Fun with Numbers and Language

How lovely to see you! Can I offer you a beverage? Maybe some crackers and…well, no, it appears someone has eaten all the cheese. Not sure who would have done such a thing, but it’s gone. Let’s all just move past it.

I gathered you all here today to give you a quick update on how The Writing is going, in case you were wondering (if you weren’t, feel free to skip this part and proceed to the list below). After several months of straight rejections, THREE AGENTS have asked to read the full manuscript. However, my optimism remains t e m p e r e d. It’ll be a while yet before I find out whether any of these agents wants to represent my book for realskies, and even longer to hear if a publishing house will deign to accept it. That’s not to mention the very lengthy publishing process itself. But still—it’s something.

Meanwhile, I’m working on something new and a bit more ambitious. (For me, anyway. For other people it’d just be like…a book.) Which is exciting, in a terrifying kind of way. It feels as if someone has left me in charge of a particularly unruly circus, and I’m not quite sure what to do with it. Do people still like clowns? Do I have to wear a top hat? Should I climb inside the lion? But there is no one to ask because it turns out this is a Bavarian circus and all I really know how to say in German is, “Do you have a granddaughter?” and it would appear that no one does.

Anyway. Enough about that. Let’s turn to more important issues. The other night when I couldn’t sleep I started thinking, and I wanted to share those thoughts here, in hopes that you might weigh in on these urgent matters:

1. Did you know that if you start counting at one, you get to eight before you repeat a vowel sound?

2. Whoa. You don’t hit a short A sound until one thousand. Unless you start adding “and” once you hit triple digits. Which for some reason is only acceptable when you’re talking about dalmatians.

3. We should go back to saying the ones digit first, like “four and twenty.” It’s so much more dignified.

4. No—we should count like the French! There’s something deliciously nonsensical and decadent in expressing the number ninety as four-twenty-ten.

5. HOLD UP. YOU DON’T HIT A SHORT O SOUND UNTIL ONE NONILLION.

6. That can’t be right. Can it?

7. *three hours of counting pass*

8. IT IS! NUMBERS ARE NUTS!

9. “Now I lay me down to sleep” is also interesting, because they add that object in there for the sake of the meter, but if you took it out, you’d have to change the verb to “lie.”

10. Maybe it’s just English that’s crazy.

11. Or maybe it’s me who’s crazy.

12. Ahem. Excuse me. Maybe it is I who am crazy.

13. Maybe she who is crazy am I.

14. MAYBE IT IS I, BEING CRAZY, WHO AM.

15. When do you use whom again?

16. MAYBE ONE MIGHT CALL CRAZY WHOMSOEVER I FIND MYSELF TO BE.

17. Nope, it’s English.

18. Oh, hey! There goes my alarm! Another productive night.

Shrimp Étouffée for Cowards

Is there anything better than shelling a bunch of shrimp on a hot summer afternoon?

Yes. Obviously. Most things are better than that. Especially if you are a tiny bit irrationally afraid that the shrimp might somehow start moving again and skitter up your arms with their little wiggly legs. But if you can muster up enough courage to take on the tiny sea monsters, this recipe for shrimp étouffée is worth it. Especially because you get to sound super fancy calling it étouffée when really it’s basically just stew over rice.

LET’S GET TO IT!

1. Defrost two pounds of shell-on shrimp. Or, if you decide to go and off a bunch of shrimps yourself because you appreciate fresh seafood (and the THRILL OF THE HUNT), just lop off the heads like Chef Louis from The Little Mermaid and proceed to the next step.

2. Peel their shells. Try to keep your crying to a minimum as you pull off their little legs. Like some sort of monster.

3. Cook the shrimp bits in a large pot. Notice how they instantly turn pinkish and puff up as if they are the ghosts of the shrimp. Feed them onions and celery. Let the little spirits gorge themselves on garlic, then wash it all down with eight cups of water. “Don’t drown, little ghosts,” you whisper, until you remember that ghosts are already dead. And also…shrimp live in water.

4. Add a bay leaf and some parsley from your garden. Feel superior about the home-grown parsley. Go to add some fresh thyme from your windowsill. The thyme is dead. Feel immediately humbled.

5. While the stock simmers, walk down the street to get ice cream and ivy cuttings from your friend at the ice cream shop. It’s just the thing on this hot afternoon. Meander back home.

