MaryAOsborne.com

In the midst of a pandemic, there is still the simple joy of being out in nature.

There is, I think, cause for optimism, even though the war is just beginning. No doubt, the next couple weeks will be a bumpy ride. Maybe you are one of the fortunate soldiers like me, charged with staying home and flattening the curve. Stationed at my home office, I stand in awe of the health care workers who are serving on the frontlines, risking exposure to coronavirus as they go about their jobs. Their dedication is a daily reminder of the very best of humanity. Here in my Chicago neighborhood, I felt the love, too.

Earlier this week, a neighbor sent out a group email to everyone on our block. He wanted to identify those who would be able to help secure food and supplies for neighbors in need and those who would potentially need assistance. Right away, a whole lot of hands went up with offers to volunteer.

On Monday I had a long phone call with an old friend. We hadn’t done that in quite a while because there never seemed to be time. As we talked, I was sitting in my backyard. It was a cool day, but I felt the sun on my face. I saw a cardinal and noticed all the sprouting plants in my garden.

On Tuesday, I drove over to my favorite local bakery and dinette, Baker Miller, on Lincoln Avenue.  Since all Illinois restaurants are currently closed, Dave, the owner, set up a curbside pickup window. He waved to me when I pulled up. It was raining that morning, and before I even got out of my car, a cheery millennial came running out with my brown bag of lovingly baked sourdough.

Yesterday, my best friend and I exchanged thirty-some texts. We covered a lot of ground, including virus anxiety, recipes for a pandemic, and the latest on our kids. Another close friend has planned a virtual cocktail party. You can practice social distancing without feeling alone.

Besties

This is not to downplay the seriousness of our situation. When the pandemic is at last behind us, some will have lost loved ones and fortunes. But I have a feeling that we won’t take things for granted the way we did before. We might finally understand how much we need one another and how one person’s welfare impacts everyone’s welfare. It is just possible that humanity might emerge transformed for the better.

Painting by Mark Zlotkowski

René Descartes, the French philosopher and mathematician, imagined the cosmos as a complex machine operating according to precise mechanical laws. His theory implies the existence of a designer, a benevolent Creator or watchmaker, and describes an ordered elegance that seems counter to the madness of modern life. Joining Descartes and Newton—the men of the scientific revolution—writers and poets seek patterns amid chaos and explanations for the inexplicable.

The desire for order drives me to my desk, where I get to devise the plots and the characters conform to my whims. If only my city and my world would follow the structure of a novel. At the climax, the turning point, the good guys would emerge from their struggles better off than they were before.

Writers write stories, not the daily news. And yet we are, collectively, writing the story of our destiny. Just maybe we can write an ending other than tragedy. There are many among us—teachers, nurses, and counselors, to name a few—who do their jobs every day, trying to make it better. Good works create impact, as do beliefs.

What we imagine for our lives becomes our reality. Jesus, Buddha, and the mystics all tell us that what we dwell upon comes to pass. From the book of Matthew: “According to your faith be it done unto to you.” If this is so, collective pessimism, regardless of good works, will do nothing to lead us out of the mire.

Mindset is a choice, offered by the watchmaker, who stepped aside once his job was done. Negativity might seem the more natural attitude, in light of current events. But oh, how much better it is to imagine peace than annihilation.  John Lennon wrote it best. Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Does this mean all my books will have happy endings? Hmmm. It will be a while before I know for sure. The Last of the Magicians, my third historical, is on slow cooker mode while I work to complete a commissioned biography. (More on that later.)  A writer has to eat as well as dream.

Starting my new book, not without trepidation

While waiting for the right time to begin that novel you’ve been thinking about, or to take that trip or write that song, the days march on.  We give our precious time to obligations that have nothing at all to do with our heartfelt dreams.  Or when the opportunity finally arises, we feel overwhelmed by the size of the task and don’t know where to begin. I feel this way every time I start a new book (as in now) or essay.  There is just one thing to be done: dive in.

Begin anywhere, begin badly.  Almost all writers write terrible rough drafts, initial pages are crumpled into balls and tossed in the waste basket.  I’m pretty sure that little of what I wrote today is salvageable, but that’s beside the point.  I know that if I keep writing, and if I persist through a very long and painful struggle, the story will unfold.  The only obstacle is an over abundance of caution, a fear of failure, the caution of T.S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock:

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

Don’t be like Alfred.  Be willing to look a little foolish and have fun with it.  There is no time like today to reach for your heart’s desire.

Amelia Earhart

Like the heroine of Alchemy’s Daughter, I have occasionally been described as “headstrong” by those closest to me.  I take this as a compliment, despite the negative connotations of the word.  Without a degree of willfulness, how else is a girl to make her way in a world fraught with obstacles?  Becoming an author or achieving most any worthwhile goal requires focus, commitment to the end goal, and even occasional disregard for the opinions and feelings of others.  It is not possible to be a people-pleaser all the time while also setting out to achieve your dream.

