Still Here

Still writing. Waiting to hear back from an editor-friend of my husband's who has the first two chapters of my first novel. Have been accepted to a writers group with writers who are serious. Working on the next novel, though there is a lot of research involved and the writing is slow.

I'm thinking of changing the title of this blog to Daily Writer (hah! I accidentally wrote "blob").

Well, manuscripts are returning, all inked up with other people's comments. I think day and night about this book getting published.

I'm not writing much. I wrote the first third of a screenplay and then... stopped. I want to finish this novel and start on the next. I'm already getting to know the protagonist of the next book. He's a long-limbed, nervous fellow haunting the corridors of my brain. I'm excited to work with him.

Nearing the Finish Line

It happened months later than I'd hoped, but I finally finished revising my novel. I wish I were better about posting regularly to this blog, because it's good for me to have a record to look back on. I was trying to remember, the other day, when it was I'd finished writing the first draft, and I was able to tell from looking at the blog that it was August 21, 2008. So on January 4, 2009, I finished the revision. I spent the next two days formatting it and then gave it to the seven readers I've chosen. They are all reading it and making comments.

I feel like a little kid at a dinner party her parents are throwing for their friends. I've come out of my bedroom and interrupted their conversation with, "I HAVE A DANCE I'D LIKE TO PERFORM FOR YOU ALL." They politely ooh and aah at my awkward steps and sludgy choreography, all the while thinking, When is this kid gonna go back to her room? No one is as proud of this book as me, no one is as excited. The other night when my sister was over I ACTUALLY SAID, "Do you want to hold my book?" Thank GOD neither she nor my husband heard. I've been embarrassed about it for 36 hours.

But I love to hold my book. It's a 400 page manuscript, though I've printed it single-spaced for now, which is 200 pages of beautiful, clean, white paper containing over 99,000 words I've carefully placed, one by one. I hold it and marvel at what I've done, its weight, its potential. I am actually unable to say whether I think it's good or not. I'm depending on my readers for that.

I hope to get it back from them by the beginning of March, when I'll start looking over their comments and making revisions based on them. I'm reading a fabulous book called The Sell Your Novel Toolkit, by Elizabeth Lyon. It's a great, step-by-step guide to publishing a novel. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I've started working on a screenplay idea I've had for years. It's a good, short-term project to do while waiting for my manuscripts to return to me. I'm having fun with it. It's light hearted and easy for me. Dialogue is my strong point, I think. I'm using a book called Writing Your Screenplay, by Cynthia Whitcomb as a guide.

Now or Later

I wish I was one of those people who could spring (or even crawl) out of bed at 5 in the morning. I feel that I would surely have time to write every day if I did that. As it is, I barely give myself enough time to eat breakfast and wash my face before work. Then evenings are spent exercising, cleaning, cooking, and being with my fiance. Sometimes I have a chance to write at work, but I can't rely on it.

I've always thought that I need to reach the place where writing IS my work. That way I can come home in the evenings and have nothing to do but relax and play! So I work jobs that leave me more free time than most. And I try to fill my free time with writing, but I'm not always successful.

One of the main Time Stealers for me is Screen Time, and by that I mean time in front of the Internet and television. There's nothing wrong with a little email, reading the news, and researching things to do. And cuddling up in front of a movie with my man and a bowl of popcorn is awesome. But I do these things to excess because I am bored, insecure, tired, or depressed.

It's a constant struggle with myself, to devote my time to that which makes me happiest in the long run, even if it's the more challenging choice in the moment. I so often choose what is most pleasurable in the moment, even if it means I have to suffer later on.

My role model for overcoming this inner sloth is Haruki Murakami, the bestselling Japanese author who gets up at 4 am every morning to write for 5 hours, then goes running for several hours after that. From what I can gather, he doesn't think too much about other alternatives. He decides on his course of action and just does it.


photo of haruki murakami

First Step

Yes, I did it. Phew.

The draft of the novel is about 200 pages, single spaced. On one hand it feels like a giant achievement. My honey took me out to a fancy restaurant to celebrate. On the other hand I am aware of how far I have to go! I have started revising. I'm doing it by hand with a red pen. Correcting the sludgy parts is pretty easy, it's then changing them in the computer that is taking time.