6. Well. I hope you had a pleasant break. Because ICE CREAM TIME is OVER. TIME TO MAKE THE ROUX, KIDDIES. YOU’RE ABOUT TO ROUX THE DAY YOU ATTEMPTED THIS RECIPE, BUCK-O.

7. Don’t say any of that out loud, unless you want your spouse to pat you on the head and shrug as if to say, “Welp! We’re married!”

8. Melt an entire stick of butter. Stir in flour and keep stirring until it bubbles into your preferred shade of tan. This happens slowly, slowly…slowly . . . then ALL AT ONCE.

9. Add celery, onions, and bell peppers. For just an instant, it smells confusingly like the greatest, most artery-clogging mac-and-cheese you’ve ever tasted. You hear someone say, “OHHH YEAAAH,” as if they were the Kool-Aid man bursting into your kitchen. It is you. Glance around to make sure nobody heard. Only the dogs, but they’ve seen you do things far more embarrassing than that.

10. Ladle the shrimp stock into the roux. At this point you’ll want to make a celebratory exclamation like those TV chefs—but not a gimmicky “Bam!” or a casual “Beautiful” as you toss a tea towel breezily over your shoulder. To express your feelings, you’ll want to use words like, “Vivifying!” and “Celestial!” and “Chartreuse!”

11. At first the mixture is oddly clumpy, like you’re making a choux pastry. Feel superior for knowing what choux pastry looks like. Keep adding stock and stirring until all the liquid is gone. Re-read the recipe. You were definitely not supposed to put all that stock in. Feel immediately humbled.

12. Bring the pot to a boil. Cover. Slink away in shame, hoping that it will thicken up if you let it simmer long enough.

13. Make a deal with yourself: You can check on the étouffée every time you finish writing a hundred words of your book. Either you’ll be super productive, or dinner will be ruined.

14. You have written twenty-three words, but you can’t wait any longer. When you open the lid, you see that the stock is still worrisomely thin. Go back to your computer and fret.

15. Look up pictures of what étouffée is supposed to look like. Sigh with relief when you see that it is nearly as watery as yours. HOORAY!

16. Look up what étouffée actually means in French.

17. IT MEANS SMOTHERED. Although in Louisiana it means “spicy Cajun stew made with vegetables and seafood.” Either way. Yum-o.

18. You have written seventy-six words, half of which were the chorus to “No Scrubs.” Good enough! Time to add the shrimp. They cook up rapidly, going from grey to pink like dawn on a spring morning.

19. Garnish with sliced scallions and serve immediately with white rice.

20. Forget about your work. Forget about everything but this creamy decadence, the fruit of your labors. Nothing else exists. You are blissfully adrift on a sea of rich crustacean sauce. The ghosts of those two pounds of shrimp swirl around you, singing their little shrimp songs in ringing harmony. You find yourself singing along. You weren’t aware you knew the words. “Merci, vous petites crevettes,” you sing. “Le ventre dit merci!”

An Apology

Dear Summer,

How are you? I am well. I am writing to you today because…well…I haven’t always been very nice to you—calling you names, listing your flaws, cursing your very existence and counting down the days to your certain demise (ninety-three, by the way. Not that I’m counting). That’s not the kind of person I want to be, and I would like to make my sincerest apologies.

I’m sure you have many fine qualities. …I’m having trouble thinking of one right now, but give me some time.

…

Okay, there must be something I’m not seeing. People love you. Animals love you. Plants adore you. What am I missing? I mean, you’re…bright? Is that what people like? The increased synthesis of vitamin D?

Is it the humidity, maybe? No, that can’t be right. Nobody likes humidity. Well—maybe certain types of frogs.

So then, have we inherited some ancient gratitude, an innate connection with the life-giving, summertime harvest? Do we recognize somewhere deep in our DNA that we owe the sun a debt for our very survival? Our small planet itself revolves around the sun, like a prayer wheel incessantly whirling around the object of its devotion. And the same heat that turns seed into food likewise pulled the energy from our ancestors as they worked to reap what they’d sown, so that when a thunderstorm rolled past in the late afternoon, signaling them to throw down their tools before the riotous show began, they could sit back, depleted but satisfied in the knowledge that they had done good work and now they might rest.

So, all right. That’s fine, I guess. But how do people get past the mosquitos, and the crowds, and the vague aura of stickiness that pervades all season long—even in the pool? Do you bewitch them, Summer? Be honest. Do you make them all just a little bit sunsick so they don’t know what they’re doing? Is this like Stockholm Syndrome?

