Writing

Imposter (Pt 4): I’ll Take One Muse Please

Cindy McCain
Volvo in remission--sighted at J. Alexander's in Bellmeade, 2007
Volvo in remission--sighted at J. Alexander's in Bellmeade, 2007

I’d found the key to my success.  For years I had read books there,  graded papers there, even people –watched, hoping to meet Mr. Right there. Many a weekend when my children were with their dad, I had treated myself for an hour or two at Starbucks, sinking into a deep purple velvet chair and sipping on a White Chocolate Mocha.   I’d peruse (ok, cruise) men who were deep in thought, clicking away on their laptops, wondering if one of them could be a cool, intelligent author at work.  Yet ironically, I had never written there!

Come to think of it, once in Starbucks I thought I’d been given a definite sign that my first book would be published.  I had given the book proposal to the VP of a major publishing house.  He was going to look it over and pass it on to one of his chief editors.   Imagine my delight when I looked up from grading papers to see Jonathan the VP smiling at me.   He introduced me to the man with him, one of the very editors who would critique my book!  They were there to discuss a book deal with a writer—a single mom with a sense of humor—kind of like me.  Jonathan had given me a copy of her first book, and I had liked it.

As one who constantly jumps the gun at figuring out when and how God answers my prayers and as one who has taught literature for much too long, I see signs—foreshadowing– everywhere.  Surely seeing this woman who had signed with “my” publisher was a sign.  Surely this meant my book would be published as well. My selective memory forgot all the “signs” I had already misread.  How many times had I announced to friends I was sure I’d found “The One” only to have them ask, “Again?”

One of “The Ones” was my doctor at Vanderbilt.  Before the days of Travis Stork of The Bachelor fame, I hoped my GP would give me a rose.  Handsome, smart, and most of all, caring, I actually looked forward to seeing him, regardless of whatever physical affliction brought me to his office.  He would always take my hands in his, look at me through dark brown eyes, and ask me how I was really doing.  Aware of my constant depression and angst, he always gave me hope—not only of my being “cured” of my melancholy personality one day but also of his being the cure himself.  I even had a sign confirming he would eventually ask me out.  I saw him in the very place (actually one of many places) I think I may find my prince—the bookstore.  While Davis Kidd—the bookstore of Green Hills steeped in tradition and associated with old money—was another of my favorite haunts in those days, seeing him in our Book World, a Barnes and Noble clone not far from my home in Donelson, seemed to be too good to be true.  He was big city Barnes and Noble material—hipper and more egalitarian than Davis Kidd—and he was smiling at me. While the conversation lasted all of five minutes, I took it as a sure sign of our future union.  This delusion continued through a tetanus shot, poison ivy, and strep throat caught from my kids, until the visit where he walked in wearing… a wedding ring.  I left his office and took five flights of steps rather than the elevator so no one would see me crying.

I realized after seeing the writer with her/my publisher and editor in Starbucks but later seeing no book contract of my own, that I must have misread yet another sign. Maybe all roads didn’t lead to Starbucks, but then again…maybe it wasn’t about the plot I saw unfolding that day—a writer discussing a contract—that mattered.  Maybe it was the setting that made the difference.  At Starbucks, something special must be in the air.  The joke has always been that fertility is linked to something in the water. Wouldn’t it then follow that if books are brain-children of their authors, maybe there’s something special in Starbucks’ not-so-average-joe?

Having lived in Nashville the past twenty years, one thing was for sure.  Any book of mine would have to be conceived and born in either the Green Hills or Bell Meade stores. I don’t mean to be a snob or to act ugly.  But for the whole thing to work, it can’t be just any Starbucks.  It must be the real deal—certainly not the only one at that time close to my home in Hermitage.   (I didn’t have the heart to tell my students that I was not impressed when they brought Starbucks cups to class.  I knew they most likely got their Machiatto by way of the drive-through, a red flag that our local store was a sham.   The whole purpose of a real Starbucks is to enjoy the inside ambiance—the big- city- feel one is really paying for.  If all one wants is the name brand coffee, he can get that at Target.  But even for those who ordered inside that first Starbucks in Hermitage, the vibe wasn’t cool.  What could one expect?  That Starbucks was book ended by Andrew Jackson’s birthplace and Hooters– two shrines to good ole boys—the boys I would gladly drive across town to escape.)

To write on the cool side of town I’d need a laptop, an appropriate car, and an alibi.  And just recently, I had cleared the first two hurdles.  I had a laptop, even if I got it in an unconventional way. Still unable to afford one (the first thing I had planned to buy with my first book’s advance), our Tech Guy loaned me a Dell Pentium.  While his condition was that I take it to a school-related conference and then return it to him promptly, I decided to kidnap it for the summer.  Possession is 9/10s of the law as they say, so if he wanted it back before school started, he’d have to come and get it.    I told myself that as a Chuck Norris fan, he’d enjoy the challenge, and as an old friend with a big sense of humor, Mike would forgive me in the end.  That cleared my conscience.  I would not write this book as I had my first—deprived of summer sun and banished to my desktop in the basement. (It’s a wonder I hadn’t developed scurvy from Vitamin C deprivation.)   I felt like Prometheus UnBound—no longer fettered thanks to my wireless router—unleashed to follow my dream at Starbucks.  But I wouldn’t have to make a run for it. God had also provided new wheels.

