Avi

word craft

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Now

In iso­la­tion, my wife and I sit in our 630 square foot house—two rooms—in Den­ver, Col­orado. She is recov­er­ing from surgery—very nice­ly thank you—and I am, as always, writ­ing a book. The nov­el is a work of his­tor­i­cal fic­tion and it has absolute­ly noth­ing to do with what is hap­pen­ing in the world, and what is hap­pen­ing to the world—you have noticed—is that it’s going to hell, quickly.

Denver
Den­ver sky­line, Dar­ryl Brooks, 123rf.com

It’s hard to think about what I am doing. It’s my work, of course, and since I’ve been doing it for so long the process is tru­ly habit­u­al, though as always, each book, this book, has its own prob­lems, its challenges.

But the news—the hor­ror of the pandemic—keeps pound­ing on the door. I think of the peo­ple who can’t get any help, the poor, the home­less, and the already ill. The peo­ple who can’t get tests. Or buy food. I think of those who have lost jobs and have no idea where the next pay­check will come from—if it ever does come. I think of the igno­rance, which amounts to the cru­el­ty of our nation­al gov­ern­ment, and of pow­er­ful peo­ple. I think of those who are alone and fright­ened. Who are dis­crim­i­nat­ed against. The peo­ple who have no legal stand­ing and can’t get any help. I think of my daugh­ter, a doc­tor, work­ing in NYC, and won­der­ing what will hap­pen to her, and her infant daugh­ter, and her hus­band. And as I wan­der the emp­ty streets—trying for a lit­tle exercise—I won­der what are peo­ple doing? Are they read­ing? Play­ing games? Watch­ing TV? Doing nothing?

To be writ­ing at such a time seems a kind of self-indul­gence, except I try to remind myself it’s not. It’s what I’ve done for most of my life, and while I live—as I intend to—I’ll do it. In one sense, it’s a way of remind­ing myself that I am liv­ing as I want to. I’m lucky there. I can. Most of all, as I work on this page and that page, I’m think­ing about my read­ers. Will they under­stand? Is this excit­ing enough to pull them along? Will they keep turn­ing the pages? Is it inter­est­ing? Will they laugh? Or cry?

Today I made a deci­sion about the plot that took me by sur­prise. That pleased me because as I’ve ref­er­enced many times, it’s all about some­thing Robert Frost said. “No sur­pris­es for the writer, no sur­pris­es for the read­er.” Oh, I’m think­ing, that sur­prise will sure­ly catch the reader. 

You see, there are all these read­ers around my head, too. As always, they are invis­i­ble. But maybe, just maybe, it’s they who are pound­ing on the door.  I like to think so. And so I con­tin­ue to write. Not iso­lat­ed. There are readers—waiting. I’m try­ing catch up with them. I’m not wait­ing for the wait­ing to be over.

12 thoughts on “Now”

  1. Thanks for this, Avi. I so thor­ough­ly under­stand the dis­trac­tion of the ever-chang­ing sit­u­a­tion right now. When I can pull myself away and real­ly focus on my work I find myself much calmer.

    Usu­al­ly work­ing in iso­la­tion is seen as one of the sac­ri­fices we make to write. In these strange times being able to do so is an odd kind of blessing.

    Reply
  2. So pow­er­ful. Avi, you are not being self-indul­gent at all. You — the writ­ers in our world — have cre­at­ed the char­ac­ters and land­scapes that give us — the read­ers — the abil­i­ty to jour­ney when we can­not phys­i­cal­ly leave our homes. And when we come back, those heroes have mod­eled for us the strength we need to rise to our own chal­lenges. The books you are writ­ing now are a tes­ta­ment to your belief that there will be a future in which we will read those books. And your belief in the future (even if we’re head­ed there in a hand­bas­ket!) gives us a hope for the future as well.

    I think the cru­el igno­rance of those in pow­er that you men­tion is bal­anced by the over­whelm­ing kind­ness of the aver­age per­son that is also com­ing to the fore. Peo­ple look­ing out for each oth­er and shar­ing what they have (my neigh­bor gave me 8 rolls of TP!). Neil Gaiman has giv­en blan­ket per­mis­sion for any­one to record and share his works. There is hope.

    PS. What era is your cur­rent book??? I can’t wait!!!

    Reply
  3. Avi thank you for this. I have shared with some oth­er writ­ers. I am so glad to know you are there and writ­ing and I just love what you said about the read­ers. They will be thank­ful that you are still writ­ing. I am one of them.

