go so wrong that you will barely be alive, and times when you realize that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms.

Hells to the yes. It took me 40 years to realize that, but better late than never.

Rich Handsome Stalker dreamboats - Oh My!

A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, bought me Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James, for my birthday. Luckily I could read it on my lovely new iPad, so my daughter didn't see me reading it. This is not one I would ever recommend to a young woman- or any woman, for that matter.

Let's take the writing first. I know this was first written as fan fiction and then published by a small press. Did an editor ever see these pages. Ever? Or even a critique group? Was everyone so distracted by the sex scenes that they didn't notice the constant lip-biting, how "Oh My" became Possibly the Most Annoying Signal for Female Arousal Ever, and the dear Lord if I hear about this one more time I'm gonna throttle the beyotch "Inner Goddess" who alternated between gymnastics and dance moves whenever it looked like sex was a possibility. And this is was often, let me tell you. They don't call this book "Mommy P*rn" for nothing. My "Inner Goddess" is bordering on Traumatic Brain Injury from banging my head against the wall in frustration from the overuse of banal words and phrases. Has this woman never heard of a thesaurus?

Do I sound like I'm ranting? Well, hold on to your hats, people, because Auntie Sarah has only just got started. Now I'm getting to what I really HATE about this book.

It doesn't surprise me at all that this started as Twilight fan fiction. I was always happy that my daughter was bored with Twilight after reading the first chapter and never read any of the other books, because I forced myself to read the whole series and the fourth book had me absolutely enraged. The whole series bothered me because Bella was such a weak and undeveloped character who was defined by the boys and how young girls were falling in love with the idea of this "love" between her and Edward, which had all the characteristics of an abusive relationship. Like hello young teens - when a guy breaks into your bedroom to watch you sleep? THAT IS NOT ROMANTIC!!! That is EFFING CREEPY! CALL THE POLICE AND GET A RESTRAINING ORDER!!! And book 4 - where she ends up bruised and brutalized after sex but it's okay because they waited and did it in the sanctity of marriage...OMFG. That is SO NOT a healthy message for teenage girls to be reading and idealizing as a love relationship.

So along comes this Fifty Shades of Grey (oh, yeah, she actually calls him "Fifty Shades" as a nick name) which takes Edward and puts him on steroids. He's handsomer ('cause he's not so pale). He's younger by at least a century. He's richer and self-made to boot. He's even more tortured and broody with a dark sekrit past. And boy, is he even more effed up and creepier. He REALLY DOES STALK Ana. Right after they meet he has a PI investigate her so he can just show up at her place of work. He buys the company she gets a job at because she won't work for him. When she flies across the country to visit her mother because she needs some time and space to think, guess what? He just happens to show up in the bar where she's having drinks with Mom - and he's got a hotel room in that hotel. Does Ana think this weird? Well, a little but...it means he LOVES HER SO MUCH.

NO! NO! NO! IT DOESN'T!!!!!

This is what I hate about the whole Twilight phenomenon and now this Mommy S & M crap that it has spawned. Right now, women's rights are under attack from all sides and we have a generation of teen girls who are reading this stuff and thinking that a man being abusively controlling is ROMANTIC. That it's a sign of the ULTIMATE LOVE.

Maybe it's because I've been in enough dysfunctional relationships that I know both the compelling seductiveness and the dark, dehumanizing destructiveness that comes when the initial glow has worn off. I know how hard it is to rebuild your sense of self when you've had it destroyed and I hate that any woman or any girl should think that this is romance. That cutting you off from your friends is romance. That the guy having female friends but that not allowing the woman to have male friends because he's jealous is a sign of love. It's not. It's a sign of being controlling and abusive.

Well, that's my rant over for now. I'm off to write some more empowering books books for teens.

Travels with Steinbeck

As anyone who follows me on Goodreads might have ascertained by now, I've got a bad case of reading ADD at the moment. My "currently reading" list has 5 or 6 books on it, and that doesn't include the books I have lying around that I pick up and peruse because I'm waiting to add them to the currently reading list. One of those is Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck.