Although my Volvo station wagon was really the perfect vehicle for venturing across town and across the tracks, my children had never been impressed.  They had been brainwashed into thinking the Suburbans, Yukons and Escalades on our school parking lot were the true status symbols.  When I tried to explain the superiority of old money to new money and that while we had no money, Volvos are the car of choice in Green Hills and Bell Meade, the fact that our car was a 1990 model even began to bother me despite my calling it “vintage” and “classic.”  It became a moot point anyway when we received the sad diagnosis that the Volvo had a fatal illness and had to be confined to the garage. Thankfully a friend offered her 1990 Honda until I could afford another car.  I was grateful for the loan, but because the car’s paint job had worn off down to the primer, I worried that I looked too much like a dealer to wheel up and order a latte.  So for six months I had taken a total hiatus from Starbucks. But the Summer of 2006 was going to be different.  While I still couldn’t afford a BMW, a Lexus, or a newer Volvo, I had bought a Nissan Xterra at auction.  Though I wasn’t crazy about the word “Xterra” on each side and it was an older model, it was affordable, sporty, and had been named the “Car of the Year.”  It wasn’t new, but it was new to me.

Clearly I now had the tools of the trade.  I had a laptop and a SUV—both making me Green Hills ready.  But there was still the biggest roadblock of all barring me from setting up shop in a better zip code.  Could I really just go sashaying around Starbucks leaving the kids HOME ALONE?  I’d seen the movie and abandoning them to write seemed selfish…and dangerous considering my son, Cole McCain, and Macaulay Culkin have much more in common than alliterative names.  And to be honest, before I could justify leaving home to write, I had to deal with my Mom Guilt over writing during the summer at all.

I had always considered summer sacred—a time to make up for being a working mom. Being home with my kids in the summer allowed me more time to show–not just tell— them they are my top priority.  As a teacher’s kids, they see me give the first fruits of my patience and energy everyday to my students ten months a year, leaving me dragging by the time my second shift started with them after school.

In the summer my kids and I could catch up on movies—not just the Blockbusters in theaters like Pirates of the Caribbean, but the classics at home.   My daughter and I popped Raisinettes and munched popcorn while watching Fried Green Tomatoes and The Breakfast Club.  My son and I watched Jaws I, II, III, and IV very time they were on, as well as King Kong and Godzilla. While we never felt all that sorry for the giant fish or lizard, we were always outraged and sad when Our Boy Kong had to defend himself against the National Guard from the top of the Empire State Building.  It must be a mammal thing.

Quality and quantity time with the kids in the summer paid off in more than knowing The Best of Will Ferrell and every episode of King of the Hill by heart.  Cole and I could play Nintendo, and Taylor and I could take off for the mall in broad daylight.  We could all eat at Cheesecake Factory on a weekday afternoon when there wasn’t a wait.

But in those days summer seemed to be the only time to launch a writing career—Lord knows there was no time during the school year—what with so many papers to grade; a prom and 20s/Victorian/ Career Days to plan,; ACT workshops to teach, not to mention my own kids’ activities which had included band, drama, chorus, football, cheerleading, wrestling, and soccer.  The first time a fresh crop of students turned in essays and expected them back the next day graded, I set them straight fast: “Sorry, my Super Teacher cape is at the cleaners.  No can do.”   During the school year, I do good to dig out the pets from beneath the debris of books, backpacks, field trip permission forms, sports gear, and dirty clothes.

So in an effort to appease my Mom Guilt, I decided to write my second book at home. The Starbucks thing would just have to wait—at least until the kids were away at college.  I became the reclusive Johnny Depp character from Secret Window who, in an effort to write his book, stayed in his house day and night in his pajamas and a robe.  While this seclusion saved on the wardrobe budget,  I just wish Stephen King had warned viewers not to try this at home. Then again, I guess he kind of did when the character went insane from all the solitude. My problem was I almost went mad for lack of it.

Granted, I now had a laptop and wouldn’t have to compete with MySpace for “my space.” But in a moment of Déjà vu, I recalled measures taken the first time around to insure the kids slept as long as possible.   I would do anything to postpone Taylor’s blaring James Blunt from her iTunes and Cole’s cranking up cartoons from the kitchen bar.  My day started with paranoia as I tiptoed through the house, hating even to flush the toilet.  I cringed at the clinking of my coffee spoon or the clanking of my garbage can lid, terrified I would wake them. A crisis situation arose on any day I discovered Cole had taken a portable phone to bed with him the night before.  I had to retrieve it fast– before telemarketers called and set into motion my maternal duties.  This maneuver took the agility of cowboys in old Westerns who had to avoid stepping on dry twigs that would alert the Indians.  To approach his bed head on, I had to brave land mines of Legos, video games, DVDs, and Nintendo magazines which covered my son’s floor.  Sometimes I chose instead a back door approach.  With the sophisticated stealth of Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, I entered his room from the kitchen door and climbed up the back of his bed to the top bunk.   That way I could hang upside down and slip the phone from his hand.

The neighborhood kids had also upped their game.  Writing at the dining room table meant I could meet them at the front door before they had a chance to knock.  So on mornings I forgot to silence the phones, they resorted to prank calling.  Sometimes the anonymous voice that asked for cookies sounded like  Saturday Night Live’s Land Shark; others it sounded like South Park’s Kenny.  Once they rescued their comrade from behind enemy lines, Cindy the Writer was body-snatched by Cindy the Mom.

It’s funny how teens revert to the feeding schedule of infants.  Every two or three hours they expected to be fed.  But unlike babies, teens don’t nap—at least my two didn’t at 13 and 16. Keeping them full and busy was not easy.  Just about the time I’d write two or three paragraphs, the voice of the little girl in Poltergeist would say in my head:  “They’re B-A-C-K.”  My son, already bored, would want to move the troops inside. Explaining I couldn’t deal with the noise, I’d send him with his friends to the garage, telling them they should fix it up into a cool clubhouse.  When that soon became old, they’d sneak into the basement and play Nintendo, watch Comedy Central, or check out Taylor’s MySpace.  Then she’d scream and they’d laugh.  Whether moving out or in, in or out, they always left the door open behind them.  When I had enough of killing flies and steering them away from The Chappelle Show, I’d send them to Cole’s PlayStation, hooked up under our second story deck by a web of extension cords.  Or I’d tell them to go ride their bikes. When really frustrated with all the interruptions, I’d want to tell them all to go climb a tree, but I never did—mostly because the previous summer my son climbed a tree, fell, and spent six weeks in a cast.

