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~ Carie ~ 3 Comments
A small stack of personal journals
a small stack of my personal journals

“Writing is rewriting.” I know this. I know this because I deleted and changed the first paragraph of this note three times. It’s not making me happy, and I can’t put my finger on why. But as writers, we’re supposed to rewrite. Right? I need to scream “stop” at the top of my lungs. I’ll let the word reverberate a moment in my head while maintaining the calm exterior for which I am praised.

I get caught in a trap trying to make something perfect, and lose myself. I lose my voice in trying to make things right for the “others” I view as the readers. What I forget in the process is these same readers have been drawn to me by the voice and style I present. What we all forget is our voice can change. We age. We travel. We continue to learn as we live our lives. At least, I hope we do.

I used to write in a journal every day. The process cleared my brain of all the junk, grocery lists, and tiny bits of anger and disappointment which lingered in the dark corners. I could then close the book and go about my day without those thoughts present to distract me. Connecting to the page clarifies and sharpens my mind. As an internal thinker, writing in a journal allows me to make those things external—without having to say them out loud. No one else needs to meet the creatures which make their home in my thoughts.

After a personality test this week and a writer’s presentation yesterday which focused on that test, something in my head clicked. I sat down this morning and began to journal again after an extreme hiatus. I had packed away a need, and it hurt me. I hadn’t realized how much. So I wrote all my crappy thoughts down. I found myself flipping through the pages and reading a few of my old ramblings during my designated writing time. Some were funny. Some were heartrending. Most were childish and petty. The best part about each of them is they are not stuck in my head. The thoughts on the page didn’t continue to linger lost in my brain. I swept lots of things under the rug up there as of late. I let my day job and its stressors interrupt me.

My day job is wonderful for more reasons than to pay the bills. I like what I do on a daily basis, but it is my day job. Not my dream job. I’m trusted, I’m respected for my creativity, and now I get to write a blog other than my own. Yet it is still not the independence from the day to day for which my heart pounds.

So I write. I find ways to write. A dear friend encourages me in my search. She seems to understand something is trapped inside waiting for its moment. Whenever it appears, I pray that it meets the expectations of those who are so patient. I pray it doesn’t break me to get it out. Whatever lingers on that page will be in my voice. My words. My thoughts. And no one can stop me from finding it.

Saying Goodbye

~ Carie ~ 1 Comment

It’s been a crappy few weeks. I have not written or even worked on revisions. You might ask why. For admission—my muse abandoned me. It’s not his fault, but without him, my heart is empty.

My Muse
My humble muse.

Most people might describe their muse as a female presence. Not me. Mine was an eighty-five pound perfect specimen of the German Shepherd breed standard. A short-hair, black and tan with the most expressive face. Though I did not speak his language, he understood mine. And now he is gone.

I’m forcing myself to write even this. The joy of putting words on paper has been absent. Hell, I haven’t been in the mood to do anything. I kept busy with labor intensive work for a few days in order to keep my mind off mourning. Then there was nothing left to do. The numbness faded, and I wept.

As humans, we domesticated animals to help and protect us. There were jobs to be done which we couldn’t handle alone. Animals soon became our daily workmates and companions whether hunting, plowing, or all of the other odd jobs we recruited them to do. Over time, this evolved for some into a focus on companionship. We crave companionship—a level of unconditional love and loyalty they offer to us.

I am not going to call myself a “furr-parent.” My pets are not my “furr-kids.” I believe those are demeaning terms. I will say I am a pet owner. I am a pet owner that had to unexpectedly say goodbye to a most dedicated protector and companion. I lost the emotional reflection of my life. My heart aches, but for myself and the loss. The decision was the best to make for him. I could not let him suffer only to gain a few more days or weeks with him.

I go on knowing he was my muse. His loyalty lives on in my work. His honesty immortalized in letters on a page. His companionship offered up to a lost and wandering character such as myself.

Seating Survival

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I attended a writers’ conference at the beginning of this month. My brain filled with writing goodness and motivation events such as these impart. I drew new focus on my work. Imagine a business/leadership conference for salespeople, minus the leadership mumbo jumbo and the eager salespeople. We’re a bunch of writers. We spend a lot of time hunched over keyboards or notebooks fighting to get the words on the page. Most of us are introverts. We get lost in our own worlds, but a writers’ conference provides us with information on the industry and an opportunity to meet other scribes.

