writing

Not Coincidence

By / April 21, 2014

I finally dragged myself out to the gym today after two weeks of anxiety and four days of low grade depression. (The kind where I get things done, but every time I stop moving I feel like I want to cry a little. Then getting moving is even harder because I have a hard time believing my efforts make things better. I kind of earned this depression with all the non-stop to-doing, but it still doesn’t feel fun. Catching up on sleep was not making it go away. Hence: gym.) I went to the gym around noon. I took a nap. I dragged myself through making dinner. Then I sat down and wrote 2500 words. In the middle of that I folded some laundry and put kids to bed. The sadness had ebbed and the world feels good again.

This is not a coincidence and I need to point it out so that I will stop forgetting. Exercise and writing = well being and happiness.

Shining a Light

By / November 25, 2012 / 1 Comment

Among the lessons given in church today was told the story of the lower light. It is a smaller light on the shoreline which (in a world before GPS) was used in conjunction with the lighthouse to help ships navigate to safe harbor. A story was told of how failure to keep the lower light burning nearly led to disaster. Then a rendition of Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy (#335 in the LDS Hymnal) was played. Something in the stories and song spoke to me. It did so despite the my automatic emotional shield which goes up any time I sense that I’m about to be told a tragic story from which we should all learn a lesson. I like to pick my own lessons, thanks. I like to discover them for myself rather than being told what they ought to be. Yet the idea of being a light to others spoke to me. We are all commanded to be lights to others. I can think of dozens of people who have been so for me. They are people who taught me how to be a friend, how to parent, how to think about injustice, how to make the world a better place. They are people who live in my neighborhood, who write books I read, who I read about on the internet, who I pass in the grocery store. Most of them will never know how they have helped me or even who I am. Listening to the hymn, I felt that I need to be doing the same for others. The thing is that if I try to set up camp and show off my light, I’ll likely put it on some hill where it will do no one any good. I sent out a silent prayer, what is my light and where should I shine it? What will be most useful right now? Clear and calm, the answer was: write.

I imagine Heavenly Father as getting kind of tired with me lately, in much the same way that I get tired when I have to tell my kids to clean up after themselves. I keep saying it over and over, in a dozen different ways. I give them instructions, I order, I plead, I cajole. The actions involved are simple, yet somehow they find other things to do. Then one day a child comes to me and says “guess what? If I just pick up after myself things don’t get so messy.” Then I have to bite my tongue and be grateful the lesson was learned. Similarly, I find many good things to do which are not writing. At times those things are the way I shine my light. Last winter I was to finish my office remodel. This year every time I reach out to ask for direction I’m told to just go write. I’m beginning to imagine that instruction with an exasperated tone. So I should do that. I should write. I don’t know what the outcome will be. It is entirely possible that I’m just shining this light to illuminate my own path. From an eternal perspective lighting the path of a single person is sufficient reason to shine.

Funny how when I am struggling with large and difficult things, I pray for calmness and simplicity. When I’m given calm and simple instructions I wonder “that’s it?” and look for additional things to do. I have to remember that good works do not always require epic efforts. Time to pull out my book and increase the word count.

Living With Writers

By / November 20, 2012

I was sitting at the kitchen table reading a book when one of our house guests wandered up stairs. I didn’t pay much attention, because we’ve reached the point in their stay when they know how to fend for themselves in my kitchen and I no longer feel obliged to jump up and play hostess. After a few minutes I became aware that he had looked in multiple cupboards but had not selected any food items.
“Are you looking for something in particular?” I asked.
He looked up at me, or at least his eyes did, it took a moment longer for his brain to arrived from whence it had gone.
“Yes, but not in the real world.”
“Ah.” I said and went back to my book.

I’m not sure why wandering around and looking at things unlocks scenes and dialog in the writer brain, but I’ve been around enough writers to know that most of them do it. The symptoms are remarkably similar. The writer moves about looking at things, usually at a somewhat ambling pace. Body motion is not the point, and has to be conducted in such a way that one will not collide with obstacles while the brain is elsewhere. The ambling or cupboard opening will continue until suddenly the writer’s head lifts up and all the casual motion disappears. Movements become extremely purposeful as the writer seeks out pencil and paper or computer. The writer has found the piece they need and hurries to catch it lest it vanish. I do not recommend attempting to communicate with the writer while they are wandering, answers are likely to be somewhat tangential to whatever you want to discuss. If you attempt to communicate after the idea has struck, but before it is pinned down, you’ll likely get a hostile response.

