Pandora's Box

Two galley proofs of House of Northern Lights came today by messenger. No one was home but me- my husband had just left with Sweetpea for a day of fun at LegoLand. There was a knock, much yapping by the dogs, thumping and scrabbling sounds as they launched themselves at the door, and by the time I opened it, the package was sitting on the porch waiting for me.

I tore it open and looked at the two books held tightly within a skin of clear plastic. I sat down.

This is one of those moments that remain forever in place. I didn't grow and push a baby out, so that one gets crossed off the list. I did marry, twice. Both marital events are stuck in my head and I wish I could get the first one out. I've been dumped a few times, but those memories are foggy, probably because I was out of my mind at the time and successfully sent the gory details to the corn field.

But this one is a keeper: Opening up the box and looking at the two shiny covers, the thickness of it (wow, did I write all that?), and flipping through the pages like a tourist at my own destination, was a bit of a heart-stopper. I wanted to cry, but I was too exhausted, still mired in the many details of galley proofs, send-to lists, emails full of questions from the publisher, compromises in transit, and all the rest of the stuff that goes along with a major life accomplishment.

I did want just stare at the things for a while. Stop time for a moment and savor the major victory they represented. I'd finally planted my flag on the tip of a very, very deep iceberg. One that crystallized so many years ago, if I tried to write about that far-away experience now, instead of when I did over a decade ago, I couldn't have possibly remembered all the details I needed to create the story that finally took shape.

I'm so grateful I did write it, and that I didn't give up after horrible fizzle that followed the first heady flurry of activity; the phone messages from New York royalty, "best thing I've read in years!", acceptance into Wyoming's UCROSS Writer's Residency where Annie Proulx was writing "Brokeback Mountian". This, after urging from my now late friend, Fred, who at 78 had become a much-beloved first-time author, feted on NPR and lauded in the New York Times. So many phone messages of praise from readers of the manuscript. Being courted by numerous, important Hollywood people, being called a 'genius' by one agent who compared my work to J.D. Salinger in a long and heartfelt letter where he quoted massively from my novel. "A once-in-a-lifetime moment", he called the book. I still have that letter someplace.

At the time I was working at a healthcare company, in a tiny office the size of a copy machine, and when I got the news that one of New York's biggest agents, who represented only five clients, John Grisham being one of them, was going to represent the book, I flung open the door (which hit the back of my chair) and ran out to my boss in tears.

I hugged a lot of people that day, my face radiant and glowing from the promises I was getting from all quarters. I was a veteran of the film business and the images of where this book was finally going to take me were a mixture of hope and relief. I was finally going to get back into the game.

Wait! Okay, now you are going to ask yourself, how the hell did she end up in a mini-office at at healthcare company if she was a big-shot in the film business?

Life is a bitch.

This book was partly responsible for it, and the reason for my mad dash around the corporate loop to gloat over my newfound freedom. I had left my cushy V.P. development job at Warner Brothers to be in the producing team of "The Big Picture", pissing off my very important boss in the process (I told him it was just a three month sabbatical). When the film was done, so was my marriage and I took off for parts unknown, falling into the adventure that gave me the kernel of my novel. I didn't realize at the time how much of my carefully arranged life back in L.A. would unravel along with my marriage. Perhaps I wasn't meant to know.

But as a new adventurer, moving out into parts unknown, I had set a new course for myself and I'm still feeling the ripple effect today in all the good ways I'd hoped. The months I spent in the isolated island community of Masset was so extraordinarily vibrant and knife-edged with real life drama it took my breath away. It was such an amazing, profoundly moving experience, rich with larger-than-life people and a cultural struggle - the rebirth of a nation really, and I was there. I was actually there.

Now this experience has morphed into the story I wanted to tell - the ideas and the challenges and the intimacy of relationships in transition, of people who live and breathe every detail of their messed-up lives and still manage to do good. And my admiration for those who go off the path and take the consequences.

A decade later and the opening of a box, and here I am, a lucky person after all. I revere books and the power of story to transform. They have been such a powerful influence in my life, providing hours of solace during times when I thought my heart would simply shrivel up from the pain of loss, sheltering me, inspiring me. The stories given to me by other writers and the process of actually becoming a writer myself have served me better than any therapy I've ever had.

I am a writer. I deserve to say that now. I've earned it.

When I was seventeen, and a new acting student at Ryerson Theatre School, I remember all of us being so damn proud of ourselves for having beaten the odds and gotten in. We sat there, all full of hope, energy, promise, pride. The Director, a stern old guy with silver hair and a limp, looked over at us slowly and then gripped his hands on the lectern.

"In 20 years only 5 of you will still be actors," he said. "It's not because you aren't all very talented. It's not because the right parts won't come along, either. No, most of you will move on for one reason or another. Some of you are meant to be actors. And some of you are meant to be something else. It's up to you to find that out."

There was a shocked murmur in our group. I mean, after all we'd just gone through a grueling audition process over several weeks, coming out of a group of 200 to just 20 survivors.

Then he finished with something that stayed with me, so I guess that it's one of my moments to remember. "If you succeed in life people will say you were lucky. Luck has nothing to do with it. If you want to know the secret it's this: Persistence and preparation meet opportunity. You make your own luck. Find your passion, and make your own luck."

Works for me.