What's the saying about good intentions?

A couple months ago I was daydreaming and thought the idea would make a good story.  I developed the story by asking myself, "How did these characters get in this situation?"  Then I wrote, not caring if it were good or bad.  I just wrote to get the words out.  I'm about 100 pages into it, and it feels wrong.  I can't make the connections.  The more I develop the book, the outcome is so far removed from the original idea.  It's clear, in my mind, what I need to do.  I need to keep the original idea for later, and finish the new story. 

What happened with this story echos real life.  Starting out with best intentions, only to have something go wrong, and end up trying to fix it.  Nothing is beyond fixing.  In the end, I think the newly fixed outcome will be better than the original intended outcome.  At least, that's the thought that keeps me going.

I'm writing...now what?

I've been feeling a little accomplished lately, so I decided it was time to squish my high spirits.  Actually, I decided it was time to research next steps.  The squishing of my spirits was a unfortunate yet inevitable side effect.  I wanted to get published.  So, I read articles from writing organizations and writers to see what their advice to me was.


Each article detailed the long and arduous road of getting published.  It told of a struggle that lasted years.  It detailed the hundreds of rejections.  It told of project after project that would never know an audience.  Writing is not for the faint of heart and I was starting to become faint. 

The writers also had conflicting pieces of advice.  Just do it.  Don't just do it- practice then do it.  Write what comes naturally.  Think outside of your comfort zone.  Use natural language.  Use thought provoking language.  By the end of the night, I thought my head would explode.

In the end, none of it mattered.  I spent a day reading what someone else's ideas on writing were.  I had hoped for inspiration by people I admired.  There were very few articles that achieved that end.  So, I ended up back at the beginning, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  In the end, I know what I know and that is that I'm a writer.  Whatever profession I hold, I'm a writer.  My identity as a writer goes beyond a paycheck, beyond what's on my business card.  Writing is what I do.  Right now it's what I do for fun.  Hopefully it will become something that will be shared with others.  I just need to keep doing it. 

symmetry

My co-worker's mother passed away earlier this month. She was in her late eighties, and had been ill for quite some time, so it was not unexpected. I tried to write a few times this week about other things, but I am sad for my friend, and remembering my own mother's terminal illness, and my fingers are not interested in typing other stories just yet.

He returned to work a few days ago, and we had lunch together his first day back in the office. My co-worker is a born raconteur, and had spoken about his mother, a fierce first-generation Italian-American. I never met her, but liked her a great deal based upon his stories.

He told me how she had been lucid almost until the end, determined to go on her own terms, without regrets. She dictated her guest list and visiting hours personally those few final days, and participated eagerly in planning her memorial service, including the menu. While discussing menu options a few days before her death, she casually mentioned how much she liked the cookies from a bakery on the east side. An errant thought for the dessert table, and then she moved on to insist that no chicken be served.

Her son remembered, though, and drove two hours to this bakery to get her the cookies, which cost $18 a pound. The day he brought her the cookies was the day she was finally unable to eat solid food. Undeterred, she put the box next to her bed so she could smell and admire them, doling the cookies out to favored guests.

One of the last things she told him before she died was how the smell of the cookies brought back a childhood memory, long forgotten. On rare occasions, her father would take her on the long drive to this same bakery, and purchase the same cookies. He sketched the story so beautifully that I could see it in my mind; the little dark-haired girl, in her dress and mary janes, so excited to spend the day alone with her daddy on the long drive to the bakery; their special time together. My co-worker's cookies were more than a gesture of thoughtfulness for his dying mother; for that moment, he gave her her father back.

The Inner Critic

Somewhere on this journey, I have transformed.  When we started this reverse book club, my goal was just to write.  It didn't have to be good.  It just had to get done.  I was out of practice and needed to get into a routine.  Writing was something that was important to me, and I let other people's priorities and schedules push it aside.  So the goal was to just do it.  Write.  I didn't self-edit.  I didn't think "this isn't good enough".  Surely these were signs that I wasn't a "real writer".  Somewhere along the way, I started self-editing.  I hone and re-hone and hone yet again the things I create.  The self-criticism feels good.  Being engaged in the process feels good.  Writing, and subsequently editing feels good.

My sister encouraged me to watch a clip of Elizabeth Gilbert speak at the TED Conference.  She spoke about the pressure to create something good.  Sometimes the pressure of doing something well can prevent one from doing something at all.  She encouraged her listeners to let go of that pressure.  Your job is to create.  She speaks of the muse or the genius as being an external thing.  Its job it to inspire.  Thinking about writing, or creating art, in this way helps take the pressure off so she can get back to the task at hand.   I encourage you to check out the speech:   http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

If life is about balance, it would follow that writing is about balance.  Striking the balance between getting your work out of your head and into a tangible thing, and honing the creation into something better.  Create something without editing it to death:  that's the challenge. 

slacker

Nearly every day I devote some time to writing imaginary blog posts in my head. Even if I don't get them online, part of me (the procrastinating part) is still mentally tallying points for effort. A couple of times a week, I actually pull up the site to post something, and end up staring at the blank page for a few minutes before giving up surfing the web "for inspiration."

