Distractions

I have reached an epiphany:

All this time, through years of writing, I have been distracted from doing it by countless other things. Sometimes work pulls me away, sometimes household chores, sometimes family needs… in reality, EVERYTHING seems to conspire against me, to pull me from writing.

Now, as my husband begins his second week of chemotherapy, after a month of surgeries, recovery, weakness, and countless adjustments and upheaval, the epiphany has come to me.

All these things--my husband's cancer, the house, homeschooling, cleaning, etc.--will kill me if I don't have a distraction. And that distraction, my dear friends, is writing.

Walking Man says I shouldn't write if I don't need to. "When you need to write, you will," more precisely. And now, caught up in all these things, I need to write. You will notice that my novel progress has been moving steadily. I wrote nearly 3,000 words over the last two days, despite trips to Tallahassee for chemo and countless other errands.

Writing has always been my therapy. I can only hope it works that way now, keeping me sane in an insane world.

Don't Forget NaNoWriMo--or Find Your Goal

Although I'm going through a BUNCH of unplanned stuff this year, I am also planning on participating in National Novel Writing Month (November 1-30)! And you should too!

Even if you don't write novels, sign up for it. It's FREE, and you can use the e-mails and inspirational articles from the Office of Letters and Light to use for any of your efforts--from painting to music to drawing to reading to weight loss to pretty much any goal for anything you have in mind. Just sign up, and everything comes to your e-mail… and it's more helpful than you might realize.

I have found it hard to keep going without goals, without a plan for the day, for the week, for the month, for the year. Without goals, I am unsure what to do next. With goals, I have specific tasks automatically ahead for me.

Remember, too, that we are 2 1/2 months away from the new year. Why wait until January 1 to set a goal? Why not begin that resolution soon?

My resolutions (BEFORE January 1):

1. Finish my mermaid novel.
2. Lose the weight I've needed to lose for more than a year.
3. Find a happy place with Richard's cancer treatments.
4. Sew several costumes (three planned so far--Elsa from Frozen, Queen Elizabeth I, Antebellum dress)

Not a lot, but one of these would probably keep me busy. What are YOUR resolutions before January 1?

Time to Focus

I have not been able to focus in some time.

Wow, one sentence in, and I'm already lying. OF COURSE I can focus… I can give fifteen minutes to loading the dishwasher, without losing focus. I can sweep the house (takes about 30 minutes) and only lose focus when I find a piece of trash too big to sweep up. 

I can watch a TV show for 45 minutes (that's skipping the commercials, since I rarely ever watch shows live). I can even manage to read the kids a story at night, which might run 10 minutes, or might go as long as an hour. And I can read, too, late at night, before sleeping.

But so many of the things I love DON'T happen because focusing on them for 15 minutes doesn't get me anywhere. 

WRITING: I really need a good HOUR to work on my novel. Microsoft Word has an awesome button on it, though--down at the bottom left. It looks like a black screen with white corner bars, and it's called, of all things, "Focus View." Click on it, and everything on my screen disappears except for the page I'm working on--no icons at the bottom, no distracting stuff, not even the toolbar. Just text, as if I'm reading the novel page by page in real life. But it only works if I have the TIME to focus.

PLAYING PIANO: Time is not my real enemy here, for my hands ache if I practice more than 45 minutes at a time… but it's been hard to do lately for other reasons. The hubby's been home recovering from major surgery, so he's been sleeping a lot, and when he's not sleeping, he's vegging in front of the television. And the piano gets in the way of his sleeping, AND it drowns out the television (if you don't have a piano, you may not realize how loud an instrument it is). Besides, I usually don't have time to play until late at night, when the kids are in bed and trying to sleep (or looking for any excuse not to sleep). Fitting it in while not annoying everyone is the challenge here. And this activity invites interruptions like talking on the phone. Suddenly people sit next to me, ask me questions, ring the doorbell, call, hug, and otherwise keep me from focusing on the sheet music in front of me. 

SEWING: This one is hard, for I can sew for days at a time, but I always have a ton of repairs and alterations stacked up, which I have to address before the fun sewing can begin. Right now it's altering the hubby's new suits when what I really want to do is make my Halloween costume. I'm slowly getting the alterations and repairs out of the way. Another problem is that the sewing machine is portable, and I don't have a dedicated sewing room, so I always have a big mess on my hands when I'm sewing things, and the mess makes me feel guilty and stresses me out.