Well, anyway. Just because I don’t see the good in you doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Really, this grudge is about me, and my propensity not to see the good things that are in front of me. I’m always looking back, toward the cool renewal of spring, or forward, toward the crisp coziness of fall. Maybe this season offers the chance to be still in the present moment.

Very, very still.

Till the sun goes down and the air cools down enough that you can move around without wanting to fall over and die.

Sorry again!

Best wishes,
Carrie Muller

PS—Fireflies. There. I thought of one good thing about you.

Send-Off

I’ve been sending query letters to agents all week. And I feel…sort of…okay? Which seems insane. Panicked anxiety and self-doubt are kind of my thing. How could they abandon me now, right when I’m making myself more vulnerable than I’ve ever been? COULD I BE MATURING AT LAST?

Maybe it’s because, after years of writing and editing, this book finally says what I want it to, and I’m excited by the idea of other people reading it, rather than terrified of their judgment and mockery. Or maybe I’ve just grown so sick of it that I’m glad to see it go. “GOOD RIDDANCE!” I shout as I press send on the email. Then I open my Word document and stroke the computer screen with my finger as I whisper, “I didn’t mean it. You’re a good book.” And I sing it a little song I made up to make it feel better.

…Maybe I should spend more time with people.

Anyway. I’m sure I’ll feel differently once the rejections start rolling in. The first one could arrive BEFORE THE FIRST OF MAY, and I have zero coping mechanisms in place, so there may be some panicked anxiety and self-doubt in my future yet. My plan is to wallpaper my attic studio with all the many, many rejections I will receive over the years. It’ll help me stay humble—PLUS I’ll save a ton on paint. Although I’ll have to figure out what to do when I run out of wall space….

In the meantime, I’m working on other things, and it feels GREAT. I’m writing and submitting short stories, working on a new novel (or ten), and making some changes to my website, which includes finding or taking a picture where my face doesn’t look like this:

Wish me luck.

April Showers

I’m working outside today, even though it’s raining, and even though it’s chilly, because the magnolia tree is in bloom and the tiny green hydrangea buds are beginning to unfold and the air smells all of petrichor. Plus, did I mention it’s raining?

Junebug and I took a walk this morning on the trail that winds alongside the river. We do this most every day, but today the grey skies made the young leaves on their spindly branches look like a bright green haze all along the trail. Geese scolded us from the water when we ran down to chase them, and even after it started hailing, Junebug took every opportunity to prance down to the river bank and squish mud between her toes while I watched the river scored with tiny hailstones.

In Southern California, where I grew up, people either love the rain, having been deprived of it for 90% of their natural lives, or they resent it as an affront to their God-given right to enjoy brilliant sunshine twenty-four hours a day (this type also tends to be suspicious of the night). It is true that California drivers sometimes lose their minds in any type of precipitation. “THE MOST DANGEROUS TIME TO DRIVE IS RIGHT WHEN IT STARTS RAINING AFTER A LONG DRY SPELL,” I tell people who don’t live there. “IT BRINGS THE OILS UP FROM THE ROAD AND MAKES EVERYTHING SLIPPERIER—MORE SLIPPERY? SLIPPERY…ER. YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING. THE ROADS ARE SLICK!”

This year it’s rained much more than usual there. Painted Lady butterflies have flown through in droves, and a superbloom of wildflowers blanketing the hillsides was visible from space. Some mornings, the canyon roads will be misty all the way out to the beach, where the grey horizon blurs with the green-glass ocean so that you can’t tell just where the water ends and sky begins.

On mornings like that, I used to cut school and drive out there, sitting on the beach by myself and thinking long thoughts until the the fog burned off. Which, I admit, is a very moody-teenager thing to do, but it’s an urge I will probably never outgrow. I know the sun improves your mood and whatever, but it’s also brash and glaring and burns your skin and gets in your eyes while you’re driving and gives some people headaches and makes other people say things like, “Hot enough for ya?”

Rain, though, makes everything soft and cozy and a little bit drowsy. The streets empty out so that you suspect you might be the only person in the world, and places you walk every day start to look dreamy and foreign. Conversations stretch deeper, and coffee tastes better, and raindrops on any surface is objectively the best sound there is. Most of my favorite memories happened in the rain—probably because it stirs something up in people all magic-like. I know I talk about the rain a lot, but honestly I will never get my fill of it.

