Writing about writing again, but sometimes confessions are necessary...

“I hate writing. I love having written.” - Dorothy Parker

I bought this from The Rumpus.

I can’t tell if this is too “inside baseball” because many of my friends are writers. We do what writers do: 1. Talk about writing. 2. Procrastinate. 3. Repeat steps 1 and 2.

I AM working on a second book. It has a shape and a focus, but I tend to be “all or nothing” about my projects; if it can’t be perfect, then I don’t want to make the effort. And there are so many important things that need doing. Earlier this summer, I realized I forgot to watch The Wire. So I watched all five seasons in about a month like it was my second job. Then I had to start watching Luther, because Idris Elba.

I put off buying an e-reader forever. I LOVE BOOKS. How could I betray my beloved READING EXPERIENCE with an electronic device? Then I bought a Kindle Fire and it made me feel like I could live without paper forever, even just for the thrill of thinking of a book I once read a million years ago and being able to download it at 1 a.m. and read it. Instant gratification. Writing is not instant gratification. Unless writing a Tweet, which is extraordinarily satisfying. I have written almost 8,000 of them, which in sum total is a book-length work, albeit a boring one.

I still write ideas down in a paper notebook. I also have Evernote on my phone, laptop and tablet. I can’t say that technology has made be more productive (probably the opposite), plus instead of just a notebook full of brilliant ideas mocking me from the depths of my shoulder bag, the mocking comes from multiple sources. I have Tetris on my tablet for some stupid reason. A feed reader of informative blog posts and articles to attend to. I’ve watched 50 episodes of Shin Chan on Hulu in the past three months.

All of this side business (bullshit) means that my notes stagnate, angry, unruly, unattended to: “Hey, um, so…think you’ll get to work on me this weekend? You know, ‘cause you said you were excited about it and all, but here we sit—how long has it been? A month? I know you’ve got all that television to watch and those naps to take and, well, I’m sure that fascinating thing about your ex-boyfriend from a million years ago really needs to get written for your blog. I’m sure all of that takes precedence over, say, the possibility of a review in the Times before you turn 80. Whatever.” My notes are a sarcastic bitch.

It probably doesn’t help that I want my second book to be mine-all-mine, not advice, not for anyone else, my Didion book. And I decided that 45 would be a good age to publish this unwritten masterpiece, which is not right now, but later. Except this one doesn’t want to wait and it isn’t going away. But I push back. I’ve been on central time for three and a half years now and I still can’t get used to prime time television starting at 7 p.m. I have a day job that requires a lot of reading and editing, and it pays the bills, so if I feel like watching four hours of television or staring at the ceiling instead of writing, hey, at least my bills are paid.

Weary of covering my ears and humming every time a new thought surfaces, I set a schedule. I resolved to sit down and use the 5,000 words of notes I have accumulated, turn them into 60,000 words of brilliance, and I will do this for 10 hours a week. Last week, I wrote for one hour (not counting day job related writing or navel-gazing blog writing or Tweets or vaguely insightful Facebook posts). I know it’s bad when things I hate take precedence over my writing schedule: Laundry. Vacuuming, which I do monthly when my dog is at the groomer so she won’t go mental when she sees the Bissell Pet Vac (as in "good for sucking up pet hair," not "good for sucking up pets," but dogs think what they think). Financial paperwork that I don’t care about (someone else can figure out how to roll over my 401(k) into whatever stupid savings thing that won’t cause me to have to pay taxes). Did I already say laundry?

I have coached writers. I know what I am supposed to do when my brain wants to scrub the bathtub and organize the linen closet before I can sit down to write. Those are the thoughts I should ignore. I should sit in front of a blank page and let the words come. I should deactivate my Facebook account. I should stop reading the amazing ideas of others and start writing my own. Physician, heal thyself? I used to think it was weird to see doctors smoking cigarettes or eating fast food, but maybe it’s not weird at all. Maybe it comes down to a choice: Help others or help myself.

So, first step. I will forget the “what ifs.” What if this person gets mad because I wrote a thinly veiled description of a thing that happened a long time ago? What if people judge me? What if I don’t have a second book in me? What if I fail? Then I will find the rational part of me that hates the fact that I am never satisfied with my last great achievement and convince it to hunker down and get to work on a chapter outline.

I’m telling you these things because I need you to know that I am not fragile. You can expect things from me. I won’t flinch, make excuses, or fall apart. This is what we do, my friends. This is what we do, having written. Let's all write like motherfuckers.

Housekeeping? Housekeeping.

