Judy Mayhew

A long one. Back the end of May.

Thanks for dropping by.

Thanks for waiting. I know I’ve been neglectful, but I have a good excuse. And it was very thoughtful of you to hang around, hoping I’d post again.

You know what my excuse is. You must—it’s something I never stop talking about. Yes, of course, the Camino. But really, have you ever tried to train for something this big? And how old are you? Well, I know it wouldn’t be a big deal for you, but I’m … well, older than you.

My neighbours have started commenting on the amount of time I spend walking. To them, it probably looks like I’m casing the area. Back and forth, back and forth, sometimes with a loaded pack, sometimes with my laptop, often with my dog. Putting in the miles.

I’m sorry, I know you must be bored with all this. But I’m not and it’s my blog, so there you go. Have you checked out the website? Oh, come on, it’s Easter Monday—what else do you have to do? You can dream, too.

Think of it. That’s right—sit back in your chair and admit that you wish you were coming with me. Imagine the new friends you could make. The fit body you’d return with. It’s a bit late to join me now, but next year would be good. And who knows? I may want to do it again. Meanwhile, think about the new boots you’ll need, the technical clothes and all the travel size toiletries.

There, now I’ve got you going, haven’t I? Delivery is free is your order is over $50, and how could it not be?

Well, I have to go. I have to rearrange the contents of my pack, something I do several times a day.

Thanks for hanging in there with me. I was hoping you would. That’s what friends are for, right? Let me know when you’ve set your dates. I’ll be there for you.

It’s twelve degrees Celcius and raining in St. Jean Pied de Port, just in case you were wondering. Tomorrow should be sunny, though, and sixteen. Good walking weather, especially if the route is steep. That’s in France, if you want to look it up. The Pyrenees mountains.

Pamplona will be sunny for the next three days! Pamplona—where bulls run in the street, but not when I’ll be there. Pamplona, Spain, where Hemingway penned The Sun Also Rises and where I plan to absorb by osmosis his creativity by walking in his footsteps—heel, toe, heel, toe. But I won’t be fishing.

Burgos? Twenty-two with a bit of cloud.

Leon is only nineteen right now, but I think that’s because of the time difference. It’s already evening in Leon. The snorers are rumbling. The coughers, coughing. The lights flick on and off as pilgrims wander to and from the bathroom. Tomorrow will be twenty-one degrees. Of course, it will be a month or so before I’m in Leon, but I’m a well-prepared sort of gal.

And, holy smokes, it’s beautiful in Melida, where I hope to spend my birthday and where I hope to eat squid cooked in a copper pot. Twenty-two and sunny. Perfect. And speaking of smoke, I read on Twitter, surely the most reliable purveyor of news in the universe, that there are forest fires in Galicia. That’s scary. But not scary enough to make me reconsider my Camino.

And Santiago! Ah, Santiago! The end of the long, long, road. Twenty-four degrees. I hope it’s the same at the end of May, when I finish.

I’m ready. Twenty days to go before I leave my house for the Camino. Twenty-two before my first step along The Way, but I’m ready. My bag is packed. I know the weather. I’m just that kind of gal.

The writers’ workshop is a strange animal. Usually set up in a community centre meeting room or university classroom, if you’re lucky enough to have a university in your area, the ‘shop lasts about three hours. You pay whatever it costs because you’ve been waiting for years for this particular writer to show up in your little town.

You register months ahead and you don’t care what it costs, because your writing problem will be solved. Doesn’t matter if your work is total crap, or you haven’t written more than your grocery list since Christmas, because whatever problem you have, it will be fixed at this ‘shop. Let’s call the author Big Writer.

You ask around to find out who else is going, because there’s no point in going unless your friends know you’ve shelled out the bucks to be in Big Writer’s class. Even better if you can talk them into going, too, because then they’ll see you at your best, discussing obscure literary terms with Big Writer. Best of all is if they can’t get in, because the class is full. You’re in with Big Writer and they’re not.

Big Writer has clout in the publishing world. Big Writer will know, from the time you walk into the room, carrying your coffee in one hand and balancing a muffin on top of your brand-new notebook, that you are going places in the writing world. Big Writer will see your potential as you spread butter onto your muffin and only get one little smear on your neighbour’s asinine YA/fantasy/horror novel and manage to keep your own ms clean. You have social skills. You’re a people person.

When Big Writer asks why you are there, you take a sip of your coffee, cross your arms and let go with your entire writing history, from the time you rhymed Mrs. Klum’s name with bum in kindergarten, until you were picked up by the police for writing political graffiti on the wall of the school gymnasium. You will carry on until your neighbour, the one with the tiny butter smear on her ms, starts huffing. Then you will graciously yield.

