(cross-posted from the PEN USA Mark blog)
I’m knee-deep in my rewrite with a deadline looming, so of course I had to run away from home.
Some background: When I first started writing this book, back in the dark ages of 2006, I optimistically applied to a handful of prestigious fellowships and conferences. Ignorance is bliss. When the MacDowell Colony asked me to enumerate my previous awards, adding the helpful parenthetical, “e.g.: Guggenheim, NEA, etc.,” I literally wrote in the allotted space, “You’re kidding, right?” They took me anyway. A handful of acceptances followed: the Prague Summer program, Writers at Work, the Norman Mailer Colony, the Atlantic Center for the Arts. I was on a roll. And those experiences were life-changing. I met famous, fabulous writers who were beyond kind to me. They empathized with my new writer plight and egged me on from further down the road. There were long, chatty dinners with wine and long, uninterrupted days of contemplating my work and napping.
Years passed. Still working on the book. Most of the time I labor at home, alone on my unmade bed, with the dog curled like a lima bean at my feet. But every so often, I get the wild urge to take my act on the road. In 2011, I abandoned the current WIP and decamped to Marfa, Texas, to start something new. I wrote 80 pages in 30 days and smoked way too many cigarettes. Then PEN offered me the unbelievable opportunity to take my original work to the finish line. I spent a few days alone in a cheap beachfront hotel room in Laguna over the holidays and rewrote an outline. There’s something about being away from it all, something about not having to deal with the rigors of daily life that frees up my subconscious.
I have a big deadline for the Writer Whisperer [Ed.: Alan Watt] on Wednesday, so you can perhaps understand why I fled to a hotel in Palm Springs. I’m typing this from my patio, fire blazing, and I’ve already edited 15 pages. When I arrived today, the front desk kept me waiting for my room—not long, maybe a half an hour or so. Frankly, it was like a writer’s reprieve. I decamped to the bar and ordered a beer. When I got to my room, there was a little ice bucket on the counter, crammed with beer and a note propped against it that read: “Thank you so much for your patience.” I taped it to my bathroom mirror. I’ve been working on this book for five fucking years. Thank you for your patience.
In related news. I really should have been born rich—or at least chosen a more lucrative profession—because my growing hotel addiction is getting ridiculous. But Virginia Woolf had it right. There’s definitely something to be said for a room of one’s own. Even if I’m paying for it by the night.