It was a gathering of comrades from literature to genre (lots and lots of genre) who sought information at all levels—a place to meet fellow authors, rub elbows with agents and editors, gawk over the big names walking amongst the meek, and soak up all the inspiration you could stand. Many attendees were new writers seeking out how-to information. Some were searching for tips to help them hack through another round of revisions. Yet more were pitching to an agent or editor, trying to get initial interest to propel them to the next step in the dream. All of us were relishing in the business and craft of writing.

Yet all conferences—no matter the focus—have a few things in common. They’re the trappings that remind you this is a business gathering. The hotel or convention center. The mediocre coffee. The crowded bathrooms at every break. The chairs.

Don’t be deceived. The chairs end up the bane of every conference no matter how consoled you are when you first see them. “Oh, look. The chairs are padded. That’s wonderful. Hey, even the backs are cushioned. This is gonna be a good weekend.” So not true. Even the cushiest of seats becomes unbearable on day two.

I suffered from writer’s bum for a while after sitting in presentation after presentation. A bored bum can happen to the best of us. After one or two sessions, you start to feel it. The chair is not as comfortable as you once thought. The padding seems a little thin. This one has to be a different model than the last one I sat in. The chairs are the same. I’ll move to a different one. Nope. Your derriere has found the discomfort of the minimal cushion. There is no escape.

You stand in the hall and pace a little during the break, confident you only need to move around. As you sit in the next room, you shift from cheek to cheek to relieve the gluteal boredom. What if I sit at a slight angle? No. The edge of the chair? Maybe, but then again, no. Slouching? Not that either. Your bum is done.

Three days of characters, revisions and pitches. You take everything in and gather the motivation to push through the revisions on your novel. It’s a great experience. You’re hearing writing tips from the likes of Jonathan Maberry, A. Lee Martinez, Les Edgerton, Donald Maass—but your butt. It’s a bit of a distraction.

When I arrived home, I walked the dogs. I had to move, to do something other than sit down. I know I am not the only one.

Travel Plans

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The beauty of a cloudy day.
The beauty of a cloudy day.

Travel is an adventure no matter how far you go. Typically, I take a weekend hopper somewhere. I’m not big on big vacations because, as previously discussed, I keep myself busy with activities—running, needle crafts, metal work, etc. This list is a little longer, but no one should be bored with that. I’m a bit of a workaholic and feel guilty when I am not doing or accomplishing something. Long vacations separate me from my distractions. Traveling with a torch and acid pickling station is shunned by TSA regulations. I’d make the no-fly list at the airport fast.

All my excuses aside, I force myself to take an extended vacation each year. I am lucky to have a friend who encourages me in planning trips. She doesn’t yearn to keep busy like I do. She’s attracted to luxury and travel like ants to sugar, which is a good thing for me. Her desire to get away leads to plans for years on end. There is always a place to go, and she doesn’t mind if I tag along. Cruises are her trip of choice. So far, I’m okay with them. I don’t jump for joy at the thought of being stuck on a boat, but I do appreciate not hauling my luggage everywhere.

For a few years now, we’ve ventured through European destinations on cruise-tours. They have been amazing opportunities to see so much of the world, to experience history first-hand, and to write in some of the most beautiful settings. On last year’s voyage, I was able to pull out a small journal as I sat at a cafe in Mykonos and take notes as I watched rain clouds move in over the island. The blue waters and crisp, white houses shadowed by the line of rumbling gray above. It’s visual poetry.

Now, though, it’s time to trade the long cruises for long stays on land. The mere hours allowed by our tours is no longer enough. I am drawn to wander through these cities. I need to find every museum and every local dive. I need to know how these people live, not just how they can sell me souvenirs. I need to spend days in their cafes watching their world as the sun rises and fades again into the night. I need knowledge.

My dear friend tries to accommodate my thirst for history. She indulges my desire to wander on occasion, as long as I let her shop. Some travelers are satisfied with a short visit and a dose of commerce in each port, but not me. The call to explore will not leave me alone. Its echo tumbled through every thought during our last voyage, and I need to answer it. My feet itch with impatience without earth under my feet, which is odd considering my Nordic ancestry. Well, odd only if I forget that they sailed out of a drive to save their communities, expand their horizons, and explore the boundaries of their world—and I love to explore.