I'm already ruminating over the next novel in my head. I mentioned it months ago in this blog, had started it, dropped it, etc.

My goal is to finish the revision by my wedding in six weeks. I recognize that this is probably unrealistic, but I'd love to not think about how to fix the ending while on my honeymoon.

Busy but/and Writing

Well, I'm picking this up again. I don't know why. It's not like I don't have too much to do already without writing blog entries. I'm working six days a week as a massage therapist, planning my wedding that is less than eight weeks away, taking care of this body that seems to require increasing amounts of time and attention the older I get, and maintaining my relationships and home.

And writing. I've been writing fairly regularly again since about 2 months ago. I am several pages away from finishing the first draft of a novel. This is a huge accomplishment for me. I started this project 6 years ago and have abandoned it for years at a time. More on what got me back writing later. For now, I'm off to write. Trying to do an hour a day, getting at least 30 minutes in, if not more.

Oh, I'm reading a great book on writing. The title is How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead. It's by Ariel Gore. Very inspiring and fun.


photo of ariel gore

Perhaps my art in this lifetime is about the frustration I feel, knowing there is something wrong with the world but neither what nor how to fix it. Just knowing there is something terribly wrong, a fatal flaw deep within the design. And I shouldn't say "the world", because the world is perfect. The world just is. I should say "the human world." So much unnecessary suffering.

Hope for the Seasoned

Well, sort of writing. Here and there. Some days I look at the story I'm working on and I think it's fantastic, and other days I think it's shit. I need to learn to shut that critic up and just be the writer!

I'm in the middle of a New Yorker article on Raymond Carver. He didn't really start writing seriously until his mid to late thirties, and didn't publish his first book until his forties. Not that I'm trying to say I've got time. But I don't need to feel like I'm washed up, missed my boat, or let the flame die out.


(photo of raymond carver)

Back in the Saddle

I'm actually writing again. What happened? Months of not writing, telling myself that my path is to be a reader. Then that familiar depression weighing down on me, and the obsessive tendency to translate everything that happens into a story in my head.

Oh, and, embarrassingly enough, I read the last Harry Potter book... And then I read all seven of them again, in a row. It was entirely entertaining and reminded me (in a sweet, simple way) of why I love to read. And I don't just read, of course, because I am a writer. Everything I love to read inspires me to write. So thanks, J.K. Rowling.

I've started a piece of writing, which I am calling a story, although I secretly intend it to be a novel. I am hopelessly drawn to the craft of the novel, ever since I was a kid. I've also begun to read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, to make amends to the literary world after my affair with Harry Potter.

So. I'm on thirty minutes a day. Trying to do it in the morning, but am having a hard time hauling myself out of bed on these rainy winter mornings. So I'll do it in the evenings if I have to. Trying to do it every day, but I need to get my self-discipline back up.


(photo of j.k. rowling)

Thar She Blows

I wrote today, for the first time in months. I wrote for fifteen minutes and was exhausted. Maybe I need to build up stamina? Today I also finished organizing all my old writing. I now have most of it contained in a portable, blue file, with some old old old stuff in a file in deep storage 'cause I'm NEVER going to let anyone see it.

I'm reading "Living by Fiction" by Annie Dillard. It's dense, but good. She's got me thinking again about something I've thought much about, and that is - why has so much modern fiction lost real, heart-pounding, adventure? So many books after WWI are about the mind, perspective, time, space, and relativity. I know that is where our society has been going, so our art reflects that, but what happened to great stories? You can find them, still, in best sellers like John Grisham novels and even the Harry Potter books. But these aren't considered real literature. I'm drawn to the idea of writing thrilling adventure stories, and striving to make them into literature. But here's something interesting - I'm interested in that idea for novels, but not short stories. Short fiction I want to be nine pages of quantum physics wrapped in a metaphor of chinese food and calendars. The more modern the better. It probably says something about my attention span more than anything.

Anyway, back to my favorite William Stafford quote: "If you can't write, lower your standards." Since I haven't been writing I'm going to knock back the daily thirty minutes I've been scheduling myself for to fifteen minutes. Work up from there. Hey, it's better than nothing!