You will stay after everybody else has gone home, hoping for a private chat that will lead to a request from Big Writer’s agent, offering representation.

And then you will go home. The next morning, you will see an ad for a ‘shop by another Big Writer, same location, same price. You will be the first to sign up.

Here’s mine:

Roll out of bed check email breakfast dishes dog walk check email and facebook go to town with laptop have a coffee and write oh wow five hundred beautiful words man-booker type words pick up groceries walk home with laptop and groceries bounce in my step play with dog check email make bread dough and leave it to rise quilt check twitter review critique partner’s latest chapter and send it back with comments lunch do Jumble and Wonderword check email another dog walk check the morning’s writing and realize it was crap total crap rewrite it punch down bread dough harder than necessary put it in pans for second rise go back to outline try that chapter again check email and facebook and twitter work on crossword read for a while reread the day’s writing find it’s not so bad after all not man-booker maybe but for sure the globe’s top 100 bake bread read a few blogs add a few lines to my writing not bad not great but not bad shower sweep read the rest of the paper dinner dishes check email and facebook and twitter and go daddy analytics realize I owe it my readers to come up with something witty or something deep decide to tell them about my day that will surely interest them post blog play lexulous check email and facebook and twitter and go daddy analytics watch movie go to bed

I did another training walk today. Two hours and forty-five minutes. I have no way to measure the distance, but I’m calling it 10k. And it involved hills, too. I walked to and from the local fish hatchery—a gorgeous system of man-made serpentine channels filled with salmon at certain times of the year, but not now. Now a herd of goats grazes on the grass between the channels. Mountains in the background, a cool breeze on my face, a well-worn path and no traffic. What more could I ask?

I’ll have to up my distance before I leave for the Camino de Santiago on April 17th. I love the training, but it takes up a lot of time.

The first hour out is filled with monitoring and adjustments. Feet okay? Check. I used Vaseline between my toes this time and two pairs of socks—a light liner and heavy hiking socks. Pack okay? Hmm, a little loose—should ride closer to my back, so I spend some time pulling straps. Shoulders okay? Not bad. I’ve kept the pack as light as possible. It’s not that much heavier than my laptop and purse combined.

Warm enough? Now we’re getting into the problem area. Having spent many hundreds of dollars on equipment, I drew the line at buying a top-of-the-line breathable jacket. Instead, I opted for a lightweight wind shell which, unfortunately, builds up a river of condensation between the inside of the jacket and the fleece under it. When I get home, every piece of clothing on the upper half of my body is soaked. I’ll have to come up with a solution for this or I will be dripping wet when I stop for lunch on the Camino. Lots of time to think about this on my walks.

Off to the shower. Throw in a load of laundry.

And plan the next training walk. But that’s okay, only forty-one days to go.

Not that I’m counting.

I have a penpal who is in prison. The relationship is recent—she had already served many years before I started writing to her.

I want to ask her so many things, but it’s difficult. “What did you do this week?” must be an eye-rolling query to one who is behind bars. “What are your plans?” the same. I fear she will pick up a subtext that wasn’t intended … you, too, could make plans if you’d followed the rules.

What I really want to know is: “How do you it? How do you stay sane living a life with so many restrictions?” I can’t ask that.

I ask, instead, “What is your daily routine? May I send you some books? Do you have paper and pen? Does your family visit?”

She passes over my questions without answering them, but seems interested in my life and asks questions of her own. We are all interested in the lives we haven’t lived. To my surprise, she suggested I write a memoir and I had to sit back and ponder where that thought came from. My life is not made up of scenes that would keep a reader turning pages. Hers is. If we each wrote a memoir, my friend’s would have more success than mine. She has led a tumultuous life with serious consequences. I haven’t.

I try for courtesy and tell her what I can about myself without sounding smug: my hours out walking and shopping, planning a vacation, playing with my dog, listening to my favourite music, and my time at the computer, writing. My letters to her are typed and printed out. Hers to me are hand-written in exquisite penmanship on lined paper torn from a pad.

There is a connection of sorts between us—tentative and polite, each wary of the interest we have in the other’s life.

I pick up the mail every day and hold my breath, hoping for that familiar rendering of my name on the envelope. I wait and I wait and I wait. And then a letter appears and I devour it, reading it a dozen times, before sitting down to reply and wish her well in the life that has befallen her.

And then I wait again.