After waffling back and forth about whether or not to archive my old blog and start a new one (it felt like throwing away a lot of memories), stop blogging altogether (but I have sooo much material waiting to be loosed upon the world), or do "something" with my existing site to make it fun for me again (it felt so clunky forever and I had gotten in the habit of heading over to Twitter or Tumblr when I have something to say), I picked door number three.

This is my toe in, re-introduction, new beginning, the opening of the floodgates (I like that one the best). It's been three years since I've blogged on a regular basis, and I want to thank my friends Angie Mizzell, Aleigh Acerni, Doretha Walker and all of the blogs in my reader (so many) for inspiring me and inspiring me and inspiring me once more. I've been testing the waters for a long time and I'm ready to get my hair wet (and if you know me well, you understand that this is kind of a big deal because me getting my hair wet in a chlorinated kiddie pool is equal to most other people diving from a high cliff into the ocean).

If you're reading this post in a reader, you are probably confused. Click over to my blog and see the "something" I did with my site. I'd love your feedback, even if you just want to throw out the spirit fingers (Angie). And since the actual work on my part was choosing a designer, let me add that Carrie of CarrieLovesDesign.com is responsible for all of sexiness up in here.

So with renewed vigor and enthusiasm, let the navel-gazing commence! 

Still here at year's end...

I haven't been far from here, the cruise control has been on and I've had a lot of little moments. I've had the words but not the time to share, so before the year runs out, let me leave you with:

we don't want these days to ever end,
to ever end,
to ever end,
to ever end.

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

If you are at first lonely...

I first posted this sometime in 2010, but I love it so much I thought I'd share it again. It made me feel okay about being okay with being alone. (say that three times fast.)

"If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it."



Video by the extremely talented filmmaker Andrea Dorfman and poet/singer/songwriter Tanya Davis.

"Alone" doesn't always mean "lonely." And when it does, "lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it."

Today I enjoy the view...

Inspired by creative and talented writer friends Angie Mizzell and Janet Lee - because their work and words have given me reason to hitch up my creative britches and get to writing more than they know - I'm sharing my own writing space(s).

My "home office" (and the desktop where my iTunes library still lives):


Even though I do most of my writing on my laptop - and occasionally handwriting in a notebook - so I'm often here:


Or on my back deck, here:


It's the words, the inspiration, the motivation that comes from knowing someone else is struggling to make those words matter, just like you are (or should be). Once those words are out there, we tend to forget how they came together. I want to remember and live for right now, not upon publication, not when the check comes, not later, now. I want to enjoy the view.

Today I shall share things with which I am obsessed...

I was reading some old blog posts this week (yes, I do that, like anyone would look back through a journal or diary) and wondering (yet again) what happened to my inspiration, my funny, my neurosis, f-words and emotional clutter. My latest theory is that I still have it all, I've just been keeping it to myself. So now I will share.

Rookie. I am a grown woman and I love this site because it makes me feel nostalgic for my younger self who loved Sassy magazine and "My So-Called Life" and pink Hello Kitty notebooks. It was founded by a 15-year-old style blogger. Swap out your plain shoelaces for ribbon or yarn.

A Beautiful Mess. The first time I've wanted to introduce a blog site to another blog site because I think they should know one another. Sabrina, meet Elsiecake. Elsiecake, Sabrina. You both inspire me to be more creative.

The Johnny Cash Project. A fine tribute to the man in black.

Doctor Who. Go ahead and laugh at the woman who said "I'm just not into sci-fi." I've laughed (because others were laughing, not because I got the joke) at "Trust me, I'm a doctor" out of the mouths of many friends in the past 15 years. Caught a few episodes from 2010 on BBC On Demand and now I'm hooked. And too old to care if you think I'm a nerd.

Pinterest. Sucked into the k-hole of pinning and re-pinning, liking and loving my Pinterest boards. They're like mood boards, but online and you can see your friends' boards. Join me?

As Simple as That. It's been a long time since I read a stranger's blog and wanted to smack myself for crushing my own creativity. Hannah Katy made me do that. Especially this post.

Other than that, I'm obsessed with getting from the south side to the north side of the city today without losing my sanity (an attendance record-breaking Austin City Limits Fest starts today and bad traffic has turned to primary highway parking lot). I'm obsessed with doing nothing this weekend except laundry. I have brain drain. I have allergies. I miss my dog when I'm at work. I finished A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and it made me cry in three places and feel gut-wrenchingly nostalgic throughout. Still wondering what the female version of Peter Pan is because I don't know what to call my delayed adolescence (although my delayed adolescent "doesn't like labels") and I'm starting to feel like a babysitter for myself.

