Helene Hanff – Writing Wrongs

In The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff (essentially the sequel to 84, Charing Cross Road), Helene confides to Joyce Grenfell:

“I’ve been fighting a cold all weekend.”

She thought about this a moment and then leaned over and whispered back:

“Oh, have it.”

This is where I’m at. I’ve been fighting a cold all weekend, without the part about being in London and attending the theater with a celebrity. Honestly, I feel like I end up fighting a cold or virus every other week. I suspect this is a part of a post-pandemic world.

But for today, I’m having it. I’m in the softest of my soft pants. (The great thing about working from home: soft pants every day!) Snow is already falling, and we’re supposed to have blizzard conditions later, so clearly, I’m not leaving the house. Plus, I’m in the middle of (re)watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended version, of course).

This is one of our holiday traditions. My son mentioned that a lot of his friends’ families watch Harry Potter. For us, though, it’s always been Lord of the Rings. We’ll watch it at Thanksgiving and then again at Christmas.

And since I’m partway through The Two Towers, I have plenty of watching left. I have the fireplace going and hot chocolate I can brew (and leftovers, so I don’t have to cook).

I’m all set to have my cold.

Wishing you all a restful (and cold-free) last Sunday of the year.

So I was looking over October, now that it’s over, and discovered something. I managed, without even trying, to send out four submissions this month. Four different submissions that no one has ever read (well, I’ve read them …). And I thought: Whoa. How did that happen?

It was magic.

Actually, when you work a little bit at a time, put some small words on the page, then a few more, and then a few more after that, they grow. It’s only after the fact, after the manuscript is written and revised, after you put a stamp on it (or click submit), that you realize how much you’ve done. Even then, you might sit back and think:

It was magic.

Speaking of magic, reading in October was full of it. I don’t know why I’ve never read 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. I don’t know why I decided I needed to read it right now, in October. But I did.

And I fell in love. Predictably, I immediately gobbled up Duchess of Bloomsbury Street and Q’s Legacy. Charming, wonderful, meandering books with no high concept, no high stakes, and yet I was glued to the page, kept turning the pages, stayed up way past my bedtime to read.

It was magic.