Winning is Sometimes Everything

I've always loved goals.

Not the seemingly unobtainable goals (weigh less than 125 lbs., be famous, rule a kingdom). Not the goals that do not depend on me (be professionally published, be discovered as an actor).

I love the finite, fixed goals, the ones that come in all shapes and sizes, short-term and long-term. Goals like:

Finish the laundry today
Paint a picture for Christmas Cards

or, say

Write 50,000 words on a novel in November!!!

I write during National Novel Writing Month because it gives me a very specific, finite goal to accomplish, and it puts just enough pressure on me so that I make writing, for one month out of the year, a priority.

And I won! I did it! I set out, worked hard, and accomplished my goal! Yay!

But it's not over. Now I have new goals, for the month of December:

1. Write at least once per week on each blog.
2. Write a new verse each day for the advent calendar (did that last year and the year before).
3. FINISH the mermaid novel rough draft.
4. Revise my play from a 45-minute one-act to a 2-hour full-length play.

Notice how each one of these is a WRITING goal. That means, for the month of December, I will STILL keep writing a priority. And I will make sure I have writing goals set up for January, too, so that writing stays a priority all year round.

If I don't set goals, I will let the rest of my life take over, and I won't write. I can't let that happen.

What are your short-term and long-term goals? What have you won at lately?

Summer Goals

Over the last few summers I've posted a huge list of goals. Most of you know I'm the queen of lists. Even now I'm sitting at my laptop, glancing over at my list book as I write, considering the list for today.

But I just can't make a list for this summer. I know, generally, what I want to accomplish. I want to get my fourth novel finished, revise my first, second, and third novels and get them ready for sending out to agents, and revise my most recent play (which I just finished last week).

Really, though, I just have one big goal: WRITE.

I hope to write every single day. One blog entry and one hour of writing each day minimum. Bigger goals won't be accomplished without the smaller, daily task of writing. The big goals, at this point, look too big. It's rather like weight loss. If I only set my sights on the final goal weight, then that means every single day I remind myself how far I am from that goal. But if I just concentrate on exercising and eating right today, I have a chance to eventually make it to that goal, mainly by my daily action.

So I'm off. My lofty goals drift around, yes, but they are not the plan. The plan is just for today, the last day my kids are in school. I hope to spend the afternoon writing. How about you?

In the Wings

Waiting for the cue

For the first step in the light

Brighter than day

Breathing deep

Mind at rest

And buzzing

All at once

The crowd is there

But it's the story that moves me

(Not the applause)

The lines

The songs

The beatific face

I show them

Time to play pretend

To step out of my life

For a short while

To forget everything

To forget myself

To be another life

To live another dream

To see the world another way

If only for a moment

Turning It Over in My Mind

For the first time in my life, since the first church message board started putting up adages to edify us all (or get us to go to church), I found one to be profound and thought-provoking.

It read:

The soil does not get plowed

By turning it over in one's mind.

Well, hallelujah! Finally somebody--or some church pastor--is getting me off my duff and working. In the three days since I have seen that sign, I have finished the last of the painting, unpacked the last box, and cleaned up my whole house.

Now I can write. And that means you will see me a whole lot more often. Once I've completed some writing for the day, I'll be checking in here.

Hope you come back and visit as I rev it all up again! I have two play ideas, four novels to revise, and another five to write (so far). Lots of work, but finally I can do it!

Whisperings

My play is calling to me.

Well, its characters are, and that means I need to devote the afternoon to writing (once my classes are over and I've eaten a little lunch). You see, my characters had been talking and interacting all night while I slept, and they gave me a rather interesting dream.

I dreamed last night that I was with a film star... though now the identity of the star escapes me. It's not the first time I've dreamed of film stars. I always pick the weird ones, too, the ones I'm not at all attracted to, like Rutger Hauer, Bobcat Goldthwait, etc. I once dreamed Desi Arnaz had asked my mom to marry me, and she was trying to urge me into it, even though he was really, really old (he died less than a week after I'd had the dream).

