Happy Holidays!

Despite my best intentions, I have not been here as much as I wanted. In part, for good reasons, because I wrote a Nanowrimo novel and I have been working on finishing it ever since. My spare moments have been spent untangling plot points, fleshing out characters, and creating backstory. And it's been as frustrating and wonderful as I remembered it. The words come harder than they once did, during the halcyon early days of this blog. My fairly-clean first drafts are a thing of the past. The words are messy, halting.

But they are coming.

Unfortunately, it's as though I have a very limited amount of words at my disposal everyday, and most of those go towards my story. Maybe next year, when I am more confident, I'll be able to talk about the process of creating the story itself, my new love affair with YA literature, and everything I think I am learning. But for now, I am still so hesitant, too nervous to look too closely at this for fear I'll return to the aching silence of most of last year.

So, instead, I'll just wish you a wonderful holiday season, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza or just the pleasure of your feet crunching in newly fallen snow. I hope that you approach this time with the same "dreaming eyes of wonder" that glow in Madam's uplifted face as she sees her Christmas tree lit up and half-buried in presents.

Revel.

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Sunday Scribblings: Pilgrimage (a short short)

(Hajj pic from here.)

Ed note: Just a short little story inspired by this weeks Sunday Scribbling prompt. It's been a while.
____________________________________________________________
Me? I'm nothing.

You know that feeling you get when you walk down the halls of your school, and a draft of air blows past you? That feeling like maybe you should look around, see if you missed something? But also feeling a little dumb, and not wanting anyone to see you looking around for nothing?

I'm that nothing. And believe me, I've worked at it.

We've all lived in this neighborhood so long it's like we've worn a groove into the cement. First my brothers, Rich and Tom. Then my sister, Angie. Another brother Johnny. Sister Liz. And then me, Jenny. Some days it can feel like my sneakers are trudging into their footsteps, but my feet never quite fit. And so I trip, a lot.

Everybody knows my family. They remember the red sirens streaking across the walls of their houses, breaking through the gray. They remember the muttered metallic gibberish of the police radios as the cops' big hands shoved my brothers' heads into the car. Maybe their heads had a groove too. A rut where only cops' big hands could fit.

My sisters? They kept their terror local—inside the walls of the school itself. I still get the sideline look and scuffle from the older girls, even the tall, tough ones. The ones who remember them, and see my red hair and pale skin as an ugly echo.

Usually, I tried to stay out of everyone's way. This was easier than it sounded, thanks to Aziza Manjur and her family. They've lived in the neighborhood almost as long as we have, and are probably the first Muslims anyone around here ever met. People gave them the weird glances for a while, but they were just too normal. They lived in the same type of two story gray house we all did, with wooden steps that sagged after years of too much snow. Mr. Manjur taught me to drive behind the wheel of their old Honda with the scratches on the doors. Mrs. Manjur taught me to cook mutton, and boil tea. I'm sure if you look at their family pictures, you'll see me, pale as a ghost, floating off to one side. But still there.
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For a while, it was just the Manjurs, and me, and everyone else, but then something happened. It was like a worm hole opened between Somalia and here, and before long, there was a whole community of them here. The girls all looked a little like Aziza, except for those glittery head scarves that made their heads look like sleepy flowers. These girls smiled their shy, toothy smiles at me, but chattered to Aziza in that language that sounded like a bunch of As and Bs and Ms to me. And Aziza, who used to streak her dark hair orange and pink for parties (I used to have to hold her head over the sink for hours afterwards. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Manjur never knew), would stroll over to them, and talk back. The Manjurs were always busy. But they always offered me the use of the house. Sometimes, I didn't bother. Alone is alone, even with cable and nicer furniture.

It shouldn't have surprised me the day I picked her up to go to school, and she was wearing a pink flowered head scarf. She walked next to me like everything was normal, except she didn't even look at me. She kept sneaking glances of her new head in car windows.

“So...your mom and dad finally insisted?”

“Nah, I decided to try it for myself.” She tossed her head a little, like she'd grown a new mane of hair. The spangles in the scarf caught what little light was around us and seemed to reflect little pink spotlights on the dull snow piles.

“That doesn't even match what you are wearing.” I said, keeping my eyes on the cracked, iced sidewalk in front of me.

“You know it's not about that, Jen. Besides,” she added with a grin. “I kind of like the idea that it doesn't match. Feels more like me.”

“So...you gonna teach me how to wear one?” We always tried stuff together.

She stopped short. “Jen...this isn't...I mean...”

“I know.” We'd reached the school. I walked away from Aziza, but not before I noticed the excited crowd of girls around Aziza, pressing against her like jungle birds.

And then at the end of homeroom, Ms. Carena muttered her usual question about “Any announcements?” That was our cue to push our chairs away and trudge into our day. But Aziza stood up and said, “I have something. Uh...I'll be out of school for the next month. My family is going to hajj. The pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims need to take once in their lifetime. We're leaving, uh...this weekend.” I noticed she was using her “Explaining things to non-Muslims, and everyone not named Jenny” voice and felt a little smug, until her words hit me. Going?

I caught up with her in the hallway and managed to tear her away from the Somali girls for once. They were like an honor guard.

“When were you going to tell me?”

“Didn't you notice we were packing stuff?”

“Yeah, to send to family. Like you all do all the damn time.”

“A bunch of us are going this year.”

“Oh, you need to go because these girls are going? Like its Prom?”

“What?” She looked confused. I wished I could still see all of her. “I meant...a bunch of family. From England. From Somalia. It's a big deal.”

“Take me with you.”

“Jen...it's, uh...it's not a vacation. It's a pilgrimage. It's, like, super-holy to us.”

“I can be holy.” The endless rows of lockers faded from my eyes and I started to see myself there, surrounded by millions of other people, a part of the Manjurs' “us.”