I used to approach my writing with an open mind. I raised free-range characters who were encouraged to entertain me, get themselves in and out of trouble, fall in love, fall out of love, and somehow, do so in the context of a story.

I’m not sure why I chose that method of writing. It certainly isn’t the way I go about anything else in my life. I’ve never been called loose, but I have been called rigid.

Writing seemed a good way to break out of my mold. I’d come up with a few characters, name them, give them jobs, introduce them and see where it went from there. That’s called “being a pantser” or writing from the seat of your pants. I loved it during the first draft, which I often wrote in longhand, in a café. Are you getting the picture? The romance of the writer whose characters speak to her? They did, you know—there were times when I’d laugh out loud at something one of my characters said. Before I started writing, I didn’t believe that could happen. I scoffed at writers who said their characters would tell them where they wanted to go next. But what happens is this: when you’ve created four or five characters, given them personalities, and set them down in a contained setting where certain events have already occurred, they come alive and their dialogue seems to come directly from their mouths. This works well, for a while, but during the revision process—and there is always a revision process—the lack of a detailed plan sometimes shows. It becomes clear that the characters were out of control.

Next time, which is this time, I’ve decided to outline. That idea that was circling my head like a butterfly last week, has landed on my keyboard. I have decided to show some leadership this time by preparing an outline. A detailed—yes, maybe rigid—list of what will happen in this book, chapter by chapter. My characters will do as I say, when I tell them to do it.

My pantsers are worn out. I’m trying on some outliners. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I can’t tell you about it yet. I barely understand it myself.

I have an idea for a new novel and it’s floating around in my head, just out of reach. I open my hand, hoping it will land gently in my palm where I can study it. But it stays airborne, tantalizing me.

I’m trying to make sense of it, but it slips away if I pay too much attention to it.

There’s an older woman, I think. And a younger man. Something about a murder. Oh no! Surely not a murder!

Have you ever had just a hint of an idea for a story or a poem or a novel?

It has to make sense, but in the days before it settles in, it dances and spins in and out of consciousness. It changes shape. It won’t let me get too close. I wake in the night and think I have it, but in the morning it’s skittered away, only to return in a slightly different form when I’m out walking the dog.

I’ll need a structure, a point of view, an outline. I’ll need a protagonist and a villain … and is it true? Will I need a weapon? A motive? An opportunity?

My idea isn’t ready yet. It’s playing with me, but that’s okay. I can wait. I can sit quietly and when it trusts me, it will land on my shoulder, whisper in my ear and I will start typing.

Shhh! Let’s not disturb it.

I’m learning Spanish.

I’ve had three two-hour lessons and am not yet ready to be let loose in a roomful of Spaniards.

I’ve done the greetings. I can recite the alphabet in Spanish, should it be necessary. I know the numbers from one to ten, and if you give me enough time, I might make it to one hundred. I can tell you my nationality.

In the last lesson, I learned Ser, one of five verbs for to be. The homework was to find two photographs of people and list some of their characteristics in Spanish. My first photo is a waist-up shot of a young woman in an elegant black dress. There were things I wanted to say about her and could, as we had just learned “she is”: she is Maria; she is Spanish; she is a music teacher.

I have so much more to say but I don’t yet have the words: Maria has brown hair and blue eyes, she likes to shop, her dress is fashionable, she wears an enigmatic smile. I’ve decided she’s the mother of  Alberto, a  two-year-old boy named after her father, who left her mother and moved to Philadelphia. She’s the wife of Max, a transplanted American trying to find work in northern Spain; she’s the daughter of Celesta who harbours bitter thoughts about Alberto, Sr. and is determined that Alberto, Jr. will join the priesthood when he grows up. She is also furious that her sister has moved to America and left Maria to look after their mother.

And that’s just Maria.

I have another photo, taken from The New Yorker, of a young woman in tattered jeans and a T-shirt, running shoes and a strand of pearls. She wears huge sunglasses and lounges in an elegant chair with her feet resting on an ottoman.

With the level of Spanish I have now, all I can say about this woman is:

She is Martine. She is sister of Maria. She is Spanish.

I don’t yet have the language skills to say that Martine left Pamplona in a huff, that she followed her father, Alberto, Sr., to Philadelphia, then followed her heart and travelled to New York to become an actress, and is now waiting tables until that happens. I’d like to say that Martine and her mother, Celesta, have not spoken in two years, though Celesta leaves angry messages, in Spanish, on Martine’s answering machine. That Martine is sick of New York and misses her sister and hasn’t even met her young nephew, Alberto, Jr.

That’s the thing about languages. You need a lot of words. More than just Hola!