Anyway, I had separated from my husband and hadn't seen my two kids, and this star was trying to woo me into becoming his significant other, furnishing his fabulous apartment with stuff he thought I'd want, etc. I was holding back, cautious, wanting to visit my kids and husband, but when I went to our house (a brownstone in Chicago, a place and kind of house I would never live in, mind you), I discovered that my husband had left for Europe (probably in anger that I'd left) and the kids were living with my mother-in-law.

The frightening part of this is that everything was unemotional, as if I was afraid to feel anything about my husband, or this actor guy, or my own kids. I was numb, rather like the female character of my play is feeling. I kept wondering, while dreaming, what was going to happen to wake me up, and I realized that the only thing which could break me out of the misty funk I was in was my husband--his physical presence, his touch, a word of caring or recognition.

I woke up, and suddenly I knew what to do with my characters. They fell into place beautifully, and I knew that my main character had to know, in some real, certain way, that her husband wouldn't abandon her, that he'd be glued to her no matter how broken she was. Only then could she heal. If she thought he could get up and leave, she'd leave him first, just so that she wasn't the one left behind. And he needed the same assurance, that she wouldn't leave him like she'd left her own father, left so many other boyfriends before she'd met him, left so many jobs, left places and friends, anything that wore on her too much. His greatest fear was that she would take off, and he'd never see her again.

Heavy stuff for a morning, I know, but I appreciate my characters working through this for me, so that I could have the answers when I woke.

Now if I could just figure out who that film star was.

Playwriting

I am on vacation (have been since Thursday--yippy!), and that means I have been moving into "writing mode." (Repeat: yippy!)

I admit, after a hard semester of teaching, it may take me several days of lying around and doing nothing before I can enter such a mode. I am also visiting a friend in Kansas, and we have discovered that we have vastly different ways of writing--she at a desk, I reclined; she with the television, I in utter silence (or with very soft music playing in the background). Right now, though, she is exhausted, finally relaxing after months of utter stress, so while she snores (softly) in the background, I can get some work done.

Nice.

You see, I don't write for the money. I don't dream about being a famous writer while I'm drifting off to sleep at night. I don't dream of quitting my day job once I sell something. I just love the act--the feel--of writing. I like it better than a hot shower, as much as a cool breeze. It eases headaches, relaxes my shoulders, and draws me in better than a movie in a dark theatre. Writing is simply a fantastic exercise. Rather like painting.

Playwriting is the best, too, for it includes not only this ecstasy of writing, but also promises another treat in the future: getting my writing read by actors. I'm part of the Seattle Playwrights Collective, and the play I'm swimming in now is set to get a dramatic reading in May. That means, very soon, I will hear my play's words spoken by real, talented actors. I'll hear where the elements falter, where the plot doesn't thicken fast enough, and I'll have the privilege of hearing the parts that work as well.

I feel more lucky than I can say. I may never get one of my novels published, and no play of mine might make it to Broadway, but the act of writing and honing them is the best part.

Receiving Feedback

I had to write about this, for, as those of you who've been following me know, I've read quite a bit of other writers' work lately. And I've read it with an editor's eye--tough, critical, pointing out what doesn't work, what doesn't fit, what makes me uncomfortable or bored, etc. The only ways I haven't been an editor is 

1.  I don't actually work for a publisher (so I'm not looking for books to sign).

2.  I am actually telling people what's going on with their book, instead of sending them a generic "Thanks for mailing us your manuscript but we don't want it" letter. 

Had these novelists and playwrights sent their stuff out to the real editors of the world, they would have gotten no information. And often no information feels better than my feedback (I am very willing to admit it), but in the end, the bland letter isn't going to help them get their book published.

I keep thinking back to a few years ago. I was seeking an agent for my first novel--a novel which I am letting fester right now, as I work through how I am going to transform it--and I met a nice guy who had found an agent recently. Excited, I asked if he could read my novel, and I'd read his (since his was not yet published, even though he had an agent). 

We exchanged novels, and he got mine back to me in less than a week, saying he really enjoyed reading it. His wife read it too, and "liked it." I took a bit longer with his. You see, on the first page alone, I found 9 errors--NINE--and this was the manuscript his "agent" was sending off to publishers! I considered reading it swiftly, telling him it was "nice," and leaving it alone. I considered it for a few days, mulling around the house, unsure what I should do. 

