We had a perfect Portland day on Saturday. First, we went blueberry picking on Sauvie Island. Then we went to the Multnomah County Bike Fair: Unicyle jousting. Tall-bike jousting. (Confession: I have a thing for tall bikes. I have no idea why.) Chickens on tricked-out recumbent bikes. The kiddo was utterly transfixed for three hours, and the adults were thoroughly entertained too.

Want better pictures than what I managed to take, and some videos? (Including one that shows exactly why one should always wear a helmet while bicycle-chicken jousting. Especially if you’re the “chicken.”) Check them out here.

Anita Amirrezvani has donated a signed hardcover edition of her novel, The Blood of Flowers.

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee has donated signed copies of three of her books: Free-Range Knitter, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off, and At Knit’s End.

Check out the full prize list here. Each $10 donated gets you one entry into the raffle. Donate by 10pm PST, July 10th to win!

The revised manuscript for Adverse Possession has been back with my agent for a few weeks now. The first two weeks of waiting are pretty easy, but at this point I could either hear from her any day now or have a few more weeks of waiting ahead of me. So now is the antsy part. The creeping anxiety part. The growing urge to email her to noodge her part. (I resist that, for the most part. Though she’s very patient with me when I give in to the noodgy urges.)

What, exactly, am I waiting for? Those of you who’ve been around for a while (or have agents yourselves) know the deal. Waiting to hear if she wants more revisions, or if she thinks the manuscript is ready to go out to editors. This was only the second round of revisions for her on this manuscript, so, knowing Gail and having worked through revisions on my first novel with her (three rounds with that one), I’m expecting to have more work to do. But hey, you never know.

In the meantime, I’ve let my brain wander back over to the next novel. I haven’t had actual writing time in weeks, so all I’ve been doing is teasing around the edges of it while pretending to be fully absorbed in whatever non-writing task I’m supposed to be doing. I had an awful realization yesterday: the new novel might need to be written in first person. Why is this awful? Well, I hate writing in first person. In part, I hate it because I don’t often enjoy READING first-person narrative, particularly over the long haul of a novel. I think it’s an easier thing to do well in short fiction. But the bigger reason I hate it? Because it’s scarier (for me, anyway) to write in first person. And it hurts more.

This new book needs (I think) to be in first person because of the particular story I want to tell, and how I want to give the reader access to it. I need the pov to be very intimate–at times uncomfortably so, and I need it to be extremely limited. See, I’ve realized this book is a confession. How else do you confess, but in first person? Well, I could imagine a confession in second person, but that’s even more tiresome to read at length than first. An entire novel in second person? I know it’s been done, but not my style. (Until, of course, it is. You never know.)

My fiction isn’t autobiographical (with the exception of two short stories), but that doesn’t mean the characters aren’t me. They’re all me, to the extent that they were all created from bits and pieces pulled together in my own mind. They don’t know anything, at least on the page, that I don’t know. They don’t experience anything that I can’t imagine experiencing. My fiction reveals much more of me than this blog, which shares pieces of my real daily life, does. At least, it feels more revealing to me. In my fiction, the reader sees the way my brain moves, sees the things I’m capable of thinking. And therefore (perhaps?) capable of doing?

So when I write in a close third person pov (point of view), I get to put myself out there, move through the lives of these characters, with the distance of he and she and they. It’s not so hard to trick myself into believing that the thoughts and feelings and deeds I’m exposing on the page are not at all my own, but rather belong to these other people, these characters. Which is bullshit. Because I’m the one inventing those thoughts and feelings and deeds. And you damn well better believe that for as long as I’m writing them, I’m feeling them too. (At least, when I get it right, I do.) To write in first person is to remove that illusion. I can’t pretend these feelings aren’t mine. I can’t pretend the thoughts aren’t mine.

Which is not to say that I believe everything my characters believe, or agree with them all the time. The thoughts and beliefs are particular to the characters and spring (ideally) organically from them, growing as the story grows. But still, they’ve got to come from somewhere in me. And if I’m going to write it in first person, I’m going to have to accept that. All that dark stuff that bubbles up inevitably in my books? It’s all in me already.

This is news to no one. I know. But still. If I go back to the beginning with this book, starting again in first person, and it works, I’m in for one hell of a ride this time.

Seriously, folks. How can you resist?

Two more prizes have been added to the already fantastic list of prizes for the raffle to benefit the Afghan Women’s Writing Project:

Gayle Brandeis has donated a signed first-edition hardcover of her novel Self Storage.

Blake Butler has donated a signed copy of his novella EVER.