But even if I got my chief ducks, the kids, in a row– even if my son wasn’t trying to be funny (like when I’d ask what he was doing and he’d call back, “Jumping on the trampoline with carrots up my nose”)–or even if my daughter wasn’t trying to be social (like when she’d ask to go swimming with friends and borrow the car),  my other ducks would break rank and begin taking flight.  It’s a little known fact that golden retrievers hack up hairballs just like cats do.  With a golden and a Persian, I was often interrupted with janitorial tasks—not to mention the times my dog would sneak meat from the neighbor’s garbage despite the fact it makes her sick… every time.

After fighting the good fight to stay home and write, I heard again the Sirens’ call of Starbucks.   Surely Starbucks was the answer.  Although Taylor could drive, she didn’t have a car yet. My kids and pets couldn’t find me there.   But memories of disasters that had happened while I was home with the kids became pop-ups on my mental screen.  The time as a two-year-old my son went seeking toilet paper after he pooped and found it– my white living room curtains.  Or the time as a three-year-old my daughter walked across freshly painted kitchen cabinet doors that had been laid flat to dry in the sun.  Ok, so they were no longer toddlers and Taylor could keep an eye on Cole.  But who would keep an eye on her?  Though normally quite level -headed, she had covered that same head with Clairol’s Midnight Black #36, leaving her hair the color and texture of a Halloween witch’s wig.  I loved The Addams Family as a kid, but I didn’t want my daughter passing for Morticia.  Not really into the Goth thing, she was as upset as I was.    Maybe, on second thought, I was right in thinking I couldn’t spend the summer in Starbucks.

But then again, couldn’t there be a compromise? Maybe Starbucks could act as my muse—my inspiration.  If I could write there just one day a week, I could get a shot of creativity strong enough to keep me going for the next seven days…

(to be continued in Part 5: The Great Escape)

Cole's waterproof cast
Cole's waterproof cast

Imposter (Pt 3): Pleading My Case

Cindy McCain

Since my first book was a call to a Classics Coup,  exhorting readers to put away their fluff fiction and pick up their Shakespeare, I appealed to Oprah as a fellow lover of great works.  Hailing her as the Most Powerful Woman in the World who loves to make wishes come true, I threw myself on the mercy of her court. I sent her a DVD, offering my masterpiece as a pick for her Book Club.  I included precious pictures of my children reminding her that she could change our lives with a simple nod. Illustrating my ability to hold an audience spellbound with the likes of Hawthorne and Hemingway, I included footage from my English class, showing my students as a captive audience.  (I hoped she wouldn’t realize that they were, in fact, captive.)  Finally, I pointed out the fingernail scratches on the whiteboard where I was trying to hold on financially and mentally– teaching 80+ students all day and mothering two small children all night.  Touting myself as profound and prolific, I knew she would respect my proactive approach.  I would write my way to a better life rather than codependently wait for a knight-in-shining-armor for rescue.   I assured her that if she read my book it would change my life and hers.

In retrospect… I may have looked needy, merely bypassing the prince on a white horse to lay prostrate before the Queen of the Harpo Dynasty.

Sadly I never heard from her—no doubt because the DVD never reached her desk.  I believe a keeper of the gate, someone on her staff—probably a perky intern with hopes of publishing herself—spitefully threw my pitch on the slush pile.

So when two agents and one publisher nibbled at my book, then swam away in August of 2004, I stuffed the manuscript in a box, slid it under my bed, licked my wounds, and returned to the classroom.  As recommended in The Artist’s Way, I mourned my artistic loss an appropriate amount of time, but still I wondered… what went wrong?  Wasn’t I born to be a writer?  Didn’t my 40+ journals attest to the fact? And don’t my friends say I’m never at a loss for words, analyzing everything to death?  In fact can’t my writing style be compared to Virginia Woolf’s and my dialogue to a  Tennessee Williams’ character?  Wouldn’t this explain why more than one guy had in John Wayne fashion grabbed and kissed me mid-sentence just so I’d shut up?

Down the Rabbit Hole…or Chasing a Rabbit Trail
No, I definitely had something to say, and I knew I could write.  Maybe I simply needed to change genres.  The first book had been nonfiction—more an academic tome than a page-turner.  This time I would try a novel!

My main character could be a hopelessly romantic Queen of Angst fraught with the Perils of Parenthood and traumatized by dating over 40.  After disasters with blind dating, online dating, and even speed dating, she would fear she was destined to never find The One—certainly a universal conflict.  Though slimed with the human condition, she’d overcome hand wringing and despair…and I was pretty sure how she’d do it.

Excited about my new idea and especially my fascinating protagonist, I started characterizing this complex woman in ways that would translate well into film, saving me time for when I’d inevitably be asked to adapt the book into a screenplay.  The movie would begin as the camera zoomed and focused on books stacked beside her bed:  The Hamlet Syndrome: Overthinkers who Underachieve; The ADHD Handbook and Parenting with Boundaries and Consequences; Teaching Lolita in Tehran; Intimate Kisses; The Bible; and A Thousand Days in Venice. These plus any title by four of her favorite writers, Jill McCorkle, C.S. Lewis, Donald Miller and Anne Lamott, should cover her character’s many layers.  In fact, later in the novel when the protagonist wrote a New York Times best seller and an Academy Award winning screenplay, I knew exactly who she’d thank as she accepted her Oscar.  First, she’d recognize her mentor, Jill, for  answering her email regarding the first book.  Then she’d thank Anne and Donald for being her muses–for showing her how to talk straight, to be real.

But then I stopped short. (And not because the most common mistake new authors make is to write too much about themselves.)

