Tenacity and Bookmarks

Piper showed her entrepreneurial spirit today in a way I haven't seen recently. She noticed that a couple of (slightly older) girls a few doors down had set up their own business selling bookmarks on their front lawn. They would cut rectangles of 8-1/2 x 11 paper, colored them, and advertised them on the card table at 25, 50, or 75 cents, depending on how complex/pretty the bookmark was. (Zuzu and I each bought one.)

PJ asked Laura what she might be able to sell, and Laura drew her attention to her drawing skills. "You could do portraits," she suggested. PJ found this to be a fine idea, and immediately drafted me to be her muscle, carting the small table and chairs used on the occasion of eating meals in front of the television out to the driveway. She made up a page that described her product ("Dad, how do you spell 'portraits?'"), and then decided to expand the offerings: she would draw anything the customer requested. "Like, I could draw the street," she suggested. What to charge? A mere 10 cents. For a moment, I thought that she was cleverly undercutting her bookmarking competition -- and I think they were concerned about that: at one point, one of the bookmark girls wandered down to Piper's station and asked, "So how much are you charging?" and looked a little concerned when Piper told her.

Both Laura and I thought she was undervaluing her art, but this was all for fun anyway, so we didn't lobby for higher prices. It was going to be an uphill battle for her as it was: Bookmark, Inc. had spent quite a bit of time on advertising, posting flyers on trees up and down the block, and even going so far as to talk Zuzu into posting a sign on the front of her scooter she had been driving up and down the sidewalk.

I watched her business from a distance as I raked leaves on this perfect autumn day, and my hopes rose when I spied an elderly couple ambling down the street, smiling in anticipation at Piper. They looked kind; it appeared her first transaction might be positive. "Are you the girl selling bookmarks?" the woman asked Piper. No, Piper indicated, that that was those girls, and she waved in their direction. "So what are you doing?" the woman asked, and Piper explained her business ... in her typically machine-gun onslaught of words. The woman didn't understand and looked for me for help. I re-explained the picture biz, and she nodded kindly and then turned down the sidewalk to join her husband, who was already perusing the bookmarks down the street.

My heart fell. But I underestimated the business plan -- and her tenacity. As I worked around the yard and in the kitchen for the rest of the afternoon, Zuzu ran up to me on several occasions with excited updates on her sister's progress: "Dad -- people are coming!" And by dinnertime, Piper had made $2.50. Which was not to say that she'd made 25 pictures ... some people -- including a close out-of-town friend staying with us -- had clearly seen more valuable in their commissioned art and paid accordingly. Most impressive to me was how long she had stayed at it: she was probably out there working her table for well over two hours.

***

I've been thinking a lot about tenacity recently as National Novel Writing Month (not to mention National Blog Posting Month) approached again. I couldn't see how I was going to commit to either endeavor, and I even felt fiercely envious of friends who were launching into another novel today. When I did it in 2007, I had that same sticktoitiveness that I saw in my daughter today -- and for even less profit. (But who knows -- I'm still working on the novel.) I see her struggle all the time to finish projects, big and small, and I see myself in the worst way.

I started re-reading John Gardner's The Art of Fiction a couple of weeks ago, probably due to my subconscious awareness of NaNoWriMo's approach. Well, "re-reading" is a bit of a stretch. I attempted to read it more than 20 years ago, when I first attempted to write a novel (precociously titled The Long, Sudden-Ended Always) that failed in every way imaginable. The book was intimidating, largely because Gardner's voice could be so aggressive, opinionated, imposing. Unlike a lot of "You can do it!"-style how-tos, this book wants you to know that writing -- good writing -- is a bitch, and you better be prepared to wrestle, sweat, and take some serious blows if you're gonna get into it. I wasn't ready to hear it then.

But I know this now, and it makes the reading easier the second time through. Or, after getting past the first 35 pages, the first time through, as I am now in virgin territory. He has some fun writing exercises along the way, and I'm thinking about attempting them and posting them here, just for the fun of trying it out, exercising my muscles. I originally thought I would spend this November trying to finish the first draft of Son of A Saint, but I'm not so sure that's what I should be doing right now. I'm still in love with the book, still feel determined to finish it ... someday ... but facing it feels tense right now, and I'm feeling weak, easily psyched out. So maybe I can sneak up on it through these other writing exercises and slowly find my way into it.

And maybe next time Piper sets up a shop in our driveway, she'll give me some tablespace to sell opening chapters of my Great American Novel. Or maybe I should just take up making bookmarks. At least I could then say I'm part of the publishing industry.