You have until 10pm PST on July 10th to donate, if you want a chance to win!

The vaguely tough sort. The something hazy and sad around the edges sort. Thinking about the three babies I’ve lost this year. Thinking especially about the one I lost last month. Something about having touched the empty sac… I keep going back over it. The feel of it is getting worn into a permanent groove in my mind. The pain isn’t getting any duller, not yet.

The kiddo was testing and tantruming all day. Probably agitated because he sensed and was upset on some level by my mood. And so the vicious cycle. You know the dance. I stayed calm with him, but I wasn’t entirely present. Not really. All I wanted to do was hand him off to someone and disappear into the garden.

I want to spend all my time in the garden these days. Everything is growing. Blossoming. It feels good back there. Really good. Take a look:

That, my friends, is 31 pounds of Hood River strawberries. What the hell did we do with 31 pounds of strawberries? (And arguably the best strawberries on the planet, no less. If you’re planning to visit Oregon, try to time it for when the Hoods are in season. Yes, they’re really that good.) The adventures continue on the Eating Well on $50 a Week blog.

The kid turns three today! Happy, happy birthday, my sweet boy!

I’m happy to say offers of raffle prizes keep coming in from authors, artists, and publishers. With each $10 you donate to the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, you can now also win:

Junot Díaz has donated 4 signed paperbacks. He’s traveling right now and isn’t sure what combination of copies of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Drown those four books will be. Specifics to come. For now: four signed books! From Junot Díaz!

Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs has donated a CD or merch item signed by the band. They aren’t sure yet what they’ll sign, but it’s getting signed at Bonnaroo today.

The Kenyon Review has donated a one-year subscription to the literary journal.

Connie May Fowler has donated a copy of her novel The Problem with Murmur Lee.

HarperCollins has donated a selection of signed celebrity books. Which celebrities and which books? I’ll let you know when the box arrives.

Remember, you need to email me here after you donate, so I can enter you into the raffle.

Thank you!

Remember a while back when I told you about a wonderful project that I’m fortunate to be a part of? The Afghan Women’s Writing Project is doing good, good work. It is giving young Afghan women an outlet for telling their stories–important stories that would not otherwise be heard.

Those women need our help. As program founder Masha Hamilton writes on the AWWP website:

“Many of our students and women writers, especially outside of Kabul, cannot get to an Internet cafe due to security considerations. A laptop at home and a jump drive would allow them to write their pieces, and then ask a male relative to send the work at an Internet cafe. A $20 donation will buy a flash drive and $500 in donations will buy a laptop for our women writers. No contribution is too small.”

I know times are incredibly tough right now, but I’m asking that you please consider making a donation to the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. Information on how to donate can be found here.

Once you’ve made a donation, please email me here (awwp[dot]raffle[at]gmail.com), and let me know the amount you’ve donated (which will remain confidential). Every $10 US (or equivalent) donated will earn one entry into the raffle. I will use a random number generator to choose the prizewinners at 10pm PST on Friday, July 10th.

Want to know what the prizes are? I’m pretty damn excited about them, and so grateful for the generosity the prize-donors have shown. Each person or organization you see listed below responded with great enthusiasm when I asked them to donate a prize. Here’s what you could win:

• Susan Choi has donated a signed hardcover edition of her novel A Person of Interest.

• Featherproof Books has donated a signed trade paperback original of Hiding Out by Jonathan Messinger, and a one-year subscription to Paper Egg.

• Masha Hamilton has donated signed trade paperbacks of her novels The Camel Bookmobile and The Distance Between Us.

• Caroline Leavitt has donated a signed hardcover edition of her novel Into Thin Air.

• Donigan Merritt has donated a signed hardcover edition of his novel Possessed by Shadows, and a signed trade paperback original of his novel The Common Bond.

• Ernesto Mestre-Reed has donated a signed 1st-edition hardcover of his novel The Lazarus Rumba, and a signed trade paperback original of his novel The Second Death of Única Aveyano.

• ml press has donated a 6-month subscription to their chapbook series.

• Sara Shepard has donated a signed 1st-edition hardcover of her novel The Visibles.

• Tin House has donated a one-year subscription to their literary magazine, and a bundle of books from their New Voice series.

• The Verve Music Group has donated 2 signed copies of Diana Krall’s latest CD Quiet Nights, 1 signed copy of Melody Gardot’s new CD My One and Only Thrill, 2 copies of the four-CD box set The House that Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records and 2 copies of Ashley Kahn’s book of the same name.

Pretty cool, yeah? Please donate! Otherwise I’m going to have to keep all this great stuff for myself.