I chose the hard road. I spent the next month poring over that novel, filling it with Post-it notes remarking on errors, slips in narrative POV, places where I had legal questions, situations where more explanation or detail was needed. It took me a very long time, and by the end the folder was filled with five different colors of Post-it notes (I kept running out of pads). Even at the end, I contemplated pulling all those notes out and just telling the poor boy nothing about his work. 

Shakily, I left it for his wife (she worked in my husband's office), and she winced when she saw it. "That bad?" she asked. 

"Just let me know how he takes it," I answered.

That was Friday. On Monday, I called her. "He's okay, but he took it hard." I felt a dip in the pit of my stomach, but it was about to get worse. "He wants to talk to you," she added.

I was frightened, honestly, expecting him to yell at me, curse, or do something equally understandable. After all, I'd shredded the baby he'd been birthing for five years. He called me that afternoon, and he told me frankly that he'd been crushed when he got it back. And then, after a day of being crushed, he started back to work on it. 

The end? He asked me to read it--again--for pay. And when he published it, not only was I in the acknowledgments, but he gave me a copy in thanks. Will everyone be so grateful? Nope. They don't have to be. But with every paper I grade, every play of someone else's I look over, I have to make that same choice. A few years ago, I tended to play nice, looking over most of the problems and centering my replies only on grammatical errors. But errors are not what sends manuscripts to the trash. If I am truly to help those whose work I am reading, I have to do a better job, even if it means they don't speak to me again. 

It's the golden rule. When I want someone else to read my stuff, I want honesty--even brutality--so that I can fix what's wrong and make the whole thing work better. I can't say I always take the criticism well--coming from my husband, it usually irks me--but eventually it sinks in, and my writing is the better for it.

Can you think of a time when your writing was criticized? How did you take it? How do you approach criticism of the works of other writers? 

Re-Writing

Since I've already worked on my play for TWO hours this morning (hurray for me!), I can blog... 

It appears that "revision" was the incorrect word to use for the work I've been doing on my play. I've essentially been rewriting it. Only one scene escaped the scrap pile. 

What have I done to it? Well, after my fabulous playwrights group (I so love them) delved through the first scene, the number one piece of advice I received was "tighten." But I couldn't just take out a few exchanges. I had four women all talking around each other, creating a world where the main character--Mary, the youngest of the four women--had no power, no say in how the others perceived her. How was I supposed to tighten that?

The solution? Not cutting out bits of dialogue here and there. That simply wasn't enough. I printed off the scene, then deleted the electronic copy and started over, this time with the main character and only her mother, who was on the phone with a third character. Suddenly the misunderstandings, the mixed up memories, and the shifts in control occurred between the two most important characters, and no time was wasted in trying to develop two other women who were not key to the play's ideas.

A 26-page scene became an 11-page scene, and went from distracted and manic to focused and powerful. Was it easy? Not at all. But it worked, so I don't mind the extra time it took in the slightest.

Once the two characters were gone, though, all but the second scene fell, too. But I realized that the main weaknesses of the play would also be resolved, and the action would have a focus I could never have accomplished had I held onto those characters. 

Suddenly the arc of the story became clear: two arcs, one with the main character moving up, slowly making choices that would allow her to live, while her mother's arc fell, as her disease ate her mind, turned her into a child, and finally killed her. In the past, readers (actors, theatre people, playwrights) had asked me which person the story was about. Now I knew the answer. It was about both of them, moving in different directions. One story couldn't work without the other.

I have probably an hour of work left, and the play will be done. I already know how the final scene will play out. Amazing what I can accomplish when I don't hold myself back. 

What's most ironic is that this is exactly what my main character learns... not to hold herself back... 

Art imitates life.

Hacking at Body Parts

I have been revising a play of mine recently--a kitchen sink drama, in reality, about a young woman who is trying to care for an elderly mother with dementia--and the first act was easy. Honestly, I was captivated by scene two--a scene which has been staged on its own, with a full production, in Kansas. But then Act 2 began, and I realized that what had been brilliant in the first act (okay, so maybe not brilliant, but pretty damned entertaining) had gone terribly wrong in every way imaginable. 

