O, Pamela, Where Art Thou?

by Elizabeth

So it's been over a year since we drew names and I did a happy dance realizing I would get to interview Pamela for the blog. And now, finally, readers get their own day of joyful jigging as the interview at last sees light. While we can cast dour looks at my mug shot to the right, another way to look at this belated meet-and-greet is to consider the pleasure of anticipation. Plus, the day this posts (also known as "today") will be Pamela's birthday!* So let's celebrate her big 2-9 (or the anniversary of it, anyway); grab a cup of coffee, a slice of cake, and say hello to Pamela Hammonds.

EL: Pamela, first of all, happy birthday! But enough of that, let's talk about me. Oops, I meant about you. You've mentioned before how you met Joan and Kim and Susan via what some would call butting-in, if it were me doing it. Would you say this is a characteristic trait, or did stepping outside yourself bring about these relationships? And in each case, were you aware that you were acting beyond your normal boundaries?

PH: Thanks for the birthday wish, though I admit I am not 29. I wouldn't even want to be! As far as your question, I'm not a big butter, I don't think, but I do remember times when opportunity passed me by and I found myself regretting not having acted upon an impulse, so I'm more of a seize-ist, perhaps. When I attended the writers' group, where I met Joan and Kim, I had gone a bit out of my way to be there and didn't want to leave not having accomplished something. Susan, I had been sorta stalking all morning, having seen her across the room at the writers' conference we were attending. She looked like someone I should meet and so I did. Worked out pretty well, I'd say! No regrets at all. And, of course, had you and I not met through Joan, I would have found you too, somehow. Same for Julie.

EL: When did you first think of yourself as a writer? How about a novelist?

PH: Oh, you can dig through my boxes in the attic and find a story or two that I did many moons ago, but I don't think I thought of myself as a writer until I got paid to do it. (Tells you a little about my value system, I suppose.) My first paying gig was working as a stringer for the St. Louis Post Dispatch. I answered a want-ad for a writer, part-time, work from home and was shocked when they called because I didn't think I was qualified. My beat was reporting on high schools. I had to find my own stories, take my own photos, etc. but I loved it. I was new to the area and it got me out of the house, driving around the town. It was a great two-year stint and really helped me hone my skills along with learning AP style, which looks stellar on a resume. (kidding) I won't consider myself a novelist until I'm published. I guess right now I'm a manuscriptist.

EL: We've talked a lot about our annual retreats here on the blog. What about them do you find personally beneficial?

PH: The camaraderie and the late nights around the table listening to each others' stories make me eternally grateful for what I have here. Plus it holds me accountable for getting words on the page.

EL: When I think about your life so far, I see you in a number of varied roles that changed with various circumstances. For instance, you were very clearly a "mom-of-boys" for something like a dozen years until you got the surprise gift of a baby girl. You've also lived in a number of different places. How have your many hats affected your fiction?

Pamela's children

PH: I think children certainly influence writing but more than boys vs. girls, my children are all very different creatures. I have one whose passion is music; another who announces his presence in a room with the tap-tap-tap of his feet smacking a soccer ball as he walks. My girl is not very girly at all but seems cognizant of all that is girly in that she has dolls and a Caboodle that she'll drag out when friends come to play. But she's feisty and comfortable in her own skin, which I'm hoping she holds close. I think the fact that I grew up in the Midwest, moved to LA, moved to Alabama (lived there for 10 years) moved back to the Midwest and now live in Texas--along with all the friends I've amassed over my lifetime--has made me aware of place as it pertains to story. I have a fondness for Southern fiction and will always feel as though I belong on a front porch swing with a glass of iced tea in my hand. I think of Indiana as a place I'm from but the south is where I feel I belong.

EL: Is there a writer whose career gives you particular inspiration--or hope?

PH: Every debut author gives me hope and my fellow WhatWomenWriters, in particular, inspire me with their dedication to the craft and their generosity.

EL: Have you ever read a new book and been pissed off because you had a similar idea and now it was out there? (Not that this has ever happened to me, no, not at all, grrr...) Is there any book do you wish you had written?

PH: Oh, I don't think I've had an idea that was particularly unique before. I tend to write like a fly on the wall--hanging out and observing the nuances of everyday life. That's most interesting to me: what's going on inside your neighbor's house after they close the blinds. I don't tend to have book-envy although I must say that stories that weave in different cultures and time periods can make me well-aware of how limited my travel has been. But I will say that the story Joan and I wrote (which had two main characters who were writers) was rejected a few times because supposedly books about writers don't sell well and yet, we see it all the time, so that's frustrating.

EL: I'm going to put you on the spot now, so get ready. When I think of our blog group, I sort of classify you as our MamaBear, and really, the leader. I wonder how you see your role? What unique qualities do you think you bring to our group?

PH: My son's phone has me listed as MamaBear, so that makes me laugh. I do think I have a nurturing gene--passed down to me from my mom. I love to bake and cook and feed people. And probably I tend to be a peace-keeper and want everyone to get along. Fortunately, with our group, we're pretty compatible. I have little patience for gossip and pettiness. As far as my role? I don't see myself leading us--mostly just corralling us at times to make sure we don't forget the value of community, whether it's scheduling a lunch or a celebration dinner. It's all important.

EL: And now, just some fun dumb stuff. What is your favorite soup?