I'm having a major mid-life love affair with Steinbeck at the moment, something I talk about today in a guest post at the Nerdy Book Club. This morning, I picked up Travels with Charley and on the first page found some words of wisdom that inspired me as I'm beginning the first draft of a new W-I-P.

A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality,uniqueness. A journey is a person itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing , and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the glass-bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this, a journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.

YES! I thought. YES! YES! YES! Not just about the physical journeys. Not just about marriage (but a zillion times yes to that, too.)
But also, I thought, substitute a novel for a trip and that's how I feel every time I start writing a new book.

One of the aspects of craft I've been working very hard to learn more about is plot and structure, because I've always tended to be more of a pantser. In fact, another thing I'm doing today is starting an online plot workshop with the awesome (and hilarious)Rhonda Helms. The software program Scrivener is a practical tool that's helped me develop my plotting skills.

But ultimately, no matter how much I try to plot in advance, I still have to write my way into the book. That's why I've become such an ardent believer in the "write it as fast as possible shitty first draft." Because as much as I might try to control the thing in advance, I have set myself free to experience the journey before it finds me and reveals its personality.

Thanks again, John.

A letter to my "Wonderful Child"

Last weekend I attended the wonderful retreat for published writers and illustrators,Kindling Words. I credit KW with saving my writing life back in 2006, when I was going through a case of the second book blues so severe that I wondered if I should give up this dream of being a writer after all and go get a "real" job, just like I'd done in my 20's and 30's because everyone said I should.

Kindling Words is a place where I go to rejuvenate, to be inspired, to learn craft, to commune with fellow creative souls. It's the perfect kick off for my writing year. This year I finished the revisions for my latest YA novel to send to my agent, while in the back of my brain the idea for a middle grade was percolating.




On the first night of KW, we always have an activity to get our creative juices flowing. Two years ago, it was a fantastic and fun African drum circle.

This year, we had an acting professor from Circle in the Square lead us in some exercises to get us in touch with ourselves and each other. I was a drama geek in high school, so I usually love this kind of stuff, but the minute he mentions "child exercise" I tensed.

The exercise was to find our "wonderful child." And I tried to do that, and I couldn't. And I ended up lying on the floor in the ballroom of a Vermont Inn sobbing. I told the professor that I don't have a Wonderful Child - but that I've worked very hard to be a Wonderful Grownup, and I like who I am now.

I have to apologize to Mary Lee Donovan, of Candlewick Press (Sorry Mary Lee!) because she had to do the next exercise with me, where we had to look into each other's eyes without speaking for many minutes, because the eyes are the windows of the soul. My eyes were all red and watery and I can't imagine looking into my soul at that point was a whole lot of fun.


The community at KW is so amazing. I had so many people come up to me afterward and tell me that I DO have a Wonderful Child. It made me want to cry all over again, but for a different reason.


The the next morning, I wrote this letter to my Wonderful Child, the one I couldn't find:


Dear Wonderful Child:

Last night I was sent on another mission to find you, and as usual, it ended in tears. I know you understand why I my already tense shoulder muscles went into spasm when I heard the words “child exercise” and acid production in my stomach went into overdrive, causing reflux my throat. You get it, because you were there. You know that when sexual abuse is perpetrated on a child so young they don’t even have the words to express what is happening to them, the post-traumatic stress effects last a lifetime, through drug use, a suicide attempt, bulimia, abusive relationships, and untold hours and too much money to want to think about worth of therapy. You might think that you’ve “dealt with it” but then all it takes is the student reaction to the story about a pedophile football coach in PA or hearing people making ignorant comments at Virtus workshop you have to attend in order to help out for your daughter’s musical theater production at the local Catholic church, or a guided exercise at a writing retreat and BAM! You’re right back in that place of horror and pain, the place where you’re a small, frightened child, scared in the darkness without a voice.

