Reflection: All the World's a Stage

I take the month of March and reflect every year. This year my reflection time must be spent celebrating a new book, AUDITION (Viking, October 2011) from my friend and writer, Stasia Ward Kehoe. Stasia and I connected back in Seattle when we spent the day at ALA. Nothing like trying to cross the traffic-clogged 520 Bridge together to cement a friendship. This week's post is about the stage where books are created.

After bonding, we began to meet over bowls of soup and hot cups of tea for writing therapy for moms. She has four boys. I have the 4Js. She'd write a novel, and then I'd write a novel, then she'd write one, and I'd write one. We'd trade some of them and critique, but mostly we'd chat about our snubbed practices to write for flat fees and ponder how we ended up as self-employed building contractors -- replacing roofs, bathrooms, kitchens and vast quantities of flooring, like we didn't have enough to do.

We are working writers, nothing esoteric, nothing heady, nothing sexy about most of our work. It's like this: in spare hours (ha,ha), the spare ones after shooting out that flap copy or that 30 page article about blah, blah, blah, we turn our souls inside out on the page. When Stasia sent me Audition, I was transported into, for lack of better words, "the cult of ballet." I felt desperate for Sara. I wanted to jump inside this book and save this girl before she shattered. But Sara had to suffer, and I suffered with her. This book has unlimited SOUL.

I've invited Stasia to share a deep reflection to give you a taste of depths of her brilliance. Be sure to come back next week. I hope that you visit Stasia's two blogs Writer on the Side and A Year of Auditions. I hope you read AUDITION. I hope this story helps you seize your day.

No doodles this week but Stasia's just released cover:



And last a quote...

Stay the course, light a star,
Change the world where'er you are.Richard Le Gallienne