Some opportunities and thoughts, too.

Just met up with Madeleine, my cousin and soon to be literary editor. I'm still blown away she'd ask me to contribute to her literary magazine. Naturally, not too flattered to take the opportunity seriously.

Having looked over my (other, main) blog, she suggested I write something fun & snarky about how hard it can be trying to write. I can do that. I sell myself shore, I'm sure,--I know I can do that. As I'll prolly mention, I've been known to write thousand word emails explaining to professors explaining why I couldn't write 600 words for the following day.

The irony was rarely lost on them, as you can imagine.


Part of what terrified me, however justifiably or not, then and also about Madeleine's invitation to contribute is just that: the unearthly anxiety and block I can summon at the slightest sign of deadlines or accountability.

Surely, as I've known now for quite a while, I've grown up immeasurably from that panic-stricken man-child I was back then--back in school, where I'd psych myself out so efficiently that I'd stop going to class for months to avoid that terrible albeit sometimes subtle look of disappointment in my professors' eyes when I'd have to explain why my essay still wasn't done.

But even in spite of my progress, I still feel some of that automatic fear, however foolish, unnecessary, and unfounded.

All the same--I think a quick "hoorah!" is in order for recursivity: writing about how hard it is to write what I'm writing as I write it? Potentially delicious.

Hm hm hm, though. I think that as far as this writing project/piece/thing goes, I haven't much more to say--and shan't, likely, until I've had some time to brainstorm (hey, what else is a 30min train ride good for, anyway?).


I will say, though, that some of this nervousness is different. See, I've spent much of my lifetime idolizing and looking up to Madeleine. She's my older cousin and fabulous; how could I not try to impress her? Which was why this was all so shocking and exciting--'you mean I'm actually good enough to "make it" with the cool kids and get invited!?'.

Reading too much into it? Quite probably.

But that's the same pattern of thinking and interpretation in which anxiety germinates so well. Because some of this worry is whether I'm actually good enough for this literary magazine.

Which is silly. She probably wouldn't have asked if there weren't *any* hope. And even so? What's the use in worrying?

Still, it just seems so...grownup and highbrow. And I mean that in the best, most Woolfian way (and for you slackers who refuse to read that brilliant essay in its entirety). Fancy & impressive are some other words I might use to describe it. It's really quite fantastic.

So of course I worry that I won't be up to snuff.


As usual, it seems, I need to turn my attention from worrying and focus instead on writing. Because, as I'm sure will be of some importance to this piece, the trouble is almost always just that: worrying instead of working.

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Once again, but doing better.

After about a week of real (?) writing, I've been slacking off the last week. I feel a little guilty, naturally.

All the same, I'm actually actively thinking about my writing. I'm even all but settling down and doing it. That's a pretty tasty bit of progress, frankly.

I used to be so bad about even remembering I'm supposed to be a writer, and feel shamed and exposed when I did. Now I've actually got a plan, prospects, a project not only worth working on, but *workable*. I just need to work on it, and I'm pretty sure I can if I gave myself a moment to.

It's a nice feeling, and a nice change of pace. I hope I can learn to feel that way about other projects in my life--at the least, learn to move past the abject terror, dread, and certainty of failure that's so often hung me up before.

Anyway, I'm pretty upbeat about the story. That is to say--only worrying a *little*. This Friday, I'm meeting with my cousin to discuss a literary opportunity. Also, hopefully, have us a lovely chat. Either way, should be plenty exciting.

Meanwhile, tonight I'm stuck at the store doing inventory till some unGodly hour. I should probably get my ass some kind of woke up before that starts, or this could be mighty unpleasant.

Ah well, c'est la vie or some shit.
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I should really try to be productive sometime soon....

I haven't written in acouple days. Shame on me really.

I've heard from a bunch of different writers that the real trick to writing/being successful as a writer is regularity & consistency.

That is write some everyday, usually during a certain time slot.

I think it works two ways. One, it gets you used to writing and getting yourself writerly. So a combination of habit and practice. Two, I think it makes it harder to skip your *writing time*. "Don't bother, it's *writing time*!"

