Death of Good Mail

There was a time in the not so distant past when one of the highlights of the day was walking out to the mailbox, reaching inside and pulling out all kinds of fun stuff. Letters and cards from friends and family, cool catalogs, more letters and cards, unexpected missives from long-lost acquaintances, and more letters and cards.

Now there’s nothing in there but the most boring of bills, shiny ad campaigns that go straight into the recycling bin, and credit card offers by the dozens. The mailbox is now a mere receptacle for the useless and mundane. Hardly anything fun is found there anymore.

It’s found on our computers instead. Birthday greetings come via cyberspace. Long last friends find us on Facebook. Staying in touch with someone means emailing them. The Inbox is the new Mailbox. That thing at the end of my driveway, which used to be the bearer of glad tidings, holiday wishes, and glossy catalogs, is now the receptacle where the truly boring bills go (those you don’t even want to pay online), promotional pieces that hold as much attraction as a cup of hot chocolate on the Fourth of July, and of course the ceaseless offers to bury me in new credit cards.

The thing is, I am okay with that. I love trees. I hate overflowing landfills. Paperless commerce has its value. But I am not okay with is what I’m left with: truly useless stacks of paper that move from my boring mailbox to the recycling bin in a matter of minutes. Going to the mailbox is now a chore. It is the act of moving trash from one bin to another. And that is not fun.

I still catch myself still getting a wee bit excited when I reach my hand in: Maybe today will be different. Or I will watch my husband walking up the driveway with The Mail in his hands, and I will wonder: Is he holding something fun in his hands? But every time, (okay, maybe nine times out of ten) he plops the detritus on the kitchen table, winks at me, and sez, “Here’s the mail!”

There is no alternative, of course. I know this. I know we will not go backwards. I just need to let go of the illusion – once and for all – that the mailbox is a place where fun things are found. The mailbox is no longer Santa Claus sitting on a two-by-four.

It’s the end of an era, and I need to remember it fondly and release the happy mailbox into the archives of things the Internet (which I am fully aware I am using to write all this) has swallowed and digested.

The thing at the end of my driveway is not the place to go to look for affirmation. Best accept it. And check my Facebook account more often . . .

The many splendored thing

About a year ago, I read the first review for The Shape of Mercy, many weeks before it actually hit bookstore shelves. It was from Publishers Weekly and I was breathless with amazement that the book earned a starred review. I am still looking for my socks.

One of the descriptors the reviewer used was “achingly romantic.” My book was described as achingly romantic. I found that intriguing and remarkable. I never set out to write anything anyone would describe as romantic, let alone achingly so. It was a pleasant surprise.

Romantic love is mysterious and powerful. It brings out our loveliest strengths and lowliest weaknesses. It is the basis and reward for countless stories, and it’s kind of cool to be numbered among those who have crafted a love story.

It is hard for me to muster the air for horn-tooting, but I am thrilled that The Shape of Mercy has been nominated for a Rita Award by the Romance Writers of America. I am named in a non-inspirational category, which is amazing in itself to me and I am wowed beyond words. The category is “Novel With Strong Romantic Elements,” and I share the field with the notable Nora Roberts. You can read the full list right here. The winner will be announced in July.

I’ve often said in interviews and such that The Shape of Mercy isn’t a story about the Salem Witch Trials, it’s a story about the power of love.

Love is romantic. It is deep. It is complicated. It is is simple. It is strong.

It tells a story. So there you go.

Stay tuned. July will be here before you know it. . .

We know from the moment we understand life is a journey that every voyage has a destination, every journey has an end. My grandmother, Mary Cross Horning, left the planet yesterday, her journey complete.

Well into her 90s, her departure wasn’t a total surprise. In fact, we’ve seen evidence of her packed suitcases – if you will – for many months now. Every Monday when I came to visit her, I could see that the metaphorical luggage was fully in view, and was inching a little more toward the door, ready for her to slip home.

She’s actually been disappearing, a little more each moment, over the last seven years, starting the moment my Papa skipped away from us without even letting us know he was leaving. Of all the things that I loved most about her, I treasured the great store of love she had for my grandfather. I’ve never seen two people more in love than they were.

My grandmother was clever, feisty, tender-hearted, and compassionate. She taught me how to sew, how to swim, how to make animal pancakes, how to play poker – with pennies, of course. When my sisters and I were little, she made us matching dresses.

