May 30, 2014
Recently I went to a presentation billed as “Silencing the Inner Critic.” It was very disappointing, and the speaker was very irritating. She teaches all-day workshops on creativity, and her hour-long talk was nothing but an outline of those workshops. It was full of enthusiasm, vivacity and charm, but very little matter. As you can tell, she certainly didn’t silence my inner critic.
image: pathseekerslifecoaching.com
But there’s always a nugget or two to carry away from these things. Nugget #1 was my resolution to resume daily, first-thing-in-the-morning writing in my notebook. And #2 was the gratitude journal.
image:gemrocksauction.com
I’ve kept a notebook for many years, a cheap spiral bound thing, badly battered by the time it is full. Once I tried keeping several – green for gardening plans, blue for my diary, red for writing projects. That was a silly, if elegant scheme – I can’t keep track of three notebooks – and I soon abandoned it. Now my notebook is always red, because I would like to be read. (We seldom-published writers must have our amusement.) My current notebook, a lovely fat one, is extra-special because it was a Christmas gift from Amanda. It was the first time she gave Christmas gifts, and I was delighted by her empathetic selections (Joe got a foam rubber football.)
image:amazon.com
My notebook holds my diary, my free-writing click, first drafts of fiction and blogs, and many shopping and to-do lists. Sometimes in my diary I describe or celebrate a special day, but more often it’s where I focus on my troubles and try to come to terms with them. Sometimes it’s therapy. Sometimes it’s whining.
image:pal.ua.edu
I had heard the term “gratitude journal,” but it never grabbed me. Now I thought I’d give it a try. And I have been surprised at the effect. Here are samples, one from my normal diary, one from my new gratitude journal:
May 16. Friday. Tonight is Amanda’s Honors Chorus Concert. Yesterday I had a gloomy, out-of-sorts day followed by a night of poor sleep due to an upset stomach. Boy, this is writing that cries out for me to stop, and is also putting me to sleep. My life is irksome. I stay irked. I think I look for things to irk me. I am falling asleep.
May 19. Monday. Gratitude: I am thankful that yesterday I could talk with Joe about my misery in this hard time with Amanda. Only he understands what is happening here; only he need know. And yesterday he gently reminded me what Dr. Lynne said about temporarily letting go of the demands we would normally make as parents. That makes it easier for me to try and let go of my demands without feeling I’m being lazy, irresponsible, without feeling the people looking over my shoulder saying I’m a lousy parent.
I’m grateful that he wants so much for this trip to NY to be what I’m hoping for, and that we are going to NY and staying in Chinatown.
image: wikipedia.org
I am grateful – almost breathless with excitement – that I’m driving to Orlando Thursday to meet Sue and Anne, staying in a luxury hotel. I think we’ll drive back to Gainesville on back roads.
I am grateful that yesterday Amanda played in the pool with me – a little hostile, a little aggressive, but still we played.
I am grateful that I took away two precious nuggets from the empty talk yesterday at WAG – the gratitude journal, and the renewal of daily writing, which has disappeared in the chaos and grief. I do indeed, have indeed, focused on my misery instead of my joy, and am/was becoming a negative gloomy glump. Maybe there was something to Dad’s reply to “How are you?” “Oh, I’m always well.” He did live to 98, after all.
Always well: Dad at 90
I am happy that I planted my three gaillardia yesterday, maybe rescued (I hope) the one poorly-planted cleome, THAT A MONARCH BUTTERFLY finally came to my thriving milkweed, and that I have three more milkweeds to plant. Soon, if the monarchs come, I will have six ugly naked stalks. And maybe the ugly nameless plant Bill gave me, with its tubular salmon-colored flowers, will bring me a humming bird.
image:thebutterflysite.com
I am grateful that I am making progress with singing. An die Musik – itself a song of gratitude and perfectly tailored to my situation, about the escape, comfort, release, shelter of music – is coming along. Two techniques – head singing and pushing out my diaphragm through a whole phrase – should solve my range and breathing problems. Though I have trouble executing both of them. Still, my range in warm-ups is already wider than it was – down to Bflat below low C, and up to high E. These music lessons are my salvation. Indeed I have many salvations.