Writing Resolutions

~ Carie ~ 1 Comment

We’re a week into the new year. I’ve given you enough time to stretch, yawn, take two aspirin and down a lot of water. Champagne hangovers can be a real pain, but we’re seven days past it—more than enough to get back into the day-to-day of life. You may have broken a personal resolution already. I ruminate over them for a few days. Not really. I procrastinate for a few days and then make plans I mean to break. One or two things do seem to catch, though. Something in my brain won’t let me fail at everything on the list.

With the knowledge one thing might register in the subconscious, I made the members of my writing group list their three resolutions. Once that was done, someone else in the group assigned a fourth goal to their list. The fourth item had to be slightly different. It needed to put the individual out of their comfort zone. You might want to do the same thing.

Don’t tell me no. I don’t care. You’ve got to start somewhere. Go get a pen and a stack of paper. Run your hand over the first blank sheet. It’s okay. The virgin page is waiting for you. Now, before you go crazy, here’s what I need you to do: write down your three personal resolutions. If you’re anything like me, you’ll spend a lot of time doodling bits of nothing on the first page. The second sheet will be crumpled and discarded after the first line, so don’t get too attached. Give yourself time to work through it, but know that the first three things that pop into your head are usually the right things to do. They may need to be refined, but they’re the heart of your desires.

It’s not my problem if you break them all, but you need an idea of where you want to be at the end of the year. If you don’t know your goals, how will you know how to fail them? Kidding. I’m placing my own thoughts on you, and you may very well be goal-oriented. No. Number one on the list cannot be, “to be goal-oriented.” That’s an innate trait.

To get you started, I’ll let you in on my resolutions:

  1. Finish the revisions on my current novel.
  2. Submit query letters and first pages. (This one will also include a lot of hoping and praying.)
  3. Write and submit at least one short story for competition. (More hoping, praying, and a lot of denying that I’m hoping.)
  4. Write a Steam Punk genre short story. (This is the one someone else added to my list. It will push the boundaries of my voice and style.)

Now that I’ve posted those publicly, I’m sure to get a phone call from my mother. These will be our primary topic until I’m done. Yippee. Actually, you can put an exclamation point on that one. She will drive me (crazy) to get my revisions completed. It’s the reason I made my critique group write their goals down and hand them over. We can keep each other on target. We won’t hound each other, but the open knowledge of these goals makes them more real. It does no good to write resolutions and hide them. You’re only hiding them from yourself, and it’s sad to not help yourself succeed.

 

Note: I threatened the group with posting their goals online. This should prove that it wasn’t a threat but a statement of fact on my part. Cheers!

SOL

  1. Improve and finalize plot for current novel.
  2. Flesh out the characters of the Antagonist and Protagonist.
  3. Tie historical story line in novel to modern-day story line.
  4. Write short story on the Finnish Christmas tree.

SB

  1. Set up weekly accountability.
  2. Commit to revision course.
  3. Prepare submission of first draft for revision course.
  4. Write quarterly serialized story for online publication.

CC

  1. Send at least one query letter per quarter.
  2. Blog two times per week.
  3. Write one article for work per month.
  4. Write fiction short story.

GF

  1. Write Hero’s Journey for new novel idea.
  2. Do two weeks of research for new novel.
  3. Write at least 15,000 words toward new story.
  4. Write a short story about witchcraft in a modern setting.

I Write for Breakfast

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My writing group gathers every Sunday morning. Well, not quite a group of us. It’s normally two people with other characters joining the melee on days they wake up. If it’s a morning of just two, we eat, we discuss, and we write. When there are more, the conversational tangents run far and wide. They all relate to writing, or to what we are writing, but we have a tendency to fall deep into the rabbit hole of “what ifs” and “then there’s” as writers. One idea connects to another until the dots of light come together in an interesting constellation of thoughts.

It’s fascinating to sit back and find out where we will end up. A conversation about Anne Lamott takes us to the varying waves of divorce among midlife couples and on to the pain of revisions. [Note: I tied it together as stages of our writing. Writing late into life, surviving writer’s block, and learning to let go of it all.] We may get fifteen minutes of full pen to paper time on such occasions, but that’s okay. Sometimes you need the mental break. Your brain needs to wander amongst the words of others.

