Successes

I take out my woes on this new blog like I'm beating a dirty rug on my back patio. It's an unbalanced view of my writing, and a completely off-kilter view of my life. I write because I love it, because it drives me, because my brain gets a weird high from creating and pretending. I love pretending. I always have. When I was a teenager my social pseudonym was Brooke. Or Kate. It depended on my mood and on my earrings. Silver dangling daisies with a huge black center worn with a black bathing suit at a water park? (True story.) Brooke, all the way. Preppy pegged khakis and a rugby shirt with penny loafers (so hideously hot back in the day)? Kate fit the bill. It was the fake me, and I lived up to Brooke's flirty, sassy personality, her forwardness with the boys, her confident appeal. Kate was more reserved, shyly smiling from beneath a book or newspaper, biting her lip softly and sighing dramatically.

Oh, I was pathetic.

But it was fun to pretend, to fill another girl's shoes, to be someone else and create dialogue through her filter.

One of my faves of all time as a kid was to climb up into the weeping willow in our front yard and sit for hours, creating my own world where all the cute boys loved me despite my beaver teeth and all the girls thought I was uber cool. Or a world like Anne of Green Gables where I milked cows and served mice-laden plum pudding and currant wine to guests at a formally set table. Or a world with a secret, walled garden that only I had a key to and therein I'd rule the fairies. Oh, those were the days. I didn't need constant friends because I found them in books, read high in the comforting branches of the weeping willow. And where the books left off, my mind would continue.

Those characters and creations sometimes became darker, and I'd lie in bed literally weeping over a scene where a family member was in a fatal accident--the very details playing behind my eyes--from something outlandish, like falling from a train trestle or being cooked in molten lava from the dormant volcano outside my window. I could almost feel the fall, the whoosh of wind gathering speed, the cracking of bones on the rocks below. I could see the lava, red and smoking, melting the flesh of my loved one. Seriously? What was wrong with me?!

My mind is now muddled and fragmented by motherhood, but I still love to pretend. It's oh-so-easy to push those scenes and catchy lines that fly into my brain to the back of my head, where they get lost in the piles of laundry that demand my attention. Or in the continuous flow of dishes and crumbs that run through the kitchen. Or in the hours spent in carpools and on errands. But some voices shout above the din, demanding attention in my literal vortex of chaos, and sometimes they are beautiful, enchanting or plain hysterical.

And so, among all my frustrations, which are easy to complain about, there is a smattering of success. There is joy. There is real, emotional writing that fuels my need to keep at it, to write until the baby cries at 3 a.m., to finish my story and write another. Somewhere in my mind, there is a tale the world will enjoy. That is enough motivation to plug away...

FRUSTRATED

I have been re-working my manuscript from the beginning, and frankly am sick and tired of it. GRRR. (It must be noted that it is nearly midnight and I'm exhausted.) I never have enough time recently to devote the hours it takes to get some good writing in, so it's been editing, re-editing, and re-re-editing to the point of nausea.

So, I decided to skip toward the end (of 350 pages) and put the finishing touches on the ending once and for all. (That is a hysterically hilarious, lie-down-on-your-back-and-roll-around-the-room-cackling-like-a-crazy-lady thought. To be finished in one attempt? Oh...gasp!... it is just too much!) As I started reading to get into the character voice again I began to feel a panicky little flutter in my chest. It soon filled my abdomen and rushed down my arms, leaving them almost feelingless. Staring at that screen, I was completely overwhelmed with the seemingly insurmountable task of writing a cohesive, emotional, balanced, non-cliche, interesting, relevant work with consistent, believable characters. I almost lost it. I couldn't deal with the mountain of work before me, but I also did not have the time nor energy to freak out.

So I made the conscious decision not to, and shut my computer and took a deep breath. A grim realization struck me: I have become a perfectionist and as such, realize that even when my manuscript is the best I can make it, it still may not be good enough. That thought truly sends me spiraling downward into the black hole of mediocrity I fear, and it's hard to climb out of that hole and face writing again.

But...deep cleansing breath...there is always tomorrow, and so I look forward to renewing my spirit, doing yoga and Zumba, taking a long, hot shower, putting my baby to bed and carving out an hour or two of good, solid writing time. I need to write again, not just edit until all the joy is squeezed out of it and I'm only concerned with syntax. My soul and psyche need to create, so that is my goal this week, on the cusp of the fall snowstorm that is blowing in tonight.

I will hole up and I will write.

But for now, I just need sleep.

Where the heck I have been...

...not writing, I can tell you that much. Between a flooded basement, plans for remodeling in our kitchen, the decision to semi-homeschool one of the kids and basic day-to-day craziness with four kids 2-9 years old, I haven't had a moment.

But I did get a new computer. A MacBook Pro. I was so excited...until I learned it doesn't come with any sort of word processing software. Really? When did a computer come without it?! (So I haven't purchased a computer in over six years. Don't judge me!) And where in the heck is the backspace button? And you can't do control I for italics? So I'm trying to figure out a new operating system. I've been assured I won't regret the painful learning curve.

I did pull out my old laptop (read: circa 1990-ish or there about) and go to B & N on Saturday for an hour or two. It was overall fairly depressing. I worked, for the twentieth time, on my first two pages. I have rewritten the beginning of my story over and over, and it still isn't working for me. Just when I think it might be pretty good, I read an article in a writer's magazine and find it's pathetically lacking.

Back to square one.

In my little world, October is ushering in with company for half of the month, the aforementioned remodeling and fixing of water-logged carpet and walls, cleaning and entertaining. Not seeing much time on the horizon for writing. November is much of the same, with the house being prepared to hold 23 family members to celebrate Thanksgiving. I am holding out for December.

My goals have changed dramatically since I began this process in January. I thought that maybe I'd be done with the story by June...then August sounded more appropriate...and now December seems laughable. But even when the thought creeps in, Maybe this just isn't your time, I toss it off my shoulder with the snarky red devil that whispered it in my ear. I refuse to give up. I can't do it. I'll continue to plod and plunk, erasing entire pages where necessary (can't tell you how many times I've done it) and enjoy the process, knowing that I'm not being paid a dime.

Somehow, despite all the effort for no monetary pay-off (crossing fingers for a later date...), I feel compelled to write, to create and to polish the story. To feel the satisfaction of a well-crafted scene or sentence. For me and for my characters. Mostly for me.

Or at least to live in the delusion of such at 3 a.m.