Here’s the deal. I can’t talk about all the wild and wonderful books I’m reading, because that’s against National Book Awards policy and practice. I don’t want to talk about my next book, because I’m not ready. But I really haven’t been doing much but read those books and work on that manuscript. Yet, much to my surprise, there is still a little gray matter left to ponder the Rest of the Stuff going on in the world. Like:

War. I wish I could feel more hopeful about the winding down of combat operations in Iraq. I missed the President’s speech (see above), and am not sure what to think right now, but here’s what I do know: the U.S. military is full of people serving our country for all the right reasons, and giving up everything to do the best job they can in a totally complicated situation. For them I am grateful and to them I am thankful.

Speaking of war, the documentary Camp Victory, Afghanistan is really fascinating and moving. Also, Restrepo opens this week here in SLC at the Broadway. I’m both eager and scared to see it. Modern warfare makes it too easy for those of us here at home to tune out, forget, misunderstand, or have no clue about what’s going on overseas. We don’t really have to give anything up, the way people did in WWII, and when we’re not feeling the effect on our daily lives we’re not so compelled to understand it. I guess I should just speak for myself. But based on the conversations my friends and I are not having, I’m thinking I’m not the only one. (If there are books or movies that have helped you understand the war in a new or clearer way, feel free to rec them in the comments.)

Locally, The Deseret News just announced it’s going to fire 43% of its staff. Ay-yai. Personally, I’m a Salt Lake Tribune kind of gal, but I’m of the mind that every metropolitan area is better off with at least two thriving papers. We’ll see what happens.

In much more fun news, I did find time to watch the Emmys. (I’m always thankful for these big pop culture events that happen on Sundays, as I generally arrange my life so as not to have to work on Sundays. I’m pretty sure when God set up the idea of a sabbath, this is exactly the kind of thing he had in mind for us, right?) As much as I would have liked to see Coach and Tammy Taylor do well, I was thrilled for Kyra Sedgwick and thought she looked beaaauuuutiful. Of course, I am a wee bit biased, and hoping this could help mean good things for the Story of a Girl movie.

Lastly: My copy of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom is already in at the library and the timing COULD NOT BE WORSE. I do not have time for Freedom right now! But if I cancel my hold, I’ll go to the back of the line, which is now like 50 people and I may not get it back until 2012. Dilemma.

Okay everyone, back to your enormous stacks of reading! Or maybe that’s just me.

Otherwise you won’t be able to snap the strange and wonderful creatures you find on the trail, and you’ll be forced to steal pictures from other, better blogs. This morning on a trail in City Creek Canyon (when we were not convinced we were surrounded by rattlesnakes), we spied not one but two of these handsome fellows crossing our path—American Dagger Moth caterpillars. In all my 40 years I’ve never seen such like!

(Totally jacked this photo from wondersmitten. Click on it to see another great pic and commentary.)

Thank you for your wonderful and supportive comments on the last post. You make it all worthwhile.

Though Story of a Girl sold in May 2005, it was around this time that year everything was being made official—contracts, payments, deadlines. I was also figuring out with my employer at the time when quitting day would be. Since my job was dead-end, part-time, with no benefits, for me the question wasn’t if I’d leave, but when. We settled on January 31, 2006. My biggest fear when I left was that I’d run out of money and having to go back to work. When that very thing happened in 2007, the perfect temporary job came to me right when I needed it.

As I wrote my second book, my biggest fear was that it would be a huge failure and disappointment, that the success of Story of a Girl was a fluke. Sweethearts ended up doing just fine. When I sold books three and four, I didn’t so much fear total failure as I feared that I lacked what it takes to sustain a writing career over the long term. How could I keep this up? I had a sense of urgency about getting irons in the fire and exploiting every opportunity.

Now that I’m taking the last lap in the editorial process with what will be my fourth book, there are remnants of the fear that I can’t sustain this, but mostly they have settled into questions. What do I want next? What are the prospects that excite me vs. the ones that just make me feel tired? What would I do with the next year if I didn’t have to think about money? I haven’t yet tried to sell a fifth book; that’s been an intentional decision. Do I need a break? Do I need to try something completely new? Would a total failure right about now be exactly what I need?

My time at the Glen Workshop this summer provided roomy space not only for pondering these questions in the quiet of my own head, but exploring them with friends and comrades. No one gasped in horror when I talked about directions I might like to go, no one clutched at me and said But what about your career? (You know who you are. Thank you.) Rather, in several conversations, this warning came up: don’t ever do anything for money. Of course, we don’t live in a fantasy world in which all our bills are paid by a patron, and we all sometimes need to do things for money. Yet it’s wise, when possible, to avoid making creative decisions based on financial need—those are the decisions that are mostly likely to wind up sapping you of your energy and making you resent and avoid your work. In other words: don’t let the fear get to you.

And there are a lot of fears churning around in every writer, maybe most of all in those of us who have had some success. There’s the fear of losing your place in the community or the industry and then not being able to get it back, fear of letting people down, fear of being the subject of one of those “whatever happened to…” conversations, fear of stepping out to try something new and getting shot down, judged, fear of the assumptions people might make if you fade away for awhile. Fear of being broke and forced into a job you hate.

I’m weighing all those fears these days as I think about what’s next, and they don’t seem to the power they once did. A lot has happened in the last five years. A lot a lot. I was 34 then, and now I’m about to turn 40. Many of the things I set out to prove to myself and others back then have been proved. Terrain I wanted to explore has been explored. Now the globe is spinning beneath my fingers; it’s up to me to apply pressure where I want to stop. It’s not up to me how it all might turn out.

From the outside in, maybe whatever I do next won’t look that different from what I’ve been doing. Maybe it will. All I know for sure is that in the midst of being smart about the practical needs and realities, I want to be a beginner again at something creative, to always be a learner, to be bold and risk failure. I want to have faith that when I step off the comfortable path, I’m not going to freefall forever. So far, none of my fears have come to fruition—or at least, when they have, they’ve led not to disaster but to growth. All I have to do is hang onto that when panic threatens and fears seem to regain power. Easy.

(I was inspired to organize these thoughts in part by this piece on vocation, by my friend Allison Backous.)