(photo of john grisham)

Organizing

Have been organizing my piles and piles of old writing for weeks now. Hoping that will get me on the track of producing, or at least editing. Can't believe it's been nearly a month since I've posted...

Pleasing Grandpa

I don't know what to write lately. The ideas that appeal to me most include a memoir about my relationship with my mother, and a short story written from the point of view of a young, floundering urbanite trying to find meaning in the modern world. Vague, the both of them.

But this second idea leads me to something I've been thinking a lot about. I think that in many ways I aim to please my dead grandfather in my writing. This is ludicrous for many reasons, not the least of which is that he's dead. I didn't like my grandfather, he thought being an artist was a total waste of time, he forced me to sit through his dry readings of romantic English poetry, and my outlook is completely different than his was. On a bigger level, I aim to write like those dry English authors because that is what has always been given to me as examples of exemplary writing. Nobody ever handed me something written by Jack Kerouac and said, "This writer is amazing." But I found him somehow, and was blown away by his contemporary, spontaneous, personal style. He's not polished or careful, but he's important and fun.

I've had a copy of Anna Karenina on my bookshelf for years. I've tried to read it several times but it fails to absorb me. Yet I cling to this idea that THAT is how writing should be. So I bore myself with my own writing! As an experiment, I am going to refuse to read classical, traditional literature. I'm also going to refuse to read modern writing that emulates aforementioned literature. I am going to seek out and explore experimental, modern writing. Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson springs to mind.

One of my first great loves was e.e. cummings. But I've let myself believe all the teachers and critics who say that cummings is inferior to T.S. Eliot and other linear, rational writers. I still prefer cummings. Somehow he managed to strike a balance between expressing his heart and being understood.

Since Feeling is First... (VII)

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

e.e. cummings

(photo of e.e. cummings)

Shit and Gold

I've earned many jobs by lying about my past experience. I was hired as a gardener, bartender, and camp counselor based upon fabrications. I had no qualms about doing it because I wanted the jobs and knew I could do them. And I did them!

Before my first bartending shift, when I was twenty-two, I studied several handbooks and had my stepfather show me how to shake drinks in a mixer and how to pour beer from a tap (he was a bartender, also). Nobody ever suspected me.

But when it comes to writing, where does that confidence go? I've been thinking that I should try a little experiment. I should bluff my way into being a writer, just like I did with those other jobs, and just pretend I am one. Just start doing the work with all the false confidence I can muster. Who's gonna know? Besides me?

I wasn't afraid I'd fail at those jobs. I knew I could do them. I knew I could mix drinks and keep them flowing, knew I could carry large bags of dirt and prune delicate exotics, knew I could steer a large group of children and keep them safe. But I don't know that I can write something other people will want to read. Something that is smart, entertaining, worthwhile, new, and important all at once. How do I do that? Perhaps that's the biggest difference between myself and "real" writers. They don't wonder how to do it.

When I was eighteen, I had this glorious few months where I did almost nothing but write poetry and draw comics. I'd dropped out of college the day before classes began and moved myself from New York City to Portland, Oregon. I rented a small apartment with my sister, got a waitressing job at a doomed restaurant, and spent most of my non-working hours in front of an old typewriter at my kitchen table. I was prolific! I'd write for five to ten hours at a stretch. I have no idea where it came from, that inspiration and willingness to spend all my free time typing out lines that would never... I was about to write, "would never amount to anything", but that's not true. They made me a better writer.

I've long believed that when one begins on the path of the artist, they produce 100% shit. After a time, if they stick with it, they'll start to produce 5% gold and 95% shit. Gradually the percentages will change, until one day the artist might be producing equal amounts shit and gold. But you have to make the shit to get to the gold. There is no other way.

Perfectionists like me are too afraid to produce shit, so I will never get to the gold. If you can't write, lower your standards.

(photo of jack kerouac)

blank

I really thought I was posting on here more frequently! It's been ten days... Not much to report. No writing happening, though I've had plenty of ideas.

Feeling depressed about many things. How did so many writers manage to write interesting things while being such depressives? Maybe they didn't write while depressed. This will pass. I should be writing anyway, not letting my moods dictate me.