And if you could do me a small favor? Use the word "indeed" on a regular basis. It's a wonderful word and I fear that it could disappear from our language altogether. Indeed.

Have been coveting this for months...

Inspired by the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster produced by the British government in 1939 during World War II with the intention of raising the morale of the British public under threat of invasion, I love this poster from the KeepCalmShop on Etsy:

I love the vintage typewriter, love the "stiff upper lip" British-inspired phrasing, love that it reminds me to dial it down and keep the words coming. I want to hang it above my desk.

I also love the the KeepCalmShop's Etsy store's bio: "During an economic drop we saw a decline in people remaining active in things they loved to do. Money should never be a boundary to the creative desires of the heart. So we wanted to send a message of encouragement to all, to 'Keep doing what you love'.... and then the love of doing it will follow."

Yes.

How to be alone...

I stumbled across this video in one of my RSS feeds and have watched it four or five times already. As someone living in a still-strange city where it's hard to make friends, it really touched me. Beautiful, strange, and heartwarming.

"If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it."



Video by the extremely talented filmmaker Andrea Dorfman and poet/singer/songwriter Tanya Davis.

A must-watch for anyone who has ever found themselves in an "alone" situation, and a reminder that "alone" doesn't always mean "lonely." And when it does, "lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it."

Seeking a Universal Truth...

I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but life - as it does - kept interrupting. In 2008, my friend Ida Becker set off on a journey around the world to seek a universal truth. I was in awe of her courage, her traveling bug, and her ability to document and capture something that is so elusive. I was lucky enough to be part of the project before she set off around the world while I was still in Charleston and just watched the video again this week. It reminded me that the truth I gave to Ida in March of 2008, the same day she shot my photo, is still true: "What I know now that I wish I knew when I was in my twenties: One, stop waiting for your life to begin — it’s happening right now. Two, your sense of humor can be a survival mechanism. And three, stop being so hard on yourself."

It took losing touch with my own truth last year to remind me how important it is to remember these things. And I thank Ida for putting together a beautiful video for her project. I printed out the photo and my truth and hung it up above my desk so I won't forget again.



Watch the video and see for yourself. And visit Ida's web site for more information and inspiration - it's worth it.

Guilty on all counts...

• Working from home and not respecting my own boundaries (i.e. "end of day" means I stop working). Too many nights over the past few weeks spent working on various projects late into the evenings. Verdict: Guilty.
• Giving the cat Albacore tuna (not cheap, BTW) three days in a row because I haven't had time/energy/inclination to go to the grocery store and buy cat food. Verdict: Guilty.
• Not showering/washing my hair for TWO DAYS IN A ROW. Verdict: Gross.
• Ordering Pad Thai for dinner last night because I didn't want to cook and my pantry was running low anyway (see: not going to the grocery store). Verdict: Guilty.
• Writing, but the kind of writing that won't see the light of day for some time. Let's call it cathartic writing, except that it stopped being cathartic and instead has caused hostility, anger, and a general bad mood to resurface. I've been in therapy on and off since childhood and I should know to leave it be for a while by now. But I don't. Verdict: Guilty. And stupid.
• Being happy that it rained all day Monday so I didn't have to take the dog for a long walk - meaning no exercise for me either and I spent the entire day with face in computer. Verdict: Guilty.
• Feeling guilty about all of the above and not cutting myself very much slack. Verdict: Guilty.

What can I say? Do you want to hear about all of the billing I have out for work I've yet to be paid for? Do you want to know how difficult it is to make a living on a project by project basis? Do you want a rant about how worried I am about my COBRA running out at the end of the year and the possibility that I may not be able to get coverage because I'm diabetic? Alternately, I have another rant about paying $400 a month for health insurance. I made a commitment to be positive - no matter what happens, no matter how low my checking account dips, no matter how many unpaid bills or time I spend on projects that I may or may not get paid for?

I don't even want to hear about that. But after having lunch with a friend last week and an interesting discussion about appearances versus reality, maybe I should write here more often about what the life of a freelancer is really like. It sounds glamorous and exciting to say I work from home, I set my own hours, I pick the projects I want to work on. But it's all one big scramble to make ends meet, and some months they don't meet very well.