I’m not immune to these writer quirks. Just yesterday I wandered outside. I didn’t even realize I was trying to work on a writing problem. I just thought I was bored. So I walked in my garden, looking at the wet leaves under my feet. I noticed the flower beds I intended to weed before cold weather hit, but then didn’t. I looked at the bare branches of my trees and pondered the pruning that needs to be done in spring. I paced up to the top of our little hill and wondered what I should do next with my day. Before I had time to answer that question, my back brain took a critique comment and the text of my picture book, combined them and the exact words I needed floated to the front of my brain. I headed straight for the house to write them down. I’m afraid I was a bit short with the telemarketer who called the house just as I put my fingers to the keyboard.

It is nice to live with people who understand this process, who will not attempt to talk to the wandering writer and who will get out of the way when the words strike. We don’t always get it right, but practice has taught me the body language to look for when Howard is working on plot. The kids have all learned it too. I’m always amused when I see the same behaviors from the kids when they are trying to sort the thoughts in their heads. Our household patterns probably look very strange to outsiders.

Bringing Home the Writer’s Retreat

By / October 27, 2012

A month ago today I was in Chattanooga having a wonderful difficult time. I was glad I went, I was even more glad to get home. When I got home I knew it would take awhile for all the things I shook up in my brain to settle down enough for me to see what the retreat accomplished. Now I’ve got a completed draft of my picture book and my novel is accumulating words daily. Mostly what I need is to spend some time each day focused on writing. To aid in that I’ve found a way to bring a piece of the retreat home with me. You see, among the foods that Mary offered was a sea salt and caramel gelato by a company called Talenti. I loved it because it was marvelous and the flavors invited me to savor a small dish rather than snarf down a large dish as I tend to do with ice cream. I thought that the only place I was likely to find this gelato would be a store an hour from my house, but yesterday I discovered a source much closer to me. This discovery resulted in a jar that is now in my freezer. However I don’t get to just eat it whenever. It is a reward that I can have after I hit 1000 words for the day. I did yesterday and the spoonfuls took me all the way back to the retreat. Flavor can be a powerful thing. I have discovered what being a writer tastes like to me and it tastes delicious.

A Conversation with My Writer Brain

By / October 20, 2012

So writer brain, we went on a retreat and shook loose ideas. We wrote notes and began forming stories. We made a plan to try to write 1000 words per day, and just to make it easier we decided that both blogging and fiction in that word count. Yet we’re only averaging around 600 words per day, what is up with that?

I’m not really sure. Instead of having a head full of clear thoughts, all I’m getting is static. Maybe you need more sleep.

Okay, I’ll grant you that sleep has been more scarce than it ought to be. But there were things to stay up and accomplish and things to get up and accomplish. We took that three hour nap on Thursday, but you wrote almost nothing that day.

True. On Thursday I was still busy processing all the emotional baggage from Wednesday night. The back brain cycles were reallocated to parenting thoughts. Can’t you arrange for the kids to not have crises?

Not really. I don’t get to pick when they have troubles with friends, what their homework loads will look like, how they’ll handle those homework loads, or if they get sick. Stomach flu is no respecter of persons, nor of writing brain space. Still, I tried to feed you good information even though we were tired. When sleep wasn’t possible, we watched some good shows and listened to Writing Excuses.

Yes. I’m still digesting all of that too. Sometimes I need more space, not more input.

But I gave you space and you didn’t do anything with it.

Yes I did. Just not things that you could see. Percolation is invisible. I need time to be bored.

I know that. We wrote a blog post about that. I’ve been trying. I keep shielding us from additional tasks, not taking on new jobs, but some of the ongoing jobs keep popping up with new requirements. I had to dust off my art director hat this week because Howard is going to a convention with an art show. Then there are all the assistant things I need to do because Howard is stressed and up against three different deadlines. Also the dryer broke.