Need a routine... Need a routine...

(photo of sylvia plath)

Paradox

Here's one of my favorite pieces of writing advice. It's from William Stafford, an Oregon poet, who advised lowering your standards when encountering writer's block.

I seize up the moment I decide my writing needs to be good. It's a paradox. I can neither think that anyone will read what I'm writing (because then it should be good), nor can I write without thinking anyone will read it (because then what's the point?). I know, I know, I should write because I think it's "fun". Or because I enjoy it. Well, the fact is that I don't enjoy it. I just dislike NOT writing even more.

(photo of william stafford)

On and On

Still no writing. I'm busy entertaining my good friend who's visiting from Cape Cod. She's a major bookworm and brought a book for me to read called Seven Types of Ambiguity. She's just finishing her second reading of it,

Not sure why this dry spell is continuing.

Fiction Vs. Nonfiction

Lots of self-doubt these days.

My boyfriend just left with a friend to go see The Host, an excellent Korean horror flick about a mutant river monster who starts preying on humans. After they left I had an idea for a short story using his friend as a base for the main character. I have lots of story ideas based on real people, but I'm averse to writing them. Why? So many writers do. The example that first springs to mind is Thomas Wolfe, who based his book Look Homeward Angel (a must read) on himself and people from his hometown. The reaction was intense and he was pretty much ostracized from his hometown in North Carolina.

I guess I'm afraid of that reaction, that people would read those kinds of stories and say, "Hey, that's me! You b#@%h!" But so what? I am, actually, averse to writing fiction in the first place (kind of ironic, considering I'm trying to write a novel). But so often while reading and writing fiction I find myself thinking, "What's the point? This is just made up stuff happening to made up people. It has nothing to do with real life." At the same time, I often garner insights from reading good fiction, which I apply to my own life.

Take Nick Hornby's book How to Be Good, for example. I finished it last week and so much of it rang true for my own life. One of the main points of his book is that books and movies and plays take our mind off ourselves and our own lives and force us to see the world from a different perspective. I am often guilty of thinking that my view is the right one, as well as my opinions and thoughts and morals. Without exposing myself to different writers and thinkers I am in danger of pigeon-holing myself into my narrow view and becoming stodgy and stuck-in-my-ways.

I know that both fiction and nonfiction can make me think and see differently. I suppose I see nonfiction as having a leg up in this regard, because it's about stuff that did actually happen. So there's an incentive, if I am to write fiction, to base it on real life. Hell, I could USE real life and just change names and dates if I wanted.

In fact, the main character of the novel I'm slowly writing reminds me both of myself and an old, old friend from first grade who became a doctor. My main character is doing his residency and I often use stories my friend has told me for inspiration and authenticity.

I'm a songwriter as well, and most of my inspiration is toward that lately. I'm off to play my guitar!

(photo of annie dillard)

Dry

This is getting pathetic. Four days without posting. Haven't written in any of those. My self-doubt is in red alert right now...

I'm fantasizing about going to medical school and becoming a surgeon. I tell myself that the more I focus on BEING a writer, the more I dislike writing. I tell myself that it should just be a hobby, something I do on the side of a real job.

Finished Hornby's book. Man, was it great! It made me feel that I'll never be a truly great writer. On the other hand, I've started reading The Secret Life of Bees and I'm like, "Huh? This was a BESTSELLER? How?" It's not written all that well, and the author has a hard time keeping her voice out of it and so I feel pulled from the story a lot. In other words, she doesn't capture the voice of a young woman effectively.

Can I really be on the brink of abandoning my novel so close to the starting line? I'm dreaming up memoirs and short stories, documentary ideas and articles. Like I wrote before, my biggest challenge by far is sticking with a project to the end. Maybe I'm making this too boring! Maybe I need to write FUN stuff! Or, write stuff in a FUN way...

Why I Don't Write

Didn't write while backpacking. Didn't write today. That's five days in a row sans writing.

Why don't I write? This question is infinitely more difficult to answer. Fear? Laziness? I don't really want to? Failure to prioritize? These are all probable factors.