PAINTING: The hardest to focus on time-wise. Set up alone can be complicated, especially if I'm working on more than one canvas at a time (I'm painting a five-canvas panorama right now). Stopping is hard, too, for paint dries, brushes might get ruined, water cups need to be dumped and refilled, etc. At least my kids know to leave it all alone--such was not the case when they were younger. 

So there they are… all my stupid excuses. I've put them all here, and now I need to get started on something despite them. Time to focus on projects, not excuses. 

Would love to know what gets in the way of your focus… what excuses you make… 

Fighting On

I'm here! It's been nearly a full year since I've posted on this page--and I'm sure all sorts of friend bloggers have assumed I've given it up for good--but I'm here.

I posted on my Not Writing Anything Anymore blog a few weeks ago, resolving to make blogging on both blogs a priority. But then life threw in the biggest of big wrenches, and I had no choice but to switch to what is more important: my husband's welfare.

My husband, on his way to run an Olympic length triathlon in Arkansas, ended up in an emergency room in Alabama with acute pancreatitis. Three weeks later, after a CT scan, tons of blood tests, and two ultrasounds, doctors concluded its cause was a 3 cm cancer tumor in the pancreas. Filled with anxiety (for the prognosis for pancreatic cancer sufferers is extremely bad), we went to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL, where they determined his cancer was operable (thank God!), and where, a little over a week ago, he underwent the Whipple procedure. (It's a BIG surgery--look it up online, and you'll see how serious it is). Through his fight, he's adopted the mantra of his favorite college football team: Fight On! I've even ordered shirts and hats with the saying on them, for him, his friends, and our relatives to wear.

A week later, we were heading home from Jacksonville when the doctors called, and the news is now much more positive. The cancer was caught far earlier than it usually is, and after six months of chemotherapy, Richard will most likely live a long life without pancreatic cancer ever returning. Yay!

Our lives have been turned upside-down, though, and I found that even reading was impossible while I watched over him in the hospital. It was only when tests of the tumor were complete and we were given the great news that I could even concentrate on reading a book again. Now it's time to put my focus back on writing.

Richard was told by a friend who had beaten ovarian cancer that he had to concentrate on more than the cancer, and she told me the same--I had to have more to do than support him and rehash the cancer stories over and over. So that is what I am doing. I'm getting back to my mermaid novel, back to painting (I have accumulated several castles I want to paint), and back to playing piano. All three will soothe my soul through this, making it easier for me to soothe Richard's.

If you've read through this whole thing, thanks for visiting! Hopefully I'll have worthwhile stuff to share with you in the future!

Revisions! Revisions! REVISIONS!

I am in the midst of revising my ghost story set on Puget Sound…

No, I'm still near the beginning. And I just had a breakthrough that dictates revising will take even longer. I've decided the whole thing needs to be present tense.

THAT makes the whole thing harder. Not because the revision will take longer. It's because I will now need to go through the novel at least twice. Fully?

Why? Because I cannot possibly revise it if I'm concentrating on changing all the verb tenses. That in itself is a HUGE task. I use lots of verbs. At least one a sentence, unless it's a fragment. Even if it is a fragment.

So now, hopefully only through the next few weeks, I need to change every verb in the entire 80,000-word document.

Only then can I start really revising. And revising. And revising.

I won't gripe about it, though, not if it works. I'm sure, some day, it will work. Some day, if I keep revising, ONE of my novels will be worth publishing.

I hope.

Something is Just Not Right

You've heard the metaphors before… about the "shoe" fitting and such.

Imagine, if you will, poor Prince Charming. Start the action before the ball: He's feeling pressure to get married. Dad's overweight and old, the old man has gout and diabetes, and time is wasting. Charming needs to get married soon, and have kids soon, so that the line of rulers can continue without wrangling over succession once he gets too old to rule.

He has a vision of the right girl--not a purely physical image, for he needs more than looks if he can make it through years of marriage and still be able to stand her. He also has a fear: what if she doesn't like him back?

So he goes to the ball, his hands sweating from nerves. Most of the women just feel wrong. Some fawn over him, and he knows a month of marriage to any number of these would either give him a big fat head or make him gag. But then the image he hopes for steps into the ballroom. She's maybe a little shorter than he'd imagined, but still pretty. Her hands are graceful, and she looks so out of place and timid. She's perfect.

Two hours of absolute bliss follow. She seems to like him, they dance together, they talk together like old friends, and he somehow finds himself sharing his innermost thoughts with her. But then his world is shattered--at the first stroke of midnight, she starts hyperventilating, grabs her purse off the table next to them, and runs off.

He chases after her, but she's in far better shape, and suddenly she's gone, leaving behind a mere slipper.

