Subdued Intrinsic

There was some germy business, and some apathy business, and perhaps a schedule to rival that of a Hallyu start brought me right to the precipice, but NOT DEAD.

Hopefully, more later, if I can get myself motivated enough.

The last line I wrote in The Book is:

"Drew surprises me."

And even though it's only about 55 pages in, and i know how things proceed, what happens, and the whereto's and whyfore's I cannot for the life of me WANT to write anything more.

Send . . . encouragement?

First off, get thee hence to Fake Plastic Souks and read Alexander McNabb's newest post, titled "How to Write  a Book", in which he managed to make a very long, complicated process seem rather simple, if one is just willing to devote themselves to observing what I think of as "the in between times".

Also, he gives you lots of terms to Google. Honestly, in some ways it's like a freaking college course syllabus.

Also, also? I have no idea what a is a souk. I'll have to Google it.

Now, onto my own post. Things are occurring 'round here. Helpful, YAY! sorts of things. Some of them are helping in The Lifting of the Spirits, while others are helpful in the Getting Done of Stuff Put Off For Far Too Long.  I know, I know, all vague and completely not truly informative, but sometimes that what you get.

One thing I'll mention is this . . . well, actually, come to think, it's more akin to two things, but anyway! Last week, Amazing (husband) and I spent a painful amount of time cleaning out and reorganizing our bedroom and closet. I'm surprised we didn't get adopted by some the Gorgs due to our massively impressive, possibly sentient Trash Heap collected afterward. In the ensuing pushing and pulling of What Was Left, I ended up with a very charming new little writing nook. Wall-o-Books to one side, lamp to the other, cushy stool to sit on, and the bed about two and a half feet behind. Very nook-ish, which is great because I'm not that much a fan of wide open spaces. I like cubbies.

Also included in What Was Left were about three full Early Drafts of The Novel; big, inflated versions no one should ever see, and which I cut to ribbons several times. Guess what? If you go back and scratch out, or find the matching file and strike out or delete all the stuff you've adapted or used elsewhere, it's kind of easy to find those one-liner gems, or that particularly fine turn of phrase you hated to see go, but which you couldn't justify keeping, and sometimes, they're perfect for adding  something your current draft lacks. (*pant, pant*--long sentence!)

See, your mom was right. Keeping your room clean is all kinds of helpful.

Personal Note: The Gunstringer hates me.

Okay, you've done it. You're in that final stretch of your manuscript, the last big blow-out, and then it's epilogue, sweet epilogue, and Fine. . . Except, you have no idea what you're doing in those last twenty or so pages. You know it's supposed to be big, tying up loose ends you've left (whilst simultaneously cutting free a few strings to leave the reader with more questions, should your book be in a series), and you know it has to feel genuine.

What do you do? Well, you fall back on your classic writer's block cures: repetitive exercises (either actual exercise, or you know, just the same action over and over), mundane chores which allow your mind to wander (I like washing the dishes--even though I actually hate washing the dishes), listen to music that gets you in the literary mood. I have a friend who likes to knit, one who cooks, one who just needs someone to babble to, and one who swears the bathroom in the most creativity-inspiring room in the house.

But I, on the other hand, know how my show goes down, and yet, still I have this magnetic force pulling me from completing this book. I feel like I'm letting down my friends, family, and writer cohorts with my uncertainly, and my sluggish pace. My inner demons taunt me with accusations of being lazy, or incapable, or both. Am I scared to finish because I'm sure my best efforts still won't be enough, or am I truly so busy in my "normal" life to have enough left over to do justice to this hot mess? Am I simply so much a perfectionist I'll never finish because I can't be certain of acclaim or praise? I'd hate it if that were the truth, because I don't want to be that shallow. I want to write for the good and the good times of others. I don't want to lose my faith in this book, my ability to write it, or a reader's likelihood to get something out of it.

A part of me, a very ingrained, much-disliked part of me, wants to put the blame on anyone, anything else. I don't have test readers, so I don't have any feedback to work from. Or, I don't work nearly as well unless I've got a hard-copy in front of me, but I don't want to waste paper, so I have to finish this thing before I print it all out. Or, Oh, look, there are REALLY pretty boys on television right now. I can't write with pretty boys in front of me *minor eye rape*. Even, My husband is actually home today, I don't want to do anything but curl up on the couch with him. Which, you know, is TRUE, but is also procrastinatorial BS (yes, me and the words-making again).

So, you tell me; what do I do?

Personal Notes: It's a little weird, but I know my best friend's favorite word*, but not her favorite color. If I had to hazard a guess I'd say . . . blue?

* "Sussurous", which refers to a quiet, rustling sound, like leaves being blown by a breeze, or many people whispering at once.

