Getting Back in the Groove

I had five very simple goals for the new year.  They included running 1000 miles during the year, writing every day, and getting organized (including keeping my house clean).  I’ve stayed on track with running only.  My inability to get organized  has hindered my ability to write every day.  This weekend I was determined to get back on track.  I spent part of Friday fashioning a very specific list of things to accomplish.  I like lists.  I like crossing things off those lists even more.

By the end of the weekend, I was exhausted, but pleased.  I accomplished a good portion of the tasks.  I fixed the deadbolt knob that keeps falling off.  I cleaned the house to 85% satisfaction (which is satisfactory).  I did the laundry. I wrote.  I did a blog post for this blog. I edited photos for four posts. I felt accomplished.

The best part of this exercise was that I felt re-energized to write.  Finally.  I have been in such a slump lately.  In a three-week span, I think I wrote maybe three times.  I was definitely beating myself up about it.  But I just couldn’t force myself to go upstairs and write for thirty minutes.  I’d had some ideas about reworking a main part of the story, but I wasn’t sure how to go about doing it.  I realized that having that uncertainty hanging over my head was a big part of why I didn’t want to write.  I didn’t know which direction the story was going in. I had to figure that out before I could do anything else.

So I spent part of Saturday doing just that.  I thought while I scrubbed, dusted, and swept.  The lightbulb finally went off, and the words and ideas have been flowing out like water from a faucet.  I thought of a few ideas for short stories and personal essays.  I’ve always had trouble finishing short stories.  I start with a concept and it quickly derails.  I think it’s because I just start writing with no sense of what the goal is.  For me, short stories need more structure.  It’s OK to have an outline.  I have high hopes for these ideas.

I feel like I’m finally back in the groove.  Here’s to hoping I can stay there.

Road Blocks

I’m not sure why writing is coming so hard right now, but it is.  I don’t know if it’s the thought of writing every day for the next year.  I sit down every day and hover the pen over the page, but nothing wants to come out. I don’t know where my story is going.  I don’t know what the characters are doing.  Normally that’s OK.  I don’t need to know where they’re going long-term.  But usually I know how they’re going to travel through the next few pages.  But not lately.  Lately I just sit and stare.

I don’t want to abandon the story.  That’s not it (for once), and it’s not that I don’t want to write.  It’s just become hard. I can’t explain it any more than that.

I’m one of those people who doesn’t really like to edit as a go along.  I just want to get the story out and then rework from there.  But I think it might be time to at least go back and do some constructive read-throughs.

I’ve started developing character relationships that I wasn’t expecting.  I like them, but now that I’m conscious of them, I feel like they’re trying to hard.  I feel like something that was good and natural is now cheesy and not fitting with the tone of the story.

Maybe I’m to the point where I need a general outline.  I never thought that would happen or that I would get to that point. But it think it might be here.  Maybe I just need to write down random thoughts.  Kind of like I am now.

Even as I write this I feel like I’m cheating, like I’m not really writing because I haven’t written anything for the story.  And I’m about halfway through my time.

That’s another thing.  Before, my thirty minutes flew by.  It was the fastest part of my day, even on the days that I struggled with the story.  Now I find myself wanting to reach out and check the timer on a regular basis.

I’ve thought about working on something else, but every time I do that I feel like I accomplish nothing.  Inevitably I never finish whatever short story I try to write while taking a break.  I always come to hate them and find them stupid, so I feel that it’s better to cut my losses than push forward and finish something that is mediocre.  Perhaps that’s just a cop-out.

I suppose I’ve spent enough time lamenting the life of a wannabe writer.  It’s time to actually write something.

Uncovering Fossils

I’ve been MIA – again. It’s not that I haven’t been writing; to the contrary, I have been writing more than ever before. It’s just not making its way to the blog. Part of my “homework” for my writing workshop is to write every day for thirty minutes per day. The instructor calls this “workbook.”  We can write about whatever we want, or even nothing if words are fleeting. The deal is to write just for those thirty minutes and then stop. We can write again later, but that thirty minute period is finite. I think I understand the point of limiting it to thirty minutes.