Just listen to yourself. All of that going on in your head and you wonder why I’m drown out with static. Once. That is the number of times that you have set aside a couple of hours to open up the files of fiction and forced yourself to write the next 1000 words. That was a 1400 word day.

So now you’re blaming me for not making space? I’m trying, but it is hard. The phone always rings or there are a dozen urgent emails.

If you don’t sit down, I can’t organize the words.

But sometimes you do. Sometimes I’ll be doing something else and you just throw words into the front of my brain so that I’m excited to go and write them down. Why can’t you do that all the time?

I’ll do it more if you build writing time into the day.

Yes. I know this. Writing is important. I keep feeling like it is important even when I don’t know what to write. Even when all the thoughts in my head flow together into an indistinguishable mass. I’m working on giving writing more space, prioritizing it higher on the list of things to do. I keep telling myself no excuses, just get it done. And somehow it all ends up feeling messy, sloppy, uninteresting. There are so many important projects in my life and writing is only one of them. Also, I feel pretty dumb sitting down to blog about writing. Surely I can come up with something more poetic and meaningful than whining about writing. Isn’t the point of writing something to add good to the world rather than to waste words in a meta examination of my own writing and the lack thereof?

We wrote some worthwhile stuff this week. Haven’t you looked back at it? We finished the Strength of Wild Horses draft.

Was that this week? Are you sure.

Go check.

Huh. It was, seems much longer ago. But surely we could have done more than that. Better.

We will. Bit by bit. 800 words a day, or 200 words a day, or 3 words a day if that is all we can do. Small daily efforts add up. Don’t get discouraged by numbers.

But I was trying to use the numbers to motivate me to do more.

Yes. And it is working. But give yourself time to settle into the new habits of thought, new daily structures. Trust me, I haven’t lost track of the things we learned during the retreat.

So…a busy week is not a sign that I’ll never be able to write.

It is not.

But all my weeks are busy. What if…

Stop playing what if. Just choose to write instead of choosing to watch a TV show. Choose to garden instead of choosing to read, because gardening lets the thoughts settle and percolate instead of feeding in new data. Sit and think instead of clicking through internet sites that you’ve already visited five times today. You can do this.

Okay. But are we really going to post this as a blog entry? Me talking to myself about writing? It makes me look a little bit crazy.

One of the purposes of the blog is to sort thoughts by writing them. You’re changing how you approach writing, so naturally that change needs to be processed. I had to write this first to clear space to write other things. Now that this is written, I can go write something else. Shall we do that now?

Yes.

Linkage Before I Venture Off

By / October 11, 2012

Today I’m off to spend a couple of days visiting with relatives and helping Kiki tour college campuses. Naturally this means that I had a writing brainstorm late last night and no time today to write any of it down. However I did discover the lovely surprise that a piece I wrote months ago went live today. Over on Mary Robinette Kowal’s blog I’m talking about My Favorite Bit of the Hold on to Your Horses project. Sometimes when I re-read posts I’ve written I want to edit. Other times I think they’re pretty good. Every once in a long while I re-read a post and it makes me cry because it is exactly what I meant. That post makes my eyes leak.

Being Back at Home

By / October 1, 2012 / 1 Comment

One nice thing about being away from home for a week, it makes me glad to return to all the little tasks of the house. I’d completely forgotten that there is a satisfaction to dishes and laundry. Doing these things definitely becomes a burden over time, but being away from them for a week let me remember when I first started doing my own laundry and felt very grown up about it. This evening I enjoyed the process of planning and preparing dinner, even taking time for extra touches like putting a pitcher of water on the table so that everyone could remain seated instead of constantly bobbing out of their chairs to go get drinks or salt. I need to try to remember that these things are nice instead of always feeling burdened by them.

Kiki cried last night. At first it just seemed part of her head cold or perhaps just a cranky day. However it quickly became apparent that the real reason was that I had come home. She’d been strong and responsible all week long, with me home she could relax and confess how hard it had all been. Except, she told me, it wasn’t all hard. Lots of it was interesting and fun. She liked being grown up, but it was really nice to stop for awhile. I hugged her tight and reassured her that I want nothing more than several months of all of us staying home. It was what she needed to hear, not just that I would be here, but that I wanted to be here. She’d been picturing me off having a gloriously fun time only to return to the work of mothering. I did have fun, but I also spent a lot of time wishing that I were at home doing my regular things.