 . . . which can be saddening, 'cause you know, I can't use every giggle-worthy thing I come up with, either because they're a little off-color (hi, I'm a grown-up; nice to meet you), or there just really is no play for the remark/comment/scene.  So, that in mind, a few things rattling around in my brain that may or may not make the cut some day.

"Your fault?  Of course it's your fault. It's always your fault. There's a whole museum of things that are your fault. They're adding a Hall of Fault Fame. It's dedicated to the victims of your stupidity."

"It's okay. Every one knows your testicles are pretty much ornamental, anyway. You might as well bronze them and display them on the mantle for all the good they do you."

"Damn, girl! That was something else."
"Yeah, I know. I've sort of been doing it as a hobby for while, but I'm hoping to go for a full Bad-assary PhD in a couple years."

"I rent an apartment in what could arguably be described as Hell and you what--want to see me safely inside?"

Personal Note: A hard-core (possibly old lady-ish) pet peeve of mine is people breaking before they put on they're turn signal.  Seriously, how hard is it to tell yourself to flick on your signal a couple seconds before you put your foot on the break. I don't care what your DMV pamphlet says; the turn signal isn't so much about which way you're going as it is to tell the people behind you, "Hey, I'm going to slow down a lot here in a second, and I'm letting you know ahead of time because neither of us wants your hood shoved into my trunk."

So, one of the things about living with three young sons, a gamer husband, and a retarded, head-thumping-into-walls-boy-cat is the rarity of silence. You know, the kind in which one can actually hear her keys clacking away while she types. Or the fridge humming along. With all the noise being of the white variety.

Authoress posed a question about seasons impacting an individual's writing productivity, and like a light-bulb, my brain dinged for a second, because I realised, at that moment as I read her post, my house was silent. The eldest boys are at school, and the youngest is well into nap time. Even the Daddy-Man is off running macho-esque errands, and Fable is . . . well, he's um, indulging himself in some personal (but silent!) hygiene.

Along with the quiet, it occurred to me I'm so used to, so programmed for Amethyst-eclipsing sounds 98 per cent of my waking hours, I sort of react to silence as a wind-up clock that has lost its twist. Even while I folded laundry, I watched a television show, because . . . well, aside from it being a good show and wanting to know what happens next, I didn't know, nor did I suspect it was because my subconscious knew I needed the sound--that bit of brain distraction--to tell the rest of me it was still Time to Get Stuff Done.  As soon as my laundry was folded and the show finished, I sat still for a while, kind of at a loss of what to do next. Trust me, there's always something to do next. Did I mention I live with five males? Yeah.

The silence had kind of paralyzed me.  This may shed some light on why my Dionadir trilogy playlist already has about 200 songs in it, and I add more regularly.  So, my thing, my productive thing, it's not so much seasonal, or time-related, but aural.

And oh, look. The Youngest just woke up and has turned on Curious George.  Guess it's time to achieve today's goal of liberating The Youngest's floor from the carpet of toys oppressing it.

Personal Note: I like broccoli better than any other veggie. I know, I know, I'm a radical. Also, people seem to either really love my hair or absolutely hate it, and it's kind of surprising, who's on which side of the fence.

Top of the list, give blood. You have to weigh at least one-hundred-and-ten pounds. I've never weighed that outside of being pregnant.

But just after that? Take grown up medications for anything, especially anything of the cold/allergy/sinus variety. Why? Because they make me super-loopy. If you've been one of those extremely kind of helpful people to read past drafts of the first Dionadir novel you likely know there's a scene in which Joss gets the flu hardcore, and you'll remember her mentioning something about looking for the Meaning of Life chillin' in the fridge, a side-effect of her cold medicine high. That detail is based in fact, my own life around the time I was sixteen, actually*. I'd contracted Mono (as had our entire marching band--we'd all shared the same water fountain at practices and our drum major had spread the love around, so to speak) and was having a lot of trouble sleeping because I felt so awful. The doctor I saw put me on ten milligrams of Benedryl before bed every night. Yeah . . . that was an interesting two weeks. I might as well have been dropping acid every night (something I've not actually done, but I'm guessing here) for all the psychedelic shenanigans my brain ran me through. I even remembered to write down some of my thoughts. I think my letters to my boyfriend-at-the-time, Michael, and my friends were probably hilarious and riddled with hidden meanings only a drugged version of me could interpret now.

But you want to know something even sillier? In between bouts of insanely hard sleeping (I go out like you would not believe, or maybe I just don't believe it because normally I'm the lightest of sleepers) I get this . . . I don't know, giggly burst of productive energy (hence this blog post, you know?) and STUFF GETS DONE, BUCKO!

Earlier today I finally sat myself down--after having index carded every scene in the book last night--and physically put them in a really good, sense-making, tension-holding, heart-tugging order. And now I just have to surgery those suckers into a book worth NOT putting down, because my cold-medicined brain is shooting in fourteen different directions and all of them are made of PURE WIN . . .