I am grateful that I can talk to Joe, and that he is helping me ease back on Amanda by taking on some of the reminding himself.
I am grateful that I have this morning time. The quiet sleep-breathing of Trisket behind my chair – she always wants to be where I am.
I am late to the party. I googled gratitude journal, and of course I found a long list of links. I could read 8 tips for starting one, or take 11 steps to a powerful one. Berkeley presented research. Oprah weighed in. I found ads for beautiful little notebooks titled Gratitude, prices ranging from $9.99 to $156 for used(!) Amazon offers free two-day shipping if you subscribe to Amazon prime. You can also buy the “Bargain Attitude Changer. The #1 gratitude journal app for over five years. Use it for at least three weeks and your life will never be the same again. See demo.”
available used for $156.19 image:amazon.com
I think I will pass. I’m perfectly content with my red spiral notebook from the dollar store. It makes a big difference to begin my day rejoicing, and it helps me notice small delights throughout the day. I am grateful for my gratitude journal.
Oct 18, 2013
It’s not funny anymore. It’s frightening.
I’ve just finished Connie Mae Fowler’s five-day writers’ workshop in St Augustine.click The best part was the workshop sessions and new writer friends.The second best part was having the hotel room to myself.
ALL MINE
The farewell dinner was last night. About 6:30 in the morning I wake to a steady rain. I get dressed. I pay attention when I put my cell phone in its holster, because the last five days I’ve kept it silenced in my purse. Methodically, I pack up each area – the bathroom, refrigerator, closet, dresser, desk, bedside table. Nobody distracts me with “Grandma, can I go get a donut?” “Liz, have you seen my glasses?” With everything packed I go through the room one more time, to be sure I haven’t left anything. Then I load the car.
Parking in St Augustine has taken all my cash, so I drive a couple of miles to Publix to get money for a housekeeping tip. I buy a sandwich for the road. I leave the tip, check out, grab a banana from the buffet, and head home through the driving rain.
IMAGE:NEWBYREALTY.COM
The thick, dark clouds are breaking up in the sky to the west, and by the time I reach US 1 the rain is slowing. I leave the town behind, and now I’m on 207, a fast secondary road with trees, egrets, and puddles on both sides. There is little traffic. I am entirely happy; the workshop revived my flagging writer, giving me energy, confidence, determination. I’ve made two decisions. I will put writing first every morning, and make no dates before 11. I will no longer say, “I’m retired,” but “I’m a writer.”
‘O Happy Day’ is playing on the CD player. I think I’ll call Joe, share my happiness. I reach for the phone. It’s not in the zipper pocket of my purse. It’s not anywhere in my purse. I feel my jeans pockets, my shirt pocket. Nope. I review all my packing, and I’m puzzled. I remember turning off the alarm – is it possible I left it on the bedside table?
I pull over on the shoulder, trucks whizzing by as I get out to search. Passenger seat and floor, tote bag with notebooks, books, and magazines, computer case with a zillion compartments, center console, suitcase, under the seats. Nothing. And nothing to do but drive back to the motel. I consider calling to ask, but of course…
I’m proud that I’ve stayed calm, not frantic – it helps that I left early so there’s no worry about getting to my 11:00 therapist appointment in Gainesville.
I LOOKED EVERYWHERE
The worry begins after the friendly desk clerk has given me a new key card, after I’ve methodically searched each area of the room, looked in all the drawers and under all the furniture, after I’ve stripped the bed, after I’ve returned to the buffet and asked the woman who’s making new coffee if she’s seen my phone. Back to the car, a more careful search with no trucks whizzing by two feet from my butt. I empty each bag, check the pockets in all the dirty clothes, move both seats and feel around under them. By now I know I’m repeating myself, hoping magic will put the phone where it wasn’t. I pat my jeans pockets, then my shirt pocket, and my hand bumps the cell phone belt.