“So...OK. Then you stay here. Let your folks go alone. You have the rest of your life to do this.”

“Yeah, like Mama and Papa would just lea...”

“Right.”

“Anyway, Mama and Papa already said no. It's not like I didn't ask.” Her words were clipped. We'd reached my classroom. “See you later.”

“Fine.”

Oh, I wished that I could tap into that blood rage that marks my family. But maybe I'd been neglecting it too long. Unlike my brothers, who would have just slammed Aziza and her new friends into the pavement, and unlike my sisters, who would have found a way to make Aziza kill herself in self-loathing, I...couldn't do anything. Except sit and start my class, so that's what I did.

After school, I sat in the Manjurs' living room, and I couldn't believe I'd ignored all this. Huge suitcases lay open all over the floor in the living room and hallways. Silky piles of fabric and chiffon pooled inside of them, and draped on the couches and chairs. The room looked excited, happy—full of something I couldn't explain. I wanted to be anywhere else.

The Manjurs were trying to include me, I could tell. “Oh, Jenny....could you hand me that file folder? Oh, Jen...could you please make sure I'm not forgetting...?” I already had a set of keys, instructions on where the circuit breaker was, and a stern admonition to “eat for EVERY meal...not just the ones you remember.” Once I caught Mr. Manjur looking at me, a puzzled, sad expression on his face. Again, blood rose up in me, and wanted to flow through the ruts that were already inside of me.

I'm not sure when I found myself alone in the room.

The lamplight glowed warm, red in the room, making it look smaller, shoved up full with stuff for the pilgrimage. The whole room appeared to be leaving at once.

I stood up, stroked the ceremonial white suit draped on the back on my chair. Folded it and dropped it in the mouth of the open suitcase. Closed it, then opened it again. I knew Mr. Manjur had it specially made. I knew he needed to wear it on the hajj, another rule I couldn't follow.

And then I looked at Mr. Manjur's desk.

Piles of bills were stacked there, rubber banded. A plain manila folder teetered on the money. I knew the family paperwork was in there. Passports. Confirmations.

My hands moved towards them, and I pulled them back, hard. Steadied myself on the desk. I saw myself, then, shoving the money and papers into my backpack. Taking a pair of scissors and destroying the clothes. Doing it all.

It would be so easy. Blood hummed in my ears, in my throat. It would be so easy, and it would be so good. Then, they'd stay. Instead of leaving. Like it was nothing.

They'd already left me here.

With the keys. With all they had.

The blood beat in my skull, and roared around my well worn grooves. Rich, Tom, Angie, Johnny, Liz, me. My hands strained, itching with the desire for action. I had to get out.

“Jenny?” Aziza, soft, questioning. Normal.

I rushed past her without a word, ran through the door into a night without any stars, lit by the hollow glow of streetlamps on the tired snow. The circles of light were, and then were not.

The Manjurs went on their hajj, had their holy time without me. But I took a trip too. Maybe even a longer one.

Sometimes the pilgrimage that matters is the one from “nothing” to “something.”

__________________
To take more holy trips, go here.

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When the student is ready...

From this site.

I am currently reading a book that I believe will change my life.

Considering the years I have spent reading self-help and how-to books, believe me when I say that I do not make this claim lightly.

The book is called Mindset by Carol Dweck, Ph.D, and it's about, well, your mindset and how it can help or hinder your efforts at success. She writes about two main mindsets—the “fixed” mindset which is the belief that talent is either there, or its not, and effort cannot change that; and the “growth” mindset that values hard work and sustained learning more than talent.

You can guess which one I have.

See, from an early age, certain things have come easily to me, and these are the things I have built my life around. Books, words, stories. I don't remember learning how to read, because I actually don't remember not knowing how to read. I adored school, adored the constant praise and steady stream of rewards. School was a place where I could be the best, unlike at home, where I was the far-behind youngest child.

Once I had a taste of being the best, well, I wanted to stay the best. And that meant avoiding anything that I wasn't immediately good at doing. I would tentatively try a new activity, and unless I showed unmistakable signs of genius, I would leave it alone. Because if you have to TRY, then it's obviously not in you.

I won't exactly say this attitude worked for me growing up, but I didn't challenge it because I was still doing well. I was still a straight A student in the subjects that mattered to me, still viewed as a girl with a great deal of potential. Potential was my very favorite word while I was young, and I wanted to stay potential forever. That way I could still see my future genius off in the hazy, pearly future—and not have to deal with the possibility that it wouldn't work out quite that way.
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In college, I worked harder than I ever did in my life, but I couldn't seem to make headway in several subjects. I blamed this on the fact that my fellow students had grown up with much more enrichment (in all the ways that mattered)--better schools, more cultural capital, parents who were educated, money. It didn't dawn on me that I was still struggling with the central idea that “Either you have it, or you don't. Either you know it, or you never will.” I couldn't seem to learn, perhaps because I was afraid to make mistakes and then try again.

My professional life didn't work out much better. Again, people saw potential in me, and again I felt incapable of translating that potential into something concrete. I began to see myself as a failure, and stopped seeking career-level jobs. Instead, I worked clerical jobs that frustrated TEG, and others, who couldn't understand why I wasn't blazing some sort of creative trail.

Short answer: Because if I had to try, that very attempt would be an admission that I had no talent, and thus would never succeed.

My mindset changed briefly after Madam was born. Not only did motherhood come with its own steep learning curve, but the tasks were immediate and vital. I had to learn to feed her, soothe her, change her. I had no choice. And because I didn't have any weird beliefs about needing to be a “natural” mother, I was able to learn what I needed, for Madam's sake.
I don't think it's any surprise that the first year and a half of Madam's life were the most productive, creatively, of my life. The growth mindset carried over, briefly, into my writing. I started blogging and began to write fiction again for the first time in years.

