Loving That Road Less Traveled!

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Okay, no I’m not quitting fiction-writing.

Apparently yesterday’s post came across just a little too dire, because a number of my fiction-writing pals contacted me privately and expressed alarm.

Which is really wonderful of them.

And that’s probably why need communities like this, to keep you going when you start to flag. Business and art have such different goals, such different ways of operating that, for some of us, it’s difficult to do both well. I recently read that Jennifer Marks, who does that great song “Live,” (thanks to Kev for sending it to me) retired after her first music tour and is sticking to songwriting. Actually it’s in one of the comments on that video. We all make choices, and some prioritize quality of life.

So, all I’m saying is, I’m trying to back off the rabid biz aspects. I’ve unfollowed a number of agents, or stopped reading their blogs, because the snark makes me unhappy.

I’m a sensitive soul, you know.

But I also sent out a query last night to a friend’s agent. In putting it together, I realized how close I really am. Obisidian has finaled in four contests and won two. Three agents and two editors have read the full manuscript. And, as one of my writing buddies pointed out, I’m still working through the top echelons. I haven’t even gone to second tier yet.

What I did do was slow down.

That was needed — I had to do the Ruthless Revision. (Oops – I might have promised not to mention it again? Sorry!) And then with the waiting while people read it. Now I just need to ramp up keeping it out there. That’s not that hard to do.

Meanwhile, I get to do the fun part, too. The writing part.

That’s what’s in my heart, no matter the genre.

Forever Stuck on the Road Less Traveled

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I may have made a mistake.

I know, I know — we can crack all the jokes we like about writing it on the calendar, etc. But I’m begining to think I really miscalculated, becoming involved in this whole genre thing.

When I first began writing, and I really trace this back to grad school, since I don’t believe childhood stories and adolescent angsty poetry really count, my work came out as essays. To get some relief from what had become the crushing pressure of my PhD in Neurophysiology program, I began taking classes with the visiting writers program.

And, oh, the excitement of those days.

I loved meeting the visiting writers, and the other students. I loved the workshops, the stimulation of it all. And they supported me in very useful ways. I learned to explore my new art. An artist’s retreat accepted me to stay for two weeks, I received fellowships and other awards.

And I was rewarded early on with publishing success.

I wouldn’t say the magazines fell over themselves to publish me, but it was fairly steady, from Redbook to Literary Mags, I published in several a year until, eight years after my first class, I held my essay collection, published by a university press, in my hands.

Then I stalled.

There were a lot of reasons. Mainly I couldn’t quite get the two nonfiction projects I was working on to gel. So I wrote a novel, Obsidian, about sex and magic. I thought, oh, I’ll sell this and the genre work will bring in the money so I can focus on the nonfiction projects.

Yeah, it didn’t work out that way. Even though one of the editors at a sci fi magazine I’d published with said that an agent would snap up a writer like me, no one has. One agent early on wrote me a letter saying how disappointed he was, because he’d loved my idea but then I’d gone and written it like some kind of literary book.

A few months later, I went to the RWA National conference, where my name tag identified me as unpublished. Because Romance Writers of America considers you published only if it’s in the genre. A month before, I’d been a featured writer on a panel at a book festival. At one lunch, I sat next to a woman I didn’t know. In fact, I did at every meal since I knew no one. I don’t remember her name — she was another unpubbed wannabe like me. At the end of the meal, she said she looked forward to reading my book. Foolishly, I pulled my essay collection out of my bag, saying I had some with me. She looked at me like I’d offered her dog shit and said, no, she meant my romance novel, whenever I got it published.

I sent my first query on Obsidian 12/20/07. Just over two years ago, for those keeping score at home. Admittedly, it wasn’t really ready for prime time then. Hindsight is 20/20. Meanwhile, a gal I know wrote a book while snowed in during December 2008, that she just sold in a three-book deal.

Jayne Ann Krentz wrote an interesting post on the FFP blog recently. She speaks frankly about writing as a business, which she’s clearly better at than I am. She says this:

DON’T GET TOO FAR AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Trust me on this. I’ve been there and done that and it rarely goes well. Back at the beginning of my career I tried to do a futuristic/paranormal. That very first manuscript had all of the elements that I now work with freely: romance, suspense and a psychic twist. I can’t tell you how many rejection slips the manuscript garnered. They all had the same theme: “Really enjoyed the writing but unfortunately there’s no market for this kind of romance.”