I needed to write about my own experiences.  It’s what I know best.  But I needed to come clean.  To step out of the shadows. To stop hiding behind a fictional character.  For me, writing a novel would be taking the easy way out—something I’ve seldom done. As usual, I liked the challenge.  I blame my decision on Frost and his whole taking -the- road- less- traveled -shtick.

I would write a memoir, and I’d be gut honest though still raw.

Now I knew from watching my dad fillet fish, that guts are gross.  I knew from seeing him empty his bag after bird hunting that when you shoot birds, feathers fly.  I knew if I was totally honest with readers there might be enough feather fallout to tar and feather me.  I might be disowned by friends and family who don’t share my candid sense of humor or who might judge me for my many mess-ups, mishaps, and sometimes, downright meanness. Having grown up in the South I knew the taboo against “acting ugly.”

I might be accused of rocking the boat if I asserted that it’s the huddling together at one end of the dinghy—at one end of the political spectrum—which really tips the boat over, drowning us all.  Polar extremes seemed to alienate, making communication impossible.  Running from the culture by isolating oneself or combating the culture with disdain– in the name of whichever political party—makes everyone miss the party…and the point… altogether.  Being drawn closer to Christ  and then modeling him means, like it or not, drawing closer to each other. His unconditional love for us despite our failure to love others well must be the only reason He hasn’t fired us on the spot and hired a whole new PR team.

But a few people have gotten it right—mostly because they confess to so often being wrong.  Reading Donald Miller and Anne Lamott gave me the idea to forget the novel and do the “novel”– write the “naked truth” about my own life.   I appreciate their courage to admit their humanity as they seek to do the divine–to love others as we love ourselves.   I appreciate their humility, admitting they often fall short.     Miller’s books are more popular in college frat houses than in many churches.  He reaches so many people because he addresses where we really live–where we really struggle.  Maybe because loving others well is one of the most radical things any of us can do—ironically the only way to Rage Against the Machine.

Before Miller and Lamott, my greatest fear was that I’d cause others to falter in their faith–especially when I had questions about mine.   Since a sorority sister gave me my first “quiet time” journal and instructed me to write out my prayers to God, I’d offered Him all the drama in my life.  I could clearly see how He had answered countless prayers, which had no doubt strengthened my faith. But it was the unchecked items on God’s “To Do List”–the one I’d given him– that bothered me.  Those chronic unresolved problems that stood in the way of my writing sooner from my heart as well as my head.  Shouldn’t I wait until the major kinks in my life were straightened out and I could write a feel-good romantic comedy?  Then I could encourage others because everyone likes a happy ending.  My story would prove to everyone that wishes do come true someplace other than the Magic Kingdom.

I decided it was time to begin writing my story even though I wasn’t sure how the loose ends would finally come together and be tied up in a nice big bow. Could I raise questions without offering hard, fast answers?

Then I remembered that I had always suspected writers, and for that matter, people who offered neatly numbered steps to anything.  In fact, the most effective counselors, doctors, and even pastors I had known admitted that life is messy.  Two of them immediately came to mind.

Every summer while I’m not teaching, I schedule yearly checkups.  Right alongside an oil change for my car, immunizations for my pets, and teeth cleanings for my children, I see my OB-GYN.  My gynecologist is a really nice man.  He delivered my nieces and his former partner delivered my children.  We go way back.  He always asks how life is treating me.  More than once I had wanted to reply, “So roughly I’d like to swear out a warrant.”  But when I wasn’t feeling so dramatic, I’d just laugh flippantly:

“No news really– still single, still financially challenged, still hoping I’m a good parent, and sometimes still wanting to run away to Europe.  Oh, and I’ve decided I’m too young to go through menopause…ever.”

Each year he listened and nodded, ignoring only my last comment.  But that summer of 2004 he added seriously, “I know it must be lonely trying to raise your kids alone.  And I’m certainly no expert on parenting, but I think all any of us can do is just be consistent.  Let our kids know who we are and what we believe.  And that we’ll always be there for them.”

Maybe it was the embarrassing position I was in each year— with the stirrups and all—that caused me to feel so vulnerable and emotional, but the forced humor I’d always lead with would turn to quiet tears.  Somehow his honesty made me feel a little better—like I wasn’t the only one who found life disappointing and confusing much of the time but who still tried to press on in faith.

Likewise, a counselor I know had the same effect on me that summer. Rather than just whine that God had apparently lost the item on His To-Do-List that plainly stated I needed my very own Miracle Worker—the perfect husband and step- father to help me– I presented her a To-Do-List of her very own.  I said that I wished there was a support group for single parents—something I could really use– considering I was a single mom and my son had just that week fashioned our dog a vest from a squirt bottle of mustard—then wrote the word “Dubs” (luckily in chalk) on the rims of my new tires. I suggested this new support group meet in her office so we’d need no secret handshake.  We could all talk freely about our exhaustion without having to protect our kids or ourselves from people who would rather judge than help. Rather than take the ball and run with it, she passed it back to me:

“You should start that support group, Cindy,” she said brightly.

“But I’m a mess.  You know that better than anyone,” I protested, thinking I was not only unqualified but much too depleted to take on one more thing.  I thought that psychologists were supposed to tell us not to bite off more than we could chew.

“Exactly.  That’s why God can really use you.  He can ONLY use people who know they are a mess and in need of His help.  Don’t think you have to have it all together to start a group, or for that matter, to be in a relationship with a man.  If a good man comes along, date him.    None of us are perfect or ‘fixed,’ so never let that fact hold you back.  It’s why we all need to support each other, to be in community with others.”

While I didn’t start that local support group, I realized that even larger community could be created through writing.  (What I didn’t know then was that writing would lead me to new friends in my community as well—like Julie, a newcomer to Nashville who I met just yesterday for coffee because she identified with the experiences I’ve written about on this blog.)  I had finally realized that God wanted me to write– not despite but because of my inability to fix anything or anyone.  All I could do would be to offer readers the comfort I’d been given by pointing them to the One who comforted me.  The only wisdom I had was to know I knew nothing…except the Guy who knows everything.   All I could do was to be gut honest—to speak the truth in love– about my own fears, my own issues as I struggled with many of my own unanswered prayers.