And I mean wrong. It wasn't a few bad lines. Characters did things they would never do. Situations were resolved through unrealistic means. Everything turned into a sit com. It was almost unreadable, and my stomach turned as I read the last few lines of the play and realized the whole act had to go.

I shut my computer and went upstairs to try to eat a bag of chips. After a handful, I realized that eating myself into oblivion was not going to change the fact that the whole second act was utter trash. If I tried to leave the scenes intact, but change what happened, I'd only steer awry again. I had no other choice but to get rid of everything. 

I trudged back to my computer, saved the play as "revised," and deleted all but the first three pages of Act Two--some 40 pages or so of play. Yes, they are still on the first draft, but the only way I will ever resurrect them is if someone steals my play and I have to produce proof that I wrote it years ago and even revised it significantly. Those scenes no longer belong to my play. I have cut them out for good.

Hopefully my description shows how difficult it is to cut out what doesn't work. I would think it might get easier over the years, but it doesn't (yes, I've scrapped huge chunks of work before--I even threw out the first two attempts at novel #3--changing the point of view, and then changing the main character--deleting 68 pages the first time, and over 150 the second). I felt, as I highlighted the offending scenes in this play, as if I were taking a hatchet to my legs, chopping them off right above the thigh bone. Would I be able to stop the bleeding? Would I end up infecting the whole thing--and thus destroying it? Would I ever be able to finish the play now? Would I figure out how to fix it so that it finally works? Would the cancer just grow back?

I don't know the answers. But now I have a much cleaner slate, and I'll know soon enough. Without the past words sitting in front of me, perhaps my cleared state of mind will show me where the characters need to go. I sure hope I figure it out. I hope it was worth the pain.

Knowing When It's Finished

Unlike many writers I know, I am addicted to revising. I've always told students that no writing is perfect... that "a paper is never finished--it's only due." And I find myself revising obsessively when I should be doing other things. 

I just completed a revision of one of my full-length plays a few days ago. I found a cozy coffee shop in Shelton, WA, and spent much of the day there, drinking coffee and revising (it's hard to revise with children underfoot--generating words is possible, but revising has to wait until they are occupied or asleep). And I finished the revision, or so I thought.

I woke up this morning with an awareness that the final scene of the play wasn't finished. It wasn't what I wanted it to be. And though the knowledge made me curse (in my mind, since my daughter was standing over me), I realized my instinct was right. The play isn't ready to send off yet. 

I don't always like that instinct to kick in. I'd love to write something and just know it was ready to send off. But that instinct also saves me from a world of embarrassment. The only time I send a work off to readers is when I know something isn't right, but I can't figure out what it is... and my lovely readers tell me what's not working. 

When do you know something's done? Perhaps I am a bit OCD about it, but I'd love to hear what lets you know something is as good as it gets. How do you know when something is finished?

What Do I Do Now?

I may have a week of writing ahead of me, since my weekly obligations have tapered off to some extent (or, at least, I've learned to manage them a bit more effectively). But now I am up against a block: I want to write, but I don't want to write any of the projects on my list. 

So, what does one do, when one has several hours to spend on one's craft, but no desire to finish a current project? What if I don't want to revise Desdemona, or revise Remember Me, and I'm not yet ready to revise my novel Mariah's Ark? What if the prospect of another vegetable children's book doesn't float my boat today, and the idea of researching the vegetables online makes me cringe? What should I do?

Perhaps I should spend the day at the piano, sight reading a few songs I've never looked at before, or practicing some old standards. Perhaps I should pull out the paintbrushes and paint another small watercolor, something that won't linger, unfinished, like so many other things. Perhaps I should pull out the sewing machine and fix my husband's (too-tight) pants. 

I could even get more responsible, and fill my day with real chores: laundry, grocery shopping, dropping off donated clothing, etc. But that road only leads to depression (I know, I've tried it, as some of you know). 

Nope, the best thing I can do is write. And what do I have to write? A ghost book, of course. I have a press release to create, a list of newspapers to make (to send the release to when it's finished), and a whole world of ghost stories to venture into, once I get them. I even have two people waiting to tell me their own local ghost experiences, whenever I tell them I'm ready. And the prospect of all these steps--yes, even the press release--fills me with excitement. 

So I'm going ghost hunting today. Wish me luck!