I don't want to blink either.

Hello my lovelies.

Sorry I didn't post last night but I wasn't feeling well and by the time I *was* feeling well, I attended to writerly duties. And tonight I am running out the door for a dinner date with my hubby. However! Lest you die of the longing for an update from me, here is a little story about a girl who went to a Chris Bohjalian signing:

First, do we all know who Chris is? Chris Bohjalian (pronounced bow (like a ribbon)-jail-yen) has written thirteen books, many of which are NYT bestsellers and have won awards and been personally reviewed by omg Jodi Picoult. Until this event, I knew him only as the author of the SO FREAKING FABULOUS book MIDWIVES, which you should all rush out and read right this very minute. It's a page turner, I tell you. A thought-provoking page turner.

Chris was speaking and signing at a local Jewish Community Center in support of his recent novel SKELETONS AT THE FEAST. Here is the back cover copy, since it talks about the story better than I can:

In the waning months of World War II, a small group of people begin the longest journey of their lives.

At the center is eighteen-year-old Anna, the daughter of Prussian aristocrats, and her first love, a twenty-year-old Scottish prisoner of war named Callum. With his boyish good looks and his dedication to her family, he has captured Anna's heart. but he is the enemy, and their love must remain a closely guarded secret. Only Manfred, a twenty-six-year-old Wehrmacht corporal, knows the truth. and Manfred, who is not what he seems to be, is reluctantly taken with Anna, just as she finds herself drawn uncomfortably to him.

As these unlikely allies work their way west, their flight will test both Anna's and Callum's love, as well as their friendship with Manfred--and will forever bind the young trio together.

He's a very engaging speaker. He told some really hilarious stories, one of which involved a snow cone of vomit (and yes, that's all I'm going to say) and had me laughing almost until I was crying. The majority of the evening was, of course, focused on more serious topics such as the zillions of people who died in zillions of horrible ways during World War II and just what, exactly, the human spirit can endure.

For me, the highlight of his talk came when someone asked if it was difficult for him, as a father, to write this story. (And let me put in the disclaimer that I'm paraphrasing all this from memory...) He answered that it wasn't particularly difficult as a father, but more so as a human being. The reader who asked the question then said that she kept wanting to turn away from the terrible things in the story and that she wondered how he found the courage to write about them. And this, my lovelies, is where the magic moment came: He said that he, too, wanted to turn away from them but that he realized he had never turned away from any of the stories he'd set in New England--stories that also dealt with terrible things: rape, domestic abuse, discrimination, etc.--and so he didn't want to turn away from this story, either. He said he didn't want to blink.

I heard those words and something inside me shifted. I thought, YES. That's the thing, this desire to not blink. It's the thing that gets us, you know? For me, in my own writing, it's the thing that keeps driving me to tell the one true story. It's what pushes me past "good enough" and doesn't let me rest until it's "right." The need to stare that thing right in the eye, to stare it right down, to see it, to know it, to let it know you, and to not let your fear, your hesitance, your what-if be a part of that experience. 

That, my lovelies, is what it's all about.