As a writer, I would offer no ten easy steps to anything.  I could only offer honesty, admitting life is not about me, even though I often wish it were.  And then to admit I’m glad deep down that it’s not…most of the time. A writing career was a way to contribute—to cry with others and to laugh at myself.   It could free up more time for my kids, my family, and my friends.  And yes, it would introduce me to new friends and adventures… a way to love God by enjoying Him forever.  Writing would be my door to an ideal future.  I just had to figure out how to lunge across its threshold.

But before I would start Book #2, my Carpe Diem self seized not just a day, but the whole summer of 2005.  I took a detour in writing my way to the sweet life.  Ironically—no, Providentially–I found life sweeter that summer—both while abroad and when I returned home.   I went to Italy for ten days and taught English to Italians.  They, in turn, taught me that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence—or in this case, of the ocean.  They reminded me of blessings in the US which were very sweet.  Yet they also taught me how to relax and how to enjoy friends and all- things- bella.  Their friendship, something taken very seriously and valued very highly in the Italian culture, continues to give me a richer life.  A clearer vision of what is important.  And they’ve given me more joy to share.  That summer, as well as the times I’ve been reunited with them since, left me renewed, hopeful, ready to write again.  Perfect timing because I had the whole Summer of 2006 to begin a new project.

Preparing to Lunge

But something kept nagging me:  Even if what I wrote this time was more appealing to readers than what I wrote before, maybe good material wasn’t enough. Maybe the first book didn’t sell because I had neglected some vital step in the writing process. Maybe I still needed to find that golden key to unlock the door that barred me from publication.

Then it dawned on me.  There was no golden key—no key needed at all.  The way was free and clear, open to the public practically 24/7.  But of course!  I had failed to observe the sacred rite to write: the ritual to be observed at the pinpointed spot on the map to the Holy Grail (a.k.a. writing success).  According to the Arthurian legend, the Grail was found in a sanctuary—a sacred place.  But of course!  How could I have missed it?

The only logical reason my first book hadn’t been published was because I didn’t write it in Starbucks!

(To be continued in Pt 4: The Rite of Passage to the Rite of Passage)

Imposter (Part 2): Great Expectations

Cindy McCain
A Mouseketeer dreaming of becoming a Musketeer
A Mouseketeer dreaming of becoming a Musketeer

A couple of times before I had tried living the dream. As it turned out, I was only living in a dream world. I decided Christmas 2003 I would claim my book deal. I was, after all, on a winning streak… one for one. In 1991 upon submitting my first-ever manuscript, a riveting piece called, “Creating Camelots,” I was published in The English Journal. I had known I had a winner, so I wrote past maternal guilt. Every mommy knows that it’s impossible to shake off a tenacious toddler. We can run but never hide. Even Calgon can’t take us away from a boisterous baby pulling up on the tub, then trying to eat our bubbles. So in order to concentrate, I had to reframe my thinking. Contrary to her crying and clinging, Taylor liked playing under my computer table while I tried to write. The one-year-old’s death-grip on my right calf was her way of contributing to the writing process, forcing the blood up from my leg and into my brain. No doubt she understood that I had chosen a teaching certificate over a law degree to allow me more time at home with her. Likewise, I had gladly bid acting good bye when, opening weekend of my debut in Blithe Spirit, I found out I was pregnant. At the end of the show’s run I retired from community theater to focus on the family. So of course she supported my plan to launch a writing career from home. And on the off chance she didn’t…well, she would adjust.

A mere twelve years and a lifetime later, I sat down to try writing again. This time my kids were older, and I was better informed. I had read about the realistic timeline of getting published—the year or two required for a book to come off the press. (Of course, I chose to ignore the bothersome fact that this timeline referred to the period AFTER a book was bought by a publisher—that the period BEFORE a book was purchased could be years..even decades.) It all sounded so simple. Textbook stuff really.

So after hiring a professional photographer to do my cover shot, I cast my net far and wide– sending my proposal and sample chapters to everyone listed in The Writer’s Market. Then I waited, confident the calls would begin as NYC publishers would fight to wine and dine me, vying for the chance to snap up my first masterpiece. I didn’t want to jump at the first advance that came along and miss a bigger check offered later. If I made at least the $15,000 all reference guides said I should for a first book (I wouldn’t presume I’d have the luck of Nicholas Sparks and snag a million dollars the first time out), I’d have enough for an Xterra and a laptop. My then thirteen-year-old Volvo would be retired at last. Once I accepted the best deal, I would simply finish the book and look forward to the call coming that would place me across from Katie Couric on The Today Show. We’d both be wearing pumps and pencil skirts and she’d be asking me how it feels to be a best selling author. My NOT getting published seemed as unlikely as her leaving NBC and defecting to CBS…

Into the Cave
Already a legend in my own mind, I entered my cave (our basement family room) in 2003 to work on my one-and-only computer—a green bulky iMac– a prehistoric and PIP model. (PIP stands for Pre-iPOD—the eighth natural wonder of the world because it made Macs universally cool. Well, the iPod plus iTunes and the marketing campaign that pits the paranoid, paunchy PC Patriarch against the hot, hip Mac Daddy.) And for the next eight months, my basement– though damp, dark and lightly scented with our dog’s pee– became my writing cell. But I couldn’t complain–not after visiting Patmos on a cruise of the Greek isles. After standing in the black niche of the cave from which John humbly and peacefully wrote the Book of Revelation—the concluding chapter of the hottest selling book of all time– writing in a cinder block basement didn’t seem such a sacrifice. There I spent every free moment of ’04– weekends and summer break– working in self-imposed exile.