Another parameter – we are supposed to write by hand. Many people were resistant to this idea, but I loved it. One of the biggest criticisms was that you can’t write as fast as you can type. People felt like they weren’t accomplishing as much because not as many words appeared on the pages. Another complaint – if I write something I want to use, then I have to type it up after I already hand-wrote it. Here are my thoughts on those issues. First, I do type much faster than I write. But I don’t think that’s the point of the exercise.  I don’t think how many words you get out matters. The point is just to be writing. I also find that when I create something on the computer, I am much more likely to try to edit while I’m trying to create. That get’s me no where. I might sit in front of the computer typing, deleting, and retyping the same sentence over and over in a thirty minute period. That’s not writing.

As far as having to still type up what you wrote – are you kidding me? This gives you an opportunity to review what you wrote, improve upon it, edit it. If you think you aren’t going to have to do some edits (regardless of the original method of creating) you are lying to yourself. I just recently started typing up some of the things I felt were decent enough to keep working on and I have found that the time between writing and typing gives me the opportunity to think things over. I can then effortlessly type things up and incorporate changes I already made mentally.

For me, my thoughts are more focused during the thirty minute period.  Then I have time to reflect on what I’ve written before deciding to scrap it or uncover the rest of the fossil. Which brings me to the title of this post. I recently finished reading Stephen King’s On Writing at the recommendation of my friend Karen over at The Rhythm Method. One of the things that resounded with me was his comparison between writing a story and uncovering a fossil. Much to my pleasure, Mr. King doesn’t put much stock in plotting out stories or worrying about where they are going (also to my pleasure, my writing instructor is of the same opinion). Rather, he explains that stories are like fossils that the writer has to carefully and delicately uncover from the ground. You don’t really know what you are going to find, and have to follow where the fossil takes you.

I love this. I hate outlines. I hate plots. I hate rigid structure. I always procrastinated when I had to create an outline for something I was writing in high school or college. What if the story took a turn I wasn’t expecting? What if dialogue just didn’t work after I wrote it out? Why did I have to be stuck with this plot structure lurking around in the background that I created only because I had to? When I write now, I don’t do any of those things, but there was a nagging voice telling me that I would never be able to write anything good without a plan, a plot, an outline! I ignored the voice, while also worrying that it was right. As I am now learning, it was wrong (whew!). I’m just writing where the stories take me. Sometimes I think I know where they will go, but most times I’m surprised myself. And I’m enjoying every minute of it, thirty minutes at a time.

The Results Are In

I made it into the writing workshop! Last night was the first of twelve classes, and it was everything I had hoped it would be. I got the email on Sunday morning that I was selected for the class. I felt a flood of emotions as I read it – relief, excitement, hope. I think it’s going to be great.

I spent some time yesterday poking around on the school’s website and looking at their MFA in creative writing program. It would take at least two years to complete and would cost a decent amount of money, but every time I think about applying, I feel giddy. I think we’ll see how this workshop goes first. Applications aren’t due until February.

I can’t remember exactly what I was doing yesterday, but I started thinking about things happening and opportunities arising. Some time ago I wrote about why things happen and how we go about choosing our paths in life. I reread those posts and was reminded how relevant they still are. I was thinking about the recent job interview, inflated hope, and devastation when I didn’t get the job. I was ready to move. I was ready to start over.  I was so desperate for these things that I thought I was ready to sell my soul to the legal profession for a pittance of 2000 billable hours a year…forever.

I now know that getting offered the job is not what was best for me. While my husband and I want to move to a city with more opportunity, diversity and culture, I don’t want to do it if the cost is being a lawyer for the rest of my life. I also recognize that had I gotten the job, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be in this writing workshop. I would have read that tweet and scrolled on right past it. But I didn’t. I stopped, I looked up the information, and then I wrote. And I’m still writing. And, I have never been so grateful to receive a rejection letter.

So, do I still think things happen for a reason? Yes, and now I’m even more convinced that is true.

Pins and Needles

I have really never been a very patient person, and I have been doing a lot of waiting lately. I’m not handling it all that well. I become obsessed with thinking about it, check my email incessantly, and grab my phone as soon as I get back to my office to see if anyone called. It’s unhealthy. I know. But I’m not likely to change.