She was incredibly organized, an amazing cook – her Peking Beef was out of this world – and quick with her wit and commentary. Once, at Disneyland, I didn’t want to go on the Jungle Boat Cruise (I was afraid of the fake hippos) and my great-grandmother offered to sit it out with me on a bench outside the ride. My grandmother grabbed my hand and hoisted my trembling body onto the boat, telling my great-grandmother she and my Papa brought me to Disneyland to have a good time and by golly, I was going to have one whether I liked it or not.

I am so glad she never let me give in to fear.

Toward the end of her life, she spent our visits together reminding me of her favorite memories. Her childhood home on Capitol Street in Washington D.C., eloping with my grandfather on the Fourth of July, the house she and my Papa and my dad had on the Chesapeake, the luaus on their San Diego patio, apricot cobbler by the pool, playing Scrabble, walks along Torrey Pines Beach and the Silver Strand, and always, always, how much she loved and missed my Papa.

This picture, of Papa and Grammary, with two of my kids when they were little, is so representative of who they were: Experts at loving people.

I was in her house yesterday, sitting in her favorite chair, when the mortuary came for her and wheeled her away. A little whooshing sound seemed to follow the gurney, like the last little bit of who she was jetting away from me. And rocketing toward another place.

I love this poem by Henry Van Dyke, which captures all that I am feeling this morning – a Monday – as I contemplate NOT going in to see her. And I close with it.

I am standing by the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails
to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength,
and I stand and watch until at last
she hangs like a peck of white cloud
just where the sun and sky come down to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says,
‘There she goes!’
Gone where? Gone from my sight – that is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar
as she was when she left my side
and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the places of destination.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment
when someone at my side says,’There she goes!’
there are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:
‘Here she comes!’

The shape of affirmation

Every now and then it’s good to have someone tell you that what you pour your heart and soul into matters. I’d like to think that’s the case with The Shape of Mercy, which was named the 2009 Christian Book of the Year for Fiction by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association last Thursday night.

I’d like to think this award is that kind of affirmation. The words that bled out of me during the intense months that I wrote this book seemed to have struck a chord and I am honored and awed.

The field of finalists is a talented bunch and I count such colleagues as Jerry Jenkins, Tim Downs, Ann Gabhart and Christa Parrish as amazing artists of the written word. They are passionate wordsmiths all.

When I accepted the award at the Dallas Convention Center last week, I mentioned a snippet from a wonderful book I’d read on the plane that afternoon. I will review that novel later this week, so I won’t give it all away here, but one line within it (spoken by one of its characters, no less) makes me smile. The fictional character says he doesn’t read fiction because he doesn’t want to read about people who never existed doing things they never did. I love that line! I love it that a fictional character says it.

The truth is, I love the power of story to communicate truth through the life stories of people who never existed, doing things they never did. That power fuels me, fills me, thrills me.

It’s true I wrote a book half-filled with imaginary people, but they inhabited a true world and I foisted on them on a journey which I wanted to feel as real as the sun on your face.

It feels good to know what I wanted might have actually happened.

It must’ve felt real.

If you live near Dallas. . .

. . . or you know someone who does – you will want to know about the Christian Book Expo taking place at the Dallas Convention Center this weekend. This first-ever book fair for Christian books will feature more than 180 authors, 150 workshops and seminars led by authors, nightly inspirational events with authors and music artists. I will be at the WaterBrook Press booth on Friday from 1 to 1:30 p.m. and on Saturday, from 3 to 3:30 p.m. I will also be at the American Christian Fiction Writers booth on Saturday from 10 to 11 a.m. with a couple giveaways that people can sign up for to win! Yay! Free books!

You can save $5 off the admission to the Expo when you register online with the discount code: church5off. Go to ChristianBookExpo.com for all the particulars.

Okay, so if you don’t live near Dallas/Forth Worth: On Thursday night, the ECPA Christian Book Awards banquet will be take place at the Convention Center. The Shape of Mercy is one of five finalists for fiction book of the year. Wish me luck!

No staff for me

This past week I’ve been dialoging electronically with friends about the ridiculous amount of time we spend electronically communicating. It seems everywhere you turn there is a cyber water cooler, electronic living room or virtual coffee shop eager for your ears, your voice, your deepest thoughts, your most mundane jots.