But the thing is, that’s not who you are now. Because you’re not a victim, you’re a survivor. You’ve worked hard. Even when all your bricks feel down and you had build them up again, one brick at a time, slowly and painfully, you never quit. And it’s paid off. Because now you do have a voice. That’s what finally , at age 38, allowing yourself to pursue your dream of being a writer gave you. And you use that voice in your political columns, to speak out when you see injustice, speaking for those who still might not have one. In your novels, you write for the kids like you, the ones who feel defective, like there’s something wrong with them that can never be cured, who feel like the wound that was inflicted on them, usually through no fault of their own, has left them too flawed and scared to ever find success, happiness and love.

You write because you want them to know that they’re wrong. You write because you want them to know that there’s hope. You promise to never lie to them, ever, because you know that denial is one of the most destructive weapons adults use on children. So you don’t pretend that the road will be easy, but you let them know that survival and, better yet, happiness, is possible.

You do that because in possibility lies hope. And hope will help them get through the hard times now, so they, too, can grow up to become adults they like better.



I might not be able to find my Wonderful Child in exercises like the one we did, but she's the voice within me when I write.

Dear Teens: A little advice about relationships and trust

So there was this story in the New York Times today Young, in Love and Sharing Everything, including a Password. Apparently:

 It has become fashionable for young people to express their affection for each other by sharing their passwords to e-mail,Facebook and other accounts. Boyfriends and girlfriends sometimes even create identical passwords, and let each other read their private e-mails and texts.

Already, I'm shaking my head and feeling all "get off my lawn", but I continue reading.

In a 2011 telephone survey, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 30 percent of teenagers who were regularly online had shared a password with a friend, boyfriend or girlfriend.

 SMH. I am reaching for my Tums and my box of Clairol Perfect 10. But wait, there's more!

Rosalind Wiseman, who studies how teenagers use technology and is author of “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” a book for parents about helping girls survive adolescence, said the sharing of passwords, and the pressure to do so, was somewhat similar to sex.

Sharing passwords, she noted, feels forbidden because it is generally discouraged by adults and involves vulnerability. And there is pressure in many teenage relationships to share passwords, just as there is to have sex.

“The response is the same: if we’re in a relationship, you have to give me anything,” Ms. Wiseman said.

And the part that made me go "WTF? Seriously, what are these kids ON?!!":

“It’s a sign of trust,” Tiffany Carandang, a high school senior in San Francisco, said of the decision she and her boyfriend made several months ago to share passwords for e-mail and Facebook. “I have nothing to hide from him, and he has nothing to hide from me.”

“That is so cute,” said Cherry Ng, 16, listening in to her friend’s comments to a reporter outside school. “They really trust each other.” 

Okay kids. Hold onto your hats. Auntie Sarah is about to rant.

Full disclosure: I am not an expert on relationships. I have been in...well, a LOT of dysfunctional relationships in the course of my forty-something years.

But let me give you the benefit of my many, many years of experience and therapy.*

Reading each other's emails and texts isn't intimacy. It's spying. It does not, actually imply that you trust each other. It reveals the exact opposite about your relationship.

Just like a fire, a relationship needs oxygen. It doesn't get that if you are stifling each other. Relationships work best when you are both your own person, confident in yourselves, each with your own interests and passions and your own private spaces. THEN you come together to share and reveal, slowly, gradually in a process that can take a lifetime if you are both thoughtful and evolving human beings. Therein lies the intimacy.

Anyone else find this article seriously depressing?




*This is one of the advantages of getting old if you get therapy. You learn things from your dysfunctional experiences as a youth and it enables you to live a happier life when everything is starting to sag and you're reaching for the Clairol Perfect 10 box. 

Why I enjoy revising my will

I met with my lawyer to revise my will yesterday. The last time I did it was in 2007, not long after my divorce was finalized. I figured given the acrimonious nature of my divorce, it probably was a good idea that I change my advance medical directive so that my ex no longer was the person who decided if they should pull the plug on me in the event I was incapacitated, or had power of attorney over my affairs.