The other kids did not cry, but they were all quick to drop what they were doing and come hug me. Then they ran back to their things. None of them had tales of woe or worry. They were just glad to have me back.

So today I’ve been picking up where I left off. I’ve shipped out the orders which accumulated in my absence. I cycled many loads of laundry. I tackled the accounting. I slept in my own bed. All is well. Yet there are still reminders of my trip. I just picked a leaf out of my keyboard, remnant of sitting outside to type. I’ve also decided to aim for writing 500-1000 words per day. Those words can be blog posts or fiction. I’m not going to post word counts publicly, I’m just going to try to stretch a little and see where it takes me. If I don’t do something, then it would be all too easy for me to just dive into routine. I watched today how all those little tasks, which I was newly happy to do, each took a bite out of my day until it was consumed. If I want to write, I have to prioritize writing. So I shall.

For now, it is time to step away from the computer and complete the remaining small tasks of the day.

Arriving Home

By / September 30, 2012

I’m home. This is a deeply happy thing, like in my bones happy. I started to feel it on the flight home as I approached Utah. I wish I knew if physical proximity to my heart’s residence actually had an effect or if it was all the effect of knowing that I was going home. Part of me would like to believe in a connection to the place I have created here, as if I could draw strength from the ground I have nurtured. I certainly felt like the forest around Mary’s house nourished my spirit. On the drive from the airport I immediately noticed how brown Utah is and how few trees it has. The only natural forests here are in the mountains and they are very different. Another part of me thinks that whole idea is a little bit hokey, but it doesn’t matter because I’m back with my people.

So how was my trip? I ask myself the same question, and I think it is going to take me a week or more to figure out the full answer. For today and tomorrow I am unpacking and resettling. I’m not going to have the mental and emotional space to figure out what this trip has done for/to me until after I figure out how it has shifted things here at home. In my absence my kids have learned some additional self reliance and I should not hurry to take back the tasks that they did for themselves this past week. This requires me to observe. Watching the group effort to pack lunches was certainly interesting and useful. It resembled the lunches on the retreat–make the ingredients available and let the people serve themselves. I’m also going to discover tasks that have piled up, waiting for me to return. But there are no crises and that is good.

In some ways I don’t want to unpack my brain from the trip. I know that some of the contents of my head have shifted and there will be changes as a result. Creating those shifts is exactly why I went. Yet, I’m tired and sorting it all out sounds every bit as difficult as going on the trip and being on the trip. Right now I’d really like to just have things be calm and normal. One of the things I have to figure out is if this desire to retract into ordinary routine is a wise impulse to allow time for writing, or if it is me trying to escape anxiety by making myself smaller. The two possible reasons require opposite responses from me. But I don’t have to figure it out today. Possibly not even this week. For this next week I will focus on creating calm stability for everyone in our house.

How was my trip? It was good. It was hard, but only because of things I carried inside my head. The location was lovely. The company was delightful. The food was excellent. I’m glad I went. I’m sorry that my going caused stress for Howard and the kids, even though letting them learn from stress was part of the point. I wish I’d been better able to disconnect my own stress and anxieties. I came home and the house is as I left it or perhaps even a bit cleaner. I think I will be able to incorporate more writing into my days here at home. I don’t know if the trip was necessary to making that change, it will definitely color the stories I write. And I get to sleep in my own bed. Now if only I could just get the lingering mosquito bites to stop itching.

The Final Day of Writers Retreat

By / September 29, 2012 / 1 Comment

As writing goes, this was not my most productive day of the retreat. In part my brain is tired. It is not used to having so much time allotted to writing, thinking about writing, reading research for writing, and talking about writing. It just fizzled a bit. Also a very large portion of my brain remained determinedly focused on the fact that I get to go home tomorrow.

