Mary Lou Sanelli
About a month ago my good friend Susan asked me a question. She and I were sitting across from each other at Pegasus and as she reached over to take a chunk of my scone, thief that she is, she asked me what my next book is about.
This is no question for a writer.
I’m kidding, hahaha. No, her interest in my work is friendship at its most generous and I know it. And because she reads my column in this paper, my answer was easy, “You’ve been reading what my next book is about.”
“Oh, I thought it would be about more,” she says, though it sounds more insensitive here than it was in person. Still, a writer has to wonder sometimes if she should ever try to answer such a question before publication, what with her thin skin and all.
However. What Susan said, she had said.
“More? How so, more?” I say. But here’s what I think: Just when you think you have matured past feeling vulnerable about your work, when you least expect it to reappear, there it is.
“Well …” she says.
“Well is not a complete sentence.”
“I’d like to read about how you got started in all of this.”
Given that I’m a better writer than talker (I think so, anyway), especially when the conversation is harder than I expected, I lifted my shoulders, let them drop, and changed the subject.
A few hours after seeing Susan, I got to work. As Dianne Reeves said, “I think the only way for you to grow is to keep listening.” So, here’s my best stab at “more” and “all of this,” though I promise I am not using air quotes:
In my twenties, after college, I worked as a cocktail waitress. And there was a man who frequented the bar I worked at, a prominent man, a newscaster, everyone knew him; he had power and influence and one night, after he patted my butt for the third time, I threw a drink in his face.
I was promptly fired.
Being fired was what I wanted, of course, even if I didn’t consciously know it at the time. Being fired was the best luck of my life. Being fired made me stop and think about my life. How I wanted to spend my hours. Who I wanted to be. Being fired was the birth of my life as a writer. Ever since, my idea of the perfect workday is four to five hours alone at my desk.
Writing is the greatest luxury, and the hardest work I’ve ever done.
Writing pleases me. I hope it pleases my readers. Writing leads me to my truest places, informs me about myself and sheds light on the world. Writing is my genre.
But here I smile. Because no matter what we believe our genre to be, or not to be, there are always a few established practices of what we do and how we do it, and it’s important that we honor them. So, I do my best to be utterly truthful, which is easier than ever, what with all the pent up need for more truthfulness that has built up in me lately. And it’s still necessary to change certain names and abbreviate certain occurrences.
Some of my previous columns took on some heavy issues. I wrote them during our last presidential campaigning years. The political climate was intense. And then some.
My instinct now is to turn away from news that, day in and day out, triggers fear, and instinct generally points us in the right direction. The more you know, the less you understand, and since January 20th has come and gone and it’s apparent that no one is going to come and wake me from this repeat of a bad dream, I feel as though I understand very little.
I have no interest — no writing interest — in the next four years of what already feels like a chaotic presidency. I am interested in writing about what I love, who I love, and who and what loves me back. And somehow the years will pass, just as always, just as before, and the things we thought were such a big deal are not so big — and this gives me courage (depending on how well I slept). And courage for me has become a choice, or maybe more of a determination, to put hope in charge. While taking really good care of myself.
I mean, when you think about it, even the word “news” is a misnomer. When, really, it’s the same old story (so old, soooo old) written over and over.
And so. I canceled the cable. I no longer monitor social media. I’ve asked my dependable marketing director to post what needs posting about my books, my talks, and I don’t bother to check it. What’s done is done.
I want to relax more into my writings. Take more downtime between them. Write from a place that has little to do with fear or confusion or retro politics. I want my writing to be more peaceful. I want my mind to be more peaceful.
I want to focus on the everyday. I want to focus on being here.
Mary Lou Sanelli is the author of fourteen titles, including Among Friends, Every Little Thing, and In So Many Words, nominated for a 2025 Washington State Book Award. Ple ase ask for it at Queen Anne Book Co., Magnolia's Bookstore, or your favorite independent bookstore. Visit Sanelli at www.marylousanelli.com.