Such a rush of relief. Then the real worry begins. By the time I reach the place where I pulled over, an hour after my first departure, I’m near tears. This is no short-term memory loss. This isn’t like the comical incident of dressing a salad in a colander click, or locking my keys in the car.click. I paid attention when I stowed my phone, but with all the searching, all the thinking about what I had done, I didn’t remember it.
The Muumuus and I joke about senior moments and brain farts, cozy and comfortable in our aging together. This wasn’t a moment; it was an hour.
Now my thoughts are flying. Alzheimers. Dementia. Researchers say about 1 out of 8 people over 65 suffers from dementia. I’m afraid to tell Joe, afraid tell Dr. Lynne, my therapist. I have told Joe that when I don’t know him anymore he can put me in a nursing home and divorce me, but he has to visit regularly to make sure I’m well cared for.
IMAGE:WISCONSINWATCH.ORG
I already have a strategy for my keys, and almost always put them in the basket by the door. Now I need a strategy for my glasses and phone too, and a mental checklist whenever I leave the house. I will have to establish compulsive habits. I must be present in every moment, pay attention to the now.
MY KEYS ARE HERE
But if I can’t let my mind wander, how will I write? Half the writing happens in my head when I’m cooking or cleaning house, swimming or walking. Just when my writer has come alive again, my mind starts to melt. It will only get worse. I will call my doctor and have the annual checkup that was due in July, ask for a referral for a neurological workup. There is a drug that can slow the progress of Alzheimers; best catch it early.
Last night I read a New Yorker piece about Phillip Roth and his friends. Roth decided to give up writing fiction at 78. “It’s hard to remember from day to day what you’ve done.” In Iris, the movie about Iris Murdoch, there is a scene where, as Alzheimers advances, she puts down her pen because she cannot remember words.
PHILIP ROTH IMAGE:NYTIMES.COM IRIS MURDOCH IMAGE:TELEGRAPH.CO.UK
I arrive at Dr Lynne’s with ten minutes to spare. We’ve been dealing with an old trauma, so that I can put it behind me. But this is too urgent; my fear is right at the surface. So we plunge in. She has theories about memory loss, information about how it works. My story doesn’t worry her, and so I worry less. That night I tell Joe about it. He understands my fear, but thinks it’s like looking all over the house for his glasses when they are on his head. I see his point and feel better. But I still want an assessment.
This morning in the paper, two items. Glory glory, Alice Munro has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. (In a New Yorker interview a year ago she said she would probably stop writing because “I’m eighty-one, losing names or words in a commonplace way.”) And Julie Samples, a graduate student at the University of Florida, has just published a pilot study in the Journal of Neurological Sciences.
The first deterioration in Alzheimer’s is often in the olfactory nerve, and begins on the left side of the brain. Julie put a dab of peanut butter on the end of a ruler, and brought it closer to each nostril until the person could detect the smell. She and her advisor report, “If they can smell it far away it means that nerve is working. If you have to bring it all the way up to the nose it means it’s not working as well…We were blown away with what we saw…The right nostril was normal, and the left had impairment” in Alzheimers patients but none of the other subjects.
You know I went straight to the peanut butter jar. I put a bit on the end of a knife, blocked each nostril, and sniffed. Both my nostrils (and hence my brain?) worked just fine, smelling the peanut butter from about eight inches away. When I used the whole jar, I could smell it from a couple of feet away. I suppose I will mention this to my doctor when I get around to my so-called annual physical. And maybe I’ll ask for an assessment. But I am greatly reassured.
Mar 29, 2013
I have been writing, or struggling to write, for over twenty years. I’ve encountered the usual obstacles: lack of discipline, lack of confidence, preoccupation with job and children, and the biggest one of all – the empty page.
Natalie Goldberg taught me to overcome the empty page with free writing: writing whatever comes to mind, letting words flow out of the pen without stopping to think, judge, or even punctuate. I have many old spiral notebooks filled with free writing. click
The empty page no longer scares me. I know that I can throw everything onto it, and when I come back later I will find nuggets of treasure amid the trash. And after twenty years I no longer lack confidence; I know that multiple revisions will turn a first dreadful draft into something that pleases me. But there are still the problems of discipline and distraction.