Finding the “bright side” of writing underground when other obstacles presented themselves wasn’t always easy. First I had to condition myself with an “Early to bed, Early to rise” mantra if I wanted to beat the kids to our only computer. Next, I had to learn firsthand that the best defense is a good offense. To hold off Taylor’s blitz to Instant Messenger and Cole’s run to Zelda Online Player’s Guide, I had to tackle our phone aggressively. To prevent telemarketers from waking the kids, I started each day by taking the phone off the hook and smothering its cries with my pillow. This kept my kids out of the game and bought me more time, that is until they enlisted more team members–The Boys of Summer, five neighborhood kids who daily hoped to wake Cole so he could come out to play.

Once Taylor woke up, trying to defend the computer from her downstairs– while simultaneously guarding the front door from the boys knocking to wake Cole upstairs– required a defense strategy that would have stumped even Bear Bryant. So choosing yet another offensive move, I invented a new rule–no one could approach the front porch before 1 PM. I soon discovered two loopholes in this edict. One, it didn’t cover backyard strategies the boys used to wake my son– like jumping on the trampoline or shooting hoops underneath his bedroom window. Squeaky springs and balls bouncing off the backboard were signals I hadn’t counted on. Second, compliance with the 1 PM rule probably never happened because Cole said he “forgot” to tell them about it in the first place. Once the boys broke through the lines and rescued him from the house, it was harder to concentrate on writing, what with hip hop blaring and bottle rockets exploding.

Out into the Sunshine
I did finally achieve enough lockdown to send off my first book proposal and sample chapters. In doing so, I had temporarily tasted the joy of working all day in my pjs. Like Claire dressed in her nightgown as she leaps across the stage in The Nutcracker, I, too, saw dancing visions of my own fantasyland. Financial Independence. A life of typing away on a laptop from my deck swing—kids gone to school—nothing but the tranquil company of Annie, my golden retriever; Precious, my Persian; and the occasional annoying squirrel. Just mockingbirds singing—my own version of Mockingbird Hill—my grandparents’ farm which to me had sounded like a utopia.

My grandmother, Mama Lou, would tell me stories of its magic and take me there via her magic carpet—her rocking chair. My sister and I would sit on each side of her on the wide oak armrests traveling to grand destinations. Sometimes we’d stop at Parisian sidewalk cafes—in reality her couch and tv trays.

Wishful Thinking: The Glass All Full
Most of my romantic ideas probably started in her living room. Because I learned to visualize early—of say, casually chatting with Queen Elizabeth when my grandmother’s rocker dropped me off in London—I had no trouble sustaining the habit of dreaming big even as an adult. That coupled with discovering certain Bible verses– like the one that says God owns the cattle on a thousand hills; or the one that says God is able to do infinitely more than all we ask or imagine, hope or dream. I still believe that with God, nothing is impossible. But sometimes I forget that His plans for my life may not dovetail with mine–or at least not on my schedule.

Thinking all things are possible can be problematic. So is being impatient. Setting my sights so high has plummeted me to abysmal lows, explaining why in seasons of tail spins I’ve succumbed to depression. At times I’ve been bitter, proving correct whoever said a cynic is a disillusioned idealist. Many people, like My Sister the Realist, would say I set myself up for disappointment. Her motto is to never get too excited about anything. That way, you can’t be let down and labeled a sucker. She also cautions me on a regular basis not to believe everything I see in the movies.

But with the forgetfulness of Disney’s Dory in Finding Nemo, I always bounce back and just keep on swimming. I’ve been called a hopeless romantic, but I prefer to call myself a hopeful one. And then some people call me crazy. No doubt the owner of a local match making service for “busy professionals” thought I suffered from delusions of grandeur. She became irritated when I complained about the men she kept sending my way. I had been very specific about what I was looking for. Finally I cut to the chase: “Don’t you have anyone there who resembles, oh, I don’t know… George Clooney?” To which she flatly replied: “No, we don’t have movie stars as clients.”

Little did she know that with the eternal sunshine of a delusional mind, I had once planned every detail of the first time I’d hang out with my dream posse—three women who had also suffered but had used their pain to help others. Three women who were interesting, classy, fun, and fashionable. Three women who put their designer jeans on one leg at a time. Three women who I felt could become my closest friends if we were ever given the chance to meet. So going beyond merely visualizing my first night-on-the-town with Princess Di, Oprah, and Jackie O, I hired a seamstress to make me a full- length, royal blue velvet cape. How cool to end up in the 90s as their Fourth Musketeer–even more than in the 60s when I was Annette Funicello’s fellow Mouseketeer. Of course, due to untimely deaths, my dream was never realized. And though my cape still mocks me from my closet, I haven’t given up on other “impossible dreams.” Like meeting Johnny Depp over coffee to discuss politics and other “deep things.” And I don’t have to bother with wardrobe details, since we’ll both be dressed in jeans and black t-shirts. Yea, in my dreams.

But even if my active imagination roams too far because of my optimistic bent, my grandmother’s influence, my selective reading of the Bible, and my watching Roger and Hammerstein’s production of Cinderella a few dozen times, seeing myself as a successful writer seemed more a practical goal than an unrealistic fantasy. In a Hail Mary attempt to sell that first book and at the risk of seeming more like a groupie than an equal, I asked for an audience with the Queen. For real this time.

(to be continued in Part 3…Pleading My Case)

Taylor, obviously unharmed by my writing attempts, in "The Cape" at her school's Victorian Day
Taylor, obviously unharmed by my writing attempts, in “The Cape” at her school’s Victorian Day

blithe-spirit1

Imposter

Cindy McCain

I felt like such an imposter.  Exposed.  Naked.    And in the very place I thought would be the answer  to all my dreams.

Part One:  Life Ideal

For years I had wanted to begin the Life of a Writer, one of the holy grails I believed would finally render Life Ideal.  But wanting wasn’t getting the job done.  As my mother used to say, “Wish in one hand and pee in the other and see which hand fills up faster.”