The words just disappear. It's not so much writer's block as writer's ennui. When the time comes to actually type, I can't call up the words, and just feel completely defeated and don't even want to try. It's like being in high school again, and having to do a worksheet of parabolas without knowing the formulas; it's easier to give up. I should try to power through, but it's been a real struggle lately due to some external factors.

My treatise on "Beauty and the Beast" stories that also served as an apology to Jen for making her see "Beastly" with me? Gone. (I am really sorry, though. It was terrible, and for the life of me I can't understand why the NYT gave it three stars.)

Epistolary novels: Lazy, or brilliant? Gone.

Dialogue vs Description: What I like to read vs what I need to write. Gone.

Why I hate first person perspective. Gone.

The important of auto save, or how not to kill your dog when they jump on your keyboard and erase four pages of work. Gone. (Literally.)

Anyway, it's been a really rough past month at the office, and I've been feeling so drained lately, that it's been hard to get inspired to write anything. I definitely value our meetings a lot more; it's nice to decompress and have "me" time to relax and let the creativity flow. I'm hoping that as things settle down I'll be able to scrape out some more time to complete a few things, and get that sense of accomplishment that Jennifer has been feeling lately. I know it's out there, and getting the words down is a step in the right direction.

It's a Hard Habit To Break

The benefit from coming from a large family is that I hear voices of judgement come from many different directions.  Ultimately it is my sub-conscious quoting people I know and not a multiple personality disorder, although sometimes I think the latter would be less painful.  Today my sub-conscious took on the life of my aunt singing the refrain, "21 days is a habit".  She had the benefit of management training back in the 1970's, and remembers large amounts of information from those trainings.  Sometimes I think she could host her own hybrid version of management trainings, if she had the interest.

So, 21 days is a habit.  From her management days, my aunt learned that if you do something for 21 days, you are more likely to continue the practice.  Most people quit something after the first couple of weeks.  We've been doing the reverse book club for a couple of months now, and it has indeed become a habit.  A great habit, like flossing my teeth or eating broccoli.  It has become as much a part of my Saturday as doing laundry.

I seem to be in uncharted territory.  I'm notorious for not finishing something I start.  In my arts & crafts stage, this manifested itself in the form of a closet full of unfinished projects.  In my organizational phase, it manifested itself in the form of a partially alphabetized spice rack.  I am finishing things, and am working past the point where I normally give up.  The sensation of accomplishing something purely for myself is powerful, and addicting.

Who knows what will be next?  Maybe I'll start living out the messages of Dale Carnegie or Stephen Covey.  I could become the human manifestation of self-help books.  I could "Stop Worrying and Start Living".  I could "Win Friends and Influence People".  I could become a "Highly Effective Person" through living out "7 habits".  Or, I could just continue to write and finish things and see where that road leads.    

Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?

In general, I'm a fast writer. A fast reader. A fast talker. And a lazy procrastinator. So, my writing projects in the past have typically fallen into one of two categories: 1. A paper due in under 24 hours, and 2. NaNoWriMo. In both cases, the goal is to write quickly and efficiently, and never look back, and it's always worked pretty well for me.

Now, though, I'm writing at a different pace, over a longer stretch of time, and my old habits don't work for me any more. Despite my detailed storyline and character notes, I find myself going back to read things I wrote weeks ago to ensure I'm getting little details correct, like the color of a character's eyes, the correct spelling of a last name, or if I designated a certain street as running north-south or east-west. It's a pain.

On Jennifer Crusie's blog, Argh Ink, she recommends making a collage to have a snapshot view of your story. Crusie gives a lot of great writing advice on her site, but the collage idea always seemed a little stupid to me until recently. I'm past the point in my life where popsicle sticks, poster paint, and pipe cleaners are a part of my daily existence. Now, though, I see the appeal.

To that end, I spent a few hours online this week gathering links to pictures and maps; things that are close to the way I am imagining my characters and scenes in my mind. I'm still not entirely on board the collage train, but I'm willing to put a few pennies on the tracks. Just having the links organized on my laptop in a virtual binder (until I figure out a better system) will be a big help. I'd love to be able to make a foam core model of my town, with little models of my characters that I can move around at will from scene-to-scene. My inner procrastinator knows, however, that while I could probably justify a full-scale diorama pretty convincely, it would just be a means of avoiding actual writing.