Gratitude

I told you I’d come back here with some good stories—and, hooo boy, do I have one for you.

This story starts one day in April, nearly two years ago, when I went over to my friend Danielle’s house and sat on her kitchen couch (just about the coziest spot ever) while she tried to convince me that I should write a book. Of course, I didn’t believe her.

Danielle once said she would walk ten miles out of her way for good bread, so when I wrote a post about Irish soda bread, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I sent her the link. Because she is a literary agent, always on the lookout for a good book idea, I wrote a short note with my email: “There’s no book here, this is just for fun.”

Danielle wrote me back immediately: “there is a book here,” and she pulled out a short passage from the beginning of the post, nothing to do with soda bread. I had written about going into a butcher shop and confessing to the butcher that I was raised a vegetarian and how, though I may eat a bit of meat these days, large pieces of flesh scare me.

Then Danielle wrote five little words: “The Butcher and the Vegetarian.”

When I saw her email I laughed—there was no way I was going to write about meat. Ugh.

I thought the idea was so funny that, when my friend and former publishing colleague Jen Leo came to town the next week, I mentioned it to her over margaritas and Mexican food. I thought she might get a laugh out of it as well. "Guess what Danielle thinks I should be writing about..."

Jen just stared at me. “You’ve got to write this book,” she told me. “It’s perfect for you.”

Now, when two publishing savvy folks both tell you to do the same thing, you have to at least consider it. That’s how I came to be sitting in Danielle’s kitchen, watching her make matzo ball soup and listening to her try to convince me to write about meat. “Just give it a try,” Danielle said, she made it sound easy. Since nonfiction books are sold on the strength of a book proposal—you don’t have to actually write the entire book—I promised that I would at least try.

Then I went home and promptly forgot about it.



I didn’t really forget about the project—but I certainly tried to. I churned out some very bad sample chapters that summer, chapters so unfortunate that the close and trusted friend I asked to read them could only tell me to “keep going.” There was nothing good that could be said about the project at that point. I thought writing a book about food would be just as much fun as writing a blog post, something I find exceedingly enjoyable, but it wasn’t. I tried it this way, I tried it that way, I tried to forget about it and do something else. All the while Danielle was waiting for me to produce something…waiting and waiting and waiting. She’s a very patient lady.

The thing I didn’t quite realize at the time is that I was terrified of writing this book. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to write about meat—a topic I have very conflicted feelings about. “Couldn’t I write about something romantic?” I asked. “Something like, tea?” (tea is romantic, meat is carnal). I fought the topic until last August, when I went to the doctor who ran the allergy tests and told me I had to cut out all dairy, eggs, and beans out of my diet—the lion's share of vegetarian protien sources. Meat, it seemed, was unavoidable for me—in writing and in life. I took it as a sign.

But still I struggled with the project, for I was slowly realizing that the story was as much about me as it was about meat. I wasn’t sure I wanted to write about my background, my untraditional childhood, my family—I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to conceal such things. Did I really want to write the story of a little girl who used to steal food—not because she was hungry, but because she yearned for flavors that were not allowed at home; because she didn’t want to be different; because she wanted to live and eat and be in the world like “normal” people?

No, I wasn’t sure I wanted to write that story at all. It was hard enough to have lived it.

And so I struggled with the proposal. At the same time, I was poking around the meat world. I spent an afternoon barbequing with Biggles at the Meathenge; I watched Taylor, of the Fatted Calf Charcuterie, make sausage; I talked meat and politics with the hunky guys who work the Prather Ranch meat stall at the Grand Lake Farmers’ Market (former vegetarians, all of them—and oh so hunky), but the writing itself was hard. I spent days staring at a blank computer screen—who on earth wanted to hear about my life? Was this even interesting at all? What was I thinking? I wanted to write a story that was fun and funny, but it challenged me at every turn.



I originally conceived my time in Seattle as time to work on the book, but when I left San Francisco last spring I wasn’t even done with the proposal. I began to feel like a huge failure. I felt awful for letting Danielle down and, what’s worse, my mother—my vegetarian mother—was bugging me about it too. When a staunch vegetarian is giving you a hard time about not working on a book about meat, you know you’ve got problems.

And so summer passed, with small amounts of fitful progress, and I wondered if this really was my book after all. Perhaps I just wanted a book deal because my friends were getting them (certainly a lame reason to try to do anything). I went to two of the wisest people I know and asked them what they thought. Really, I was just looking for someone to let me off the hook, to tell me it was okay not to write the book. That didn’t happen—they both told me I had to go through with it. And I was getting to the point where I knew it myself—if I’m having this much trouble with something, it usually means there’s something important to be learned and I need to get over my own fear and get out of the way. My late, great writing mentor, the astounding Amanda Davis, used to say that if what you’re writing about doesn’t scare you, you’re not writing about the right thing.

I finally finished the proposal, a full year and a half later. Going into the literary festival this fall I was a mere three pages away from being finished—three stinking pages!—but everything had to go on the back burner while festival madness took over. When the smoke cleared, I went back to the computer and finally wrote the last pages of the proposal. I futzed and futzed with it at the end, still nervous about letting it go, but I finally hit send and emailed it to Danielle, who then emailed it into the world—into the inboxes of editors across the country.