She could be talking about me. For some reason, no matter what I’m doing, I never quite fit neatly into what everyone else is doing. I didn’t in high school, I didn’t in my PhD program. I don’t now.

I really don’t think I’m doing it on purpose.

At any rate, I’m back where I was three years ago when I started writing Obsidian. Unable to sell my current project, I think I’m going back to nonfiction. I actually know where to take one of the two I was working on then.

I have learned one thing, that querying and selling have to be background activities. You can make yourself crazy if they’re your main focus.

It might be precious to say, but it forever and always must be mainly about the writing.

My Number One Pal

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I’m working on being kinder to myself.

I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s not for me. I get in these modes where I find I’m flogging myself for more work, faster, better. This is exacerbated by my community of writers who focus heavily on word count, some doing 4,000 words per day, another doing 20 pages per day.

I’ve found that I can reliably produce 1,000 words per day. I can do more than that sometimes, but not for more than, say, a week or do. But 1K works for me, what with the full-time career and other commitments.

Also, for the past year or so, I’ve been writing this blog. I started out trying to post every day. I didn’t make that goal. I posted 247 times in 2009. That’s 67.7% for those keeping score at home. Almost spot-on 2/3. And you know how the song goes, two out of three ain’t bad, right?

Fairly early on, I began taking Sundays off from the blog. Day of rest and all that. I’d like to tell you I spend the time studying philosophy or reflecting on my spiritual journey, but really it’s more about obtaining fancy coffee drinks and lolling. When I figure out how to make a religion out of this, you all can sign up.

Most days, I post to the blog first. I exercise, then try to keep the blog post to 1/2 hr. I started out trying to keep it to 300-350 words, but I find normally I write about 500-600. That seems to be where I end up. Then I switch to my book or WIP.

Work in Progress, doncha know.

I never called it that before I hooked up with the romanceys. The lit types always refer to their book or their collection, whether it’s done or not. It’s an interesting distinction. For the lit types, it’s always a book, pubbed or not. For the romanceys, it’s a WIP until it’s pubbed. Or maybe contracted.

Anyway, until just recently, I only counted my 1K for working on my book. And then I realized that, not unlike calling a book a WIP, I was devaluing what I write here. As if this is not part of my writing life, not part of keeping the writing juices flowing and honing my skills. Which it absolutely is.

Otherwise, it’s not worth doing.

So I revamped my Progress Count spreadsheet to include my blog word count at the beginning of this week. What? Of course, I have a spreadsheet, in which I track progress on everything I’m working on. Yes, it has formulas and calculates completion dates from today’s date. I celebrate this slice of Virgo in me and let her do these things to keep her happy.

This is why I know my blog tends to be 500-600 words. Which, when I get to count it, means I’m already more than halfway to my daily goal by the time I finish posting.

Which makes me feel good.

Then, when I turn to my book — right now it’s a novella — I’m already halfway there. And interestingly, I put in 1K words on that every day except for one, when I stopped at 891 because work called and I never it made it back. Right now I’m only 135 words shy of making 7,000 words for the week. I’ll likely do more than that, since I’ll work on the novella today.

People often refer to the carrot and the stick method of motivating themselves, usually meaning a combination of treat and punishment. This is actually a misinterpretation of the original saying, which referred to the practice of tying a carrot to the end of a stick and dangling it before a donkey’s nose to keep him moving forward. In that scenario, the carrot is forever out of reach.

With this approach, I gave myself credit, and carrots, early on in the process. And, son of a gun, it worked!

And the writing? It’s good, too.

Fantasies and Delusions

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I was seized by a fantasy yesterday evening.

This happens to everyone, yes? That’s right, you’re reading or scanning Twitter or some such and this dream flies into your head of what might be.

Mine? That Neil Gaiman read my book and thought it was so great that I got to hang out with him and Amanda Palmer.

This is them on New Year’s Eve, from Amanda’s blog, from whence I obtained this great pic. I’ve been following Neil on Twitter and I feel like I like him so much. I started paying more attention to him around the time I wrote this post. He and Amanda have been publicly involved since midsummer. At one point, around this concert he tweeted something along the lines of “I’m making tea and Amanda is dancing in her scanties. we call this division of labor.”