The day did include several lovely conversations and I feel like I’ve finally come to know most of my fellow retreat journeyers. We acquired in-jokes and a shared lexicon of references. It no longer feels odd to walk into a room, sit down next to someone and just start writing without speaking first. I noticed this fact because there was a new visitor today and I found myself reluctant to intrude on him, which let me know I’d gotten comfortable with everyone else.

I did do some writing math, which is the sort of thing I do when I’m trying to remain focused on writing even though my brain is tired.
During this week I’ve written 4211 words of blog posts and 2109 words of fiction. Averaged over 7 days that gives me about 902 words per day. These numbers feel pretty paltry when most of the writers here are aiming for 2000-3000 words per day. But even before I came I knew I would not be able to measure the success of this retreat by word count. I actually had an exchange with Mary pre-retreat where she suggested I define success for the retreat.

I count as my first success that I came with a secondary success that I did not leave early. This was a seriously scary trip to take for reasons that are not logical and which I’m still trying to parse.

I got to hang out with Mary, which is always a win. I will extend that success to cover everyone who was here. I’m glad to know all of them.

I hoped to finish my draft of Strength of Wild Horses. I haven’t.

I saw a cardinal. I only saw him for a moment and only on the first day. It was like a little promise of hope. And I now know why they’re often referred to as redbirds.

I walked in the woods every day, usually more than once. I took lots of pictures.

The last measure is observing what opens up in my head when I’ve put away all the business, household, and parent thoughts. I wasn’t able to fully put them away, but I was also able to begin creating fiction. I don’t think this one is complete yet. I need to go home and step back into my usual routines in order to be able to tell what has shifted around in my head.

So tomorrow I go home. Until then, here are a last set of forest pictures taken right after a rainfall.

The vines in the forest continue to fascinate me. I was explaining to Marilyn that we don’t have vines in western forests and she answered “Oh really?” as if she could not imagine a forest without vines and moss everywhere.

Mosses also fascinate me. Especially when I got up close to them.

When you get even closer you can see all the tiny fronds.

This mushroom made me think of a dancing skirt. I could imagine it frozen mid-motion.

When I arrived almost all of the leaves were green. By today leaves are beginning to turn colors and fall. I suspect next week the whole forest will change colors. I’ll not be here to see it.

I’ll be sad to leave the forest. I’ve walked all the paths into familiarity and yet I find something new every single time.

Letting Go of Home Thoughts is Hard

By / September 28, 2012

One of the reasons this retreat is being difficult is that the schedule tracking portion of my brain will not stay switched off. Occasionally I can be fully present in Tennessee, out in the forest, part of a conversation. But then I’ll happen to glance at a clock and without me bidding it to, my brain does the calculation to Utah time and supplies the fact that at home Howard is helping the kids get out the door to school. This wakes up the portion of my brain that is convinced that I’ve committed gross dereliction of duty by not being present at home to manage the schedule. I’ve left my kids before. I’ve left them for a week before. But I usually arrange for them to be on vacation or visiting with relatives. They are outside the usual schedule as much as I am. This time they are at home, following routine. I am not. But my brain keeps tracking their routine and telling me that I should really check up on homework or bedtime or a dozen other things.

I can’t escape from home thoughts yet home feels so far away. I’m really not sure what conclusion to draw from all of this. I’m not sure how this knowledge should affect future decisions. Does this fall into the “Don’t do that again” camp or is it that I need more practice letting go?

In the category of less conflicted lessons learned: don’t wear ballet flats into the woods, or if you do, spray with mosquito repellent first. The tops of my feet look like I have chicken pox. These bites don’t itch as much as the bites from Utah mosquitoes, but twenty-five bites on my feet is enough to draw notice. Particularly late at night when I’m trying to sleep and thinking about home things instead. I probably should be spending those wakeful hours thinking about plot things. But it feels like an additional dereliction, as if fretting over the home schedule is penance I must pay for not being there. And simultaneously I can also feel guilty because I have this opportunity and I am wasting it by thinking about home instead of thinking about writing fiction.

Over all, this is being good. I hope it is being good. It will take me months to see the results of what coming has begun. Hopefully I’ll be able to step back into my regular schedule and none of us will be sufficiently dinged by this experience that repairs are necessary.