All I know is that when I fail to write after promising myself I would, I feel like a lazy, fearful, unmotivated, unorganized loser. Horrible, no? So this evening I'm drinking whiskey with coke and cleaning the house. My way of drowning that bad feeling away.

One thing I dislike about myself is this tendency I have to let my emotions rule. I have a crummy (crumby?) day, I feel lousy, and I let everything slide so I can sit around and feel bad. Or, the other end of it is when I get super excited and happy and I start making promises left and right, sure I can do everything I feel like in that moment.

Balance, Grasshopper.

Day 8

Got my thirty minutes in today, unlike yesterday. What happened yesterday? Well, I slept late and rushed to work without time to write. I got home and went out to a yoga class, thinking I'd write later, even though I had plans to go out later. I took a nap so I'd have energy when I went out later, slept longer than I meant to, woke up and had to rush...

I didn't prioritize my writing, so it got pushed aside. No good. Today could have been a similar story. I slept late, rushed to work, came home and plunked down into a nap to recover from staying up till 4 am, and woke up with a to do list the size of New Orleans banging around inside my head. BUT, unwilling to skip another day without writing, I sat down and did my 30 minutes and it was great.

Today I tried freewriting for 10 minutes beforehand, and I think it gave me more fodder for the 30 minutes that followed. I don't know that I'll always have time to do it, but it'd be nice! It's the weekend now. I won't pressure myself to write until Monday, when I'll be in the woods on a 3-day camping trip. And yes, I plan to write while I'm there! Stephen King says he writes almost every day of the year. If he can do that, I can stick to my five-day-a-week routine.

(photo of stephen king)

Why I Write

I seem to be writing at a speed of about one notebook page every half hour, front and back. That's probably about one typed page. Today I caught myself adding up all the pages I haven't written. "And then I'll be writing 8-10 pages a week, which means I can have a first draft done in about 10 months, which means I can start looking for an agent in 14 months, which means I'll be rich and famous in less than four years!!!"

Oh, wait... I'm still on page four.

It's so easy to get ahead like that. In this day, especially, when it seems like anybody who's been addicted to something or hit by another person can write a best selling memoir. No, that's harsh. I know as well as anyone that good writers make their writing seem effortless, which is how hacks like me end up sitting around and believing anyone can write.

Refusing to think about publication, money, and recognition is a constant practice for me. I firmly believe that once an artist puts those things in the forefront they've ceased to make good art. So if I don't write for those things, why do I write? This is a question I try to avoid thinking about, because it plagues me and fills me with doubt. Nonetheless, it's an important one to answer.

Why do I write?

I write because living life once is not enough, and I need to reexperience life through writing to more fully understand it.
I write because I can't help but feel we are missing something, that there is a deeper meaning to what happens than the event itself, and only by examination and careful scrutiny can we come to see beneath the surface to what is holding us up.
I write because I become depressed when I stop, and I start to feel like a worthless lump of uselessness.
I write because it makes me happy.
I write because great writers inspire me to emulate them.
I write because I don't want to die without having contributed something lasting and meaningful.

Those are the (positive) answers I've come up with so far. It's so tempting to give up this pursuit. I've tried many times, thinking how much easier my life would be if I went to work and then came home to an evening of just hanging out, cooking, watching movies... Instead I have this constant awareness that I need to write. I don't know where it comes from, but I've had it since I was eleven or twelve years old! Maybe I'm channeling some dead person who never got their chance to break out...

Still enjoying Nick Hornby's book. I'm a slow reader, as I intersperse my fiction with magazine articles, newspapers, blogs, etc. I'm reading an article in the New Yorker about Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian author. I've never read anything of his, but now am inspired to read The Alchemist. Talk about the glamorous writer's life! He has hundreds of fans waiting for him wherever he goes, and he goes everywhere. Yea.

(photo of ernest hemingway)

How To Stay Awake

Today I wrote for thirty minutes and it went well.

I made a schedule, which always makes me feel as though I will actually accomplish all I set out to do in life. Alas, it is infinitely easier to make a schedule than to follow one. On this schedule, I will write for thirty minutes four days a week, and four hours one day a week, with the weekend off.