I have a total crush on both of them.

I know, I know — it’s the false intimacy of the internet. In person they might be shallow and self-absorbed. Probably three days after I write this, we’ll hear some UK tabloid screaming that AFP has been dragged off to rehab and we’ll see a bedraggled Gaimain looking gaunt and haunted as he sorts out his finances.

But it was a bit of a revelation to me, because I’ve been sorting through why I want literary success so much. Forgive me for belaboring, since I suspect I’ve run through this particular soul-search on here before.

I count my blessings: I have a great life, a terrific loving relationship with a wonderful man; I have family and friends who love and support me; I have a career I enjoy, with fabulous colleagues and the best boss ever (and I’m not saying that just because I know she reads this) that pays me well enough for the man and I to have a lovely lifestyle; we have a gorgeous house in a beautiful place; I enjoy terrific health and I feel good about how I look. I want for nothing, really. I am happy. I see people struggling with dire health issues, with dysfunctional families, straining to make it economically and I count my blessings. I should be satisfied.

And yet, I’m not.

I have this wanting that claws at me. Sometimes it feels like it’s at the back of my throat, as if I’m longing to speak. Like spiders of yearning wiggling around in my chest.

I want that book contract.

It’s not validation as a writer that I need. I’ve got that with the essay collection, which makes me luckier than many writers. More money would be nice, but it’s not a huge consideration. Do I want fame, celebrity? I’ve never had much desire to be a rock star and I’m not hugely social, so I don’t think so.

I think I just want to get to hang with the cool kids. Maybe it always comes back to that.

Or maybe this is what it feels like when you’ve got the pyramid of needs handled. If I review my list of blessings, I’ve got the Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging and Esteem going. Now I should be all about the morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving….wait! This is the pinnacle? Acceptance of facts??? This is my reward for getting my shit together?

Hell, no wonder I just want to hang with Neil and Amanda!

Serendipity and the Whole Enchilada

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“Is soup for lunch okay with you?” David asked me.

I said that sounded fine.

“But is that what you really want?”

“No, I want Harrys blue corn turkey enchiladas, but soup is fine.”

David jumped on the idea, though and soon we were in the car headed to Harry’s Roadhouse (thanks to roadfood.com for the pic!), just down the way. Never mind that I’m supposed to be on the post-holiday diet. Or that we ate at Harrys only a week ago. In fact, we’ve been eating there about once or twice a week. We were both feeling blue for no good reason. I’d dreamed the night before that one of the agents who has my manuscript told me all the reasons it wasn’t any good and would never sell. David is watching his last few days of vacation slip by before the semester cranks into gear again. We both felt like a bug was working on us.

So we went to Harrys and waited only a few minutes for a table.

The hostess seated us in front of a window and began scrolling down the shade to cut off the southern sunlight streaming in.

“Don’t do that for us — we like it,” I said. She looked startled and said “okay,” but left it down. So, I opened it again. The man at the table next to us was staring hard at me and started to get up. David and I both thought he was going to be mad at me for opening the shade again.

This has happened before. No, really. I’m a sunshine kind of gal. I love nothing better than to sit in the sun. It’s a mystery to me why people in restaurants ask to sit by the window and then ask for the shade to be drawn. An even greater mystery: the shade pulling request is always accomodated over the shads open request. Why? Why? Why? People act if I’m unreasonable when I say I’d like them open. Shade closing always trumps other desires. Rodent people rule the world.

But I digress.

I realized I knew the man staring at me — had known him all my life. I called them Uncle Tom and Aunt Susan when I was a little girl. Their third child, Andrew, is the “envy baby” — born nine months after I was, because next-door neighbor Susan on the base in Selma was so inspired by my birth.

My “what are you doing here?” was quickly replaced by the realization that, duh, they were on their way from Colorado Springs to Tucson, to the house they’re renting for three months, once again next door to my mom and her husband, Dave.

We talked over lunch — no need to move our little two-tops even. We were all amazed at the serendipity of meeting up. Though I told them I hadn’t missed that they planned to blaze on through Santa Fe without saying anything to us.