I get lost in my own head. There’s a lot up there to think about. One color change to the sky can alter every piece of minutia for the universe, and I need to figure it out. I need to put the puzzle pieces in place. So it’s good for me to spend time with others. It could also be why I have so many hobbies. There’s a drive to keep myself out of my own wonderland of thoughts. I put up the “Do Not Disturb” sign on my brain and do something real, including being around real people. I am very comfortable removing myself from the world at large and living in my own personal version of the galaxy. Solitary is easy for people like me. It’s the interaction that breaks us.

I recommend the challenge of tangents for breakfast. Don’t try to steer the conversation. Let it go. Glancing blows off the circle of your ideas can turn them in so many different directions. One such instance a few years back forced me to find my voice again. An insistent friend hinted until the idea was my own, driving me forward into the writing life. I can revel in my thoughts, finally putting my worlds on paper and sharing them with people who won’t judge me for red-skinned giants living in a golden-hued landscape. It might just be a statement about the evils of greed, but I won’t know until I get to breakfast.

Attack of the Lazy

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I won’t deny it. I have been lazy. Well, as lazy as I am capable of being. I understand this confession may not convince you. I didn’t sleep past 8:30 am or spend an entire day in my pajamas. I didn’t skip a day at the office—even though several days were Ferris Bueller-like temptations. It’s more that I have not been working on what I should. I slid into a pattern of avoiding of my writing duties, which was easy.

I kicked the avoidance bonanza off by reorganizing the house after the unpacking frenzy. I followed with a flurry of vacation prep. After ten days of travel around the beautiful Aegean Sea, I ventured home and drifted along in a pattern of laziness. Could be post-vacation blues combined with birthday blues and the major sugar crash of available Halloween candy. Everything came together in the perfect not-quite-a-storm situation. If it were still summer and I had a porch swing, it would be the southern breeze of laziness drifting through my life.

Please take my story of avoidance and slackerdom with a grain of whatever seasoning you like. I’m not committing myself to a promise of turning the grindstone forever and never doing this again. It will happen, and I will enjoy it just as much as I did this occurrence. Imagine no Black Friday deadline. No packing and unpacking. No commitments. Can you? I didn’t think it possible anymore, but there it was. I did do the laundry, clean the house, and wash the mud off the dogs. I didn’t skip those things, but I didn’t do anything outside of rest easy in my daily life and work diligently at my job. I didn’t do all of the activities I do when I don’t want to be bored, because boredom never made an appearance.

I still had insomnia, but I read a book instead of hammering out a set of bangles or designing a new scarf or repainting the doghouse. There were no accomplishments to count—no hard evidence of my lost hours of sleep. Some books moved out of the need to read stack, but it’s difficult to tell if I made a real dent since I only used it as an excuse to purchase more books. That’s an obsession for another day, and honestly, I don’t know when I’ll get to it.

Rejection

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Rejection sucks. It hurts. Rejection is difficult enough in work and love, but the ache is worse when it’s something you created—when someone with a tiny bit of power in the world has rejected your art. The pain, the urge to jump into a defensive mode is stronger. There’s no opportunity for you to shout, “It’s not me. It’s you.” You receive a letter or email, and you’re out of the running. Easy for the rejector. For the rejected, there are scraps of ego to be pieced back together, and the ever-present question, “What was wrong?”

I would love to get an answer. I want to know how to improve my craft. I understand what I write does not appeal to everyone, but it’s not bad. (My ego will make an appearance now.) I am pretty darn good at what I do. I’m not great. I know that. There are no “great American novels” buried in my head, but there are fantasies and trips through distant worlds. There are characters with which you’d want to belly up to a bar, and that bar would be something of my creation.

If you couldn’t tell, my book submission was rejected recently. The first rejection of a piece stings. I’m lying. It’s more than a simple sting. It’s death by scorpion. There’s a pinch at the first line of justification, “It’s not that you’ve written a bad book, or necessarily written badly.” Ouch. You’re right. You don’t know if I’ve written a bad book. You read only the first fifteen pages. That little gem was followed a few lines later with this, “This experience for you isn’t even rejection. It’s a delay.” What? Hurts like rejection.

In all of the “softening the blow” mumbo jumbo, there was nothing concrete to help me. It was a nice rejection, a soft leather glove swiped across my cheek instead of an armor gauntlet. Yet it leaves behind the same pain and confusion.

I’m in an angry stage at this moment. I waffle between acceptance and anger. A sea which never seems to settle. The letter has driven me forward. I refuse to accept what I do isn’t good or good enough. Isn’t that what rejection should do?

