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Last weekend, I took a train ride down to the coast to see a friend. On the way there, I practically pressed my nose to the window, taking in the sun on the hills, watching the sea.

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by…
…And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

Oddly enough, there’s not much fall color here, not yet. The tops of the trees are yellowy gold, but down below, there’s still green, green, green. We’ve had our first frost, but it hasn’t changed much; since it rained all summer and on into autumn, true cold hasn’t had too much of a chance to take hold yet. But, it’s getting there.

This is the time of year it’s always hard to be away from home. I miss what autumn looks like. Though it’s probably been on overkill since the third week in September – or earlier – I imagine there are autumnal displays: pumpkins, mums, scarecrows, bales of hay; the inevitable stupid skeletons or tissue paper ghosts. Fortunately, there’s no Halloween here – it’s an American holiday. (No: I don’t like Halloween. Yes: I love dressing up. No: I hate doing it when a.] I’m supposed to b.] when everyone else does c.] with such uninspired, generic outfits. Let’s just all wear steampunk on the fourth Tuesday of every month and our Victorian bustles every Wednesday. But not because Hallmark tells us to.) Unfortunately, there’s no Thanksgiving, either – also because of that American-holiday thing.

I love these Oreo cows! Actually, my vet friends say they’re Belted Galloways. I don’t know – I see cookies.

I’m grumpy about that because this is the third year I will have had to suffer through my life without Tootsie Rolls, but I think I’ll survive. My teeth probably thank me. I only eat about one of them a year, but the fact that they don’t have them in Scotland, and it’s a Halloween candy immediately makes me think I need some. That, and candy corn. Insane, no? Two overly sweet, disgusting candies that people otherwise don’t bother eating, but I have insane cravings for them this time of year, just like I jones for candy canes in December – also not something they eat here. Strange, strange world – separated by a common love for sugar, and a complete inability to stock what I want in the store. Le sigh.

There’s happy writing news: One, on Tuesday my agent got my latest manuscript. And for all you nice people who were so encouraging: it’s the science fiction book! I had to finish it BEFORE I started my Cybils reading, so I wouldn’t be unduly influenced, but it’s done, and it’s out of the house, and boy I am relieved.

It finally happened! My friend Ethel is having a book! (That’s kind of like she’s having a baby, only I already met her when her youngest was a a newborn. That kid’s in school already. Sheesh, grad school is disappearing in my life’s rearview mirror.) Her very first book – CUT THROUGH THE BONE — is a book she suffered through writing when I was suffering through writing mine last winter, so I kind of feel an even deeper kinship through her whole process. I’m a bit jealous that HERS is coming out a full year in advance of mine, but WHATEV, you know? (That’s the difference between short stories and novels – short stories seem to have more immediacy.) It sounds like it’s going to be all kinds of intensely beautiful and heart-wrenching and affecting and wonderful.

From the publisher:

In this stripped-raw debut collection, Ethel Rohan’s thirty stories swell with broken, incomplete people yearning to be whole. Through tight language and searing scenarios, Rohan brings to life a plethora of characters — exposed, vulnerable souls who are achingly human.

She got jacket copy from one of the artists in residence at our school during our grad program. I am thoroughly impressed.

I’ll never forget meeting Ethel – I saw her as this sweet-faced, quiet Irish girl with a lilting voice — who wrote the most shocking, hilarious, impossible stories. Somehow I expected her writing to be serene and quiet and attractive — like she is. And sometimes they were. But sometimes her stories were bruised, gritty, dirty, bloody, and tear-stained. And real. So, so, real.

Ethel’s voice gives me courage. Read her book, okay? You might take courage, too.

Soo, the other day was Tech Boy’s birthday, and the ritual Pratchett book was received (Sir Terry really is a helpful man, frequently having a book released in September) and then the Boy sat down on the couch, and …read.

And that was all.

And, on the phone the next day, when his brother called and asked, “So, didn’t you do anything for your birthday?” the Boy said, “Well, yeah, I told you. I read all day.”

Blessed are those who can see a day of reading for the gift it truly is.

That time of year again, the time to consider all the reasons thinking parents and teachers and librarians take their courage into their hands, breathe deeply, and trust people to read whatever they’d like, and then unleash those readers onto the world.

This concept only doesn’t take courage if you’re not a person in charge of the character formation of others.* I expect it must be difficult at times to realize that the world shoots information into a child’s ears and eyes at a rate which cannot be matched by the sane and rational and safe adults in their midst. Parents give birth and realize that Thing One or Thing Two comes with its own personality and its own ideas, and that though they can guide it, it’s only theirs for a given value of theirs. Children are never owned.

And then, they grow up and adults who are trying to own their brains and the brains of their child’s classmate, with loving intent, I am very sure, try to block them from reading certain things.

Book banning is appallingly, gallingly easy for me to understand. I am a total control freak. I could see, if I were the parent of a Thing of my own, that I would want all to be perfect for it. I would want it to be ultimately happy, successful and wise, and it would cause me some moments of …Hmm, should they really be reading that? if I saw my imaginary child with a book I hated — or feared. Imagine my young Thing wanting to read Twilight? or some V.C. Andrews? Or some Kurt Vonnegut? Imagine my eight year old Thing wanting to read The Graveyard Book or the newest Lane Smith that has that questionable-word-punchline?