I called my mom to tell her on the drive home, but she was already on the other line with Susan.

Tom and Susan pronounced it a good omen for their sojourn to Tucson, that so many pieces fell into place for us to be at lunch next to each other. David and I returned home, much lightened for the good company.

It’s something for me to remember, that for all the times I’ve feared I’ve missed opportunities, for all the rejections that seem like the end of the trail, that the universe delivers gifts also.

When it’s meant to be, it will be.

Blink Blink

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The other day as I was driving home, this woman pulled out in front of me.

I knew she was going to do it. I could see her from a ways off, watching the oncoming traffic to her right. Whatever it is that telegraphs what other drivers are going to do, told me that she’d already decided to go after that group coming from her right. She looked at me, now approaching from her left, but pulled out anyway.

She had already made up her mind, after all.

Much has been made lately of the split-second decision. The knowing without conscious thought, as in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. It’s an interesting concept, and I think Gladwell makes good points, in both Blink and Tipping Point, about how we decide, from life-mates to editors buying manuscripts. (Same thing?) This plays into what I was talking about yesterday, with how our brains filter information.

It’s important to be decisive. Without decision, you are paralyzed. Unable to act. And it’s nearly impossible to analyze all the factors that go into a decision in reasonable time to act. If you wait until you’ve analyzed every possibilty, every variable, the moment has passed.

Decision means to cut away — same root as incision, only you take it out instead of cutting in. You cut away your other options until only one remains

The important thing, I’m thinking, is that only one course of action remains for just that moment. If conditions change, you have to be ready to alter the decision. The lady in the other car made her decision, but she was then unwilling to let go of it when another factor, me approaching from the other direction, presented itself.

Much is made, also, of the ability to stick to decisions. To select a course of action and persevere regardless of obstacles. We’ve all witnessed the virtue in that. Countless stories abound of people who achieve great things this way. However, we can all think of people who persisted along a course of action regardless of the fact that it wasn’t working. If I decide to drill my way through a brick wall by banging my head against it, it’s likely my skull will give before the wall does, no matter how strong my resolve.

But then, it would be a bad decision in the first place.

I’m a fan of the bad decision, actually. I truly believe it’s better to make a bad decision than no decision. The paralysis of trying to make the perfect decision is excrutiating. The key is then being willing to constantly reevaluate the decisions I’ve made. To question the basis for them. Why did I believe my skull was stronger than brick at the time. Perhaps I should reconsider my assumptions.

It takes resilience and flexibility. Something that grows more difficult as we grow older. Just as our bodies tend to stiffen, so do our assumptions. Young people are sometimes derided for being flighty — changing majors and mates with flagrant flexibility. They are urged to pick one thing/person and commit.

Perhaps those of us who’ve gotten good at committing should be urged to reassess.

Good for You

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I’m thinking that the reason New Year’s resolutions are so powerfully seductive has nothing to do with the new year, in so many words.

I think it’s because, in our culture, the early January return to “real life” demands that we change patterns anyway. No more with the sloth and gluttony. Here we are setting the alarms again, getting up for work, not eating Christmas cookies for breakfast. Since we have to deal with the offense of an electronic wake-up at an offensive hour, why not go for that extra half-hour that would allow me to cook a healthier breakfast? And if I’m cooking a healthy breakfast, why not try to plan healthier menus all around?

It’s been fun seeing everyone “return” from the holiday hiatus. FaceBook and Twitter are full of grumblings and resolve.

It was also interesting to see how many people took “vacation” from the internet also. As if that, too, is work. Which, I’m beginning to think, it really is.

I did it, too. On New Year’s Day, when I did nothing, I never turned on the computer. What I did was lay about and read. And it’s funny to me, that reading now falls under “doing nothing” in my mind. I really needed that relaxed time, however, to get back in the reading groove.

We’ve all noticed we’re not reading much. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books posted an article on the topic, triggered by an NPR article on how ebooks are changing us, which cites an article in the Atlantic Monthly by writer Nicholas Carr on whether the internet is making us stupid. If you can pick only one of the three, read Carr’s, even though it’s long. It will be good for you.