But soon, I felt like I hit a plateau. How did I know if I was getting better? So many people were better than I was! And the worst part was: I could see good writing all around me, could even articulate what pleased me about it, but I couldn't learn it myself. I would see people turning their blogs into books, stretching their stories into novels, and I had NO idea how to do it myself. How to start, even. Because if I couldn't envision every step of the process, and couldn't come up with perfect ideas before touching fingers to keyboard, well, then...I needed to forget it.

Yep. The fixed mindset was back.

And so I've kept laboring under this desire to be prove brilliant, without taking the risk of actual work. I've read books and been unable to see past my own sickening envy.

Well, goodbye to all that. Goodbye to a rotten tooth of an idea that has spread its poison over my life for a good three decades. Goodbye to the idea that talent is uber-alles. After all, what really happens if I write a terrible novel? I waste my time? I waste finger energy? I'll be killed for Crimes Against Fiction?

So what?

I'm going to go slowly, and write without inspiration or pleasure until the inspiration and pleasure inevitably appear. I'm going to rewrite even when I am unsure exactly how to fix something. I'm going to be wretched, no doubt.

I cannot wait.

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Ponderings...

One thing that I have been thinking about is resolving my competing commitments. I long to be a writer, more than anything, I want to write novels and publish them and move past this crippling doubt.  And I know I DO want those things. My desire manifests itself constantly every time I wander into a bookstore and feel myself pulled towards to those talismans of the writing life—writing books. Books on plotting, planning, creation, starting, finishing, revising and revisiting. Invariably, I pull off the shelf, flip through the pages, searching, always searching for that one perfect phrase, that formula that would pull me out of myself, and replace me with the writer I've always dreamed of becoming. 

But I always find myself disappointed. Because the books, inspirational though they can be, can't do the work for me. They can't put fingers to keyboard, they can't pull the words out of my often clenched mind. They can't write the book for me.

And that leads me to the other competing commitment. The commitment to NOT writing, to NOT exposing my dream to the harsh realities of my limited ability. The commitment to protect myself. Because if I really try, and if I see that I am no good, then I will be forced to give up. I will never be a writer. What will I dream about? What hope will sustain me then?

The book I just finished reading said that I should test my big assumption (in this case, the total belief that if I try, I will realize that I will never be good enough or know enough to write, and thus I'll need to give up) with small, safe experiments. But what kind of experiment would that be? Because even writing a few words towards my novel unleashes that fear that the worst is already true and cannot be changed.

This is what I need to discover.

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Novels 1, Me 0

(portrait of me after a library visit from here.)

(Ed note: I felt such a shift after the last post. I think I finally made peace with my worst impulses, and hope that I can finally forgive myself and learn from my history. Thank you so much for being there. I wish I could tell you how much it helped. Believe me, it did. Thank you!)

Much as I love them, sometimes I think novels and I are in a type of war.

Picture it: I sit down with a much awaited new tome, ready to sit down and drink from the wisdom and technique of another writer, one who reached the holy grail. A complete novel. Publication. Cue champagne corks and violins.

Before I start to read, I decide that THIS time, my reading experience will be different. I will be reading to learn. I will keep track of scenes, notice clever plot points, unravel subplot ribbons for further examination. In short, I will crack the code. Read like a writer, not like a fan.

Ah, but then...I start to read the novel, and like Circe, it starts to croon its song. “Pay no attention to the writer behind the curtain...aren't these characters fascinating? Don't you want to know what happens next? Fall in...the water's great.”

And just like that, I'm in it again, swimming in the blue ocean of the book. I'm absorbed, compelled. Under the spell.

And it's all absolutely wonderful. Until I finish, and try to return to my own story. A novel...trying to be one, anyway. But it lacks that wonderful thickness...that verisimilitude.

A bad angel voice whispers that perhaps I am best served by continuing to write short stories. Maybe short stories are my default format, but...I want to write novels. I dream of writing novels. I prefer to read novels. I have to believe that its a skill I can learn.

I shoo her away, again.
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“How did that writer DO that?” I mutter to myself as I peck words slowly across the white screen. “How do you create such a rich world? Lots of scenes? But which ones? And how many scenes, anyway?”

Shouldn't someone who reads as much as I do have an answer to these questions?

So, I put it to you—all you writers. Do you have certain novels you use as models for your own work? Do you take notes periodically? Re-read? Outline favorite novels to get scene counts and the like? Or do you just trust (as I used to) that you are absorbing all of this through the pleasure of osmosis?

(Yes, I am doing That Novel Dance again. Madam is about to start preschool, and suddenly I'll have open hours in the middle of a couple of days a week. If I am disciplined [ha, more in a future post on THAT], I should be able to make significant headway of a work. I don't want to talk too much about it, yet, for fear I'll talk myself right out of it!)

(PPS: And there it is...my 200th post! *throws confetti* I'm so grateful to have this place, and now that I am myself again [more on that bit of strangeness later] I hope it doesn't take me forever to write another 200. Thanks for reading me.)

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Tidbits

This quote from Writing Down the Bones really spoke to me this week. Things are so messy in my life right now, that I don't think I am really seeing the material possibilities. So this was a wonderful reminder:

"A writer must say yes to life, to all of life: the water glasses, the Kemp's half-and-half, the ketchup on the counter. It is not a writer's task to say, 'It is dumb to live in a small town or to eat in a cafe when you can eat macrobiotic at home.' Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things in our lives as they exist--the real truth of who we are: several pounds overweight, the gray, cold street outside, the Christmas tinsel in the showcase, the Jewish writer in the orange booth across from her blonde friend who has black children. We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop those details from coming."

Also, thanks for the comments on the previous post. I am still pondering all of your wisdom...but it felt so liberating just to get it out. And Amber, someone emailed me about that Writer's Digest article about Latino Lit. Is it a sign?