Swimming in Mental Drama

Image ~ ~ Carie ~ 1 Comment
Orin Zebest-Rio Vista, CA
Orin Zebest-Rio Vista, CA

I try to do too much. It’s my normal. What am I to do if no deadline exists? Without the busy-ness, my brain takes a dive into the pool of depression. In reaction, I isolate myself—only drifting further into dangerous waters. So I am busy. On purpose.

At work, I am in the heart of holiday. We are building Black Friday, rebuilding Black Friday, getting Christmas underway, and preparing for the frenzy of New Year’s. At home, I am ready to move back. I face a flurry of walkthroughs, city approvals and financial data. With my current book, it’s time. I am pushing through revisions. I am fighting to get the pictures right on the page. I am carefully picking through word choice. Or I think I am.

I shut down this week. Tuesday night, toward the end of class, the instructor said something that struck me wrong. Somewhere in the dark crevices of my grey matter I lost it. This level of frustration is unlike me. I can file away any emotion for examination later, but this one. I dove head first into a mental tailspin, too stubborn and angry to pull myself out.

I have written before about revision. I told you to let go, and I meant it, but this one off-hand statement set off every alarm. I cannot clearly tell you why. My just-roll-with-it attitude stopped dead in its tracks and prepared for battle, but there was no one to fight. I had to seek help, and quick. Otherwise, my manuscript would end up in a heap of deletions—last man standing in the Alamo.

As humans (not as that ethereal thing known as a “creative”), we need help. We need outlets for all of the stuff running around in our heads. Other creatures do not sit around questioning themselves. They do not contemplate the pitch of their howls. We do.

So my advice this week is to not be afraid. There will be a moment of dark, but it’s not as bleak as you believe. Like my drive to be busy, help is everywhere. I met with an editor today. Their words settled me. They gave guidance. They offered light. That’s all I needed. I needed to stand face-to-face with the fear my writing is unworthy. I needed something to settle the beasts.

Why the Summer Cold?

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I’m sorry, everyone, for my lack of writing prowess last week. Rain clouds and scattered showers invaded my hot Texas summer and brought with them every last particle of allergy-ridden air. When I was a kid, I didn’t suffer like this. The only thing I was allergic to then was down, which was easy to avoid. The allergy to the fluffy softness did cut out my option to time travel to plush homes in ante-bellum or Victorian era times, but I thought of other things to do. Now I am stuck in buildings all day in which they pump cool recycled air through the vents, and I get sprinkled with all of the dust and germs from the 5,ooo plus occupants.

As an asthmatic, I rush into action to crush the allergy attack. If I let it linger, the allergies turn into a sinus infection, and I turn into a mouth-breather. That leads to all out warfare to stave off Bronchitis. Asthma and Bronchitis are those neighbors that build an eight-foot high fence between each other because someone at some point didn’t RSVP on time to the Fourth of July block party or the kids’ My Little Pony bash or the Next Great Thing MLM. It’s localized chaos—in my lungs.

I tried to write you something pretty and witty, but my synapses weren’t firing correctly due to all of the snot and antihistamines. I did spend time admiring the teal ink color of my newest gel pen as I doodled various things on my white sheet legal pad. My brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen as I hunched over the desk, mouth agape, trying to suck in enough air to think. I felt like a kid trying to catch their breath before they tattled on their brother (which I did, a lot). It was that kind of mouth breathing.

I am not good at being sick. Even in my delirium, I have to be doing something. Do not recommend I sit down and rest. Don’t bring up taking a nap. I have things to get done. Don’t I? Somewhere in the haze of my thoughts is a to-do list that needs doing. I’m sure of it. So I get to work doing things which don’t need to be done.

One time, when I had the flu for a few days and was confined to my house, I taught myself to knit. I made two scarves and a hat for my dad during said illness. My mom hates the hat, but Dad loves it. I don’t care either way. Learning to knit kept me occupied, and I gained a new skill. During yet another illness, I completely repainted the house. I had painted it the month before, but the living rooms walls bothered me as they started to close in on my boredom. Their pale yellow color threatened me with their semi-bright cheeriness, so they had to go.

I don’t understand the people who can lie around, wallowing in used tissues and chicken noodle soup. My soul needs more than mere soup. It needs over-the-counter drug fueled purpose. When I’m fine and dandy again, it’s a bit depressing the purpose couldn’t have been a little more purposeful—and actually on the to-do list.