The thing that has me the most nervous right now is the writing workshop I applied for. Yes, I finally made myself sit down and write a short story (this is why I have been MIA for so long – that and a mini-vacation). It was an insightful process. Honestly, I don’t know that I’ve ever written a work of fiction that was that long. I’m sure that I had creative writing assignments in my high school English classes, but I’m sure they weren’t almost 300o words (2,918 to be precise). I am fairly certain that I wrote no works of fiction when I was in college. As a business major I think I had to take freshman English and that was it. It never occurred to me to take a class outside of my major just because I might enjoy it (at least, one that all my friends weren’t taking also, like bass fishing…yeah, true story). So, to actually finish a story of such length is an accomplishment for me, and I am patting myself on the back.

Accomplishment that it may be, I still really want to get into the workshop! I keep wondering how many people applied. Did he get a flood of writing samples at the last minute? The application deadline was yesterday, and the professor emailed me and said he would get back to me in a day or so. I have been trying to define what constitutes “or so” since I got the email (see paragraph 1). But the course starts next Wednesday, so I don’t have that much longer to wait.

I’ve decided, though, that I’ll be OK if I don’t get in. Writing the story lit a fire under me. I wasn’t 100% in love with what I wrote, but as a first attempt, I’m pretty proud of it. The writing process itself was kind of a rush. I don’t want to stop. I’ve already started thinking about other ideas for short stories. I’ll keep you posted on how it all turns out!

The Enchanted Forest

When I was a kid, I was always envious of my friends that lived in the country, surrounded by trees run through with interesting paths that I was certain would lead to some magical land.  I thought for  certain that if I lived near a forest, wonderful things would happen to me.  Don’t get my wrong, my house was pretty cool too, and my overactive creative imagination had plenty to work with.  For instance, our swing set doubled as a circus tent or (depending on the day) a mystery club hideout with secret entrances (modeled after the hideout in a series of young adult mystery books, the title of which escapes me and Google is of no help).  I used to crawl underneath the monster honeysuckle bushes that lined the fence around our pool and imagined an entire village existed under there.  I could go on, but I’m afraid you might already think I’m a little nuts.

As I got older, my imagination remained active, but I put it towards more productive uses – i.e., homework assignments.  However, I continued to love mystery novels and stories that truly drew you in and made you feel as if you were really a part of what was going on.  For instance, I love Harry Potter.  I read those stories over and over again. (Yeah, I’m in my 30s, so what?)  My fascination with a thick grove of trees hasn’t waned, either.  I can walk through the woods and my thoughts start running in overdrive.  I feel like I could write an entire novel based upon the feelings, sights, and sounds that wash over me in a period of just five minutes.

When I was a senior in high school, I went to visit my step-sisters in San Diego.  I fell in love with the city almost immediately, and while I loved the beaches and ocean (of course), they took me to these unbelievable forests with paths that led to enormous, ancient trees with rope swings.  To this day, I can remember what those woods looked like and how I felt as we explored them (without having to look at the pictures, which I have plenty of).  I vowed during that trip that I would move to San Diego after college and frequent those paths.

Now, fifteen years later, I still live in the midwest, I rarely visit our state forests, and my imagination is stifled.  Where am I going with this, you might be asking.  Over the past four days I have driven over 1000 miles for work (no joke, 1000 miles, in a car, by myself, in four days).  I had a lot of time alone with my thoughts.  Most of those thoughts were negative, angry, self-deprecating.  I’d decided that I was not going to blog again until I was in a better frame of mind because no one likes to read depressing, negative blather.  I mean, I certainly don’t.  I was feeling hopeless.

Then I had an idea.  If I didn’t have anything positive to say, then I would start writing posts about things that happened or that I saw during the day but write them as short stories.  Maybe fictionalize them a bit.  Maybe they will remain individual stories.  Maybe they will morph into an actual novel.  And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find inspiration while taking a hike through the forest.

Overcoming Self Doubt

I have not been very satisfied with my writing lately.  I feel like I haven’t been devoting the proper time to it, and then I don’t like what comes out.  I recognize that the solution is in the problem – just spend more time writing.  Unfortunately I have just been overwhelmed with work and am preparing to speak at a conference next week.  I’m also lacking inspiration.  Perhaps it’s the weather.

I spend a lot of time reading other people’s work to see what types of things that they write about and how their posts develop.  I read so many creative, insightful, witty and humorous posts and I wish I could write like any or all of those writers.  I don’t want to write exactly like anyone else, of course, but I feel like I am struggling to find my voice.  I thought I had a focus, but I feel as if I have no focus right now.  My thoughts are all over the place.

