On Simmer

Boston is a sauna today. One must first move the air in order to walk outside. Our porches are finally stained and attempting to dry in 88% humidity.

Yesterday I had a meeting with my editor about a cozy mystery series I started five years ago at the challenge of a friend who is a book publisher. They’re called The Esther Jackson Eliot Mysteries and they center on a character who is a former art professor. Based in Truth-Or-Consequences, New Mexico, the books are all about community.

At the time of my friend’s challenge, I wrote about 50 pages and let it go. But the books have been on simmer ever since, and something let me know that it was time to turn up the heat on this series so I sent it to my editor. He waxed eloquent and helped show me myself as an author so I’m going back into writing these again.

Those of you who know me know that I write a series I call The Spiritual Adventures of Mex Stone. I’m in the midst of my seventh novel in that series. These novels are designed to act as spiritual teachers. Mex is an intuitive investigator, and she solves her cases by communing with her Inner Voice whom she calls Spirit. Mex travels all over the world for her cases.

And, you know, the books I write about her work on simmer as well. I get a basic idea for the next one, do research, and then let the whole thing simmer on a back burner in my mind. Then, one day, it’s time to move the pot of the book to the front burner and burn up with keyboard because simmer’s over and I’m cooking with gas.

Don’t be surprised at simmer, my friend. More things are created this way than we even realize! I didn’t know that something I started five years ago was ready for cooking till it was ready for cooking. Never doubt that “simmer” is where a lot of projects need to be whilst you grow, heal, change and otherwise get ready for cooking time.

So Many Books, So Little Time

The phrase in my title was on a button my mother gave me. It’s how I feel about books. There are so, so many of them and not enough time to read all I want to read.

Over the years, I’ve come up with a way to decide whether I’ll order a book or not. Unless a book is on a subject of my current research interests which range far and wide, I wait for three recommendations from people I know. Three, at least.

This weeds out the eccentricities of varied reading tastes. For example, I’m not a wild fan of science fiction so if a science fiction book is recommended to me three times, I definitely investigate it.

If the book is a spiritual book, I ask all of the three recommenders to tell me why. Spiritual books work best for me when they address right where I am in my own spiritual process at the time. I read the Abraham-Hicks books because they helped me take a huge leap forward when I read them.

If the book is fiction, I ask the recommenders to tell me what they think I’d like about the book. I read the Ken Follett masterpieces The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End because of recommendations.

I know people who are so busy these days that reading is a thing of the past for them. I can’t imagine living that way. I’m never without a book to read, never. There are too many wonderful things to be found in books for me not to be reading something all the time.

So yes, there are so many books. And yes, there is too little time. So what? Keep reading. I am.

A Good Place to Stop

I’ve spent the last few months working with an editor on my novels. We’ve cleaned up some less-than-ideal writing habits, fixed some unclear plot entanglements, changed some overused words. I was working on the third book when I realized that I’d changed the same thing three times.

Then I remembered something my favorite ex-husband, a painter, said to me years ago.

“A good painting is never finished; there’s just a good place to stop.”

I stopped editing. I’ll let the book sit for a few days and then I’ll reread it to be certain I got to that good stopping place. I think I did.

The thing is, in creating anything—dinner, a novel, a painting, whatever, there does come a point in the process when one reaches a good place to stop.

The art is to know when that place is.

The next time you’re working on anything, if you find that you’ve made a change, then changed it back, then changed it back again, that’s the place. Stop. Do something different and let it sit. Go back to it when you can. My guess is that you’ll discover your own delightful stopping place.

What Does Andy Like?

I am fan of 60 Minutes, are you? Last week one of the co-hosts asked their viewers, “Have you ever wondered what Andy likes?” Andy, of course, is Andy Rooney, the resident curmudgeon of 60 Minutes. Bless his heart—in real life, the man gets paid to complain.

Last Sunday, however, Andy—Complainer-At-Large—took us to the New York Antiquarian Book Fair, which he LOVED. I’m with Andy Rooney. I love books. More than 20 years ago, my mom gave me a button which says, “So Many Books—So Little Time.” I still feel this way.

I’ve probably owned thousands of books in my lifetime. Periodically, I get a hankering for clearer shelves so I go through them and give some away or sell them. Then, I buy more. For me, a motto might read: More Books Is Better Books.

One thing Andy said on Sunday was that some books are just meant to sit on our shelves. We don’t have to read them to enjoy them. I have owned several in this category. One of my all-time favorites was a Nicole Hollander book of Sylvia cartoons. I owned it for the title alone which was My Weight Is Always Perfect for my Height—Which Varies. I didn’t need to read the book. The title said it all.

I have some special, old books that bring me joy just to see them. One is my great grandmother’s first edition of Emerson’s Essays. A friend has already asked that I leave it to him in my will! Another is an 1848 Holy Bible. In it is a card in that same great grandmother’s handwriting. It’s addressed to my mom and it says:

Dear Linda, this is your great-great-grandmother’s Bible. I thought you might like to have it.

Her name was Anna Ripley Kline.
Her daughter’s name was Sophia Jane Kline Mooney.
Her daughter’s name was Lucia Mabel Mooney Burton.
Her daughter’s name is Lucia Burton Jackson.
Her daughter’s name is Linda Jackson.

My mother’s handwriting takes over as she adds her married name:

Falk.
Her daughter’s name is Susan Lucia Falk Corso.

That’s six generations of reading women. I know that if he could hold the book in his hand, Andy would love it.