I hear from other writers all the time - some friends, some casual acquaintances - and they want to know how I do it. This is how I do it: by the seat of my f*cking pants. I know I'm lucky. I have talent and skills and have learned a lot of new things this year. I can build web sites from scratch, I can build online advertising networks, I can be a media planner, I can edit, I can write. Survival skills. Don't underestimate them. And if you're a young writer planning on taking the leap from your boring day job to the exciting world of freelancing, stop and think about it first. If you have employer sponsored health insurance and a 40-hour a week job, there are many hours left in the week to write and submit articles and see your byline all over the place so you can feed your ego. But keep the day job, at least until the economy turns around or publishers get smart and start paying living wages for online content, because print media seems to be continuing its downward decline.

Expect more honesty from me here. I don't want to be responsible for anyone thinking they're "less than" because it appears that I'm not only paying my bills, but rolling in all of the extra money I'm making because I got a book published and write articles for magazines sometimes.

/confession

My new "calling cards"...

I ordered these cards from Nella Designs' Etsy shop - half black and half cherry - and got them in the mail last week. Already totally in love with them! Very retro design and well received to those I've handed out so far. Elizabeth has a wonderful designer's eye and has lots of fun (and affordable) products in her Etsy shop, not just calling cards. But I'll definitely be re-ordering these...maybe chartreuse and pink next time.


There's just something so elegant and old-fashioned about calling cards. They don't scream "I want your business," rather, they quietly and politely say, "get in touch if you'd like" or "let's be friends." Love.

What I do all day...

As one of my nieces so elegantly put it over the holidays, "so now that you don't have a job, what do you DO all day?" I was sleep deprived and didn't feel like getting into it, so I told her I ate bon bons, slept late every day and watched DVDs. She said, "must be nice." It was Christmas, so instead of saying, "actually I'd rather have a full-time job and I've been applying all over the place and being on unemployment sucks," I said, "yeah, it is nice."

I can't even call myself a former workaholic, because I've discovered that I am a workaholic whether I have a "real" job or not. After spending almost 5 months of 12-14 hours days (sometimes longer) working on press for a congressional campaign, I'll admit to sleeping a lot in the weeks following Election Day. But that didn't last very long. I decided I needed a reason to get up in the morning, so I got a puppy. I've wanted a dog for a while (no one was more surprised than I, being a lifelong cat person) and it wasn't the only reason I decided to bring Lou into my little family, but there are a lot of benefits. The best one: I go for 4 or 5 long walks a day because she's very active and forces me to (a) get out of the house and (b) get some exercise. And having a puppy is like a job. Between Lou and Miss Kitty, I spend a lot of time feeding and brushing and bathing and taking care of my four-legged little ones.

Once I got my groove back, I started writing again. I have a schedule. I get up in the morning and after I walk the dog, I power on the laptop and start working. I've written a few pieces that haven't gone anywhere yet, one for Charleston Magazine's March issue, and have scheduled four speaking engagements and workshops to promote my book so far. When I run out of writing ideas, I run through my to-do list. I've done a lot of early spring cleaning around the house, caught up on all of the things I dropped the ball on while I was working for the campaign, and even managed to spend time socially with friends and family. I'm definitely not an anomaly. I think I actually have more friends who have been laid off or otherwise dismissed from jobs last year than I do friends who still have full-time jobs.

This is the short answer. I love working from home again, love afternoon naps, love being able to go to a yoga class in the middle of the day, love walks with Lou, and love that I always have clean clothes and a clean house, and I'm healthier than I've been in months. But since I'm on COBRA, I'm paying a ridiculous amount for health insurance, have been dipping into savings to cover bills (no idea how anyone can live off of unemployment), and have applied for jobs that I never thought I'd consider six months ago (like corporate management positions). It took longer than I thought to get my creative mojo back, but the muse is taking baby steps and she's beginning to trust me. And I've made a promise that I'll never ignore her for long periods of time again.

Putting a toe in the water...

It was a wild ride, folks. I got four months of "how to run press for a political campaign" boot camp. I made some great friends. I had a lot of really good (long) days, and a few bad ones. In the end, my candidate only lost by four percentage points. She did really well in Charleston County, got more votes than Obama in Horry County, and I think we ran a hell of a campaign. I have lots of stories, but need some time to process before jumping in all the way.

My job didn't end on Election Day - I was really busy until the 15th and have been doing some of the things I listed in my previous post, but mostly sleeping and spending time with the family. I had a birthday (strangely, did not get a year older). I spent Thanksgiving with my mom, three sisters, five nieces, one nephew, a brother-in-law, a nephew-in-law (is there such a thing?), and some family friends. We ate a disgusting amount of food and played Cranium all afternoon.

And now I'm trying to get back into a routine, go through my list of all of the things that I've been putting off for four months, and getting my creative mojo back. Step one: start blogging again. Check.