I haven’t seriously thought about giving up, because that’s always what I have done in the past and I am determined to do it differently this time around.  But I definitely need to narrow my themes.  I think it will also help to specifically plan out posts for the coming week, so that I’m not struggling to come up with an idea at 9:30 at night.  If inspiration strikes me during the day – great.  I can use the planned idea at a later date.  But if not, I’m not stuck with a weak idea.

I have tried keeping a list of ideas for posts, but after the list sits for a while, I pick it up and think everything is stupid or boring.  What I need to come up with is a list of generic topics that I can then apply to some situation that came up during the day.  Like, make up a story about someone you passed on the street, or write about a favorite memory.  I don’t know how helpful that will be with focusing my writing, but it should help with finding my voice and style.

It’s 9:00, and I’ve got a few more things to get done before bedtime, including coming up with my posts for the week.  Hopefully this plan will quiet the thoughts of self-doubt that are spending way too much time bouncing around my head.

View From My Windows

A Short Story Told From My Neighbor’s Perspective

It is around 7:00 am.  She awakes without an alarm as she does every morning.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise.  She is ninety-three years old and has awoken on more mornings than most.  It is snowing again.  This has been a terrible winter, and the new neighbors all but destroyed the safe harbor for the squirrels and chipmunks that frequent her yard.

She gets dressed, puts on her coat, hat and mittens, and calls to her small dog, Maggie.  She looks out the window to see if Maggie II is out yet.  She likes Maggie II well enough, but she’s very loud and excitable.  Very similar to that big white dog that lives behind the new neighbors.  Maggie is not very fond of Maggie II.  She doesn’t understand why she barks so much.

There is no sign of Maggie II.  She begins to gather up the food for the birds and squirrels.  She crumbles the old bread from yesterday, and looks through the waste from yesterday’s meals, fishing out the rind of her orange.  She carefully shuffles out the door and over to the bench by the garage.  She places the bread on the bench and tosses the orange rind behind the garage.  She scoops out birdseed from the bin next to the garage and fills the feeders.  She looks up in the trees, searching for any sign of raccoons.  She just doesn’t understand why the possums and raccoons keep coming around and getting into her attic, even after the new neighbors destroyed all of her bushes that provided them access.

She walks back to the house, peering into the neighbors’ yard.  It’s hard to see what’s going on over there with the tall fence they put up.  There was nothing wrong with the chain link fence.  It allowed them to see each other better, at least once you pressed your face through all of the over growth.

Maggie II came bursting out of the dog door just before she reached the door.  Apparently the neighbors slept in this morning.  Hello, Maggie II, she says.  She used to generously provide Maggie II with dog biscuits.  Tried to put a little meat on  her bones.  The neighbor lady came out one morning and told her she had to stop.  Maggie II needed to lose weight.  She wondered what uneducated vet they were going to.  Definitely not the one she recommended to them when they first moved in.

She shuffled back inside, and into the kitchen.  She looked out the window and saw the woman out there with her camera again.  What could she possibly be taking pictures of?  She thought again how weird that was.  Although, the woman is weird – always changing jobs, always running – weird.

She wondered if they would bother to shovel the snow off the sidewalk this time around.  She watched them finally clear off the ice yesterday, but apparently they did it only because they were expecting company.  Some people arrived in an SUV around 7:00 and hadn’t left by the time she went to bed.  It also appeared as if they were trying to “save” the parking spot in front of their house so the strange man who always parks in front of their house couldn’t park there.  She wondered about the state trooper that used to stop by their house.  They said they were friends with him, but she hadn’t seen any trooper cars in quite some time.

She walked to her living room, called to the dog, and settled down on the couch.  She turned on the tv and adjusted her position so that she had a better view of the front walk.  Once she was comfortable, she was ready for another day of watching the neighborhood.  Little did she know how very much she had in common with Maggie II.

Ice Storm 2011 – Day 1

But for the fact that I have no mystical powers, I would be convinced that I caused this midwestern ice and snow storm.  Just the other day I was writing about how we have not had an ice storm in about twenty years.  And now, not even five days later, the city is coated in ice, with more building up as I type.  Trees, fences, and cars are beginning to look as if they are encased in bullet-proof glass.  It is both beautiful and disconcerting.

