Diary

I love Thanksgiving.  It is by far the best holiday for me.  It’s one of the few where it doesn’t matter what religion you are, just that you identify with a common desire to pause and give thanks.  We are so blessed. Even in our hardest times we are luckier than most people around the world for how much we have, not just materially, but in terms of reasons for optimism and belief in our ability to live effectively and improve our lives.  I love Thanksgiving because it hasn’t been corrupted by gift giving (well, except by those who use it to kick off Christmas shopping).  I love it because every ethnic group included the foods it makes them happy to eat–turkey and pancit, turkey and tamales, turkey and collard greens, turkey and injera.  Yes, the food is good, but that’s not really it for me–it’s all of the above and more.  Have a wonderful day!

Here we are, just a little over four months out from publication.  I have received galleys of THE MAPMAKER’S DAUGHTER, and it looks just beautiful.  It has been a wonderful experience working with my editor, Shana Drehs, and the rest of the team at Sourcebooks, and I look forward to a really special finished product.

Local speaking invitations have been coming in at a steady clip, and I look forward to the chance to talk about the book and the history of the Spanish Convivencia.  Please take a look at the author’s introduction and synopsis pages for THE MAPMAKER’S DAUGHTER to understand why I think this is such an important and compelling subject.

I have received a great deal of praise from fellow authors, whose blurbs will appear on the cover or front pages.  Here is a sampling:

“A riveting, often heart-rending tale set against the tragic backdrop of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Laurel Corona has crafted a heroine for all ages in Amalia, whose choices define an era of religious upheaval, courage, and sacrifice that still resonates today.” -C.W. Gortner, author of The Queen’s Vow.

Here is the entire cover for the galley of THE MAPMAKER’S DAUGHTER–a little bit tall and skinny.  Hope it makes the wait just a little bit unbearable!  You will be the first to know the details about activities in relation to the March 4  2014 release.

I am not a military person but there’s something to the idea of being ordered to attention.  How easy it is to drift through the day and end it none the richer for the experience. Thanks to Anne Lamott (and my friend June Cressy, who sent me this quotation from her), I see how guilty of this I am.

 “From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel and densest drama, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady in the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.”

The biggest thing I have lost in what has been overall a good, healthy period of not writing a novel, is the level of attentiveness required to find many of the insights and details that work their way into my writing.  An overheard comment, a bit of body language, an untied shoe, a puff of breeze can become a central metaphor or just a little detail that makes the book more real and alive.

Instead, I have had a wonderful stretch of time in which I have had nothing on my mind on my walks, in my car, and at workouts except the audiobook I am currently listening to.  I take in my surroundings (including the Alcazar Garden in Balboa Park, pictured here, which I walk through every day on my way to and from the college) but not in a contemplative or searching way, a way open to the surprises that always play an important role in shaping a book.

Mostly I haven’t started writing because I haven’t been taken over by a story yet.  Maybe all those forgotten women have moved on to populate other writers’ heads.  Maybe they know I need a break. Then again, maybe someone is saying, “turn off the audiobook–I’m trying to talk to you.”

I have written five historical novels, the fourth of which, The Mapmaker’s Daughter, is on the way next March from Sourcebooks.  The fifth, The Intuitive, is a completed and fairly well polished draft, but not done to my satisfaction yet.  I tell myself that if I don’t write any more historical fiction, that’s okay, because five is a lot, and I’ve made my overall point about forgotten women pretty well by now.

What I miss: the fun of finding out what’s going to happen next as I’m drafting.  Also, the great joy of working in the kinds of insights I described above, and the sheer joy of playing with language.

What I don’t miss:  the compulsive, all-consuming vortex that writing a book always becomes.  I haven’t been able to figure out how to have a full and balanced life, stay in full bloom in my relationships with other people, and avoid the feeling of being a little out of kilter in my teaching, when I am writing a novel.

I haven’t been able to get that nagging idea out of my head that I should be accomplishing something every minute of every day.  I have to develop a more inclusive sense of what it means to have something to show for myself, something I am adding to the world.  Novels have been so clear in that way.

I’m not ready to retire from this self-appointed job quite yet, but the simplest, monosyllabic way to put what I do understand about myself as a novelist right now is this: I don’t want to go there.   Sometime back I gave a workshop and wrote a blog post called “Writing Scared.”  I didn’t know I would be in need of my own advice a ways down the road. I guess that means I’m pretty sure another book is coming…someday.  And don’t forget, The Mapmaker’s Daughter definitely is.  Look for it in March 2014!

