Methods and Muses

Years ago, a friend of mine gave me a photograph of wolves howling in the snow. With a blue ink pen, she'd written beneath it: a thousand howls in silver air.

Puzzled, I thanked her.

"This is what it's going to take," she tried to explain.

"To do what?" I asked.

"I don't know exactly, but it's important."

I didn't ask any more questions. My friend was a mysterious woman. I trusted her.

Now, as I've completed my first novel, A Thousand Howls in Silver Air, I know that her words predicted the title and the work it would take to finish it.

To write this book, I had listen. Often I didn't know where howls were coming from, but they were out there, pulling me toward a dizzy, beautiful echoing. I heard the first line while living alone in Tampa. From there, I walked around with characters in my head, writing messily in journals, trying to find my voice. Prose, or writing horizontally, was new to me. Of course I had written essays in school, so I knew how to do it, but I wanted my novel to sound poetic, so I focused on the descriptive, snapshot quality of the vignette, and this was perfect. I chased each sensory detail, each leap into a dense forest. Sometimes the calls and prints were clear and I wrote for hours. In other moments, the trail led nowhere, there was too much silence, I needed more.

Enter the inspiring setting of North Carolina and a workshop on minute poems. A fellow poet hosted, and he said that due to their strict syllabic meter, minute poems were great for writers' block. These poems force us to choose precise words, freeing us from the cacophony of choices that spin in our word-loving brains. I loved this form and immediately started to play with it, making my own extended version, loosening it up a bit, dropping some of the rhyme but keeping the meter. And I found the second voice I needed for Howls.

With the two voices in place, a plot arc began to develop. I organized scenes and chapters onto flash cards, so I could see the shape of the whole thing. Once I did this, I had a path to follow and the words flowed again. I wrote for hours every day. Thanks to my supportive husband, I was finally able to treat writing like a full-time job, and while it took years, it was the most gratifying work of my life.

I was sitting in a café in the East Village when I wrote the last word (well, the last word of the first draft). I texted a poet friend, and she immediately shared my joy with a party gif of ballons and confetti. I knew then that I needed an editor, so I reached out to friends in my Berlin writers' group, and one of them connected me to the lovely, Athene Dilke. Thanks to her support and experise, I took Howls through structural revisions, fleshing out any holes in the plot, tightening the language, and sharpening the dialogue (my personal Achilles' heel). I am deeply grateful for Athene's guidance and friendship, because now I have a draft ready for (fingers crossed) an agent and publisher.

A Thousand Howls in Silver Air

Here's chapter six entitled, White Rocket, Silver Meteor:

Love lingered at green lights.

People honked their horns at her, and at first, she would ignore them. If they made too much noise, she'd yell back, "Hey! Can't you see I'm watchin' the sky change color?"

Love's car was a girl, and her name was White Rocket. This 1971 Buick was big and loud. Technically, with the years of rust and wear, she was more of a dirty blonde. She drove ok, but she made a rough first impression. Love didn't mind.

"In her heyday," she would boast, "when the space program was fresh, and everyone was glued to their TVs, watchin' Neil Armstrong do his moon dance, my Rocket was flyin' for real." Then, she'd pat the enormous dashboard and rev the engine a few times.

Love regularly practiced what she called 'orbital' drives.

Living in Florida had several advantages when undertaking these missions. First, it was a long, skinny state, and therefore easy to drive across. Second, both coasts had gorgeous beaches, and this made sunrises and sunsets predictably breathtaking. And third, the East Coast had Cape Canaveral, and you couldn't get any more thematic than that.

Her ritual began at sunrise, just outside the Cape in a place called Cherie Down Park. Cherie Down had a boardwalk covered with a canopy of twisted mangrove branches that led to the beach. Love always started by walking ceremoniously under that natural archway, one slow step at a time. This was her wedding; she was the bride marrying her groom, the ocean. She greeted him with a radiant smile. Then, she would sit on the beach, breathing deeply, counting the colors as they appeared in the sky, feeling their reflections in her eyes.

After a few hours, when the moon had faded back into a clean blue, she'd stand up and begin to pack her Rocket with picnic food, a bottle of wine, a battery-operated cassette player with her favorite tapes, a blanket, baseball cap, and sunglasses. With all the gear in place, she unfolded a map across her lap, and counted down, "Three, two, one, blast off!" Then she turned the key and pressed the accelerator.

The day was hers.

Most people would have driven the fastest, most direct route to get from one side of the state to the other. This would have taken about three hours. But Love had the whole day, and she did not believe in highways. She liked back roads. There was so much more to see. She could stop at a roadside stand for boiled peanuts and fresh orange juice. There were state parks with swamp birds to watch. A flea market might even be open, and who knew what treasures could be found there?

The day was hers. She could meander.

From Cherie Down, she drove Astronaut Blvd over the Banana River onto the Bee Line. No matter how many times Love made this trip, the names of these places always made her chuckle. The Bee Line, which mere mortals called State Road 528, led to another one of her many treasured stops, Hal Scott Regional Preserve and Park.

At Hal Scott, Love got lost. She did this on purpose. There was something about wandering for hours in nine thousand acres of flat woods, losing track of time- except for where the sun was, or how shadowy the day felt- that made Love understand a certain totality. Lost, yes, she felt small, insignificant, and a little afraid, but it also gave her something: the calm that only standing next to an old growth tree in a dense swamp could make you realize. Some of the bald cypress and long leaf pines in the park were two to three hundred years old, and they were capable of living thousands of years if untouched by man or other natural disasters. Those big trees taught Love that time was indeed slow, just as she often felt it. The trees validated her philosophy, made her feel like some kind of immortality might indeed be possible.