I know I’m not the only person who runs a little mad in foul weather, or feels disappointed when the forecast promises another week of sun, or reads Ray Bradbury and thinks, “You know, Venus sounds lovely.” Of course, you are free to argue that sun is better than rain. Come sit here next to me, on the porch, under this blanket, and we’ll talk all about it, while the rain patters on the roof and drips off the new leaves.

There, now, isn’t this nice?

Poisson d'avril

Last night, I realized my watch had been turned back one hour.

I know what you’re thinking. “What a…gentle April Fool’s joke!” That was my thought, too. My next thought was, “Who has done this? And how?” The only time the watch was off my wrist was when I took a shower that morning. The puppies could have done it, I suppose, except that they don’t have opposable thumbs. Still not ruling them out, but it seems unlikely.

The obvious choice would be Bill, but when I asked him about it, he denied it instead of admitting it right away with a sneaky giggle like usual. This is a man who in past years has installed plug-ins on my laptop so that every image changes to a picture of Nicolas Cage, or every instance of the word “cloud” changes to “butt” (I kept the second one because it made checking the weather extra entertaining).

So maybe it happened when I took Junebug to the vet. Things got pretty wild, so my watch could have been knocked out of time by accident—but by exactly one hour? Seems suspicious.

Or maybe the guy who came to fix our air conditioning unit did it. It was the second time he’d come out, so maybe he felt like he knew me well enough to play a trick on me.

Or maybe at the vet again when I went back to retrieve my credit card that I left there. It would be the perfect excuse to lure me back for tomfoolery. Verrry convenient that I just happened to leave my card there.

Then again, I remember checking my watch at the pharmacy when I went to pick up Junebug’s prescription, so it couldn’t have happened before 4:51. Even though it would have been the perfect chance, since I was distracted by a supplement bottle called Steel Libido—for Women! (What does that even mean? Out of all the words in the world, why go with steel?) Other supplements from this brand included Sunny Mood, Stress Defy, Brain Awake (which sounds like something you say when your brain is distinctly NOT awake), Mighty Moringa, whatever that is, and something called FORSKOLIN. I don’t know what that last one does, and I don’t really want to find out.

Anyway. It could have happened at the gas station, I suppose, or at the bar in town where we went to dinner. It was crowded last night, with TWO twenty-first birthdays being celebrated simultaneously. The scene was rife with shenanigans.

Still, it doesn’t seem likely that any person could mess with my watch while it was on my wrist without me noticing. Which leaves only one possibility. And I think you know what I’m talking about. Let’s say it together. Ready? GHOsss…ts. Oh. You don’t—wait, what did you say? Never mind. The way I see it, ghosts might want to have a little fun on the tricksiest of holidays. And if it wasn’t ghosts, then I have to assume I did it to myself, somehow. Which would make me simultaneously the greatest April Fooler of all time—and the greatest April Fool.

Other Things of Which to Beware in March

• Cyanide

• Pesticides

• Triglycerides

• Well-meant chides

• Backslides

• Landslides

• Water slides

• Mud slides

• Rock slides

• Tanned hides

• Honeyguides

• Double wides

• Noontide

• Eventide

• Springtide

• Tide™

• Carbon monoxide

• Running poolside

• Free rides

• Tour guides

• Saccharides

• Picking sides

• Loans denied

• The Great Divide

• Overrides

• Undersides

• Snakes that hide

• Woes betide

• Never feeling satisfied

• Lion prides

• Guys named Clyde

• Homicides

• Mountainsides

• Corpse brides

• Clumsy spies

• Phenylthiocarbamides

• Heavy sighs

• Plaintive cries

• How tightly your shoes are tied

• A poor disguise

• Hungry eyes

• Thunder thighs

• Words to the wise

• Berry pies

• Formaldehyde

• Your closet, and the noise inside

• Cloudy skies

• Rising tides

• Carnival rides

• Things implied

• Girls who lied

• Potatoes, fried

• That new restaurant you tried

• Plus The Dude, who still abides

• And, obviously, tyrannicide.

I think that’s everything, but keep an eye out just in case. And take care today, friends.

Take…care.

Hermitting About

Being alone is the best.

Stay with me on this.

Sure, it would be a bummer if, say, you were an astronaut and your ship exploded, leaving you floating off to a swift and painful death in the void. Or if you were a sailor who survived a shipwreck by clutching to a single piece of debris in the vast, empty ocean. But for a while—before the dehydration and starvation kicked in, before your lungs ruptured in the vacuum of space—it’d be some quality solitude.

Solitude like a single-occupancy fallout shelter.

