Category: Literary Life Observations

I don’t write resolutions.
I am horrible. horrible, horrible at consistency. The only routine I have is randomness, so there’s really no point in resolutions for me.
What I do like to do is create opportunities to start over again. The end of a season, the beginning of a new year — these are reasonable times to start over.

I was replying to AF’s thoughts on the new year, and my comments got long enough to be their own post! So, no goals to share, just a few thoughts that can be applied to anything:

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.” – Sir Winston Churchill

Need a bit more? “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” – also a Churchill quote.

I think of salmon swimming upstream, when I think of writing. Yeah, it’s about that hard sometimes, but every year, salmon get the job done. Bears, shallow water, eagles and losing their way don’t stop that homing instinct from operating. They make the effort regardless of the difficulty.

Our writing group has a mock “wall of shame” where we report to each other our rejection letters. Even as we admit our failures, we are also admitting our attempts. Failure, in the face of unremitting attempt, is transient. It, too, shall pass…

Another skill salmon possess is the ability to change the direction of their attack. They’re always heading home, but the difference between leaping up between these two rocks on the left, and above this chipped rock on the right is small. I think human beings don’t know how to change direction enough. Sometimes as writers we feel our identity is tied up in a certain kind of writing. It’s worth considering nonfiction if you only write fiction, a female protagonist if you only write males, a story about a mother and daughter if your work is overpopulated with fathers and uncles. And it can go deeper than that. Really looking at your work will show you themes and theories that you constantly espouse. Are they true? Could they use an update? A change might do you good…

Salmon can’t quit. It’s not up to them to decided, “Ah, didn’t want to go back to the spawning ground anyway.” If you have a writing group and friends to keep you honest, you’ll find you have no choice, either. People in your corner are the best gift you can give yourself. A writer is sometimes only as strong as their writing group.

Persist. The only way to make a comeback is to continue onward. Think of all of the entertainers and sports personalities who have made comebacks — repeatedly, in some cases. They simply trained and rehearsed and leaped into the national consciousness again. It’s possible for anyone.

Attitude, they say, is everything. Since it’s not over ’til you say so, don’t.

*Click on the graphic if you can’t see it clearly. The little puzzle says, “What’s the difference between what you think and what you do — and what you’re doing?” Seriously: a point to ponder.

Ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή, ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξὺς, ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερὴ, ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή.

Life is short, [the] art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult. – Hippocrates

Last week was difficult — trying hard to focus and shut out the world long enough to work. I have gotten good at ignoring the world around me {EDIT: that’s an outright lie, incidentally, but we post what makes us look good. Maybe I can say I have gotten *better* because I resigned from a Committee… right before we found out we were leaving the country. Progress. Of a sort.}, but now that my time here among family and friends is dwindling, I’ve begun feeling guilty about shutting people out.

Many, many people never really have understood that writing requires time to stare out the window and doodle on sticky notes before lucidity sifts through the morning haze or inspiration suddenly strikes, and so they have started to push a bit, chiding, “well, you don’t have to do that all day,” and suggesting archly that I pop over and bring them the contents of my cupboard (“well, what are you guys planning to do with your garden goodies?”) or meet them somewhere for coffee. As much as I love everyone {EDIT: HAH. Again. Isn’t this girl nice? Is she getting on your nerves yet?}, I am beginning to think that I should commit this poem to memory, and begin reciting it under my breath at opportune moments.

“The Art of Disappearing” by Naomi Shihab Nye from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. © The Eighth Mountain Press.

The Art of Disappearing

When they say Don’t I know you?

say no.

When they invite you to the party

remember what parties are like

before answering.

Someone telling you in a loud voice

they once wrote a poem.

Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.

Then reply.

If they say We should get together

say why?

It’s not that you don’t love them anymore.

You’re trying to remember something

too important to forget.

Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.

Tell them you have a new project.

It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store

nod briefly and become a cabbage.

When someone you haven’t seen in ten years

appears at the door,

don’t start singing him all your new songs.

You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.

Know you could tumble any second.

Then decide what to do with your time.

Hippocrates meant that the art of medicine is long — and broad and deep and full of questions which he in his short life could not hope to touch. I think writers — even, and perhaps especially young adult writers — need to take ourselves and our art and our perspectives just as seriously. Unplug the phone. Set aside time from spouses or students or dependents, and give yourself time to dig into that which you dream – whatever it may be. It’s not harsh to make time for you.