After she had sufficiently lost her bearings, and then found her way again, back to the Rocket, Love ate her lunch and contemplated the clouds. Every Floridian knew that summer skies begin soft and light, but as late afternoon approaches, they get heavier and darker with thunderheads. These clouds were beautiful in the way they slowly puffed up, filling with water, like thousands of balloons. But once those beauties let loose, it was better to take cover and wait out the storm. Better not to try and drive through a blinding deluge. Love had to time it just right, so she looked at her map to estimate where she could take cover. If she drove on 528, and made it all the way to Williamsburg, she could stop at a Village Inn for pie and wait until the skies cleared.

Her timing was almost perfect. The first big drops splashed the back of her neck as she dashed into the diner. Sipping bitter coffee and savoring warm, sweet apples in a buttery crust, she watched it rain for a good hour. Everything felt peaceful, and as the storm abated, she strolled out to her car, having decided upon her next leg of the trip. She'd snake her way up to Highway 50, composing her own personal soundtrack along the way.

She played Van Morrison's "And It Stoned Me" first, in honor of the rain. Singing about water filled Love with memories of the pure joy of swimming. Next, to sustain her singing and dancing momentum, she chose Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee."

"Poets," she thought, tipping the rim of her baseball cap, "here's to both of you."

For the remainder of Highway 50, Love's list included, among others, Billie Holiday, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, The Aquanettas, Concrete Blonde, Tom Waits, and The Ozark Mountain Daredevils. By the time she reached The Green Swamp, her back was sweaty, her throat was dry, and she felt like royalty.

The Green Swamp was another sacred stop. Here were the headwaters of four major Florida rivers-the Withlacoochee, the Ocklawaha, the Hillsborough, and the Peace. Many state residents did not know it, but this place was vital to their survival. It was here that rainwater trickled through the soil to replenish the Florida aquifer system, the primary source of drinking water for most Floridians. Because the Green Swamp was elevated, and the underground aquifer rose very close to the land surface, this region acted as a pressure head for the aquifer.

"Hello there, vital water spouts," Love said, as she faced Southwest and then East, where the Hillsborough flowed out from the Withlacoochie. With her palms pressed together, close to her heart, she bowed to each of these waterways. Then, she turned North to bow to the Ocklawaha, and finally South, to bow to the Peace.

"Thank you, Great Waters," she whispered, and then she recited the names of the many people who for centuries had held these rivers sacred, "Thank you, Apalachee, Calusa, Choctaw, Isti, Miccosukee, Tequesta, and Timucua."

The last curve of her orbit took her onto Pine Island Drive to her sunset destination of the same name, Pine Island Park. On her way, she drove through Weeki Wachee, and as she passed this iconic attraction, she tipped her cap to the synchronized swimmers who still entertained tourists in the City of Live Mermaids. Some native Floridians hated this park. They said it was exactly what Florida did not need, a cheesy, old, cheap attraction. These same folks, however, would use their resident status to get discounted tickets to Disney World. Love laughed at this. To her, there was at least some skill involved in what the mermaids did. It was true that when Florida started to use tourism as its major source of revenue, this marked the beginning of the end for much of the natural beauty of the state. Still, Love hoped that performers in the water on a regular basis meant that someone was at least trying to keep the water clean.

Love felt hopeful and inspired at the end of each of her orbits. All that time alone in the car with her favorite musicians, complimented by the quiet of the swamp opened up new stories. The road gave her the time to listen, the space to think.

She played the final song of her soundtrack, "Circle," by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. She popped open her wine and drank it straight from the bottle. Sitting in the sugar sand, watching the waves of the Gulf of Mexico, Love toasted the sun and all the colors in the sky.

She rode a Silver Meteor
leaving swamp green
for smoky blue
Northeast cities,

where punk rock girls played mean guitar
singing for cash,
Capitol Limited,
in the Lounge Cars.

She drank beer with a union man,
Empire Builder
crossing the West,
speaking his dream

of honest work for honest wage.
A kind, young man
reading Ghandi
in the dome car,

under big skies, next to glaciers,
conversed with her
about Japan
and rock climbing.

She played poker with British boys
in cowboy hats
tipped with respect
to Jack Thorp tunes.

She heard the canyons echoing
Southwest stories,
indigenous
recitations,

Apache, Hopi, Navajo,
Pueblo, Zuni,
marking, dancing,
drumming visions,

weaving poems into pleated hair.
Knowing women
from the Midwest,
Ginny, Frances,

knitting in their seats, spoke to her,
"We saw your braids,
guessed you were smart.
Come and sit down.

We sold our homes, hugged our children
to chase new dreams,
climb mountains
before we die.

Speak your story aloud, honey.
Now is the time."
Girl on a train,
trip of her own,

she had thoughts open as the West
Coast Starlight
humming along
a shining sea...

Why were cities named for angels
and crescent moons?
Could time be caught
in rocking glass?

Was every Sunset Limited
to a few hours,
or could she ride
a train past death?

Could her bones lift into the sky,
her skull grow horns,
her pelvis wings?
Could her spine stretch

into four hundred vertebrae,
snake back in time,
stitching up wounds
parting new trails?

She saw her country before her
out those windows,
a history
of suffering,

splendid mountains blown to pieces,
wide rivers damned,
all in the name
of destiny.

In the name of America,
East pushing West,
Chinese workers
paid with their lives.

Dynamite blasted habitats.
Black ants, pikas,
thread snakes, cougars
scattered like stars.

She rode across her continent,
to Florida,
a Silver Star
carrying her.

As accents slipped from nasal quick
to slow, open
mouths of the South,
she understood.

She had travelled eight thousand miles,
tangled regions
linked into one
United States,

her home, country, culture - a dream,
an idea,
suspended realm,
just passing through...