I recently discovered a practice that has helped me. It comes from Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way click, but I was introduced to it by another blogger, Mandy Stadtmiller. click Mandy says the process has helped her get rid of her censor, warm up her writer, and find connections she never expected. It even changed her life: in just one year, daily morning pages led her to get a divorce, lose 40 pounds, and revitalize her career.
I began doing daily morning pages in January, free writing three pages every morning in my spiral notebook, scribbling away about anything and nothing. Sometimes it is journal-ish, describing an event, or more often, working out my feelings about something. Often the Rhymer emerges and nonsense doggerel pours out. And sometimes I write “I dont wanna, I dont wanna, I dont wanna,” or “Ive got nothing to say.”
I don’t wanna Now.Tufts.edu
In the past I have tried writing for a certain length of time, but if my mind wanders, or I’m interrupted, I feel guilty that I haven’t really written for half an hour. With this process, I write three pages, regardless of how long it takes.
Since the beginning of January I have missed only one day of free writing. It has not changed my life as dramatically as it did Mandy’s, but then, I don’t want a divorce or a forty-pound weight-loss. (Twenty might be nice.) It has revitalized my career, or more accurately, brought my novel back to life, and helped me with my writing.
With this practice, I begin every morning with an achievement, and this small success sets the tone for the rest of my day. It gives me the motivation to exercise, and to do the pesky errands and chores that inspire procrastination. Most of all, it gives me the motivation to write.
Nobody but me cares whether I write. It is not a job that stands in front of me demanding I do it. In fact, writing a novel, which takes me three or four years, is more like encountering a series of crossroads with no signposts. Fear of taking the wrong road sometimes makes me a master of avoidance. So I need all the help I can get to walk into the unknown.
The uncensored rambling clears the sludge out of the pipes. Sometimes clear water follows – thoughts about my novel, or ideas for a blog or story. I scribble NOVEL or BLOG at the top of the page so I can find it later. (That’s also where I jot down daily to-do’s as they pop into my mind and attempt to distract me from the task at hand. Then when I am through, I have my day laid out for me. )
Chores can’t distract me
Free writing every morning gives me daily practice in throwing my Inner Editor out of the room. It’s essential to get rid of her, because whether I am writing fiction or essays, ideas and inspiration refuse to come while she’s whispering, “That’s stupid. Who cares? Why bother?”
I googled The Artist’s Way so I could link you to the book. After twenty years it is now a ‘movement’ – with a workbook, a video course, and a web community. Well, that’s fine. All I needed was the daily three pages in my notebook. I appreciate Mandy for pointing me to them, Julia Cameron for prescribing them, and Natalie Goldberg for showing the way
Unless otherwise attributed, all content is copyright 2013 Elizabeth McCulloch. You may use it if you include a link to this blog.
Jul 27, 2012
Discreet. I like that word. In my mind I still partly live in my mother’s world of short white gloves, hats and stockings, a world which was starting to crumble just as I was old enough to enter it.
I used to be very averse to exposing my private life to the world. That has changed since I began blogging, and I’m not sure why. For a long time I was embarrassed to let anyone know what I was really thinking. The Voice of The Fathers was VERY strong in me, condemning a lot of what I did and thought, and I’ve always half-agreed with them. Of course it wasn’t The Fathers, it was my father.
ME AND MY FATHER, 1987
Now I write posts about fuck-me shoes and crude adolescent behavior on trains. I’m no longer embarrassed by my body – I”ve posted pictures of myself exercising in my underpants, and in a wetsuit like a fat black sausage. Below you’ll see me happily lumpy in a bathing suit. At 65 I believe I’ve earned my lumps.
A friend tells me that to write memoir effectively you must be fearless. But I am not fearless. I may seem to be baring my soul, or at least my past and my thighs, but I don’t write about my deepest sorrows or biggest regrets. I don’t write about the thoughts and deeds I’m most ashamed of, not for lack of material, but precisely because I am ashamed.
