1C THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2017 Erick Bengel | Features Editor ebengel@dailyastorian.com WEEKEND BREAK FOLLOW US facebook.com/ DailyAstorian LIFE WITHOUT A DEADLINE Courtesy Muriel Jensen CONTACT US An Astoria romance novelist puts down her pen to early 19th century penmanship. Aaagghh! Another belated thank-you to the sensitivity of all the knowledge- able students of history in Astoria who knew better and never pointed out my major error. By MURIEL JENSEN For The Daily Astorian I am free. Really. Free! No, I haven’t been imprisoned, although living in the recliner while I healed from knee-replacement surgery was a sort of jail. We had lots of visitors, though, and, thanks to friends and neighbors, more food than Safeway. So, all in all, not a bad few weeks. When physical therapists started visiting, they were sweet, charming, and encourag- ing, but when I had to fl ex and bend a knee that had had rude things done to it, I hated to see them coming. They literally got me to the point of screaming, then patted me on the back, clucked over me and told me fi rmly, “Now do that ten more times.” I went to the hospital for physical ther- apy about a month later. Same kind of peo- ple. Handsome or cute, kind and caring, but with zero concern for the fact that I was turning purple and writhing on the fl oor. As though that wasn’t enough torture, I had to rewrite and read page proofs on my August book. I hated that even more than I usually do. But, I was soon walking the dog, going to town and blown away by the fact that my right knee was no lon- ger a source of pain. Physical Therapy does know what they’re doing. I’ve lost about 5 percent fl exibility, but I’m fi ne with it. I doubt I’ll be dancing the Hopak anytime soon, anyway. And, for the fi rst time since fall of 1983, I’m not on a deadline because I’ve decided to retire. Writing romance novels has been a wonderful career, but more charac- ter-building than ego-building. A real plus was being able to set my own work schedule, or as Jean Auel (“Clan of the Cave Bear”) loved to say, “Working for yourself means only that you can decide which 18 hours of the day you want to write.” I’ve worked long, lazy days on the porch in the sum- mer, long, cozy days in my toasty offi ce in the winter, but for every workday that fi t comfortably into my life’s schedule, many of them did not. I’ve written in doctors’ and hospital waiting rooms, with baseball or football games blaring in the next room, or in the middle of the night because it’s quiet. I’m not saying that’s harder than anyone else’s 9-to-5, just that the pressure to get the day’s quota done to meet the terms of a contract is there all day long — or all night long. Going off script And characters seldom perform according to the out- line you provide an editor to sell a book. The best and worst that can happen to a writer is that characters take on a life of their own. Even for an experi- enced novelist, a certain panic takes place when hero and heroine go off script because it’s never certain if you’re experiencing creative genius or lack of discipline. Either way, you could end up having to delete a week’s writing to take another run at it when the departure doesn’t In a rare, wonderful place Muriel Jensen work. And that small failure underlies the new effort and challenges your confi dence. Creativity is such a fragile thing. When things go well and you discover connections you didn’t realize were there and the plot comes together — never seamlessly, but like an irregular patchwork that somehow makes a pleasing pattern — there are still a hun- dred little details about the plot to track down. Weirdly, they do their best to hide from you, but a reader some- where will know that detail and not hesitate to call you out on it. Before we could look up everything on Google, the detail search required at least a week spent in the Astoria Library. (Belated thanks to Bruce Berney, a former librar- ian, who always hovered around me to offer assistance.) Following that is the tedious reading and rereading in search of typos, grammatical errors and stupid mistakes that somehow escaped attention. Such a mistake hap- pened to me with my fi rst book, “Winter’s Bounty” — unfortunately, after publication. I named the small-town setting after Meriwether Lew- is’s dog, Seaman. Only, in my book, his name is Scan- non. That’s because, in my diligence to get my facts right, I went to Fort Clatsop. Seaman appears on the compa- ny’s roster, but the handwriting had a tendency to close the loops on the Es and widen the Ms, so that “Seaman” looked to me like “Scannon.” I trusted myself because I’d gone to the source without giving a second thought In honor of my new freedom, I have a teal streak in my hair. I considered the pros and cons of such a move at my age and was on the fence. But a dear friend, always eager to provide comfort and support whatever the occasion, said fi rmly, “Do it!” So I did. I bask in the praise of those who claim to love it, and shrug off the occasional “What were you thinking?!” Also, in my new freedom, I’ve begun the great purge of 659 15th St. — two fl oors and a basement of 800 square feet each. Not an enormous house, but we’ve been here 41 years, and I’ve dreamed for so long of having the time to do this. There is some archaeology involved. In boxes I haven’t opened since our fi rst move from L.A. to McMinnville in 1972, I found all kinds of kitchen things we’d received for our wed- ding. Remember serving platters in olive green and har- vest gold? Fondue forks and chip-and-dip bowls? Sword- shaped appetizer picks and a giant drip-style 30-cup coffeemaker? We have them all. I bought plastic totes for what I’m saving, leaf bags for what I’m throwing away, and cleared a spot to put things I’m saving for some future front-porch sale. In the mean- time, I’m in a rare and wonderful place in my life with time to slow down and enjoy the simplicity of every day. We have a dining room window with a wonder- ful view of the Columbia River, and I can stop to watch the ships or birds, or see what Greg Newenhof is up to with the Flavel mansion next door, and my conscience isn’t saying, “You should be writing.” I can walk Claire, a Westie mix with murderous tendencies, and go a few extra blocks because she’s having such a good time, and be relaxed about it because I don’t have to write ten pages that day. I can sit on the porch with someone else’s book instead of my laptop and not worry about how much time I’m taking because it doesn’t matter — I’m free! The period in my life when I was work-obsessed was such an exciting time for me. Now that I have to be home-obsessed, I’m fi ne with it. I will always be a writer, even if I’m not writing, and nothing seems to turn off the “that-would-make-a great-story factor,” but I love the knowledge that every day is mine. It’s possible this course I’ve taken will change one day, but for now, I’m hearing music in my head rather than words. It’s Louis Armstrong, singing “What a Won- derful World.” Jensen has written for Harlequin since 1984. She’s published 93 books in the American Romance line, Super- romance and Harlequin Historicals. She lives in Astoria with her husband, Ron, a Westie mix named Claire, and a pair of Tabby cats. She has three children, nine grand- children, and the great-grands are still coming.