The garden variety writer, at least the writer in me, is actually attracted to dialogue like this. That’s how we make sense of the world and find the grist for the word mill. We wouldn’t have much to say if we didn’t know what people cared about. The trouble is, and there is of course trouble, the electronic dialogue, though lightning fast, is pervasive and abyss-like. You fall in and there seems to be no end and no bottom. I could spend all day posting, reading and dialoging and never earn a dime to put toward the mortgage payment. And yet I’m told there is a reason for all these various cyber-efforts, beyond the mere chatter. If you are a writer, electronic networking and netsharing is seen as a powerful marketing tool.

So first there were the blogs (and I do see the irony here – that you are reading these ramblings of mine on a blog). Then came Facebook. And now I see colleagues turning to Twitter where they can post tiny updates called tweets to maintain a never-ending connection with the outside world. All in the name of maintaining a presence so that we won’t be forgotten.

I have to say, just the thought of coming up with a dozen tweets a day exhausts me. Twitterers tell me you have to do what works for you. Don’t tweet it you don’t want to. But I am wondering what is it about tweeting that “works?” How does constant electronic contact “work” for me? Writers who have the audacity to want to make a living at it give all their words away when they write for cyberspace, and their time, as well.

I have to ask myself if I blog and bum around Facebook because I want these cyber pals to “work” for me. And when it comes right down to it, I don’t. That’s not what I want. The books I write have to work for me or I should stop writing them. I don’t want the blog, the Facebook account, or any other cyber employee to “work” for me. I can’t judge their success as employees and I don’t want the pressure of monitoring their influence as employees.

This blog is a place for me to toss around my non-fiction thoughts and the Facebook account just lets me goof around with friends when I am not writing novels. Knowing this is knowing there is no pressure for either one to work for me. No pressure at all.

And man, oh man, how tweet that is.

New from Robin Lee Hatcher

Robin Lee Hatcher, a good friend and one of the nicest people you’d could ever hope to meet, has a new book out that I am happy to yak about here on Edgewise. When Love Blooms (Zondervan) had a December 08 birthday originally in the works, but it actually just hit shelves in the last few days.

Here’s a little teaser about it:

“Emily Harris didn’t belong in the hard life of the Blakes. She would wilt there like a rose without water. He’d be sending her back to Boise before the first snows. He’d be willing to bet on it.

From the moment Gavin Blake set eyes on Emily Harris, he knew she would never make it in the rugged high country where backbreaking work and constant hardship were commonplace. Beautiful and refined, she was accustomed to the best life had to offer. Heaven only knew why she wanted to leave Boise to teach two young girls on a ranch miles from nowhere. He’d wager it had to do with a man. It always did when a beautiful woman was involved.

Emily wanted to make some sort of mark on the world before marriage. She wanted to be more than just a society wife. Though she had plenty of opportunities back East, she had come to the Idaho high country looking to make a difference. Gavin’s resistance to her presence made her even more determined to prove herself. Perhaps changing the heart of just one man may make the greatest difference of all.”

You can see a book trailer right here:

REVIEWS:

“Penned with the descriptive nibs of all the five senses, Robin Lee Hatcher transports the reader to the magnificent high country of Idaho in a thoroughly engaging tale of love and wounded heroes. When Love Blooms is layered with appealing characters, and I was so at home with the story’s cast, I felt like I was like viewing my own family history. I have yet to read a Hatcher novel that didn’t entrance me from the first page, and with a unique plot for a romance, When Love Blooms is no exception. Novel Reviews and I give it a high recommendation.” — Novel Reviews

ABOUT ROBIN:

Robin Lee Hatcher discovered her vocation as a novelist after many years of reading everything she could put her hands on, including the backs of cereal boxes and ketchup bottles. The winner of the Christy Award for Excellence in Christian Fiction (Whispers from Yesterday), the RITA Award for Best Inspirational Romance (Patterns of Love and The Shepherd’s Voice), two RT Career Achievement Awards (Americana Romance and Inspirational Fiction), and the RWA Lifetime Achievement Award, Robin is the author of over 60 novels, including Catching Katie, named one of the Best Books of 2004 by the Library Journal.

Robin enjoys being with her family, spending time in the beautiful Idaho outdoors, reading books that make her cry, and watching romantic movies. She is passionate about the theater, and several nights every summer, she can be found at the outdoor amphitheater of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, enjoying Shakespeare under the stars. She makes her home on the outskirts of Boise, sharing it with Poppet the high-maintenance Papillon.