I am more careful now about other people’s privacy than about my own. When I write about friends or family I usually clear the piece with them. None of them has ever objected to anything I say, probably because I am still bound by ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.’
I am particularly concerned about Amanda’s privacy. I keep her worries, fears, and misdemeanors to myself. I avoid writing much detail about her life, except the sunny innocuous parts.
I recently posted two pictures of Amanda as a toddler; you couldn’t connect them to the nine-year-old she is now. I am leery of putting up contemporary pictures. I also have an ill-informed fear of the internet, and what might happen to a photo of her there, as though a stranger would track her down and harm her. I know there are real dangers to children on the internet, but I suspect the ones I fear are not real. Still, the Grandma in me yearns to share with the world the adorableness of this child. So at the end of this post I’ve put up a few more baby pictures.
In fiction I have always felt obliged to make up characters. I feel I’m cheating if I merely disguise someone I know. After I finished my third novel I wondered whether I would be a better writer if I were willing to go deeper inside myself. I created a character based on me, though the scenes and details were imaginary. But I found I loathed her.
I would not venture to defend any of these opinions, nor apply them to the work of other writers. Indeed, I don’t believe they rise to the level of opinion; instead, they remain in the warm, murky waters of feeling. They are mine, and I share them with you without any attempt to persuade.
Apr 20, 2012
This post is dedicated to Sandra Lambert, my inspiration and friend, who has been awarded a well-deserved residency at Yaddo.
Every writer dreams of a writers’ retreat, a place where she* can go for a month or so to be free from the demands of family and friends and the chores of daily life, a place where she can spend all day as she chooses. In her dreams she chooses to write.
There are many writers’ retreats now, in various idyllic settings in the United States and abroad, but perhaps the most venerable and prestigious are The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire and Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York. Established at the beginning of the last century, these two have hosted the luminaries of American literature and other creative arts, both those who have entered the canon and those who are unknown or long-forgotten, as most writers are.
COLONY HALL AT MACDOWELL
YADDO
The problem with Yaddo and McDowell and all the other retreat centers is that they are highly selective. They pride themselves on providing space and time to writers of the highest quality; most successful applicants have already been published in prestigious literary journals. Where can the poor scribbler, toiling daily with her pen, unheralded, unsung, perhaps unstrung, find support for her efforts?
We are proud to announce that, thanks to the generosity of the Clarence T. Yucko Foundation, there is now a place for the mediocre writer to dally with her muse. The Foundation has endowed the Yucko Artists’ Colony and Retreat in Heavenly Haven, Florida. Every summer in August thirty fortunate writers will be afforded the opportunity to dedicate themselves solely to their art in a four-week, all-expenses-paid residency. They will enjoy solitude during the day, and fellowship with other writers at night. We predict that from this caldron of creativity great quantities of verbosity will rise like steam.
Applying to Yucko
In line with egalitarian principles, Yucko’s philosophy is that the average person of no particular talent should be recognized and rewarded. Recall Senator Hruska’s famous words defending the nomination of Harold Carswell to the Supreme Court. “…[T]here are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance?” We believe the same principle should apply to writers.
The primary criterion for the Yucko Residency is prolixity. Along with the application form, the application calls for a writing sample of no fewer than 50,000 words. Of course the admissions committee will not read these, but the word limit will be strictly enforced, and any submission below the minimum will be discarded. (Applicants may, however, provide a stamped, self-addressed envelope for the return of their materials if they desire.)
And because our intent is to reward those writers hitherto unknown, publication by any non-subsidy publisher or literary journal shall disqualify candidates. A history of self-publication or blogging, however, is no bar to admission.
The Facility
Yucko is housed at the former Sleep Eze-y Motel on the outskirts of Heavenly Haven, near the interstate. This charming lodge has thirty-five fully-furnished guest rooms equipped with coffee-maker, microwave, and small refrigerator, with bathrooms en suite. Each room contains a single bed, a dresser, a desk, and a chair. The rooms are air-conditioned with window units, so that each resident may control the environment. Mosquito netting is provided, though residents should bring their own insect repellent. We recommend repellent with DEET of 25% or higher.