{EDIT: These are the bits I edited out last night; I a.) begged Himself to phone the couple back, twice, and say “forget it, we’re on,” – fortunately they had gone out, and he refused to call their cellphones, b.) woke early this morning prepared to mail them an apology card – no email, thanks, this is etiquette, and I’d blown it, c.) apologized all day yesterday for going upstairs and refusing to put on company clothes for the person who dropped in (“well, we’re just in the area”) to introduce their perhaps future spouse, c.) felt miserable and mean and petty and small for my soul’s objections, that no one would like me or think I was nice, that the Beeyatch Patrol was going to come for me because I was deliberately flaunting the Nice Girl Law that says you MUST do what everyone wants or be thought that b-word, that I was digging my own grave and would be miserable and alone (despite the fact that I am an introvert with a public persona, and a writer, and alone time for me is usually… good)

But then. I found out that Robin has the same disease, except her Inner Child is a lot more mature than mine – it still listens to the Older Wiser Child. Mine needs a time out. Bless you, Robin, for articulating this, and doubly bless you, Jules, for breaking your own blogation/vacation to point our Robin’s thoughts to me. It’s a lifesaving kind of daisy chain, and today we both may keep our heads a little higher above the water and actually get something done.}

Ezine‘Bread & Circus’ has a few words on YA authors – mainly, that it’s time to just leave them alone… hopefully to write.

Another week already. Be well.

I just need to accept that I’m not getting anything done today.

It rained a little this morning, and so at six-thirty I was wrestling gleefully with my garden, tying things on stakes, and enjoying the cool — which I thought would dissipate. THREE HOURS LATER, I’m still pulling weeds and look up — oops! — at the time. It was still cool and dim and I just… lost track.

Running errands and “dropping by” my parents house to pick something up meant a nice long ramble with my grandmother, who is lovely but often vague and begins conversations mid-topic, and insists on confusing me with my sister who has the two week old infant. (She invariably asks, with alarm and accusation, “Where did you leave that boy?!” And I try to say as gently as possible, “With his mother?”)

Extricating myself from THAT conversation and finally getting home meant a backlog of email, which I dallied through, and then finally, FINALLY opening my revision and beginning the grunt work of hacking away… Only to find my sister, whose best friend lives two doors down, had dropped in for a “chat.” And so I hurried downstairs from my office and chatted with two eleven-year-olds for roughly an hour. Never mind that my protagonist is in a car on a boring cross-country trip with her sister and grandmother, and has just discovered the hotel they’re staying in has a guest bathrobe and a mini bar. No, I clung to reality and talked with my guests about the new 6th grade teacher, Ms. Carmen, who bought them Slurpees last year and how she’s moving to England to get married, and how much that sucked, because my sister and her friend thought she was nice, and wasn’t it a long engagement, because didn’t she show them that ring in something like third grade?

I love having eleven-year-old friends. They are awfully diverting. But they were NOT helping me toward my goal of a chapter a day on the last two weeks of my revision.

Finally, back to work… with a side trip. Via Bookshelves of Doom, I discovered the joyousness that is the Literary Gas guy, and through him I found… book… perfume. Leather… or clothbound, with a hint of mildew… Which reminded me that for a Super Special Project happening at the end of August, I have a 1952 FIRST EDITION of a book by an author whom I LOVED as a kid that has that wonderful musty smell of old-book-but-new-to-me. I thought, I could start that… just a chapter… if I write JUST a chapter… if I get that done, I’ll run a bath, and read for two hours.

I thought I could manage that – one chapter = two hours of bath and book.

Unfortunately, Chasing Ray’s post really got me thinking about war, and I had to take some time to jot down some musings in a notebook. Technically, this could be construed as working… but not quite. Read the piece for yourself: it will make you write things down, too. (Probably things with four letters.) Writing thoughtful essays: not working on my FICTION piece.

You know, at Read*Write*Believe, I learned about the Writer Hating Bus… and realized that it was probably idling downstairs in front of my house. THIS REVISION IS DOOMED.

For today, at least.
We’ll see about tomorrow.