One person even put it as "make writing like your job", meaning that you hold yourself as accountable and punctual as if it were part of any other workday.

In my case, I seem to like mornings. My ADD meds peak around mid/late morning, plus my head isn't yet cluttered with the day. I can focus and my energy is high, the day fresh.

It seems that consistency with one's writing time is more important than quantity of output. It could your 20 minute bus ride to work or a two hour brunchathon, just as long as you do it regularly.

For me, I like to spend at least 10 - 15 minutes reflecting/journaling. Like warming up.& stretching out my muscles before exercise. Gets me more writerly, I like to think.

Prollem is that recently I've really sucked about. With the habit broken or non-existent, it's soooo easy to skip it for a day(s) or forget about it. Right now my hours have felt pretty erratic, and my sleep schedule has been variable.

But is it really so hard to, on days without any work to fight around, settle in for an hour of writing before checking the news and email and twitter and so on?

Maybe somewhere in there a healthy meal, a solid workout, and a shower. Now I'm just talkin crazy.....

But I've done it before, the writing time. And I think I could do it again. Maybe I just need to give myself a chance, or/and maybe I just need to hold myself to it for a bit.

This sounds like a time to try another 30 day challenge.....those can be fun/weird, but effective. Hm. I'll have to think on that'un.

For now, imma head home and nap a bit. It's been a long, somewhat weird day.
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Hoorah!

So yesterday, after blogging-on-the-go and doing a bit of thinking and reflective writing, I did some more drafting and it was a lot more effective/easier. I'd hardly call it "easy", but relative to the other day? Lord, I might actually keep some of the stuff I wrote this time.

The reflective writing touch on some of what the blog post had. Not wanting to be redundant, and wanting to maximize the writing's usefulness (?), I focused more on what I hoped I'd be able to do with that bit of writing and what I liked about what had come out of the previous one.

So I figured, as I wrote that reflective/focusing bit, that one thing I should probably do is set the scene/story a bit more. Frankly, I don't care too much about setting the/this scene. Kind of like Oliver, but hopefully more gracefully/effectively, I want to move on from the accident thing quickly. In his case it's because he's shit at dealing with normal things, nevermind trauma. Me, it's all for plot reasons.

Another note I made to myself, something I actually liked about the rough drafting the other day, was the way I ended up opening it.

"He'd never finished his fries."

In Oliver's mixed up/fucked up brain, he just can't let go of that. That he never got to eat his french fries before the accident struck, and that they're probably cold by now (nevermind covered in broken glass, etc). Yeah, the man survives an interstate pile-up and he's primarily fixated on french fries.

(You know how McDonald's fries are delicious but briefly, then they start to go cold and turn nasty the longer they go uneaten.)

What I really liked about it, though, was I'd already been considering ending it along those same lines. I'd had him worry about his fries near the outset in other early draftiness, but more recently I could tie it together by, despite so much of the story taking place in a fast food restaurant, he yet again doesn't get to eat his fries, and they've probably gone cold.

Hoorah for potential bookending!

Also, as I've just remembered, one strongly considered and highly likely way I may initiate Oliver's freakout/breakdown in the restaurant/restroom is with his trying to get some ketchup and the dispenser not working. This gets him thinking, obliquely, about codependence and what he's doing here at the restaurant at all.

You know, somehow it makes perfect sense to me to hang up a story about codependence and loss and trauma and coping on a scaffold of french fries. Hey, Arthur Miller opens Death of a Salesman with cheese as a blunt alleghory for the American Dream/Willie Loman's hang up(s).

Grrr!

I major fail at this. I tried writing the rough draft of this Oliver story, but I kept getting so self-conscious.

It just sounded stupid. Like, no flow in the sentences or harmony of the words.

I tweeted about my frustration this morning. Though I can't say I'm surprised, I'm a little bummed nobody replied with words of encouragement.

I don't mean I expected some cushy coddling. I just wanted to hear from someone that it's okay for rough drafts to sound a little stupid, to feel unfinished. Everything can be fixed later. It doesn't have to be like magic right away, and that's okay.