YUCKO WRITERS’ RETREAT
To avoid distraction, television and telephones have been removed from the rooms, but the spacious lobby, which also serves as the breakfast room, contains a television. Cell phone reception is spotty in Heavenly Haven and not to be relied on. Residents may use the telephone at the front desk. Should residents need internet access, Wifi is available at the McDonald’s four exits down the interstate.
Daily life at Yucko
A continental breakfast is served in the lobby between 8 and 10 each morning, with juice, pastries and cereal. A box lunch will be provided each day so that residents may eat in their rooms, undisturbed. A typical lunch box contains a can of Vienna sausages, a package of soda crackers, and a juice box. Dinner will be purchased from Domino’s Pizza, McDonald’s or our local Asian restaurant, Chinee Takee Outee. Residents will vote each morning for that evening’s restaurant, and may make their dining selections from the take-out menus available in the breakfast room.
Recreational opportunities
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” The old saying applies to Jills, too! Fortunately, Heavenly Haven offers countless diversions for the writer who needs a break from her labors. We have resurfaced the Sleep Eze-y swimming pool, which will be open until 9PM each evening. In addition, shopping at the Dollar General, bowling at Tamiami Alleys, and communing with nature at the municipal park along the Caloosahatchee River are all available within easy walking distance.
RIVERSIDE PARK IN HEAVENLY HAVEN, FLORIDA
A short drive down the interstate brings the more venturesome residents to Lake Okeechobee, a tropical paradise which was the setting for the hurricane in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Fishing and boating are available, as are hiking and biking on the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, more commonly known as the LOST trail.
THE LOST TRAIL
PLEASE apply
Are you an as-yet unpublished writer? Do you struggle for time and energy to nurture your gift? Apply now to the Clarence T. Yucko Foundation. Your dream retreat awaits you this summer.
*Although the Foundation will not discriminate on the basis of gender, the admissions criterion regarding publication will undoubtedly favor women writers. Therefore we refer to our applicants and residents as “she.” click
Mar 23, 2012
Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and many other books, has written a short book, The Getaway Car*, directed to all the people who say, “Everyone has one novel in them,” or “I would write a novel if I only had the time.” Two of her pearls of wisdom have helped me return to my fourth novel, long simmering and long ignored, and I am grateful.
Pearl #1: Everyone begins writing a novel with enthusiasm. By the middle, the whole enterprise seems stupid, boring, and worthless. Nevertheless, you have to keep going to the end to see where you emerge. When Patchett wrote her first novel, the Patron Saint of Liars, she was on a seven-month writer’s residency in Provincetown. She says that had she not soldiered on, she would have emerged from the residency with a dozen beginnings and no book.
In the last five years (with a couple of years hiatus while dealing with Amanda) I have written a hundred pages about a mother and daughter, changed from first person to third and back again, omitted one main character and brought her back to life, and started notes for a different novel. Much of the time I have felt that both my book and I are stupid, boring, etc. But I’ve experienced the middle-of-the-book desert with each of my previous novels, and I know that Patchett is right. You’re on a long hike, you’re lost or maybe just sick of it, but the only way out is to keep walking.
Pearl #2: Just do it. “When people tell me they’re desperate to write a book, … I tell them to give this great dream that is burning them down like a house on fire one lousy hour a day for one measly month, and when they’ve done that – one month, every single day – to call me back and we’ll talk. They almost never call back. Do you want to do this thing? Sit down and do it. Are you not writing? Keep sitting there. …Is there some shortcut? Not one I’ve found.”