Sally Ride

If a woman chooses a career in a competitive field–especially a field that has been traditionally dominated by men–a  stubborn nature has to be cultivated.  Astronaut Sallie Ride, conservationist and author Rachel Carson, and aviation pioneer  Amelia Earhart surely did not succeed by going with the flow and caring overmuch about the opinions of others.

Walt Whitman

When I began setting serious time aside to write and chose to give up a full-time nursing position, I ruffled some feathers, as my female role models surely did.  A few family members could be heard grumbling about my impractical venture.  Who does she think she is? Why give up full-time work to write when you have a child to support? Like Santina Pietra of Alchemy’s Daughter, I knew that not pursuing the dream would be a sort of death.  Better to do as Walt Whitman says in “Passage to India” and “steer for the deep waters only,” or take a risk in life.

Today I am sharing Laura Fabiano’s review (and Rafflecopter giveaway) of Alchemy’s Daughter as published on her wonderful site, Essentially Italian. Laura describes the book’s heroine as strong and willing to make a bold move to defy convention.  I have nothing against social conventions, but sometimes it is entirely appropriate to ignore them.

Sail forth — steer for the deep waters only,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Walt Whitman, Passage to India

With the release of Go Set a Watchman, I have been thinking of the beloved author Harper Lee and wondering, like many of her fans, if she ever really intended for this book to be published. Something is not quite right about the sudden appearance of the “long forgotten” manuscript in the hands of Lee’s attorney.  After all, Lee, who is now 89, ailing, and living in an assisted living facility, had plenty of opportunities to publish the book earlier, had she been so inclined. By many accounts, Go Set a Watchman is the failed, first draft of her masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. I can’t help but feel that the shy author, known to turn away interviews and who went running from the NY publishing world back to the safety of her hometown after To Kill a Mockingbird became hit, did not simply loose track of the old manuscript among her archives. More likely, Lee buried the manuscript in a drawer and fully intended it to stay there.

Harper Lee chose to live a quiet, reclusive life after the colossal success of her first novel, and she was known to turn away interviews. Although she eschewed publicity, I think a virtual tour might have been more palatable to her. From the comforts of her Monroeville, Alabama home, she could have penned answers to bloggers’ questions without stepping foot in NY or inside a TV station.

Shy author, Emily Brontë

The virtual world makes armchair tourism possible these days. As an author, I love the fact that I can circle the Internet with my new book, Alchemy’s Daughter, and speak with hundreds of people from the comfort of my Wrigleyville office. It’s true that I am something of a shy author, like Harper Lee, Emily Bronte, and C.S. Lewis.  A lot of us writers are that way, and it’s often the reason we started writing in the first place.

Italy Book Tours has done a wonderful job setting up my virtual tour. At each of the Alchemy’s Daughter stops, you can enter the Rafflecopter drawing for a chance to win a free copy. You’ll also hear a few stories about my years-long process of writing Alchemy’s Daughter, which was once a book called The Cloth Merchant’s Daughter. By the way, if anyone ever tries to publish The Cloth Merchant’s Daughter when I’m an old lady with dementia, you heard it right here that it was never my intention for that book to be published.

Medieval cloth merchant, like Santina Pietra's father in Alchemy's Daughter

Alchemy’s Daughter Full blog tour and giveaway schedule:

July 13 – Studentessa Matta – review / giveaway
July 13 – Babs Book Bistro – review / author interview / giveaway
July 14 – Working Mommy Journal – review / giveaway
July 14 – Dreams Come True Through Reading – review
July 15 – Confessions of a Reader – review / author interview
July 15 – Il Mio Tesoro – review / author interview
July 16 – ABookGeek – review / giveaway
July 16 – #redhead.with.book – review / giveaway
July 17 – Unshelfish – review / guest post / giveaway
July 20 – T’s Stuff – review / guest post / giveaway
July 21 – Rockin’ Book Reviews – review / guest post / giveaway
July 21 – In This World of Books – review / giveaway
July 22 – A Simple Life, really!? – review
July 22 – Jayne’s Books – review
July 23 – Griperang’s Bookmarks – review / author interview / giveaway
July 23 – Essentially Italian – review / author interview / giveaway
July 24 – Vic’s Media Room – review /
July 27 – The Autistic Gamer – review
July 27 – Svetlana’s Reads and Views – review
July 28 – Just One More Chapter – review / giveaway
July 29 – Pure Jonel – review / guest post / giveaway
July 30 – Jorie Loves a Story – review
July 31 – Library of Clean Reads – review / giveaway

July 13, 2015 marks the start of the Alchemy’s Daughter Italy Book Tour, which features books related to Italian culture.  Please join me for this fun virtual trip and enter the tour sponsor’s Rafflecopter giveaway for a chance to win one of the free copies that will be given away at the conclusion of the tour on July 31.

To kick off the tour, I am stopping today at Babs Book Bistro, where I offer some behind the scenes information about my the heroine’s love interest, my background as an RN, and my research on the topic of medieval midwifery.