It always starts with a sentence...

I haven't seriously worked on fiction in a long time. I've had good excuses - busy with the day job, the writing of the personal nonfiction, writing a nonfiction book - but I've ached to get back to it. The most I've been able to accomplish is taking old stories that never went anywhere and re-working them from time to time.

I went to bed last night around 2am, expecting to have the kind of lazy Sunday morning that I love - getting up briefly to make coffee and grab the Sunday New York Times from the porch while still in my pajamas, back into bed with coffee and paper, watching Sunday Morning on CBS and reading the NYT Magazine during commercials, maybe even dozing off until noon.

Instead, I was wide awake before 7am with sentences running through my head. They weren't mine - they belonged to a character I haven't heard from in a long time. And because I learned a long time ago if I didn't get them down on paper or in a Word document right then and there, they would be lost forever. I won't lie; I did consider rolling back over and going back to sleep. But she wouldn't let me and I had a feeling if I didn't get up and get it down she wouldn't come back, maybe ever.

So I've been writing this morning for hours. I think I've hit around 6,000 words (granted, no editing at all - just the writing and writing). Mixed in with some of the other phrases that were running through my head was something about this character disappearing. I thought it was a veiled threat from this particular muse that she wouldn't return unless I put fingers to keyboard. But later I realized that it was the character - the woman becoming invisible, the one who was afraid of disappearing.

This is the paragraph in the first few that turned the light on for me:

She felt like she was suspended — not just in time, because that had already slowed so gradually she was scarcely aware of the absence of forward movement — but weightless and insignificant. She floated just out of the perception of anyone who may have been paying attention. She disappeared, faded in and out. She was more than invisible. She was vague; she was vapor. Just being empty could have done it, she thinks wryly, no explanation needed. But explanations are needed.

I'm going to finish this one. Maybe today (maybe not because my hands are cramping now and I think I need a nap), maybe later this week. But I will finish it. Because inspiration might be like lightning - random and fleeting and never in the same place twice. And because explanations are needed.

(photo by Mallory Morrison)

You show me yours and I'll show you mine...

Inspiration, I mean. I'm working on my essay for Skirt's October issue and it's supposed to be about creativity. So for the past week or so, I've been thinking about what inspires me, how it works, what used to inspire me but doesn't any longer, and how I'm going to find my next source. The basic facts:

* I lost my muse a few years ago and that's just not a position you can place an ad to fill. So I've been muse-less.
* Creative inspiration is like a drug. After a while, the same dose doesn't do it for me anymore.
* People ask me how I can write an essay every month and how I managed to write a book in just three months. The answer is easy: I do not have a social life. I knew what I was getting into when I chose what I do for a living. I love what I do, but I also know what I've given up. Long term relationships are few and far between because, really, who would want intimate details of their life put out into the world for public consumption?
* I don't know the answers to (a) where ideas come from, (b) how ideas turn into essays, or (c) how I stay motivated. I work as hard at keeping myself inspired as I do at actually writing about what inspires me.

Here's my latest source of inspiration: Inspiration Boards Flickr Pool.

To all of my creative writer and artist friends out there: What inspires you? Please share. It's an emergency.

Today I need this more than you do, part seven...

A weekend spent in seclusion with too much thinking and not enough sleeping calls for another installment in my random and occasional "what I love today" series.

J'adore: Jasmine rice, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel (nothing like watching someone try to scarf down turkey intestines while I eat Chinese food for dinner...totally fascinating), super samples from Sephora, that someone finally thought to create makeup + powder + SPF all in one, the "I'm taking your picture now!" clicky camera noise my new digital camera makes, the Visual Dictionary has many definitions for "love," love lines, going 48 hours news-free wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, other peoples' inspiration boards, Motion City Soundtrack's The Future Freaks Me Out, my teeny pink iPod Shuffle (downloaded almost eight hours of podcasts and still didn't fill the little bugger up), Parker Posey on the small screen, a little word-by-word inspiration.

What matters is saying yes...

When people ask me how to get their articles/essays/books published, how they can get a job like mine, how I get my ideas, or how they can write for a living, I never know what to say. I spent a long time not working on my own projects and resenting and being jealous of the creativity of others. A couple of years ago, I read the following quote:

"Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a f***load of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but, Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes."
~Dave Eggers, The Harvard Advocate

Now every time I hear that little voice in my head telling me I can't do something as well as this person or that person, or that it's going to be a long time before I'm the next Joan Didion, I respond with a simple "yes." Forget everyone else and focus on your own. Eggers is right; it is a lot of work. But it's worth it.