Milestones and Turning Points: The Moments that Change Our Lives

The day I defended my dissertation, I woke up with a steely, nervous calm. It was like the energy that had been circling throughout my body the entire four years I'd been working on the novel had suddenly risen up through my pores. It stayed there, dancing among the goosebumps, flirting with my hair. Mark (my husband) asked if I wanted anything to eat. "No," I said. "I couldn't possibly." He decided not to eat anything either--he was defending his own master's thesis in computer science later that day. So we drove, empty and charged, to the campus together.

I can't really say what happened next, except that it was sort of like our wedding. All these months and months--years--of preparation, and it all came down to less than two hours. I remember sucking in a breath and feeling it go down through my empty body. I remember putting my palm over my navel and feeling the rise and fall. I remember my second and third readers (bless them!) going out into the hall for extra chairs, so that there were enough seats and so that I wouldn't have to. I remember talking through the outline I'd prepared and feeling fairly confident about what I was saying. I remember the questions, questions, questions, and then the answers, answers, answers. And I remember at some point relaxing, then feeling a strange disorientation, as if instead of talking with a roomful of professors, I was suddenly seated among my peers.

Then I had to step outside, so they could deliberate before the moment of truth. To be honest, I had no doubt I had passed. I knew they were going to welcome me back into the room as doctor. But what unsettled me, what caused all that energy to sweep out and around and almost vacate, was the realization that I suddenly no longer cared. Yes, I wanted to be Dr. Paterson, wanted that very badly, but if the choice was between that and seeing my book succeed in the world, I'd have walked out of that building and never looked back. At that point, all I cared about was the snippets of feedback I had just received, and how they made me completely re-envision my novel. At that point, all I wanted to do was grab my novel and hold it tightly, say "Where are you not working? Where? I want to make you work, damn it; I want to make you work more than I want my life."

Then, of course, my dissertation director came out and got me, and everyone clapped, in the lukewarm, self-conscious way that only academics can clap, and my third reader gave me a thumbs up and said "You did it!"

But I wanted to say, "No, I didn't." "No, I haven't." I haven't done it until it works. And that's where I am now, getting back into the book, trying to rethink how to make it work--not just parts of it--but all of it. I hope I can. I know I can. I will will this into being.

Exploring the Great Possible: 3 Questions for our new blog buddy, Dr. Kathryn Paterson

For years, I kept trying to work out a coffee date with Kathryn Paterson. No more. Now, I'm trying to find a coffee op with Dr. Kathryn Paterson. An aspiring author and student at the University of Houston, she first connected with me when I was doing the "BookWoman" blog for the Houston Chronicle. It's been a delight hearing from her over the years as she moved into the PhD program, produced her first novel, and took the first steps toward publication.

Colleen and I have been planning a major redesign and expansion of Boxing the Octopus, starting with the addition of a few new voices. Eventually, our team will include a wide range of industry perspectives, a variety of genres and POVs -- all of us up to our necks in writing, publishing, and selling books. It occurred to me that we should have a token newbie -- and how nice it would be if she had a fresh PhD from one of the most prestigious Creative Writing programs in the country! In her coming posts, Kathryn will be bringing a combination of serious writing chops, high wattage personality, and unjaded faith in the art and craft of writing.

Welcome, Kathryn! We're delighted to have you. First question: What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? Didn't you know you were supposed to grow up and be something normal?
Ha ha ha. Normal is a relative word. But seriously, I have known I wanted to write ever since I was 5. I opened my closet door as I was telling a story to one of my stuffed animals, and heard a voice say "Write it down." I looked up, put my hand on my hip, and said "But I'm 5! I can't write yet!" But the voice didn't budge, and neither have I. I do struggle with it from time to time, though, because there are times I question whether or not I truly "love" writing. I guess writing is one of those passions that arouses all the emotions, everything from excitement to elation to anxiety to fear to out and out frustration and despair. And there is nothing better to me than to finish a piece of work and come back to it later, sometimes years later, and think "wow, that was actually pretty good." For instance, right now I'm recording a few pieces I wrote in my early twenties for a "voice only literature competition" and I actually think they are just as good as anything I'm writing now. It's exciting to go back to the person I was then and realize that among all that drivel, there were a few real gems. It's exciting and it gives me hope.

The U of H Creative Writing program is one of the best in the US. What do you feel you learned there that you might not have learned elsewhere?
In a word, humility. I came to UH fresh out of the University of Cincinnati's playwriting program, where I had ended up doing very well in fiction. At U.C., I won several awards. Then I get to U of H and feel like I am the absolute worst writer in the room, and have my first professor come in a few weeks into the semester and say, very gruffly, "None of you are writing stories." That was a rude awakening, but ultimately very good.

Okay. You've got that PhD in your hot little hands (congratulations, by the way!) and you've got a solid manuscript to shop. What's the action plan?
"Hot little hands." Really, Joni? :) Actually, the plan right now is to get the manuscript even more solid. One of the things that came up during the discussion of the book in my dissertation defense was that while the main plot is working very well, there are a couple of subplots that need developing. And of course there are always tons and tons of other little things that you can do to polish a manuscript. Something that is hard for me is letting go of that level of perfection that we learn to have when writing short fiction. It is simply not possible, or at least I don't think it's possible, to have that same high level of quality consistently throughout a novel that people come to expect from a short story. A short story is more like a poem, where each word counts, and while I would love to have that in my novel too, I just don't know that it's possible, or at least it may not be possible yet for me.

After this third draft, though, I do plan to start sending out, and I can't tell you how nervous that makes me! So far two agents have asked for the full manuscript, by a complete and utter fluke, and I plan to send the book to one of those two first. If he says no, then it's back to the drawing board for me, most likely, because I didn't really feel a connection with the other agent. At that point, I will start querying and synopsizing and doing all the rest of the things all "normal" writers do. There's that word normal again, hmmm. Back to the beginning.