And now he's stuck. He knows what his ideal is, but she's gone, and he doesn't have a clue how to find her. So he takes the slipper around, spending weeks searching the whole kingdom to find that perfect person for him. Sure, he meets all sorts of other ladies, some of them quite pretty, some of them who even sort of or almost fit the shoe. But he keeps searching, willing to keep looking because he wants the right person, the perfect fit.

So goes the search for a writer's group. There may be any number of groups in your neighborhood. You might have a next door neighbor who belongs to one. But ANY writers group won't work. They are all different, and a writers group that isn't the right fit won't do you any good.

(BTW, this discussion could represent ANY creative group, whether painting, sewing, drawing, manga lovers, etc. I once joined a sewing group, but I was the only one who was sewing clothing--everyone else was quilting. It was not a fit.)

I realized last night, as I visited a local writers group for the fourth or fifth time, that though it was a great group of people, it wasn't the right fit for me. I could attend every single meeting from here to eternity, but it would be like dating the same person week after week, knowing our relationship would not work in the long run.

What do I want in a writer's group? I'm pretty picky, so here's my list:

1. I need other serious writers to attend. By serious, I mean that they write all the time, revise what they write, develop their writing beyond short vignettes. I am perfectly happy if they are better writers than I, so long as they are writing. It's kind of like tennis. It's far more fun to play with others who are at or near your skill and commitment level than play with people who are far more or far less skilled. Mismatches are no fun for anybody (except for writers in number 2, below).

2. The writers need to be there for both themselves AND others. Some of the more serious writers are only there as a ego boost, to flaunt their writing in front of other people. These writers take criticism and questions very poorly, and are nearly always silent about other writers' works (unless they open their mouth to say something outright mean). The other writers should be there for feedback, but also be there to help other writers grow. I find that feeling my way through the writings of others makes me better, and I want other members to be just as committed.

3. The group needs to do more than clap. I've been in groups that are only encouraging. And I certainly know that many writers, especially those on the beginning of their writing journey, need encouragement most of all. I don't. I need criticism. I need honesty. I need tough love. If a piece is not good, I need the writer of it to have some clue, and to ask for help. And the others in the group should be honest, without hurting feelings.

4. The group needs to actively encourage further writing. Perhaps it's an assignment for next time. Even better, it's an individual thing--"Now that we've read scenes 1 & 2 of this play, can you bring in scene 3 next time?"--the writers need a reason to come back, some level of continuity. The activity is what matters. I don't need a social group, I need one that inspires me to write more.

5. Writers need to attend consistently. Attendance shows commitment, and it allows writers to bring in novel excerpts, submit plays in chunks, and get feedback on a whole larger work.

Remember, though, these are my stipulations. You may need something completely different. Your slipper might not resemble mine at all. And that is fine. I have only found my perfect kind of group twice, and I would still be attending if these two groups if they weren't thousands of miles away. I have hope, though, that I will find such a group closer to home. I am willing to drive if it means I can find the perfect fit for my slipper.

So I will keep looking, shoe in hand.

In Search of Writer's Group

I am in the midst of a LOVELY book right now. It's a collection of short stories by three women, called The Curiosities. And it is absolutely delightful. Below I have posted what the cover looks like.

Even more than the lovely vignettes provided by these three authors is their obvious time spent working together on their writing, reading each other's stories, offering advice, giving prompts, mentoring each other, encouraging each other's writing. The stories have little handwritten comments and drawings in the margins, capturing the sense of these works in process.

The book is well worth reading, but it makes me long for the writing groups I once had. The group I started in Independence, Kansas, which is still going strong thanks to the efforts of Cherilyn Fienen and other fantastic people. The playwrights' group north of Seattle, who were such an ideal group of intelligent writers, who were willing to ask hard questions, who managed to weed out the weaknesses in my writing in minutes, when all I could sense was that something was wrong.

Brilliant.

Only I don't have any of that now. The local writer's group is not really a critiquing group. I need some writers on a similar journey to mine. Writers who see the worth in my writing--who can grasp the kernels of truth in it--but who also see what isn't working, who can tell me where I falter, where the prose or dialogue doesn't work, who can help me be better.

Worse still, I need them in person. Online simply won't work for me. I need to see their faces, interact with them in real space, in real time. I haven't met anyone like that here yet. Painters, yes. But not writers.

So I'll keep looking. These people may be here, waiting for the opportunity to find someone just like me… and we will find each other. I know it. And we will help each other create our own collection of "curiosities."