Postscript:

In Finding Emilie, here is one way that noticing the details of the day worked into the novel.  Fruit flies were hovering over the wine glasses at dinner one night and the next day I wrote this, using them as a metaphor for my heroine, Lili’s conflicted life.:

“Lili?”  The voice was Paul-Vincent’s, on her other side.  “Aren’t you speaking to me?”

“I’m sorry,” she interrupted.  “I’m just a little distracted.”

“I just thought of an excellent experiment.  Look at this.”  He held up his wine glass.  “Do you see?”

“See what?” Not science.  Not tonight.

“The fruit flies.  They’re everywhere.  I think they like wine, but it looks as if something about it makes them act strange.”  Lili dutifully held up her own glass trying to catch as much light as possible from the candles.  “I’ve got two of them sitting on the rim,” she said, “tipping down inside, like they’re trying to get whatever’s left there.”

In spite of herself, she was interested.  “Maybe they just don’t want to fall in.”

“And maybe they’re a little drunk,” he snickered. “I wonder if vapors coming up from the wine are doing that, or if they’re actually drinking. I wish I’d brought the microscope.”

Lili laughed. “You can’t bring a microscope to dinner!”

“I know. But how about tomorrow?”  He lowered his voice. “I promise I won’t try to kiss you if you come to the lab.” Lili stared at him, so wrapped up in the problems of the day that it took a moment to understand what he was talking about.

She had already looked at a fruit fly under the microscope and been horrified by its enormous eyes and tiny claw-like feet. Now she felt nothing but sympathy for the little creatures hovering on the rim of her glass. Could they escape or would they just stay there, caught and confused between the forces that attracted and repelled them, until they fell in and drowned, or perhaps flew out and survived a little longer?

I got home from the Baltic to a nearly final version of the cover for novel number four. If you haven’t done so already, check out my introduction and synopsis here on this site under the tab for my books. Publication date is March 4, 2014. Write to me at lacauthor@gmail.com if you have comments!

As usual, I forget how much more difficult posting will be while on a trip, but that is about to end, since I am waiting on the Seabourn Sojourn for the call ashore, then to the airport. I just want to shout out to the universe my gratitude for all the blessings of my life, which includes the support of friends, new and old. Loved lecturing on the cruise to such interested audiences. I look forward to the next time, but not too much because I plan to embrace and enjoy every minute of my life between now and Christmas/New Years, when I am cruise lecturing again for Silversea in the Caribbean. Yes, I am the most fortunate person on earth–and I never forget that. I may need this mantra many times today as I sit squished in an airplane seat and hang out interminably in airports waiting for connections, but so it goes. Here I am toasting life with my traveling companion, Beverly.  Home to the  new boyfriend, tennis, golf, and a much stricter diet!  Bye bye champagne!

Does anyone actually say “ahoy” anymore?

Greetings from the Baltic!  I am currently on a very glassy sea, leaving Tallinn, Estonia, and headed for St. Petersburg, Russia, where we will dock tomorrow morning.  So far this cruise has been eventful and uneventful in the exact way one wishes when traveling.  No crises or disasters, and a lot of fun and educational moments shared with interesting people.  I have given two of my four lectures already, and I will not need to work again until after we leave St. Petersburg in a couple of days.

Attendance has been very good at my lectures–40 or more at each–and the feedback has been very positive. A highlight was a clip from a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream featuring a very young Judi Dench clad in very little but green paint and strategically placed leaves.  I’l try to attach the link here so you can share in the amusement!

Smooth seas to you all, wherever you are.  I will write again from St. Petersburg.

http://file:///Users/laurelweeks/Desktop/Judi%20Dench%20A%20Midsummer%20Night’s%20Dream%20Pt%202%20-%20YouTube.webarchive

I’m on my way in a couple of days for another round of cruise lectures, this time on Seabourn in the Baltic. I will try to post from the ship, but in my experience, signals can be iffy at sea, so perhaps I will end up saving up my comments until my return. If I can I will try to post photos as well. If you aren’t already a follower of “Laurel Corona, Author” on Facebook, please sign up, as I will probably also post there.

And on another matter, I have sent in my revisions of THE MAPMAKER’S DAUGHTER so we are right on track for a March 2014 publication date. I truly believe this is my best story, and it is definitely the one I most yearned to tell when I set out to become a novelist. I will write more about that soon as well. For now, it’s “to do” lists pretty much non stop until the plane leaves, so I will sign off with a wave for now and check in again soon.