I miss visiting you all. I can only get online very late these days, and I am usually too tired to comment. But you are on my mind. Cue Willie Nelson, or the Pet Shop Boys.

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Token

Cool photo from here.

Why don't I want to write this post?

Because it's a subject that feels touchy, feels weighted, feels uninformed, and I hate to put something out there in the world on this subject that isn't well considered.

Also, I am lazy.

In my last post, I spoke at length about my difficulties with writing, and about the massive block that resulted.

But I didn't mention all of it.

See, it's hard for me to believe now, but there was once a time when I was thoroughly ashamed of being a Latina.

Like most interesting baggage, this had its roots in childhood. We were a family that liked to party, and no party was complete without dancing. Inevitably, some tio or tia would notice me in the corner, attempting a hesitant little shuffle, and would push me into the center of the dance floor. “Baila, mija, dance!” Their voices would change on that last word, growing strange and accented. Perhaps that moment of sounding Other to their own ears darkened their mood, made them crave someone to push that sense of wrongness onto.

And there was me-- doing my best imitation, but somehow I never quite mastered the insouciant vibrato shoulder shake, or the perfect flirty hip swivel. Ah, here was something they could do, and I couldn't. Who cared then that I could speak “perfect” English? So they would tease, and laugh, and shake their heads. “La Americanita” couldn't dance.

In hindsight, I think all of us kids got hazed about dancing—it's a prized skill in our culture, and woe to those who can't do it. But at the time, I felt the “American” spotlight squarely on me.

I think I adopted a “if I can't join them, I'll just stay here in the corner and wear black” attitude.

It wasn't always easy. Sometimes I would have to run to the bathroom and lock myself in, dancing with careless abandon to the bass pressing against the door.

I am sure I wasn't so bad, then.

So, outsider feelings, blah blah. I still didn't feel inferior per se; I grew up in a heavily Latino area, and while all of my friends were white, black or Asian, I still didn't see myself as different or worse.

Enter college.
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I met the most amazing, affluent, cultured people. And not a one of them was Latino. I read beautiful literature, none of it by Latinos (I was an English major, after all). I listened to glorious music...well, you get the picture. I started to feel the weight of something, some feeling that I came from a void. Everyone else could claim something in their lineage. I just felt a big blank. Sure, we had Celia Cruz, and sancocho, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but none of it felt significant enough in comparison.

I struggled with this feeling more after meeting TEG, who grew up in India and is fiercely proud of his homeland. He told me stories about the history, mythology, art. I felt sad I had nothing comparable to share with him.

This went on until I turned about 28 or so. I decided that just because I had grown up with little knowledge of the contributions of Latinos to the world stage, that it didn't mean there was nothing there to celebrate. So I started forcing myself to explore, to read Latino literature, both in Spanish (painstakingly slow) and in translation. I realized that I didn't much like Gabriel Garcias Marquez but loved Julia Alvarez. I discovered that the songs I grew up with were beautiful and worthy in their own right, not just always as “booty shaking” music.

In short, I got over myself and learned.

When I started writing again, I felt compelled to write out stories full of Latinos—if only to counteract the (usually unspoken) assumption that if no ethnicity is specified, a character is white. I wanted to share the insides of people who don't always see their own lives as worthy of preservation, and I wanted to show my parents that I could see the beauty of everything they gave up to move here.

All lofty goals, right?

The problem is, all those lofty goals started to feel forced. I found myself wanting to write around them, under them. I wanted to write romances, teen stuff, even fan fiction for my favorite shows. But I still felt like the only writing that counted was the “up with Latinos” stuff.

So, write the other stuff, you must be thinking. Sure, I tried. But then I faced the other side of this problem.

I felt like the only thing that made me special as a writer was my ethnicity. That it was the only thing that made people want to read me (and about me, since I am mostly talking about blogging here). It was my “niche”...my “hook,” if you will. Writing romances, teen stuff, et al...nothing about the way I write those would make me stand out. And I so do dearly love to stand out (just not on the dance floor, at age 11, doing it All Wrong).

Thus, I felt caught in a weird construction of my own making. Writing ethnic fiction was the “right” thing to do, and it was the only thing I had to say that was interesting. But I didn't want to write ethnic fiction anymore. But my other stuff just felt like nothing. And wasn't I betraying all of my newly discovered pride by putting my stories about Latinos aside?

If this sounds a bit like over-thinking, well, you'd be right. But I have been the “token” so much in my life. I was always “my only Hispanic friend.” I was the only Hispanic on my editorial row at my Big Publishing House. And now I turned myself into the Latina in our blogging community (yes, I know I am not the only one; indulge me).

I want to write again, so much, to feel free on the page to say WHATEVER about WHOEVER. And feel that it's interesting, and that it will still matter.

I want to come out of that bathroom, like I should have so many years ago, and shake my hips, even if it makes Shakira herself giggle.

So...why can't I?

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Writing

Jack Kerouac's typewriter, from here.

Remember my awful infected tooth? That's a bit how my soul feels about not writing.

It's time for me to tell myself the story of what went wrong.

It's such a sore subject for me that I need to explore it, to poke my tongue into the painful crevices of the wound.

I had ambitious plans for the last couple of years. After Madam's birth, I discovered a clarity of thought and voice I'd never quite experienced before. All those dreams I had dismissed over and over as a girl and young adult, came back, with an added note of confidence and possibility. I could get through labor, nurse my daughter, survive two and a half years of broken sleep. And I found all of you, living out all sorts of fascinating artistic dreams. Seeing you gave me the everyday courage I needed to start this blog, to share my writing with strangers for the first time in years.

It was good.

And thanks to your generous feedback, I could see what worked and what didn't...I started learning to spot nuances in my own words, and how to tell stories about things that worked themselves deep in me.