At least until I pass out again, dead to the world as far as everything else is concerned.

But first! I must conquer a kitchen!

*Though I still maintain my best friend describing her behavior on Robitussin and/or sleep deprivation is the funniest thing I've ever heard. Patrick Swayze and a space so thin a piece of paper wouldn't fit in it were mentioned.

Personal Note: I was almost a teacher, in the traditional sense. It's true; if I hadn't taken a semester off school to plan my wedding and prepare for transferring colleges (which I was doing before I knew I was getting married, just to make that clear), and then I hadn't found out three weeks after the wedding I was two weeks pregnant with Gabriel, I would have gone on to finish my degree in education. My grandfather was a teacher, so besides having a natural affinity for it, there was that added bonus of making him especially proud, a little nod of respect in his direction.

But . . . I'm not a teacher, as in one who goes to an education institute with a lesson plan book, and tries to carve what's in it into the heads of non-adults. Some may argue that I'm my children's first teacher, or my readers' teacher, but the truth is, "teaching" isn't what novelists are generally paid to to. We're paid to entertain, to illicit emotional responses, not help you memorize your times tables (I only know up to my tens--stupid math *grumble, grumble).

My job as a writer is to imagine the intensities of life, but its heartbreaks are small and insular, and at the end of the day, only my own. When there's grief in my working life, it belongs only to me, or possibly a few fictional people. It doesn't affect others in some negative way. Rejection is personal. Tragedy is empathetic, but easily set aside, because it's of the 'make-believe' variety. Failure doesn't fail anyone else, and if I give into it, it is always, always my fault, not a result of the impossible restrictions put on me by some higher authority. I have all control over the quality of results my efforts produce. If I do the work, I'll reap the reward.

In my personal life, I'm insanely blessed. I married into the most amazing family, and they all live within fifteen minutes of my house. My husband is the perfect compliment to my needy, anxious personality. He's always telling me to "Just breathe". He's no nonsense, and logical to a fault. I've probably referred to him as a Vulcan on more than one occasion. My sons are all amazing kids, beautiful and typical, but also huge-hearted. I get to stay home and be here for them, because my husband makes enough money on his own. Even though I could sometimes scream, that's amazing in this economy.

So why the Hades am I whining about the opportunity to make a mess better? Why am I complaining about being given enviable guidance on the road to my own dreams, especially when all I have to do it TAKE IT? I don't have to sit by and watch other people lose themselves in the crush of reality, knowing there's nothing I can do about it. I have freedom.

My best friend does not.

Personal Notes: For whatever reason, Ben likes the 'z' sound best and so most of the time when he babbles it sound like he's singing "Wannabe" to the toucan from The Lion King. Secondly I gave up caffeine for Lent. That means no coffee, regular tea, no chocolate, and most sodas. And that's just off the top of my head. Draw your own conclusions about that.

Now, onto business. Let's assume you've decided to write something longer, a novella or or perhaps a full-blown novel. Let's also assume, like me, that you are known for not finishing your random, out-of-your-mind schemes (watercolors, anyone? Knitting? Collage?) and you are aware that you drop most projects right in the middle because you get bored with them. What do you do to keep that from happening to your new literary endeavor?

I suggest analyzing your likes and dislikes. Look through your time and figure out what activities or treats you find yourself going back to again and again. Granted, snowboarding might not be the best example (snow, after it stops being fluffy is wet, and I have yet to discover a paper or electronic that likes 'wet') but try to think of something portable and weather-friendly. Now, see if you can adapt that to writing time. If you prefer your atmosphere you're more likely to return to it.

Secondly, for some it helps to have a very set routine. Me, I can't really get the mojo flowing unless it's completely dark except for one small lamp and the computer screen. I also need a hot drink and a glass of water. Food's bad, though. During initial creation (writing the very first draft) I stick to movie scores and other instrumentals that way lyrics don't bug me, but I still have a sound that moves me forward. After the first draft I develop a playlist and let it repeat as long as I'm editing.

You, however, may be the exact opposite. I stay in a small, dark room because the outdoors and I kind of hate each other, plus I'm a little ADD, so I need the dark to keep distractions to a minimum (if I can't see it I can't be distracted by it). Also, the music, coming from the tiny computer speakers right my the monitor/keyboard keep the back half of my brain busy while focusing the rest right toward my objective.

If you like Nature, or light, or anything else that might make me cringe, do THAT. My formula won't be yours. The point is, with a little careful study, you can find out what makes you stick with something and then make it work for your writing.

Me? It was wanting to rub it in my (usually very nice) husband's face when he laughed about me never finishing anything. *evil grin*