Cold aside, I love everything about the holiday season: its multi-religious music, the divine meals and desserts, and most of all, the giving spirit.
Smiles break through otherwise stern faces, erasing frown lines far more effectively than Botox. Salvation Army bells remind us to help the less fortunate, and friends who have all but lost touch reach out to check in.
Now that I'm in my seventh decade, I’ve learned to shed most of the seasonal stress, replacing it with more fullfilling activity. My gifts are fewer and more thoughtful, I clear my writing schedule to immerse in baking delicacies to gift, and spend time with family and friends. My happiness bucket fills.
I’ve turned the manuscript for book three of the trilogy, Over There, to my editor and have a few weeks before I get cracking again. Those morning hours have been replaced with thinking time, imagining the setting and plot of a fourth novel, and turning the trilogy into a tetralogy, a new word for me! I’m also considering writing another essay memoir, one that captures the last fifteen years of living with ovarian cancer - the many crucial lessons I’ve learned about finding joy and purpose when the cloud of life’s uncertainty thickens.
In the meantime, I have a special gift for YOU! For those interested in the pages that end up on the editing floor, I have a link to a section of Threadbare that is near and dear to me. Let me give you some context.
In the ending of the first iteration, I'd decided to take the entire Levine/Isaacson family (together with Sadie's family) on an excursion to the Chicago World’s Exhibition in 1893. I wanted to inject a once-in-a-lifetime treat (as it would have been in those days) for their years of hardship. I cut those thirty-ish pages from the final manuscript for three reasons. First, they weren’t adding to the plot. The journey came late in the story and it wasn’t necessary to draw a fuller picture of the characters. But predominantly, the book had tipped four hundred pages, a reading cut-off for many book clubs, one of my favorite audiences.
As they say in the writing world, this Chicago adventure was a long darling, requiring weeks of research on the World’s Fair, train travel, and lodging for visitors. It broke my heart to remove the pages. So, I decided to bring them back to life! By the way, the three paneled photo above was painted by Mary Cassatt for the Women's Pavilion and later lost in the destruction of the fair grounds.
So, for those who have embraced Tillie and her family/friends, all you need to do is hit the 'My gift to You' button and time travel to the cutting room floor and those chapters - still unpolished, but you’ll get the idea. Enjoy the ride- especially on the ferris wheel and that mischief-maker Julian, fashioned after one of my precious grandsons.
And have a joyous, healthy holiday season and year ahead!
xo
Jane
Check out my schedule of events for the next six months. Hope to see you in person soon.
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