But then, something happened. I started feeling a heaviness in my writing, a desire to make it RIGHT or not make it at ALL. I've always been compulsive about reading writing books and writing advice, but all of that well intentioned knowledge became a soup in my mind. I couldn't quite apply what I was learning...I could just recognize it well enough to see how wrong I was. Writing became frustrating in a completely new way. Despite all of my best efforts, I wasn't getting better. I was getting worse. And I couldn't fix it. Story ideas which had seemed so tantalizing now seemed impossible for me to work on. And I kept getting worse.

Somewhere, I'd always harbored the belief that if we work VERY hard at something, our progress would reflect that. Our jagged edges would smooth out. Things would become more automatic, and pleasurable. I thought A would lead to be B and out to a triumphant C, D, E.

And I kept getting worse. Now the joy in writing was also gone. I couldn't judge my own work, at all. I just knew the efforts of producing it felt abysmal and constipated.

Now, during this time, I was a member of an amazing, creative group of women committed to following our creative dreams. We spoke on the phone once a week every week, and shared our progress. We all did the exercises, and I watched their lives catch fire.

And I just kept getting worse.

Finally, I needed to acknowledge that my ambitious desires to write a Great Novel were probably going to have to be dismissed, at least for a little while. I put writing away in all of its incarnations (which wasn't easy—writing is woven into my day. I do morning pages, keep a journal, write this blog). It got to the point where the very sight of a book I might have once loved caused me to wince.

I returned all of my writing books to the library. I started avoiding bookstores.

Today, at lunch with a friend, I shared all of this frustration. I wish I could report that she had patted my hand, looked sympathetic. Instead, she smiled and said, “OK, that's learning.” She even acted it out a bit with the salt and pepper shakers and the ketchup (OK, maybe you had to be there for that one).

Something about her blasé attitude stopped me short. Is it possible...that I've been torturing myself, thinking that I was stupid and incapable of learning because...learning is not linear? Perhaps this is ho-hum common knowledge to you, but seriously, I NEVER thought of it that way. I honestly NEVER thought that sometimes...we get worse. And it doesn't necessarily mean we should stop.

Madam's speech therapist said something similar when she reminded me that Madam's speech would probably start to get MORE garbled as she learned new words, and started experimenting with sentences.

I still feel that lack of love for writing that frightens me. But maybe that, too, is part of the process—my grown up version of the tantrums Madam throws during her growth spurts.

Either way, I desperately want to try again. Garbled words and all.

Continue reading...

Tagged! Writing advice...

From this site.

The amazing Delia tagged me to write out three pieces of writing advice that I would like to share with others. It’s interesting. I have wanted to do a post like this for a while, but have always hesitated. Why? I don’t know…didn’t think I had the authority to give advice, needing so much of it myself? I guess I wanted to wait until I felt like I had THE answer—the perfect pieces of advice that would enable anyone (or, OK, me) to get off their excuses and start writing prolifically.

Sadly, this has not quite happened. But, upon reflection, I do think I have things to share—things that have helped me start, and continue, and start again.

Treat your material kindly: The writing books expound often on writing what you know, and that’s not what I mean here. I am talking about those moments when you feel gripped by a topic, or a theme, or a type of character. Sometimes I am dismayed by how much my stories tend to resemble each other, and I am embarrassed by how small they feel. I start to want to write about BIG subjects—war, or terrorism, or global warming.

And then I block.

Because, see, I am pulled towards the stories I tell. I want to write about those who feel like literature is what happened to other people. I want to leave a record of the heroism in these lives, even if the inhabitants themselves can’t see it. Because I can.

So I will continue to crawl over every inch of my material, like an ant who wants to see the whole world. I will continue to write about what calls me. After all, there are lots of people to write the tales of Big History. I’ll be here writing about the bodega owners who live above the store and Minerva the Cat Lady, who likes to drive with them tucked in a basket in her front seat, with access to the window.

Find your community—in people and in books: When I became a mother, I felt like I had already fallen behind. Because with the birth of my Madam, I also gave birth to a surprisingly fierce ambition. I had always wanted to write and had even made some serious attempts at it while I lived in Chicago. But something about holding my daughter in my arms, staring into her dizzying little face, made me long to BE something for her. To show her something in me that, prior to her existence, I wasn’t sure I had. I wanted her to be proud of me.

So I went online, found all of you, not all mothers (not even all women!) but all committed to your creativity and your passions.

And then I started to read books on motherhood and creativity. I needed to believe that it was possible, and the books told me, over and over, yes it is. I return to certain favorite essays often—Anne Tyler’s patient voice has pushed me back towards the keyboard on many days when I couldn’t see past my own irritation and exhaustion. I clutch Judith Cofer Ortiz’s stories about waking up at 5am when her children were small with gratitude (even if I haven’t been able to do that yet). And on days when I just cannot do ANYTHING, I remember that Patry Francis said that she didn’t manage any serious writing when her children were under six.

That seemed to work out well for her. And it gives me hope.

So find those books, those blogs, those people who make it all seem possible and use them to buoy you up when your own life preserver starts to, well, sink. To mix metaphors, if you put on your own mask first (like they say on the plane) you’ll be able to help someone else.

Show others what you can do: This was a tough one for me; still is. I went years without showing my writing to anyone outside of a writing class. It didn’t read like “real writing,” or else it was “too small,” or “not ready.”

Nothing has helped my writing more, and nothing keeps me writing like posting on this blog. Yes, the pieces are rough, unpolished, occasionally awkward. I am definitely experimenting. But your feedback, your questions and enthusiasms help me see my own work as something outside of myself. And that helps me to make it better.

It’s scary to put yourself out there, even in a safe place like a blog. It stings when people don’t seem to respond to a piece I think works. But…it’s good to see that.