    Reply
  4. Good morn­ing Avi, Best wish­es to you and LIn­da as she recov­ers. I had hoped to see you at the Tuc­son Book Fes­ti­val; I am still griev­ing that can­cel­la­tion as we live in Mesa, AZ. Keep writ­ing. That is a such a solace to all of your readers.

    Reply
  5. Avi, thanks so much for your intro­spec­tive and world­ly post about our cur­rent state of affairs in our coun­try and day to day life in gen­er­al. I wish you and your fam­i­ly safe har­bor and excel­lent health. All of you stay well. We always wor­ry about fam­i­ly, no mat­ter what age or life sit­u­a­tions. Please keep work­ing your mag­ic by doing what comes nat­u­ral­ly, writ­ing life-chang­ing mas­ter­pieces for chil­dren, young adults, and adults.

    Sharon O. Blumberg

    Reply
  6. Thank you for shar­ing! Like oth­er said, it is not self indul­gent to be writ­ing. Each of us need ways to effec­tive­ly cope with our sit­u­a­tion since many aspects of it we can­not con­trol. What we can do is con­trol our indi­vid­ual respons­es to it And that is exact­ly what you are doing. In addi­tion to help­ing your­self, you are help­ing those who are to be your read­ers of the nov­el you are writ­ing. It may be the nov­el that hooks a kid to read more, to hook a kid to read more of Avi’s won­der­ful sto­ry telling and inspire a kid to become some­one who enjoys lit­er­a­cy for life. 

    Best wish­es to you and your fam­i­ly. I look for­ward to learn­ing more of your jour­ney in the months ahead.
    ‑Sandy

    Reply
  7. Keep calm and write on! I believe in the pow­er of words to heal, enter­tain, and gain bet­ter understanding…all are need­ed and appre­ci­at­ed in today’s world. I believe in YOU! Big hugs to you, Lin­da, and your far-flung fam­i­ly. Hold­ing steady on the left coast until we meet again.

    Reply
  8. Dear Avi,

    I know this time in life for all of us around the world is very dif­fi­cult and scary. I am a nine year old boy across the Atlantic in the UK and feel wor­ried about the virus and peo­ple around the world dying. My birth­day is in a cou­ple of weeks and I am sad that I will turn ten and not cel­e­brate with friends, but I am thank­ful that me and my fam­i­ly are healthy. Its a tough time for every­one but one thing that makes it much eas­i­er for me is stay­ing at home and read­ing your books safe­ly in my bed. I have read the Edward and Avon series over and over again and I cant tell you how much I love them. They are my favorite books of all time and they make me so hap­py when I read them. 

    The only thing I think we can do these days is con­trol how we react to the pan­dem­ic and your books make me feel com­fort­ed and con­nect­ed. I just want­ed to say thank you for your writ­ing and I hope that maybe you can write a third book in the Edward and Avon series. Per­haps the new book title could be A Mud­dled Beginning!

    Like you say in the book “It all depends on you. If you want it to be different,it will be dif­fer­ent. Don’t look at the world with your eyes but with your heart.”
    ― Avi, The End of the Begin­ning: Being the Adven­tures of a Small Snail
    We are all suf­fer­ing togeth­er around the world because of coro­na virus and our hearts are now luck­i­ly unit­ed. We are all blessed for every­day we have togeth­er on earth. Your words ring true even in this unfor­tu­nate context. 

    “It seems to me that you won’t have had a prop­er series of adven­tures, unless you’ve gone through thick and thin.”
    ― Avi, The End of the Begin­ning: Being the Adven­tures of a Small Snail 

    Thank you so much for con­tin­u­ing to write, you are my favorite author and I am so lucky I found your books. 

    Wish­ing you well,

    Adam

    Reply
    • Dear Adam: That’s one of the nicest let­ters I have ever received. And so well writ­ten. I wish you and your fam­i­ly well. Hap­py 10th birth­day to you and thanks for read­ing my books

      Reply
      • Thank you for respond­ing to my let­ter Avi. Your mes­sage is the best birth­day gift I could ever get!

        Reply
  9. Do I have per­mis­sion to fin­ish read­ing Pop­py online to my class? Or can I get per­mis­sion some­how, please? They were lov­ing the sto­ry before we had to stay at home.

    Reply

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