Would I, like my parents, figure that for Christian reasons they should control my reading and restrict it to nonfictional channels, hoping to fix my mind on “whatever is true?” Would I storm my Thing’s classroom and demand the the principal, the board, the district chair make that evil teacher stop giving those innocent children such immoral books that deal with witches and vampires and zombies and unicorns?

It comes down, for me, to this question: Do I really believe in freedom of choice?

Every year, I am glad for this week which makes me think of first The Four Freedoms – not just Roosevelt’s speech, but the Rockwell paintings which illustrate those freedoms, and then I ponder what I think of as the fifth one – freedom to choose. Every year, I question myself. May I continue to be able to examine my own motives – even if someday my kids are non-imaginary – and say, “Yes. I believe.

It’s a hard question, the question of freedom not just for yourself, but allowing that to others who are yours to supervise and oversee and guide. If you’re a parent, you must think about it carefully. If you value freedom for all, you know what the right answer is, yes?

Happy Banned Books Week.

You know, it’s a funny thing how many of my friends and peers have had recent good news. Last weekend my writing partner got her black belt in Taekwondo. My poetry sister Liz was nominated awhile back for the 2010 PEN USA Literary Award and her book All the World was honored as a finalist. Blogging buddy Karen, who is hosting Poetry Friday this week, was jazzed to note her new book’s birthday this past week. An expat writer friend, Liz Gatland, whom y’all might know her by her maiden name, which is Elizabeth Wein – has just sold a book to a British publisher after living here for ages. Code Name Verity is a fabulous name for a WWII epic involving women flyers. Can’t wait for that one in the Spring of 2012. Just yesterday, a writing partner floated her first novel to an agent – and the agent is excited about this deliciously involved fantasy-mystery. I am jonesing for the rest of the world to read it.

So much good news. And I always think to myself that none of it would have come about without some nail-biting, some stomach churning, and the taking of some risks. Author (and former classmate) Tara Austen Weaver (The Butcher and the Vegetarian) blogged recently about how many things she missed out on because she didn’t sign up, didn’t think she’d win so didn’t try. She makes some good points about risking for gain – and about what a difference it makes in your life to actually get out and toss your hat into the ring. Writing can seem weirdly competitive – full of contests and deadlines and other people wishing they had your opportunities — but the truth is, the opportunities are the same. It’s just what we do with them that makes a difference. And for Elizabeth, Karen, Liz, Yat Yee and Anne, the difference was that they shouldered their fears to the wall and pushed past.

So, thinking of them brought this poem to mind. Here’s to living without hesitation, writers.

Against Hesitations

If you stare at it long enough

the mountain becomes unclimbable.

Tally it up. How much time have you spent

waiting for the soup to cool?

Icicles hang from January gutters

only as long as they can. Fingers pause

above piano keys for the chord

that will not form. Slam them down

I say. Make music of what you can.

~ Charles Rafferty

The Man on the Tower and Where the Glories of April Lead are two poetry collections by this author you should check out. Poetry Friday is at Karen Edmisten’s Shockingly Named Blog.

Carpe Diem. Now.

“Why am I working so hard? Going for 400 books, perhaps, but who’s really counting? Maybe in 10 years. Maybe if I live long enough. Maybe if I still have a head that works in old age. Maybe if I can just, following the Asimov model, type faster.”

How did I miss it? As of yesterday, when the piece showed up in the Huffington Post, Our Jane has written her three hundredth book.

Three hundred. That’s a three, two zeros. 300.

I suspect she did not do it by futzing around on the internet much of the day. Which means I’m going to stop typing this in a couple of sentences and get back to work. But — three hundred. It’s a staggering, gobsmacking amount. Poetry. Picture books. Chapter books. Novels. Three hundred books.

And she remembers them all, of course.

::sigh::

However did she do it? Butt In Chair, obviously.

BIC.

No, it’s not about the number — I don’t think I’ll live long enough to write three hundred books, not with the way I seem to have to agonize over each and every one. I lack the temperament. The confidence, too, probably. It’s not the number, but it’s the commitment she has, and, too, the surety that though there will be rejections and interruptions, that this is her work, that she has a perfect right to it without feeling foolish or silly or thinking she would be better to play with the grandkids or clean the house.

Jane Yolen is a writer, and she owns it.

Of course, if you read her occasional journal you will see that she had to go a long way to get there, just as we all do. It’s a three-step-forward, two steps back sort of thing that must be possible only to those most sincere and serious about moving forward… I met a lady just the other night who, in the course of a break in chorus rehearsal, asked what I do, and instead of the polite and pained look I sometimes get when I tell people I write for young adults (No “Oh, like that J.K. Rowling, hm?” from her) her eyes lit up, and she gripped my shoulder and said, with great longing, “Ohhh.”

M. loves writing short stories, but she says, in her lilting Scots brogue, “Well, there’s a bit of dignity to it, isn’t there, for someone like you? You’re published.” And so, just like that, she pretends she doesn’t long to write stories because it’s not dignified to tell the kids to go play and to let the house go so she can fuel her dreams.

Writers, writers, writers. We must believe that this is our passion, and our privilege, and that it’s not just okay to do it, but that it’s our … calling. Or else, we’ll never make it. — Not “get published,” you’ll note I didn’t say that. We’ll never move forward or “make it” as happy, well rounded fulfilled people who are doing what they want to do.

Right. Enough of that chat. Back to work, kids.

x-posted in part (without all of the personal rambling, just a nice congratulation) @ Finding Wonderland.