PH: Ahh...I have a few: chicken and rice, baked potato, broccoli cheddar. All those creamy soups that are very fattening.

EL: Favorite cereal? Fruit?

PH: Right now it's Kashi GoLean Crunch over yogurt. Fruit: Strawberries. And if they're dipped in chocolate, even better!

EL: And finally, a quiz I love to give people. (I'm endlessly amused by this, others, not so much.) Cake or ice cream?

A cheesecake Pamela recently made

PH: Cake!

EL: Cake or pie?

PH: CAKE!

EL: Cake or cookies?

PH: That's a toss-up because I just baked some killer snickerdoodles. Probably cake which includes cheesecake, too, right?

EL: Okay, you are a cake-girl! Isn't that a terrible dilemma? And finally, a little girl has said "bird poop" at least three times at the next table as we're sitting here. It has to be a sign. Do you have a good bird poop story?

Pete (Pamela's brother), Pamela, Molly, Gretchen and Chip

PH: When I was little--maybe four or five--I remember my sister Gretchen pointing out something across the neighbor's field, and a bird pooped on her arm. Four out of five of us thought it was hilarious! Of course, later I learned that what we call bird poop is really their urine. But it's definitely more fun to say 'bird poop' than 'bird urine,' isn't it? Which is probably why that little girl keeps repeating it.

EH: Now that was worth waiting for, wasn't it? Thanks, Pamela! And again, happy birthday!*


* In honor of her birthday, Pamela will bake a cheesecake for every reader who comments either here or on Facebook. Not! But man, wouldn't that be great? Still, drop by her FB page and wish her a great day. And plenty of cake.

The Things We Don't Get Done

by Elizabeth

One of the biggest challenges for many writers, this one in particular, is actually sitting down to write. There are probably few writing books or articles that don't stress that to be a writer, one needs to write. Butt-in-chair--I'm not even sure who that line originated with, but it's advice with which I often chide myself. Whether the book's advice is a number of words a day, or a routine, or a place, or whatever, the sentiment is largely the same: a writer writes. Which means spending time writing, which means doing the hardest task many a procrastinating writer undertakes: sitting down in front of a blank screen or empty notebook and scrawling down word after word until the chore becomes a habit, or better still, an addiction. Write.

So this is something I struggle with and, with the fresh binders and clean new backpacks of the new school year, combined with the excitement of Julie's accomplishments, something that's been on my mind a lot. To a good extent, I've stepped up to the challenge. My composition is usually done in those spiral notebooks that go on sale for a penny each right after the back-to-school rush, and I've half-filled a yellow one with a new story since my kids went back to class. A few chapters in, a new idea, it's not bad but it's still not as much B-i-C time as it could have been. No one is more aware of this than I.

Oh, sure, there have been trees to get trimmed and plumbing issues that have been put off all summer long, a cracked stovetop to deal with, the usual mounds of laundry, carpool anew. Stuff, life, and I've been dealing with that, but of course I could spend more time writing than I do. Of course I could. Butt-in-chair.

The routine I followed when I wrote my first, and to some extent, second, novel, really isn't working so well anymore. I'd decamp to a coffee shop, ponder until the muse struck (I suspect my muse is quieter than some other folk's muses, maybe because I am so dang loud myself it's hard to hear her), and then pound out words until they stopped. Clearly stopped, and like with eating the right amount and not too much, it ended with a sigh. Satisfaction, completion; it was nearly always clear I'd come to a good stopping place, a good session completed, and real accomplishment achieved. Lately, though, I struggle harder than ever to hear the muse, and when I do stop, it's with more of a grunt of lost steam than a sigh of satiation, and it's just not as much fun. Before, I'd finish up and get on with my day knowing I'd done what needed to be done. More often than not now, when I finish I do so with the hope that there will be another round of B-i-C later. There rarely is.

But it feels like time, it is a-wasting. Like I've spent too much time making excuses, doing other things that might need doing, but that will still be there to do and do again whether I write or not. So rather than doing those things, I should write. Find the satisfying sigh. Finish the multiple projects that have stalled a quarter or halfway through.

I have a few friends who write the best Christmas letters. One of them was a college friend, a woman who's wedding I went to, who was having her first child the year I got engaged, who went on to have four daughters and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and still wrote the most wonderful Christmas-and-other letters until they stopped coming. My own kids had arrived by then, life was a locomotive, the towers fell down, and I never did connect with her again. It's been I guess over ten years now since I heard from her, and though I did make a few cursory attempts at Googling her, I somehow lost her around the time she moved into a new house and I moved halfway across the country, and I never did find her again.

Until today. It occurred to me to Google her hometown paper, not even knowing if it was still in print, and there it was. An obituary, from August 2002. She's been gone nine years and I never really knew it.

One of the last letters I got from her talked about writing, how she hoped to pen a bedtime book some day. She knew I harbored the dream of a career as a novelist as well, and though I haven't rifled through my box of old letters today, I'm pretty sure if I did I would find words of encouragement from her in them, urging me to use my gift, urging me to go for it.

If she'd ever managed that bedtime book, Google would have found her on Amazon. I'd like to think she wrote one just for her girls, and I believe that's likely. But for publication, the dream we all dream, for her, it's too late. But not for me. B-i-C.

Rest in peace, Angela.