Do you like being alone? Being alone with your work? Alone in your head. Do you like going to movies alone? Diners? Walking alone? Traveling by yourself. Are you alone when you’re at a party? Making small talk? Do you write when you can’t write. In your head, on the ceiling, the roof of your mouth?

Do you crave solitude?

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Real breakthroughs. Bread slicing machine dividing a loaf of rye  in perfectly sized slices, a wall of dominoes falling like soldiers, sinking a golf ball in a cup, watching it circle the cup, thwap, thwap, plunk. It’s when you write ten pages, your back howling, your carpals tunneling, time dissolving like the closing shot of a corny movie. You are genius. Every moment is yours, every word that climbs onto your page, that lingers, stays. This is your time. Look both ways before your cross the street.

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Today I want to talk about fake breakthroughs. A fake breakthrough comes when you are writing and you are seized with the sudden belief that putting your novel in the present tense will fix EVERYTHING. Or when you turn your main character into an animal spirit. It’s when you start ripping everything apart because you’re sure you know how to fix it.  It’s when you think you deserve a cigarette. When you pat yourself on the back. Or tell someone you think you had a breakthrough.

Tell us about a breakthrough, real or imagined.

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I had a reading over the weekend at a local Barnes & Noble. It was a Saturday morning and I figured I’d be lucky if two or three people showed. There were seven or eight, plus me, my mom, and one other Bridge lady. We just sat around and talked about mothers and daughters, and assisted living options in the area.

Do you go to readings? What are you looking for?

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How is everyone? I missed you.  I‘ve been on vacation. I read a history of the founding fathers and My Brilliant Friend, which a million people told me I HAD to read. Whenever lots of people tell me I have to read something or see a movie, I develop an immediate aversion to it. THis has been going on for some time. In the fifth grade, everyone said I would love the history teacher because he was so “cool.”  I hated him. I know it’s perverse, as if I’m so unknowable and unpredictable. I loved the novel.

What do you recommend?

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I’m going on vacation for a week. This is the first vacation in a long time when I won’t be working on the book. Not complaining. I was happy to give every ounce of time to working on The Bridge Ladies. The truth is I’m not that good at  enjoying myself or relaxing. Having a project is like having an imaginary friend. At least that’s how I feel.

Do you have an imaginary friend?

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Do you suffer from depression? Low-grade? Clinical? Bi-polar? Mood-swings? Anxiety? Mixed-state? Are you agitated, angry, paranoid, hostile, passive-aggressive? Do you alienate friends and family, are you bitter, resentful, full of schadenfreude? Do your turn on people who try to help you? TUrn on yourself? Is there a voice or many in your head, a drum, a thrum, a constant stream of nasty as fuck comments?

Are you a writer?

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It dawns on me that I’ve probably devoted 100 posts to rejection and not a single one on acceptance. This is says everything about me and the church of expecting the worst. This post is about that moment when you open the letter, the email or answer the phone and the news is good. What happens when they say yes? Yes, we want your poem. Yes, we’d like to publish your story. Or one of the greatest moments in an agent’s life when you call a client and say those four magic words: we have an offer.

Tell us about your first acceptance.

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How many times do you submit something before you grab a shovel? How much rejection can you take? And do you give up because you’ve come to believe that the motherfuckers are right and the novel isn’t really ready for publication, or do you put it away feeling that a masterpiece has been buried like the unknown soldier? When do you decide to workshop the novel, go to writers conferences, hire a freelance editor. Or start all over. I remember when I was applying to MFA programs, I was waiting to hear from four schools: Stanford, Iowa, Brooklyn and Columbia. Stanford: no. Iowa: no. Brookyn: no. I told myself that if Columbia didn’t accept me and if, as a result, I stopped writing, then I wasn’t much of a writer to begin with. It was that formulation that kept me going: no one, no institution, no agent, no editor could tell me if I wasn’t good enough. And if I did quit, if I did pack up my marbles and go home: so be it. The only one who can ultimately reject you is yourself. I got into Columbia so I didn’t have to test it. Thought after I got the degree, I stopped writing entirely for a very long time.

What could make you quit?  What keeps you going?

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You all know by now that all I truly believe in is hard work. That the moments of serendipity, or grace, or “inspiration” are borne of hard work. Steady work. Daily writing and hopefully for a few hours each time you sit down. That great line, image, simile, active verb doesn’t drop out of the sky. I don’t believe in luck when it comes to writing. That said, there are those rare and beautiful moments when a perfect phrase just seems to appear, when the perfect cliff hanger ends a chapter, when a canny transition gets you out of tight corner. And it’s those moments that make the whole fucking thing worth it.

Tell me about your transcendence.

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