Of course, I hadn’t merely wished away twenty years.  I was a single mom raising two children while teaching high school and college English. But writing seemed to be my true north…even if I had taken a few roads south.  Then again, I began in the south– born and bred to keep my performance high and my expectations low.

Despite my teachers praising my work so that I sometimes secretly tried on the title of Freelance Writer, I chose the road more traveled–a safer route to feed the children.   I reasoned that becoming a writer was just a phase—like when I dreamed of being a dancer after watching West Side Story or of being an actor after seeing Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind.  Dancing required moving to New York and acting meant relocating to LA; and as the first in my family to attend college, I had no idea how one would get from Hopkinsville, Kentucky to the other side of the world.  I didn’t know where writers lived, but I knew that it might as well have been somewhere over the rainbow.  So I went with education– a sure thing, and much easier to explain as a career choice at my grandmother’s on Sundays over the fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

My love for literature convinced me I needed to teach secondary English—that and an elementary ed music course which culminated in our playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on a plastic recorder. Teaching small children wasn’t my thing. How could we discuss Kafka?

I enjoyed my high school students and challenged them to be Renaissance Men and Women. I called them to “Seize the Day,” even stand on their desks (though they didn’t have to call me “Captain, My Captain.”)  I exhorted them not to settle—to find their passions and pursue them.  But it wasn’t until my forties that I decided to practice what I preached.

I didn’t need Vanna White to solve the puzzle that starts with “mid-life.”  Everyone knows what follows: crisis. Facing the gap between what our life is and what we imagined it would be can be soulful and sobering.    Some people accept defeat, paralyzed with regret over what should have been.  Others grab a quick fix, such as buying a Harley, Botoxing their brows, or browsing Match.com for a younger lover.  But I wanted more than temporary relief.  I wanted a cure.    I wanted to write a New York Times best seller.

I wanted to talk about it on The Today Show. And once it was made into a movie, like Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Nia Vardalos, I’d play the starring role.  When James Lipton of The Actors Studio asked me to reveal my least favorite sound, I’d be ready to answer...

I never let go of my dream, but no amount of magical thinking had changed the reality that teaching all day and grading/ parenting all night barely left me time for a haiku, much less a novel.   I suspect many an artist-turned-teacher besides Mr. Holland has experienced the frustration of Opus Interruptus.  But before my heart for writing flat-lined and my dreams of publication were suffocated under the Bell Jar, I decided to get serious and go-all-Thoreau.  I would live a deliberate life rather than a random one.  I would live deeply, sucking out the marrow of life, rather than live bitterly, whining that life sucks. I refused to go to the grave with my song still stuck in my throat. I refused to allow mid-life to escort me to the cheap seats of Lifetime Original Movies. I would believe that mid-life– with or without Viagra– is far from impotent.  It’s The Impetus.

From the mid-life point I could see not just time lost, but time left.  I recognized that nothing had been wasted, but rather banked, yielding a high return from life experiences—the very stuff that made me who I am.  Maybe I had the talent to write all along, but I lacked the courage and the material.  I had been conditioned by the hardest blows and was now tougher for it. And my experiences were currency—the life savings an expatriate exchanges into rupees, euros, or yen– to buy a ticket to a new life.

For years I had been packing my bags with stories from the trenches—from over two decades in the classroom, over a dozen years as a mom, and over a decade of dating again.  Bridget Jones’s diary and Carrie Bradshaw’s columns had nothing on me. I had traveled abroad where, like Elizabeth Gilbert, I had eaten, prayed, and loved.  And long before anyone had heard of The Secret, my mid-life mantra had become: “Live the Life You Have Imagined.” I knew what I needed to do.  There were signs everywhere.

I first saw Thoreau’s challenge reprinted prophetically on a greeting card, affirming my desire for reinvention.  I read pep talks in More magazine spurring me toward a career/life change.  Then I heard the same six words serendipitously spoken by a friend, catapulting me into action. By the time Brooke told me that she credited her new life to something she read while still in college, “Live the Life You Have Imagined,” my philosophical stance became a full speed gallop toward my own renaissance.

My friend had married a lawyer and was headed to Chicago—a Mt. Juliet, Tennessee girl who made good.  We had shopped in NYC one spring, staying in a boutique hotel with poached eggs and espresso.  At home in Nashville, we had frequented Rumours on Tuesday nights, sharing the “Artisan Cheese Plate” under trendy paintings by locals.   And in our Talbots hats and Ann Taylor sundresses, we had attended Steeple Chase lugging our cooler up the hill rather than driving a Lexus SUV into the infield—literally  the In Place  to be. We hated being on the outside looking in.

Though we had the right food and clothes, there was no place in the cheap seats where we could unfold our lounge chairs and spread our picnic blanket without some shirtless drunk stumbling across the grass threatening to land in the middle of our sangria and chicken salad.  The crowd on the hill had the look of fans at a Charlie Daniels Volunteer Jam while the ones in the inner circle had the appearance of patrons of Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony.  The infield grass definitely seemed greener, and we longed to be under the Gatsby-esque tents eating cucumber sandwiches on tables with white linens and bouquets of hydrangeas and English roses.

But though we had been barred that day from the inner circle, Brooke had arrived.  She was headed for the Windy City and a new life.  She and Mark would later explore Istanbul and Turkey and would live one street from the Miracle Mile and three from Lake Michigan.  They would spend Christmases in Paris–twice.  Maybe a Hoptown, Kentucky girl could do the  same.