We went to the grocery store last night.  For the record, we always do our grocery shopping on Monday evenings.  We were not a part of the mob mentality rushing out to get milk, bread and eggs – three things that apparently guarantee your survival during an ice/snow storm. Trust me, the mob was out in full force.  I have never seen our market that busy.  It was unbelievable.  The store is not even set up for as many people as were there.  The lines wound around and between stands full of candy, coffee beans, granola and trail mixes.  OK, maybe the store is set up precisely for that considering I made an impulse purchase of caramel flavored coffee beans.

Our refrigerator and pantry are stocked.  I just hope the power doesn’t go out.  I was hoping the freezing rain would have turned to snow by now, but no such luck.  My husband and I stayed home from work today, and as of this moment, are planning to do the same tomorrow.  It was a more productive day than I’ve had in a long time.  Not only have I billed 7 hours, I did the ironing, have almost finished the laundry, have butter softening to make cookies, and seriously intend to finally wash my hand-wash only sweaters.

As I sit here in the warmth of my house, I wonder what all of the birds and squirrels and such do during this type of horrible weather.  I see the birds flitting by and hope that they are on the way to nests tucked deep inside evergreens where the ice will have a difficult time finding them.  In the twenty minutes or so that I have been writing this, the view from my couch has become even more like a scene from a fairy tale.  The tree branches are drooping more significantly.  My Weather Channel app tells me the ice isn’t supposed to turn to snow until 3:00 am – so about 11 more hours of this.  I think it’s safe to say I’ll be staying home again tomorrow, and possibly using my WordPress app to blog!

For the rest of you experiencing some form of this storm, stay safe!  Snuggle up inside with your sweetie or dog or cat (or all three if you can), have a glass of wine or beer or hot chocolate (I don’t think all three of those will mix together well), stay warm, and take advantage of being trapped inside.  I know I plan to!

Devour Downtown: An Exercise in Gluttony

Twice a year a good majority of the restaurants downtown participate in Restaurant Week – aka Devour Downtown.  They all have a special three course menu for $30, and it is a great opportunity to try out places that you normally might hesitate to try because of price or cuisine type.  Depending on the price point, some of the restaurants offer three course menus for two diners for $30.  There are also $15 lunch specials.  The menus change each time and new restaurants are added.  See where I’m going yet?

It is such a great deal that I feel this inexplicable need to try to eat at as many of those restaurants as I can in that 2 week period.  It makes no sense.  I would never ordinarily eat multiple three course dinners in any given week, yet I do it without even thinking.  Don’t get me wrong, the food is usually tasty and worth the $30 (especially when you would ordinarily be paying at least twice as much), but eventually I start to feel a little bit bad about myself.

I can’t be the only one, though.  We had talked about going to Fogo de Chao the weekend before Devour Downtown started and figured it made no sense to pay $20 more than necessary.  In case you don’t know, Fogo de Chao is a Brazilian steakhouse that involves eating all that you can of various types of Brazilian-style meats brought to you on swords.  Talk about gluttony!  Since our location opened (2 years ago?), this was only our second time to go.  I think once a year is probably enough for me considering I’m not a big meat-eater, and really don’t like feeling like I need to be rolled out of the restaurant (ala Violet from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory).  I digress.

We tried to make reservations for Friday night and our only options were between 10:00 and 10:30 pm.  We looked at Thursday night.  The options were 5:00 or between 9:00 and 9:30 pm.  None of those were ideal, but we were determined to take advantage of the special.  We arrived downtown and could not find a place to park.  Apparently many others were taking advantage of the special menu week.  We found a place and walked the two blocks (as if we wouldn’t need the exercise!).  The restaurant was packed!  The internet was not lying to me when it provided such limited reservation options.

I tried a different restaurant last night with some girlfriends.  I only ate half of my key lime pie and brought the rest home to my husband.  (Thoughtful…or just trying to save calories?)  Restaurant week only lasts until Friday, and based upon the freezing rain and snow that have been coming down since 5:30  or so, I’m guessing I will be able to resist trying out any other menus.  I’ve got six more months to plan the summer Devour tour.