And when you like something and tell me that it moves you, well, NOTHING motivates me quite as quickly. It makes it all feel real, and possible. Because it’s not theoretical anymore. Once you put a piece of fiction out, it’s an admission that it matters to you. You are not thinking about writing, you are writing.

So thank you for that.

As far as who I will tag for my three….so many great bloggers have been tagged already! But I don’t think I have seen responses from Amber, Jessie, and Deirdre, so those are my three.

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The silence

My silence has been filled with words.

The words that I have been painstakingly repeating, working with Madam everyday, watching her face light up as she achieves some sort of mastery.

TEG's exasperated “Just WRITE already!” after too many days of watching me sit on the couch jangling and jonesing for a better metaphor than that one about the junkies. I've lived a sheltered life; never met a junkie.

The long list of DO NOTs—as in “DO NOT complain, or write something embarrassing, or write about loneliness, or write something depressing or ugly, or write yet ANOTHER post that is just a “middle” without much of a beginning or an end.” I like posts that sum up something true, but lately, as I tunnel through a middle I just get to...more middle.

I am embarrassed to admit how childishly happy I was when I decided to take a break. I felt the satisfaction of the toddler tantrum. If words were going to be so hard, then to hell with words! I didn't need them! I would just...stop! Hurray!

It didn't take long before I started missing this place, but by then the gulf between writing and me had grown so much that I couldn't remember what good writing even looked like, sounded like, felt like. I could vaguely remember that every sentence had a subject and a...something that begins with V. And every word seemed linked, inexorably, to a chain of events that led to another writing mess I couldn't fix. It was enough to lead me back to the television.

So I did the next best thing to writing. I started reading, with a desperate desire to stuff the silence with other people's words. You know. Good words. Unfortunately, with the exception of one amazing book, all of the others tended to run together. I couldn't concentrate. My eyes skimmed over the same sentences again, and again, willing an inspiration that never came. I stitched together comfort from pieces of other blogs, other books. It was like standing alongside my own thoughts.

It was better than nothing.

My silence is littered with the detritus of stories that emerged half-born, during odd twilight hours of nursing and putting Madam to sleep. Characters that seemed like they were really going somewhere, with something to say, only to sputter into a sullen quiet as soon as I got near the page. There was a window, and I had missed it.

In all of this notwriting, I discovered that I spend all of my writing time clenched, waiting to be interrupted. Deciding NOT to write until I could guarantee that it wouldn't happen AGAIN.

I have a two year old. Like THAT'S gonna happen.

My silence told me that waiting for the perfect uninterrupted time and being furious that it never came, for me, was a bit like being angry that the in breath was inevitably followed by the out breath. (I've been reading some Buddhism during this break. It's been sinking in.).

This is not the post I wanted to write on my return. I wanted to have something to bring back to the tribe—a summing up full of lush, beautiful language. But that post was light years away. I have to let go of the shimmering promise that if I just wait...a little...longer, I will be able to write beautifully and render the ideal stories in my head PERFECTLY. Think my way out of the block.

But I have learned (again...) that notwriting begets notwriting.

Let's hope the opposite is true.

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Lead with your strengths

I don't really learn from my mistakes. Or more accurately, I don't really learn anything new from them. That's because I usually have a sense when things are going to fail; even as I take my first tentative steps, a gonging voice in my head says, “No, go back.” I usually ignore said gonging voice, because it can be difficult to distinguish it from my fear. And it IS fear just often enough to keep me moving in the wrong direction. Alas, this means I don't have a healthy respect for my intuition, either. I am working on that.

But lately, I have been learning from my failed first draft (sadly, still uncompleted) of my novel. It's been interesting analyzing all of the steps that went wrong. Losing the thread of my story in a fear that it wasn't novelistic enough. Giving all of the juicy conflicts to secondary/main characters instead of my poor, ignored main character. Being too vague about my main character's deepest desires.

There is another lesson here, though, and one that surprised me. I didn't lead with my strengths. See, I tend to underwrite, which is why the mini-story blog format works so well for me. I'm not sure if its because I am pressed for time, or because I am rushing to follow the scent of the inspiration, but my writings to be a bit spare. Every now and then, someone will comment on one of my little tales and say that they “can see the characters in a novel.” I squint at my story, words grown strange, to see if perhaps there is something there that I missed. Inevitably, no. I recorded all of my invention. I wish it were different. My stories are the records of spent inspirations.

Somewhere along the way, I read that writers should always overwrite their first drafts. The idea being that if you write and write, you will discover new patterns, ideas, etc that might not have seem apparent upon first vision. It's a good idea, in theory. But for me, theory is where it should have remained.

I tried to overwrite this failed draft, and got hopelessly bogged down in my own excessive verbiage. Instead of seeing things more clearly, I felt myself growing confused as I piled on more and more ideas, details, plot points, backstory. My computer started to make the distinct whir of a tire trapped in rapidly hardening cement. My main character grew more reticent and a little passive, made lazy by the idea that it would take her five, six pages just to cross the room to pick up a nursing bra.

Proust, I am not.

So, now that I am about to begin again, I plan to write my natural way, at least for the first draft. Lean. Perhaps it will give me less to cut, and I might miss out on some interesting digressions, but at least I'll have a story to shape into a second, richer draft.

Do you all do this, in your writing or in your life—try to follow some advice that feels about as right for you as wearing your shoes on your hands in the middle of a blizzard, and then wonder why something that was working, albeit in fits and starts, now sits leaden and immobile?

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The Bad Book

From here.

I've adjusted to most of what motherhood entails, for me. I am used to waking up in the night, grudgingly used to being interrupted at the most exciting moment of the book or the writing. I am used to being asked for a snack, then having the same snack rejected for some inexplicable reason.

But I miss Friday nights.