For years friends have asked, “How’s the writing?” and for years I have lied.. I tell them not how it is, but how I want it to be. I get up at 4:30 and put on my robe and slippers in the dark, leaving my husband sleeping. Take the dog to pee, feed the dog and cat. Push the button on the coffee maker. And then, in the quiet house, sitting under the lamp with my red notebook, I write, haltingly at first, tugging gently at the latch until the door opens, the thoughts emerge, and the story unfolds before me. Characters wake up and take their next steps, the clouds I created yesterday bring today’s storm. For a couple of hours I write down whatever comes to me until I close the notebook and put down the pen, satisfied to know that when I read it tomorrow, I will find, if not gold, at least silver in the dross. And the rest of the day I feel strong and free, knowing I have done the main thing. I have written: I am a writer.
But what really happens? I take the dog to pee and there in the driveway is the newspaper. I will just read until the coffee is ready. I will just finish the first section. The comics. Dear Abby. Or maybe I valiantly ignore the newspaper. I sit in the chair with my notebook and pen and can barely keep my eyes open. I turn off the light, lie back, and sleep for half an hour. When I wake up again the sky is lightening and all the rest of my life calls me – chores and shopping, phone calls, projects, appointments.
I have struggled with this for many years, had some “I have written” days, some falling asleep days, and many days where I avoided the whole attempt. Before I retired I would set the timer for an hour, and usually manage only half an hour before the terrible lassitude set in, and as it spread through me I thought, “Who cares? Why bother?” Even so, after two years I had the third draft of a novel. I was thrilled. From nothing I had created a world.
What ended this struggle? Amanda and the blog. At 62 I became the mother of a 7-year-old child, and realized that after she grows up I might not have much time left. For my writing it was now or never, and I found the discipline to write in my newly-complicated life by starting this blog. My promise to post every Friday has given me a self-imposed deadline that I have too much pride to ignore. I work for an hour or so before Amanda gets up, and another couple of hours after I get her off to school.
Ideas for the blog come from everywhere and nowhere, and I jot them down. I pursue one wherever it goes, writing in my notebook without concern for style or order. I edit and add and rearrange until I have a semi-final post ready to put into the blog, and then the fun begins: looking for pictures. A couple of hours for compressing and cropping, adding captions, formatting, another thorough edit, and I schedule the post. The yellow pen indicating a draft on the Typepad.com list of posts changes to a little blue clock, meaning the post is scheduled.
I try to work ahead, and feel great satisfaction to have two or three blue clocks on the list in case life interferes with work. The deadline is relentless, and very good for me. I have never worked so hard or consistently in my writing. This has given me the confidence to return to my novel, and it has come back to life. I wrote twenty-four pages in two weeks, which could yield as many as a dozen pages in a later draft.
Apart from discipline and writing practice, there’s another advantage to blogging: at last someone is reading what I write. I’ve been submitting stories to literary journals, and looking for agents and publishers for my novels, for over twenty years. It’s a grim record – over a hundred query letters to agents, thirty to publishers, 172 submissions to journals, and never a publication. Once I had a well-respected agent for my second novel, but she was unable to place it with the major publishing houses, and we agreed I might do better to go to the independent publishers on my own.
I used to be elated when I had a nibble from an agent, or a rejection from a journal asking to see more of my work, but no more. Now when the rejections come in I feel a twinge and log the date, and then return to what matters: writing.
WAITING FOR AN AGENT TO NIBBLE
I still have occasional fantasies of fame and fortune, but what I really want is readers. The number of hits on my blog is steadily growing, and every week I hear from people who tell me how they enjoy it. When I submit stories to journals now, I can cite a writing history, even if it’s only a blog. And it may be just coincidence, but in December I FINALLY HAD A STORY ACCEPTED! (I will let you know when it’s published.)
But now I have a problem. Every Friday one blue clock turns into a green check mark, and I need to start another post. Each one takes about four writing days, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for working on the novel. So I am cutting back. From now on The Feminist Grandma will appear biweekly. I hope you’ll stick with me, and if you’ve formed a weekly habit, remember to look for me on alternate Fridays. And I hope you’ll send an encouraging, novel-nurturing thought out into the universe for me.
*The Getaway Car by Ann Patchett is only available for e-readers. click