Solitude like working overtime after everyone else has left the office.

Solitude like driving so far into the desert that the only sound is a centuries-old tortoise creeping across the sand.

Solitude like waking up in your own grave and deciding, “Meh, I’m already here.”

It’s not that I don’t like people. I love people. Just that when my energy reserves are depleted from spending time with them, I wish I could pull a lever that would deposit me directly into the molten core of the earth where I could sit and recover by eating butterscotch pudding straight from the pot and looking up whether “lighthouse keeper” is still a viable career choice.

(It is not.)

Of course, it can be dangerous to give in to solitude too much. To be utterly alone feels almost too indulgent, like when you were a kid and everyone else was out of the house, so you’d tiptoe into your mom’s closet and pull the hanging clothes around you so that everything was dark and muffled and soft, and you’d sit there quietly until you got hungry and realized you hadn’t thought to bring snacks. The challenge for us introverts is to see that there is value in engaging with the world as it is, even with all its noise and confusion and hard edges, its ceaseless demands and intrusions. It’s worthwhile to join in and become a tangible part of that infernal ruckus. Even if we must politely order our loved ones to leave us alone for several days afterward.

I often wish I weren’t this way. It would make life on a planet with seven billion people much easier if being around other humans left all of us energized and refreshed. However, until I find myself in a post-apocalyptic library like that one Twilight Zone episode…

Bill is out of town. An Affair to Remember is on. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr are about to get off the boat at Villefranche. I have a pot of butterscotch pudding and a fresh notebook. Spiral bound. College rule. You know. The good stuff.

It’s hermit time.

The First Ten Pages

Sometimes you have great days at work, perched in your dark, cramped, oddly damp work nook like a small bird, typing away merrily. Then again, sometimes you must leave your work nook, pace the floor for hours like you’re the heroine in a Gothic novel, and eventually fall to the floor and writhe around for a while because of the impossible, gargantuan nature of the task you must complete.

For me, that impossible, gargantuan task is The First Ten Pages.

Before I explain, here’s a very short primer on Getting Published in the Traditional Manner (i.e. by a publishing house, as opposed to self-publishing):

1. Write a book

2. Send it to agents, along with a query letter and the first however-many-pages/chapters they request (commonly ten pages)

3. If they like the query letter and first pages, they might request a full manuscript

4. If they like the full manuscript, they might agree to represent you

5. HOORAY! A MIRACLE!

6. Make major edits to your already-majorly-edited book

7. Wait while your agent…performs the rituals? Makes the sacrifices? This part is mysterious to me, as I have done most of my research on simply finding an agent and less about what happens afterward. Is the writer expected to perform a portion of the rituals, herself, like marketing?

8. After waiting for months or even years, receive word that your book has been accepted by a publisher

9. Celebrate! But only for a moment. Because now the real work begins.

As you can see, this whole operation sort of hinges on the query letter—basically a pitch for your book—and those first few pages agents read. Which is why I have been softly rocking back and forth for weeks now, staring at those pages, convinced that they sound trite and amateur, and also why, whenever anyone asks how writing is going, I get a slightly manic crook to my face and whisper, “Why? What have you heard?”

Because this limitation—just ten pages—is agonizing. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, or if you know me in person and I’ve ever written you a letter, you’ll know that I like a lot of space to express myself (which is why I never did well on Twitter). This puts a lot of pressure on less than four percent of the book to entice and intrigue a reader.

THERE ARE SOME FUNNY BITS ONCE IT REALLY GETS GOING, I want to explain, EVEN IF THE BEGINNING ISN’T THAT STRONG. But you can’t say things like that in a pitch. You have to be CONFIDENT.

(Even though I am not confident.)

You have to be SURE.

(Even though I am not sure.)

You have to be ALL THE THINGS YOU SECRETLY FEAR YOU AREN’T AND NEVER COULD BE, LIKE SMART AND TALENTED AND INTERESTING AND WELL-SPOKEN AND CAPABLE OF WRITING AN ENGAGING BEGINNING TO A STORY THAT DOES NOT COMPLETELY SUCK.

(Even though, as you may have guessed, I secretly fear that I am none of those things.)

And so I sit here in the oddly damp dark and stare at these pages, not even reading them anymore, rocking softly back and forth. This is my life now. At least until I get so downtrodden and tired of looking at my own words that I say “Screw it” and send it off—imperfect, exposed, waiting to be judged.

So, yeah, writing is going super well, thanks for asking.