My parents always went out on Friday nights. Always. Even if it was just to a neighbor's house. They could be fighting, shouting over the banging of the closet door and the dance music they always used to get into the Friday mood. But they would go out. Of that there was no doubt.

Thus, I think that same desire is encoded in my emotional DNA. TEG indulged it, pre-parenthood. We might stay home on a Saturday and cuddle on the couch with a movie. We might even go to bed early. But Fridays sang their siren song, luring us out of our house and into the red lit, unpredictability of the night.

So, even though the rest of the week I am (almost) perfectly content, on Fridays I get restless, staring at the ribbon of headlights streaking outside my window. We don't have babysitting, nor any family in the area, so my only outings on Friday nights are the ones in my imagination.

That's when I read chick lit novels, the more frothy the better—something festive, preferably with a stylized picture of shoes. Or a martini glass. That kind of book. It feels a little illicit, like I am cheating on the more serious novels and nonfiction I read during the week.

Now, the thing is...most of these books are perfectly satisfactory. The situations can be a little ordinary, but the characters are well drawn, instantly likable. They follow all of the rules stated in my writing books—setting up the situation, following through with plot suggestions, etc. And, as a bonus the books feel like a couple of hours sitting at a woozy bar table with my single friends, gossiping. They feel like, well, Friday night.

But every now and then you find a book that brings all of those “writing book rules” into relief, and you learn exactly what you DON'T want to do.

I read most of one of those books this last Friday night. It started out promisingly enough, two friends living in London, secretly in love with each other and wondering why their love lives never seemed to work out. And then guy's first love reappears, after having left under mysterious circumstances....

You get the idea. I liked the characters, mostly. I loved the descriptions of London. I settled into my Friday night...until I realized I was thoroughly BORED. For starters, the two main characters kept talking about how wonderful they thought the other person was, but all you saw between them was arguments and history. Their so-called wonderful natures were not SHOWN, but only talked about.

Their work existed only as a glamorous backdrop to their fraught (ha) passion. There was no substance to any of it, and it didn't forward the story at all.

And then there was the flimsy obstacle between them. There was no real reason for them not to just be together, no compelling force keeping them apart. So instead, they acted in increasingly idiotic ways in order to pull the book along. That reminded me, as we all know, that contrivance is not a novelist's friend.

Finally, after yet another drunken and foolish plot twist, I put the book down in irritation. This was no gossip session...it was more like listening to a close friend defend her relationship with a clod you know is no good for her. And who needs a fictionalized version of that?

It wasn't all time wasted, though. I got a few fun London memories out of it (TEG and I went there on our mini-moon) and the realization that all of these writing books are finally sinking in. Sometimes you can learn more from bad art than from good.

Best of all...writer friends..we can do this. This book served as a motivating reminder of that.

So, go and give me something better to read. I'll try to do the same for you.

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Goodbye to my Beautiful Soul

Lately, I have had a certain fascination for Virginia Woolf. She's always been one of those authors who was my model for everything I could never understand--forbiddingly brilliant. I spent years avoiding her. But now, she creeps into my consciousness a great deal. Why her? Why now? It seems to simple to say, “She was an amazing woman writer, who wrote even through unbearable pain.” Maybe it's just time for me to take a deep breath and fill in this gaping hole in my literary education. So far, I have approached her respectfully, through the back door—biographies, letters, essays. I am finally ready to dip myself into one of her novels—Mrs. Dalloway. I'm excited.

Given this new love affair, of course I noticed the little paperback book nestled on the “new books” table at one of my favorite local bookstores. It's exactly my kind of book too, literary self help. I admit that I want to learn from my novels—how to be a better, braver, wilder, more intense person. So I am always intrigued when I find a sympathetic guide for that quest.

I am usually hesitant to buy a new book—I'll wait until I can find it on the remainder table, or at the library. But this just felt...right somehow, so before I could talk myself out of it, I took it to the cashier and paid. (it helped that Madam was starting to whine, bringing my indecisive ruminations to a quick end).

People, I fell into this book. And it gave me that kind of “aha” moment you get when you see yourself so clearly in print that you dart your eyes around, wondering if its possible that you are truly THAT transparent. In the first chapter, Speak Up, the author mentions Hegel and his “Beautiful Soul”--a character in his writing who remains pure and ideal because he remains silent, thus protecting his self-concept as someone who is “deeper, and different” from other people.

I am not proud of that idea. I believe it actually made my cheeks burn as I read it...but it is me. I have been cherishing my own “beautiful soul”--in my life, in my blogging, in my life. I would rather remain silent, gloating over ideas and knowledge that will never be sullied by being expressed in my imperfect words. Isn't the book that lives in our head already perfect, without needing a crass word on paper to ruin it? I would say no, but my behavior speaks otherwise. And I realized that in order to move into a life that I actually WANT to live, I have to stammer out all of my wrong words. I have to write my mangled manuscript, no doubt ruining the Platonic ideal of my inspiration in the process. I have to write my blog posts, even if they feel half-baked, not eloquent. I have to tell people what I know, even if I am afraid that what I know is very little. Alas, I am probably not deeper than any of you, nor “different” in that delicious, teenage goth sort of way. And of course, now that I have spoken, I have removed all doubt.

From my explorations into Virginia Woolf's life, I have learned that she worked and worked over every manuscript, despairing over her ability to capture the ineffable nature of a mind thinking. Sometimes she succeeded (obviously). Other times, she feels that she failed.

I am so grateful to have her words—so grateful that she put them out onto paper instead of hoarding them in her mind. And so I'm going to keep trying to destroy my Beautiful Soul, so that I can finally get to my own imperfect, confused, visible words.

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Facing it

From the Cary Academy website

No ideas but in things.
William Carlos Williams

I loved the writing of my first novel. I've never experienced that kind of flow--it seemed to be growing wider and more interesting from scene to scene. I felt immersed in the writing and the characters. I even made myself cry a few times. I was thrilled with it.