Life has a way, doesn’t it?

It’s been a little over a year since I lost my beloved Jim to cancer, and exactly a year since I moved into a shabby-chic little rental near the San Diego Zoo.  I kept to my routine I established when I lived with him downtown near the bay, of walking to the college where I teach, passing every day by the rose garden that was one of Jim’s and my favorite stops on weekend afternoons.

I sprinkled some of his ashes under many of the rose bushes, and for several months I could still see signs of them under one yellow and one white rose bush. I have paused in front of those two bushes coming and going over this past year, just to say hello, catch Jim up on my life, and whisper my appreciation for him.

I think there is something profound about the idea of mourning for twelve months and a day, because getting through the anniversary is such a big step.  I have now done without him all holidays, birthdays, memories of special times, and have relived the pain of those last days and hours.  Slowly, I have moved on, found my balance, retrieved the spring in my step. Little by little I have found there is less to say when I stop, though I always brush my lips against one of the roses which have taken in what I brought of him to that spot. Amazing how much rose petals feel like lips, and how truly I felt kissed back.

I don’t cry anymore when I talk to Jim. The vision of him in his sailor cap smelling a flower is dimmer now. That’s all right.  It all still really happened.

Sometime this spring I learned that I would need to sign another year lease where I was living. Since I hadn’t planned to stay, but didn’t want to buy anything while I was unclear about my life, I decided the time was right to make the commitment of buying a place of my own.  Last week I moved into a beautiful one-bedroom condo on the other side of Balboa Park, with a spectacular view of downtown, the bay, Point Loma, and the ocean beyond.

I won’t be passing by the rose garden anymore, though I will be making the occasional special trip.  Instead, I bought a large armful of beautiful artificial yellow and white roses to put in my new home.  No, they don’t kiss as well, but they are a way of saying that we never completely say goodbye.

Perhaps, though, it’s a good thing for both of us that my move created a natural end to my stops in the garden. Jim, you are free to take on the universe without worrying about me anymore.  Now I am free to take on the other side of the park and the life that goes with it.

Well, here I am, back after an absence of many months.  For those of you who know me only through this website, the last you heard from me was when I was reeling from the death of my beloved partner and husband, Jim, last April.  I dropped out of sight over that summer and haven’t really given much thought to my life as a writer since.

The post below this one is something I wrote this week for another site, San Diego Writing Women, a group of which I am a proud member.  It will catch you up on my state of mind, so I will use this one to do the same for my professional life.  This one comes with a promise to pick up regular posting from now on!

I am happy to report that novel number four, which I finished before he died, sold last December to Sourcebooks, a Chicago-based publisher, and one of the most prestigious remaining indie houses.  I am very excited about being involved with this arm of the publishing industry, and working with my new editor, Shana Drehs. The novel is tentative called THE MAPMAKER’S DAUGHTER (I had titled it something else, and hope the subject is still negotiable, but we shall see), and should come out in early 2014.

As a result, 2013 will be a momentous year for me as an author, even if I don’t write anything new.  Soon I will be hard at work on revisions and the other aspects of editing THE MAPMAKER’S DAUGHTER for publication.  Perhaps that will whet my appetite for one of my many great ideas for future novels about forgotten women, and I will be writing here soon about my next project.  As I write this, I must admit, I feel a little stir of excitement about that possibility.

My other big news is that I have finally fulfilled a dream of many years to lecture on a cruise line.  Not only did I do that for the first time recently on Silversea Cruises (South America over last Christmas and New Year’s ), but I have gotten new contracts for other Silversea destinations over the next two holiday seasons, and another assignment this August on Seabourn in the eastern Mediterranean.

Those of you who have followed my blog here know that Jim and I were literally on the eve of leaving for Lisbon in September 2011 for what was to be my first lecturer gig on Silversea. As our plane took off without us, I was sitting instead at the hospital as doctors struggled to save Jim from imminent death from kidney failure.  Rather than luxuriating for the next few weeks on a cruise, we spent the time dealing with a serious health crisis and a diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer.

I will always remember that time as one of the most painful and saddest in my life, but as my friends all know, I am blessed with the “happy gene” and have recovered well.  I am so grateful for my nine years with Jim, and even if I knew the end when we set out to spend life together, I would do it all again.  Not many people are lucky to be as loved as I have been, and to have the great feeling of loving someone equally in return.

Enough for now. Very glad to be back. Thank you for all your support!  Laurel