The very next day we heard back from the first editor who was interested. And then another, and another, and another. I sat in front of my computer as Danielle forwarded emails to me—people excited about the project, wanting to talk to me, wanting to know more. I spent a surreal week talking to different editors on the phone about the book, about myself (cringe), about my blog. They said the nicest things about the project, about my writing; they asked intelligent questions (I adore the publishing industry, it is filled with whip-smart, funny, passionate, opinionated people); they all wanted me to write more about my family and childhood (good grief). But the most astounding thing of all is that they were all interested in the project I wasn’t sure anyone would be interested in—not even me.

This experience was all the more surreal because I used to work at a literary agency—not too many years ago, in fact. One of the things I did there was to set up these sorts of phone conversations between authors and editors interested in their work. It was hard to believe it was me on the phone this time, my work we were talking about. For a few moments there I felt like a literary Cinderella, getting to go to ball at last.



And so the book went to auction last week—that’s what happens when there are multiple parties interested in a project (don't underestimate those mild-mannered editorial types—they're gamblers, I tell you, gamblers!). As I was packing to leave for Thanksgiving Danielle was receiving bids and my head was spinning. Most writers go a lifetime hoping to have just one publisher interested in their work—to have multiple offers is, well, beyond what anyone thinks they can hope for. To say I was stunned is to put it mildly. This was the project I came close to walking away from, more times than I can tell you. Clearly Danielle and Jen are far, far smarter than I am and I'm considering turning over all major life decisions to them in the future.

And here I must tell you a secret, something most people don’t know:
I nearly gave up writing three years ago.

It’s true. I hadn’t written in about a year and a half, ever since finishing a masters degree in creative writing, and I wasn’t sure I should even bother to try again (I realize that deciding to stop writing after you’ve gone through the work of getting a degree in the subject is backwards at best, but there you have it). I knew I was a good editor—that I have always had confidence in—but writing was much harder for me. Even though I had some publication credits under my belt, I wondered if I should just stick to what I do well. Surely there were enough people out there trying to be writers. Did the world need one more? Did it need my voice? I wasn't sure the answer to that question was yes.

That summer I attended the Squaw Valley Writers’ Conference, to remind myself I was still a writer and not just an editor. Folks there were very supportive, my workshop group read parts of my novel-in-progress (about tea, ironically—it's terribly romantic) and got mad at me when they heard I hadn’t been working on it. My workshop leader, a best-selling author himself, game me his card and told me to get in touch when I was finished with the project, he wanted to introduce me to his agent and editor. It was encouraging, tremendously so, but at the end of the week I went home and continued not writing. It was so much easier to tell other writers what to do than to put myself on the line.

The following winter I grew sick and started this blog, which was a revelation from the start. Suddenly I couldn’t write enough, suddenly it was fun again, suddenly I was staying up late in the night, writing about food and farming and adventures—and all this before anyone was even reading this site. I was falling in love with writing again.

Then folks started trickling in, leaving comments (KitchenMage was the first), linking to me (Jen Maiser was first there), welcoming me into this extraordinary community of bloggers and readers and avid cooks and gracious hosts. This dear little corner of the internet gave me the time and space to develop my voice, to hone my craft, to share the things that excite me, to gain some confidence—and all of you have been so encouraging and supportive. That book proposal went out with my name on the front page, but it really belongs to each and every one of you who have come and spent time here over the past two years, who have left comments, who have linked, who have just read silently—for it wouldn’t have happened without you. Is it too cheesy to quote that Bette Midler song about you guys being the wind beneath my wings? (waaaaay too cheesy, but you get the idea).



This is all a very long way of saying that last week my book—this project I’ve struggled with—found a home. I’m going to be working with an editor who has published both Candace Bushnell (of Sex and the City fame) and, most recently, Al Gore. I’m hoping I can strike a note somewhere between the two—a fun and flirty story that has some serious issues at its base. Mostly, I hope it makes readers both laugh and think. I hope it’s something you’d want to pick up and read—for really, this book is as much yours (and Danielle’s and Jen’s) as it is mine.

And the title makes me laugh every time:

The Butcher & The Vegetarian:
One Woman’s Romp Through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis

You’re allowed to laugh at it as well—in fact, I encourage it. I want this story to be fun—poignant, but fun.

I loved our family Thanksgiving this year. It was filled with one little niecelet who toddled into the kitchen where I was cooking and held her arms up when she wanted to be lifted and cuddled. My other niece insisted on taking naptime with me in my bed and wanted to wear one of my t-shirts as her pajamas. We read stories and sang songs and talked about what vegetables we’d be if we were vegetables (Alice would be broccoli, I’d be a pumpkin). The very next day I woke up sick—no surprise there, I haven’t had a full day off since July. My body took me just as far as I needed to go, on overdrive these past few months, and now it needs to rest.

The past few days I’ve laid low—letting my mother bring me hot cups of honey, lemon, and ginger (if there is anything better than being sick when your mother’s in the house, I can't think of it right now), sleeping lots, composing thank you notes I have yet to send. In between it all, I stop to think about what has happened and I’m overcome. I know the work has only just begun, that this is a project that will test and challenge me every step of the way—it has already. I also know that I will learn and grow because of it. But mostly—as the writer who very nearly walked away entirely—I am so grateful for the opportunity.

And grateful for all of you, more than you can know.

I realize that not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving—and not everyone celebrates it in November (yay, Canada, yay). Wherever you are, whatever you celebrate, know that I am sending my thanks your way. Thanks for helping me grow, and learn…and maybe even bloom a little.



And, in the PS department: I’ve set myself a deadline of Friday to answer all your sweet comments from the past few months. Now that the brouhaha is over, I’m going to get back in gear and remember my manners, maybe I’ll even post a recipe or two some day. In the meantime, thanks for your patience, and your kindness.