Until I read it.

It needed so much WORK. I realized I have a tendency to underwrite, to shorten scenes, hint when I should be showing the events. My little, beloved draft didn't have that wonderful thickness that a real novel has. On the contrary, it seemed, upon re-reading, to be a little shallow. It felt more like the rough outline for a novel than than the novel itself. And all of the problems that I had forced myself to ignore as I finished my draft...well, I still didn't know how to solve them. My story seemed a poor, plucked little sparrow. I was so disappointed, and put it away.

Now I am working on my second novel, and am trying very consciously to avoid the problems of the first. I have come up with a great deal more plot and elaborate background stories for all of the characters. I have what I think is a clever conceit—a road map which should help me through the sticky bog.

And I am unable to go on.

I wasn't really sure why, until tonight. I've spent the last few months castigating myself, “too lazy! Not a real writer! Lots of mothers write after their children are asleep...why can't you?” But every time I opened my document, or indeed, any document related to my novel, I just froze. I can take notes; in fact, I have laughed in glee at some of my fiendish plot twists. I just couldn't seem to turn any of those ideas into actual scenes.

I've spent the last two days reading through a writing book by Robert Olen Butler that has forced me to see things a different way. The author stresses writing from what he calls the “dreamspace”--writing from the “white-hot center.” Now, this kind of talk always makes me feel inadequate—because it seems to imply that unless you can go into a mystical trance, you aren't a real writer. And I disagree with several of his exhortations, i.e. don't ever write unless you are in the "zone"—for someone like me, sitting around waiting for the force of that perfect intuition is lethal. But, to his credit, he offers concrete suggestions for achieving this dream state. He also shows examples of what he calls”from the head” writing and contrasts them with more immediate, sensual work.

That's when it hit me. I've wanted to force myself to write a REAL NOVEL, full of complicated plots and reversals and deep meaning. I've tried to graft them all to the myths that offered the original inspiration. I've wanted to show off what I know, sound smart.Oh, I have a lot of ideas and psychological insight and theories--the problem is that they feel false, shoved onto my poor characters. And to that teetering tower, I've piled on a concern with the mechanics of skill.

You know those wedding dresses that seem to be drowning the bride in festoons of lace, net, taffeta, and billows? Yep, it's like that. I've made my little tale so complicated, I can't approach it anymore.

Butler talks about trying not to force your material into a structure too soon. Some stories naturally lend themselves to novels, while others to short stories or even poems. See, this isn't even something I want to face—the possibility that I am really a nonfiction narrative writer, or at best a short story writer. Those are the forms that have brought me the greatest writerly pleasure. But, oh, my dream is to write a novel. That's all I have ever wanted

So I am scrapping the cosmic MEANINGS and artful plotting and getting back into the humble things of my core story—even if they're not so smart. Even if they result in yet another underwritten novelette.

Because at least then, I'll be writing from the white-hot center again. I'll be writing true.

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Sunday Scribbling: Writing Exorcism

(From here.)

I admit it. I am obsessed with writing. Every detail. Writing books are like magic beans—I keep reading and buying them in the hopes that eventually, I'll be able to grow a Novel Beanstalk. Someday, I'll write up a catalog of every writing book I own, for your amazement and (it's OK, you can admit it) envy.

For years, I tried to deny my desire to write. It was almost too innate—too predetermined. I wanted to go to college and discover a hidden talent, something to change my destiny. And I tried. Photography. Music. Media. Art. Dance. I had fun, sure, none of those forms were really me. I still longed to write above all things. I just didn't think I really could. I loved books so passionately, I could never do them justice. I felt like I was cursed with just enough talent to understand the stories I loved so much, but not enough to create any myself.

Despite my wholesale ingestion of every writing text I could get my hands on, I've never felt confident. Part of the problem is the books themselves, I imagine. I have a very hard time taking the templates they offer and applying them to my own work. Where are my inciting incident, my antagonist, my hero's journey? Not always sure. I am beginning to suspect that the formulas only make sense after you have written something.

But another problem is mine. I compare myself to the books, point by point, until I find a dissonance. Then I sigh and try to think of something practical to do with my life.

Well, no more. Here is my exorcism of the most destructive ideas I believe about writing. I hope that seeing them outside of my mind will show us all how ridiculous they really are. Feel free to include your own crazymaking ideas about writing. Then we'll have a big bonfire and be free to discover new, better truths.

1. Whole books are out there in the ether, fully formed, waiting for me to sit and channel them into existence. They are perfect, and complete, and inevitable.
2. If I'm not in some sort of trance while writing...if my characters haven't taken over my fingers themselves...then I'm not producing quality work.
3. I need to be very smart, highly educated, and utterly fascinating to write.
4. I also need to be temperamental and more than a little insane.
5. Ideally, my wardrobe would consist of nothing other than peasant skirts, black chiffon dresses, and high heeled boots. And a beret.
6. Don't bother writing if you haven't lived in Paris, in a garret.
7. Books and babies don't mix.
8. Fiction is all that matters. Nonfiction writing isn't “real writing.”
9. I haven't done anything worth writing about, and yet, I must always “write what I know.”
10. Only writing directly into a work in progress matters, forget planning or notetaking or even just occasionally THINKING about what I want to say. If I need to think that much, I am not a real writer.
11. If my writing doesn't resemble the examples in the writing books, I am not a real writer.
12. If I am too unhappy, I must not really love writing.
13. If I am too happy, I must not be “deep” enough to be a writer.
14. Be suspicious if it comes too easily. Be suspicious if it's too hard.
15. Either you are a genius, or you are nothing. And you are probably not a genius.

If you see any of these ideas walking down the street, looking for a new home, be sure to cross the street. But first, give them a kick in the shins for me.
________________________
For more writing know-how, go here.

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