All plainly obvious enough, it may seem, but all this is new to me. Actually writing fiction; it turns out it's harder than you might think. And, again, I feel so, so self-concious.

I'm prolly overthinking all this. Like, way overthinking. As I mentioned yesterday, I need to give myself a chance. Put one word after another.

That reminds me of some advice someone once gave me: make the goal as simple as filling up the page, a word at a time even.

I'm gonna have a long wait before I get where I'm headed. Maybe that'll be a good time to try out that advice.
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Introducing: Oliver

I'd had various ideas about this character for years. I'd more or less always thought of using him in several stories. At one point he was going to survive some massive car accident. At another point he was going to have been born with a human tail, and it'd be like a young adult novel about coming to terms with being different. At another point, he was going to be both.

At some point last spring or summer ideas started half-forming around Oliver. I had coffee with a writer friend, and told him about these and other thoughts about this character. Paul commented, "Wow, sounds like he's got a lot going on...". So I slashed the tail part, and focused on the whole car thing. It was a lot more interesting and better formed; the tail part, I realized, was comparatively tacked on.

As for the aftermath of the highway accident, there were a few possibilities. Early, early on I'd wanted to explore something of dysfunctional small town life--they'd be stuck, for whatever reasons, in some town out in the middle of nowhere. From there various possibly melodramatic or existential things were considered. Sink holes. Conspiring townsfolk. Self revelations. All that kinda stuff. My mind eventually wandered, and I somewhat forgot about the whole thing.

When I returned to it, I all but dismissed most of those possibilities. The reason? I'd revamped huge parts of Oliver's character. In the years since I'd last thought about him, I'd gone sober and been working an AA program. In the few months of going to meetings and examining myself, I'd noticed what fascinating and fucked up people alcoholics can be--drunk and, especially, sobering up. All the same old fucked up shit but no longer the emotional crutches of alcohol or other substances, leaving all sorts of maladjustments to run rampant.

So I decided he'd be a recovering alcoholic, specifically what's called a "dry drunk"--a sober alcoholic who isn't working any kind of program or doing anything different, really, except not drinking.

It's been surprisingly easy fleshing him out from there. Insecure, self-conscious, irrational, codependent, sarcastic, bitter, resentful, angry, weak, and so on. Obviously, actually developing the character will likely be tougher, but I've got a pretty good idea to work from.

At this point, that first story with him is coming along really nicely. I had a big-ass breakthrough the other day and outlined the plot in minutes. An actual plot, people. This is a new feeling for me, guys: I've never finished any of my writing projects before.

I'm kinda scared. I don't know if I know how to do this, guys. Developing a plot? creating characters? setting scenes? writing dialogue? laying out and revisiting themes? Jesus!

I think I'll keep doing what I've been doing--just, simply, writing. Saving the worrying and higher-level functions like thematic matrices for later parts. If things emerge sooner, awesome, but I needn't worry. At this point, it's about putting words on the page. Start at the beginning and going on till I come to the end, then stop.

And all the other worries--how to develop and what to develop about the accompanying character, Megan; how to lay out themes without being obnoxiously blunt about it; pacing things....--will have to be put aside for now. That's going to be tough. Really really tough. Or really easy. Who knows.

I'll just have to find out, I guess.

Holy Fantastic!

Yup, first post on this blog. I'm hoping to separate the literary/writing stuff from my main blog mainly to keep from boring people who don't want to be bored. Most of them, I imagine, go to my blog looking for amusing, (hopefully) witty stories about my life or commentary on funny/dumb shit I find on the internet. On, and those reviews I tend to do now and then.

So this blog will focus on my writing itself. Excerpts and drafts of writing projects; notes and thoughts and ideas for writing projects; and eventually, if I may be so fortunate, finished writing projects.

See, I like to do a lot of thinking and writing and note-making about my writing, so I figure it'd prolly bore the faces off anyone not actually interested in that kinda stuff.

Anyway, I'm too distracted by other people to double check this post for usefulness and pointfulness, and also I'd rather get to actually writing up some notes & thoughts on the current project that finally gave me cause to start this blog. Whee!