I knew, however, that my ticket out wouldn’t involve marrying well based on a fetching face or figure.  The doors that open for girls in their twenties usually slam shut for  women in their forties. And though Brooke had worked hard at her education and career,  she was also a black haired, blue eyed, flawless skinned beauty–gorgeous and twenty-five. While told I look younger than my age, I knew that in a youth obsessed culture—confirmed daily by my daughter who is disgusted each time Hope and Bo on Days of Our Lives make out– my best bet was to bank on my brain, not my looks.  For ten years I had dated more guys who were younger than me than older, but when it came to settling down, they almost always wanted someone their junior.  Not to mention that after recovering from a near fatal divorce over a decade ago, I wasn’t about to depend on a man for my life—much less my livelihood. I had read too many self-help books and had the support of too many friends for that.  I was indeed “Co-dependent No More.“

I had realized that for years I had given some people the power to grade my life– to decide my worth.  Like an amateur on American Idol cowering before  Simon Cowell or a contestant on The Bachelor groveling for a rose,  I often accepted harsh criticism and rejection from arrogant “judges” while ignoring the rave reviews of kinder souls.  I allowed people and events from formative years and my inherently melancholy personality to determine my low self –esteem.  It would take me awhile to understand that while some people would always matter,  their critical report card of me…not so much. Not if I had done my best with pure motives.  I finally understood what Eleanor Roosevelt meant when she said, “No one can make you feel bad about yourself without your permission.”  A soundtrack started playing in my head, clicking off Aretha Franklin’s “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” Donna Summer’s “I Will Survive,” Smash Mouth’s “I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again” and finally, my grandmother’s anthem, “It is Well With My Soul.” Though the fatality of my marriage had already been harder to survive than two miscarriages, my parent’s divorce, and even my dad’s unexpected death, I knew with God’s help I’d live through it. Even if it meant losing a man I’d known since seventh grade and loved since our senior prom.  Even if my social security number follows his consecutively.

Though we are still friends, those first years my heart was so damaged that at times it physically ached. And though I couldn’t sit through a church service without crying, I wasn’t about to give up on God, love, or men.  This was quite a miracle considering my mother had always told me that most males are definitely more trouble than they are worth.  No, I believed God would bring someone new into my life—and soon.  So soon that I thought my counselor was well meaning but crazy when she said I needed two whole years to heal before starting another serious relationship.

Ignoring this advice, I told my aunt and uncle who took me to dinner to cheer me up that I had bought the Martha Stewart Weddings magazine.  I was getting ideas for a second wedding—a small but tasteful gathering of friends and family celebrating that happy—no, happier—days were here again.  They were too polite to point out that to choose flowers, food, and music before having a potential groom in mind might be putting the cart before the horse.  They were too kind to say that I could clip out as many of Martha’s good things for the nuptials as I wanted, but a good man might be much harder to find.   They just nodded mechanically in support of my optimistic plan, doubting I’d ever marry again.     Some say I’m too picky, but in those early single-again days, friends didn’t offer a lot of hope.

The only advice most of them gave on husband hunting was offering not a means to an end but that the end should be the means.  “Oil that is, Texas tee.” Money.  Never mind if the guy was as old as Jed Clampett or as dense as Jethro.  But whether to my credit or to my stupidity, I’ve never considered marrying for prestige or wealth and I don’t anticipate doing so in the future.  So yes, I wanted to remarry, but not until after, in all my financial independence, I could throw my hat into the air like Mary Tyler Moore as friends serenaded, “She’s going to make it after all.”  I didn’t have to have a man to be successful.  Even if Mr. Grant had been single, Mary Richards would have never married her boss just because he was a man of means.  And maybe like me, she didn’t find dating someone twice her age tempting.  Come to think of it, even the men I met in my age bracket who weren’t married, weren’t gay, didn’t prefer dating a fetus and were emotionally available, looked more like Mr. Grant than Hugh Grant.

Of course, there was that guy on eharmony from  Washington.  The one who in his first email wrote: “ I have decided to put my heart into a relationship with you.  Let’s move forward, sealing the deal with matrimony.  I hope to hear from you (at which point he gave me his phone number.)  I await your beep like the birds await spring.”

Too much.  Even for a romantic like me.

No doubt my ticket to bliss wasn’t cashing in on the right man.  And while I
appreciated Tennessee voting in the lottery to help fund my children’s college, I stopped dreaming of winning the lottery years ago.   Guess I’m not one of those single moms who, it was lobbied by some of my Bible Belt friends, would weekly gamble away the milk money on the Lotto.  No, for me, writing was the way…the Grail…

I reasoned a best seller would lead to  more time for my children and those things I love.  Time to paint, study Italian, and live la dolce vita— here and abroad.  Writing might even lead me to a soul mate who shared my intensity and passion—like a Heathcliff or Lord Byron (though I realize now I probably needed someone real or living, not quite so brooding, and in the case of Byron, faithful).  Maybe he would meet me at a book signing–drawn there by my witty words and winsom face smiling at him from my book cover.  We could be the next Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, writing and living out our later years “under the Tuscan sun.”

I was ready to do more than cheerlead as I sent my high school seniors out into the “real world.”  I was ready to get out there, too.  I had been eating lunch in the school cafeteria since I was five.   I had been teaching since Bryan Adams, Def Lepperd, and M.C. Hammer ruled.  Since my students thought IROC Z’s were “bad” and Tom Cruise was Top Gun rather than Valkyrie.  Through Reganomics, Desert Storm, Monica Lewinsky, and O.J. Simpson,  kids had looked at me from under Big Hair, no hair, mullets and Mohawks.  I’d stayed in contact with many of them long after they graduated and a few had become close friends.  But as much as I enjoyed teaching and Mr. Holland’s Opus, hoping, I, too had made a difference, I wanted to complete my masterpiece.  I wanted to finish my book, and sell it–big. Rather than just teach about dead guys who wrote, I wanted to be one —a famous writer, that is, not a dead guy.  I was definitely ready to live that passionate life I’d told others to live…that life I had imagined…

(to be continued in Part Two: Great Expectations)

Earlier dreams of dancing
Earlier dreams of dancing