 I just read the novel Room by Emma Donoghue, and I think it might be my favorite read of the year. The book is in no need of good reviews or good marketing, it's on the NYT bestseller list , but I was so rocked to the core. I just can't stop thinking about it.
The narrator is a five-year old boy who lives in an 11 x 11 room with his mother against their will. As a mother, I've become really sensitive to stories where children suffer, but I was just too intrigued. Not only are we confined to a room, we are seeing the story through a very young child's eyes, and I needed to see how this was handled structurally. What's so dazzling about this book is how such a severely limited world is rendered in such a rich and pure manner that the reader experiences it in much of the same way the narrator does. You're in, and there's simply nothing else to pay attention to.
This book though, to me, is ultimately about motherhood. The character of the mother has such amazing depth, all at once deeply human and otherworldly heroic. Forget about Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, THIS is extreme parenting. As a mother I could identify with the universal experience of being both wholly absorbed by mothering and at the same time "imprisoned" by what it takes to be there completely for your child. In some ways, we're all in that "room" with our babies for a little while.
I don't want to spoil anything for you, so I'll stop now. And for the men out there, this novel is in NO WAY a "baby" or "mothering" book. It's an incredibly poignant, suspenseful story that will blow anyone's mind.
Think of a friend, a family member, a favorite book character. What’s the first thing that pops into your head? Usually a name. We are our names. We embody them like skin. I always find it disorienting when I meet someone whose child is named the same as mine. At the first sound of my daughter or son’s name, everything they are to me--the way their hair smells, the sound of their voice, the feeling of their hand in mine--floods my brain. How could anyone else have that name?
We can’t underestimate how important names are. Yes, people sometimes change their names, but usually it’s because they are changing, or wish they could change, a huge part of themselves. It’s not something anyone does lightly. Think about classic children’s book characters, Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, James and the Giant Peach. What if Charlotte’s name was Susan? Susan’s Web. No way.
Before I write, I make a list of all the characters I plan to have in my story, and before I even think too much about who they are, I name them carefully, tenderly, like newborns. I look in baby name books or on the internet. I find out what their names mean. Then I try them on for size. Once in a while I change them, if the character turns out quite differently than I thought. But usually, as they develop, they become their names.
I was thinking about all this because of the teddy bear my son lost 7 months ago. The teddy bear has a name of course. It’s…wait for it…Teddy. Quite a simple name, given by my five-year-old son when he first learned how to talk. For four years, my son went to sleep with Teddy every night. Every day he played with Teddy and told him all his little secrets. Teddy was like a member of our family. One day, last July, we couldn’t find Teddy. We looked EVERYWHERE. After a few days, I knew Teddy was really gone. I told my son, almost in a whisper, that maybe Teddy went on vacation? I was heartbroken for him. He cried the first few nights without him, and then helped me make up stories about all the places Teddy was visiting—the forest, the jungle, the beach. And every time we finished a Teddy story, my son said, “And then he’ll come back.” I nodded, what else could I do?
Seven months later my daughter’s bracelet rolled under my desk. She reached her small hand all the way in the back (you know, to the part where you can’t see if you look under it), pulled out her bracelet, and a very dusty teddy bear. “Teddy!” she yelled and went running over to my son and thrust it at him. When I heard the name, everything came back to me, how Teddy looked, felt, and the particular way my son pressed his face into the top of Teddy’s head. The reunion was sweet and not really that surprising to him. After all, he knew Teddy was coming back all along.
So in writing, spend time choosing your names, and in life, spend time knowing people’s names. Spend time using people’s names. Luckily, we can’t lose those.
My car is covered in a sheet of ice. Somehow I find this more appealing than snow, just because I’m tired of seeing it stacked higher and higher on the sides of my driveway. It’s been one snowstorm after another this winter and a collective weariness has spread over everyone I know. I’m trapped once again in the house with my lovely and loud little children who are having their SIXTH snow day of the season. I figured, as they watch their second movie of the day because I have given up, it might be a good time to get this blog going. Whenever I create something, even if it’s not exactly what I wanted it to be, it still leaves a trail of brightness, of effort, of something new. I missed having a blog. I started a food blog last year when I went through a big cooking binge. I wanted to try my hand at a little food writing, but then I got tired of reporting what I cooked and ate all the time, so I stopped. But I missed the way a blog can focus your thoughts or heighten what you notice about your daily life.
So it dawned on me one day, why don’t I write a blog about writing, which is what I do. I didn’t want to limit myself to craft, or the writing process, or writing in general, though. This blog will certainly be filtered through that lens, but I’m going to give myself some wiggle room. People don’t give themselves enough wiggle room. I find it interesting that when you ask people what they do, they don’t answer “I do (blank) which of course would sound weird. They say, “I’m a doctor… I’m a website designer…I’m an accountant… I’m a teacher.” As if that’s it—that’s all they are. Nobody wants to be put in boxes. I’m a writer, yes, and thankful to be one. But I’m also a lot of other things. I write for children and adults. I’m a mom. I’m a wife. I’m a teacher. I draw and paint. I cook. I clean the bathroom and do the laundry. I do yoga. I sing badly in the car. I am all these things and more.
After writing many mass‐market children’s books based on licensed characters for several years, my dream came true, or I should say one of my dreams came true. I sold a manuscript for my original middle‐grade novel to Random House/Delacorte Press which will come out in about a year. Most of the time it feels really wonderful and satisfying. But right now in the middle of this gray, icy day with lots of editing ahead of me, it feels a little unreal and delicate, like something I have to protect.
I’d like to take you through this journey, this book getting off the ground. I’ll also talk about some of my favorite literature, both for children and adults. Sometimes I might write about finding inspiration, or craft, or revising. Sometimes I might write about my refrigerator that keeps breaking, or my two incredible children that challenge me in ways I didn’t know anyone could challenge me. I might write about Montessori education since I’m also in the process of getting certified to be a Montessori teacher. Sometimes I might even post a random drawing or painting I’ve done. I don’t know. I just need a big, wiggly place for all of it.
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