This weekend went well. I tried to write on Saturday, just because I was on a roll and had an unexpected free hour at work. I ended up fast asleep, sprawled across several pillows, drooling onto my notebook. Yesterday I didn't write at all, though I'd agreed to for thirty minutes in the evening. Instead I went shopping with my boyfriend and made the mistake of having a beer with dinner. Beer often puts me right to sleep. So I ended up asleep in the middle of reading a New Yorker article, not having written for the day.

Today I wrote earlier, which I think is a better plan for me. I often fall asleep if I try to read or write in the late afternoon or evening. So I'll do my writing before I go to work, before I do other things, and see how that goes.

Another note, I read once that Ernest Hemingway advised to never stop writing at a point where you feel stuck. He said to stop in the middle of a really great stretch, when you want to keep going and you know what happens next. I think this is great advice and try to follow it. I can say that it definitely makes a difference for me!

Day One

Here I am, thumbs up, ready to begin.

It's nearly one in the afternoon and I haven't written yet. I'm still in my bathrobe. But I've been blogging, and that takes time! I picked up a shift at work tonight, so I plan on writing when I get home.

Later...
I got off work early, came home and played on my computer. Then went out with my sister and her new "boyfriend" (not quite serious enough yet to use that term) down to the bar where my boyfriend dj's. We ate, drank, smoked cigarettes and had a jolly time. Then I returned home after midnight and wrote for half an hour. I sketched the outline for my novel and wrote the first two lines. One step at a time, baby. One step at a time.

Today I bought a copy of How to Be Good by Nick Hornby. I already love it. I'm a fan of humor (and humour) and poignancy, of which this book has loads. It occurred to me that what's been lacking from the novel in my head is humor, that all important element, so I rewrote the synopsis with humor in mind and I think it's way better. Whaddya know?

The Four Things a Writer Needs

This is a web log about my journey to the life of a professional writer. I plan to post at least five days a week, both as a writing practice and to share my journey with all the writers, artists, and musicians out there who struggle to find the time/energy/inspiration to make art. Even if I have to write about how I'm not writing, my goal is to keep up on this blog until I have become a successful writer. By successful writer I mean earning enough money from writing that it becomes my only job. It may never happen or it could take decades. We'll see!

I'm scared writing this blog because people will see just how lame my writing is, how bad my grammar, how entrenched my habit of procrastination, and how strong my fear. But my unwillingness to reveal these things has kept me from sharing my writing. And I can't live like that anymore. After years of neglect, my writing self is wilting up into a shriveled shell and taking the best of me with her. I can no longer pretend I was made to be a massage therapist or waitress, a bartender or nanny, a woodworker or gardener. I have known I'm a writer since I was nine and it's time to come out and be one!

At this point I could go on about how I got to where I am, why I want to be a writer, yaddah-yaddah. Instead, I will jump right into the meat of it and let stories of the past dribble out if they need to.

The first thing a writer needs is some sort of writing instrument. After years of writing on a computer I've recently returned to writing first drafts with pen and paper. I think my writing is better this way, more substantial and beautiful. The next thing a writer needs is time to write. Of this I have loads, it's just a matter of devoting my time to writing instead of sleeping in, watching TV, and other methods of time murder. I haven't firmly decided on a writing schedule, but I sense it would be a wise thing to do. I feel certain I can devote thirty minutes a day in the beginning and go from there. The third thing a writer needs is something to write about. And I have a novel in my head.

I woke up, months ago, with an entire novel in my head. How often does that happen? Not often to me, anyway. I am intensely drawn to writing a novel and have started dozens but finished none. I think this novel appearing right inside my brain, as if it were placed there, is an opportunity I can't pass up. But besides the novel, I am zinging with ideas for short stories, memoirs, articles, poems, songs, nonfiction, you name it. Ideas have never been difficult for me. (In fact, I think I have too many ideas, which end up getting in the way of each other.) It's the follow through that eludes me. The turning my idea into a finished piece of writing. No good at it. I've done it, I can do it, but I fail most of the time that I try. Which brings me to the last thing a writer needs: the ability to follow through. This is what I don't have. But I think I can learn it and use it.

On to the blog!