Author Essay: Everybody’s Searching

My novel is gift that came on the heels of a breakup of my twenty-year marriage. The characters are not my family; the main character is not me. They are, she is, a composite of people affected by marriages that disintegrate after many years. I didn't choose Tina Turner as a role model. Her spirit, her drive, her ability to survive and win chose my character and inspired her to action like a college catalog once drove me to write.
 
I like to say that my writing journey began with a dare. From myself. Back in the nineties, when I lived in a big house on a hill overlooking the flatlands of Oakland and life was good and perfect was a word friends used to describe my life, I received catalogs from UC Extension. After my kids went to sleep and my husband, my then husband, lay snoring in our bed after a hard day at work, I’d go through that catalog.
 
I no longer remember the other classes that intrigued me. I do remember that my heart doubled its beat the first time I turned to the writing section. Slowly but surely, I scanned the various classes. One in particular I kept returning to, “Exploring your Creative Potential.” The brief description appealed to me: for anyone who ever thought of writing and wished to exercise their skills through stories, poems and essays. I liked that class. I liked that description.
 
“I can't do this,” I thought every time the catalog came in the mail. I know now I was afraid. Afraid to dream. Afraid that my “exploration” would yield nothing; no creative potential. So, I told myself that I didn't have time. My then husband was busy—he needed me to take him to and pick him up from the airport, the BART station, the office; the kids needed me to drive them around, feed them, take them to soccer practice and piano lessons; I had to take care of our home. Then there were vacations, summer barbecues, Christmas shopping, in-laws, parents—you name it. Two years. 7 catalogs. Every time that catalog came in the mail, I tore out the same page, left it atop my desk, circled that same course, filled out the application and left in on my desk.
 
When the next catalog arrived, I sat down and gave myself a good talking to, the gist of which was to either take the damned class, explore my creative potential or never mull over the class again. I dared my self to put up or shut up. I took the dare and never looked back.
 
I bought a new notebook and a pen for that class. On the first day, the instructor told us that she was going to use prompts—poems, art, photographs and objects—through the course of the ten weeks to stimulate our imaginations. I wrote a poem the first night, my first since I was ten or twelve, My Boyfriend—a poem about the first time I saw my husband at a college party. I never read it to him. I felt self-conscious and shy and hid in my office for days and weeks that turned into years and years, I wrote: poems and short stories that must have been waiting since that time so long ago I stopped writing for the love of writing.
 
I spent late hours shaping, editing, rewriting. I watched pages fill up with ideas and characters that came out of my head. I look back on what I did then and I laugh. Too proud to call it garbage or to describe it as awful, I like to think of all of those pages as practice for the novel. I like to call those pages a gift. My gift to me. One of the best I’ve ever received.

I believe Searching for Tina Turner is another gift. I didn't write the novel on a dare, but I did write it out of love—for me, and all those dreams I revived. I like that connection of truth to fiction—reinvention and new beginnings. My main character, Lena Spencer, faces a challenge posed by herself, the people around her, and a world that believes that mature women should disappear into their lives and husband’s careers. I loved writing about this woman. Lena has experience under her belt, a few fine lines on her face and well-hidden gray in her hair. She proves that life after fifty, and beyond, can be filled with adventure and new discoveries, with or without a dare.