When I signed that revised will,  I was so happy. The lawyer and the person who witnessed it said that they'd never seen someone so thrilled to be signing their last will and testament, but I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from me, because I'd organized things so that if anything happened to me, I knew everything was organized for my kids in what I hoped would be the best way possible, and with the values I'd tried to teach them while I was alive.

I was prompted into this revision by two things. Firstly, a tweet from Neil Gaiman linking to old blog post of his about literary trusts .  This was something I'd never thought about before. My literary legacy. When I did my 2007 will, I only had one book out. Now I have four out, not to mention eight years worth of published political columns, several essays, and many archive boxes full of unpublished work. So the literary executor became something I really needed to consider.

The other thing was that The Awesome Boyfriend, who I'd only been dating for a short time when I revised the will in 2007, is now a permanent and important part of mine and my kids' lives. We aren't married, but if anything happened to me, I wanted to make sure that the courts recognized that.

Looking back over my old will and thinking about the changes I wanted to make, made me appreciate how much my life has changed for the better in the last four years. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the crises that hit on a day to day basis (because OMG, they do) but sometimes it takes revising your will and looking death the face to make you realize that you've actually come a long way, baby.

If you haven't made a will, please don't put it off, especially if you have kids. It's SO important.

A little rant from the mom of an Aspie

On Boxing Day, the New York Times published a really lovely article about two college students with Asperger's Syndrome, Jack Robinson and Kirsten Lindsmith, and how they are navigating the difficulties of a relationship in which both of them have similar problems reading social cues. I don't say "lack of empathy, because as the mother of an Asperger's son, I've found him to be extremely empathetic. It's just that he has a hard time reading faces and social cues, so he doesn't always know when you're upset unless it's VERY CLEAR. (Crying hysterically is usually a dead giveaway, but I try not to do that in front of my kids too often.)

I mean let's face it. It's hard enough to manage relationships when you're allegedly "neuro typical." How many of us have misinterpreted our partner's expressions or actions? *raises hand*

When my son was going through the diagnosis processes at age five, I pretty much knew it was Aspergers because it explained everything I'd been worried about since he was 18 months old perfectly. I read everything I could get my hands on, and although in some ways it was comforting, because I finally knew what I was dealing with and could take action to help him, instead of having all these amorphous worries, in other ways it created a whole host of new anxieties. I woke up at 3am, crying, and asking my now ex-husband, "Do you think he'll ever get married?" It wasn't the actually married part I worried about - it's that I want my son to have connections, because to me, human connection and relationships are the most important part of being on this planet, and I could already tell from observing him on the playground at school that unlike kids perhaps further along the spectrum, my son wanted them but couldn't figure out how to initiate them.

So I loved this article. It gave me hope.


But then I started seeing people making jokes about a correction that the New York Time posted afterwards.

Okay, I admit. It's kind of funny to see a "My Little Pony" correction in relation to a front page New York Times story.

BUT...here's the thing. I don't think the a lot of the people who are laughing about this understand why this correction is so important to Kirsten Lindsmith, who referred to Twilight Sparkle as the character she visualizes to cheer herself up when she feels sad or anxious. What they need to understand is that a person with AS could perseverate about a mistake like that for days. Months. For my writer friends, imagine you were featured on the front page of the New York Times and they got the name of your book wrong! Do you think you'd be laughing? I think not. I can just imagine the angsty phone calls to publicists and agents. "THE FRONT PAGE OF THE NEW YORK FREAKING TIMES AND THEY DIDN'T EVEN GET MY BOOK TITLE RIGHT!!!" *sobs* *reaches for tissues and chocolate*

So imagine you're Kristen and you have this safe place, a strategy that you have to help calm yourself and you just told the world about it and then...some reporter effed it up!! And now people are laughing about it when you try to make it right.

All I'm saying is, it's okay to have a chuckle. But at least while you're chuckling make an effort to understand.