I don’t believe the internet is a bad thing. This kind of linking of essay to article, one provoking another’s thought is a wonderful tool. I also think that rewiring our brains to process more information in faster slices is okay, too.

And, like the readers Carr talked to, I agree that I’m losing something.

I, too, can feel my attention wander after a few paragraphs. I skim. I get a taste and move on. Even something I want to read, I sometimes find I just can’t. I made a deliberate choice many years ago not to watch TV, because I do believe it undermines the imagination and trains you to follow other people’s ideas. But I hadn’t realized how profoundly the internet is affecting me, until I spend the last year writing and reading blogs, posting to FaceBook and following Twitter. And not reading nearly as much.

So, this morning I’m back at it. Got up right at 6am, exercised, fixed my healthy breakfast and sat down to write this post at 7. In a few minutes, I’ll move to the novel I’m working on. Or the novella. I actually have six projects I’m drafting at this time, which might be a problem. And one novel I’m trying to sell that I may yet have to revisit.

When I finish my work day, I’m now inserting an hour previously spent noodling on the internet. I’m going to walk away from the computer and just read. By the end of my day of reading, I found I had it back. I relearned my old trick of sinking into a book.

And damn, it felt really good.

When I sell my novel and have to make edits, while writing the sequel and finishing the novella, I’ll want to be able to access my ability to move quickly from project to project. And then to stop it all and just read.

It’s good for me.

No, Thank YOU!

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I’m not a Thank-You Note writer.

I’m one of those, yes. Not that I wasn’t raised right. My mother tried to teach me to do it. Made me do it on occasion. She also had a little sculpture my first boyfriend, Kev, gave her, of a man tugging on the reins of a stubbornly sitting mule.

Ha ha, guys.

I don’t do Christmas cards either. I tried a few years to do it. One year I did Valentines to everyone instead. After that, well, not so much. I am deeply grateful to the friends that have retained me on their lists, despite my non-reciprocation. To me that’s love — that they know I’ll never send a card back and they accept this in me.

I’m a bad correspondent, too. Since I’m confessing. When I went to college, my stepfather, Leo, gave me a stack of stamped envelopes with their address, so I could easily write home. He often harrumphed that it was the worst investment he ever made. Of course, that was just a gambit to try to keep me and my mother from running up the long-distance bill (remember when it used to cost by the minute to talk on the phone?), which was a failed premise from the start.

Ironically, I think all of this is because I’m a writer. When I do write a letter, it goes on for pages and pages. And once I’ve written a “story,” I feel I’ve written it and I’m done. I don’t want to write it again.

I know people really hate it when they’re asked “did you read my blog?” so I try not to say that. And yet I find myself in conversations where I’m telling a story and the other person will say, oh yeah, I read that on your blog. So, I try to mentally track who I know reads this regularly. You can imagine how well that goes.

At any rate, my lovely stepsister, Hope, sent me a Thank-You Note for her birthday gifts, for her December birthday. And two days later, sent me another for the Christmas presents. Even though she knows we don’t do Thank-You Notes. Yes, my mother told her, having given up on them herself. And yes, Hope reads this blog.

I was planning, Hope, to threaten you at this point. That if you persist in sending Thank-You Notes, worse, multiple ones, that I’d have to escalate by sending Thank-You Gifts. (Note: no writing involved.)

But then, I re-read Hope’s birthday thank-you and it’s so sweet. And I love hearing how she liked what I sent.

Hope and I don’t get to talk much. We’re new to sisterhood with each other and we’re both busy. We don’t have an established pattern of communication, really. We only talk when we’re together. So it goes.

Maybe this is okay then. I send my gifts and she sends her thank-yous. I tell my stories here.

What’s most important is embracing each other for who we are.

Me and My Dream of Doing Nothing

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Yesterday, I did absolutely nothing.

And it was everything I thought it could be.

Actually, I don’t have a dream of doing nothing — but the line from Office Space feels inevitable. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should drop everything you’re doing and go rent the movie right now. At any rate, I am generally a busy person. David says I am always busy. I’m willing to concede the point. I’m the person who, (AVATAR SPOILER ALERT) after the triumphant end of Avatar starts wondering what he’s going to *do* there now. Sure it was challenging and exciting when he had the steep learning curve and the conflict and all that. But, while tribal life looks so peaceful and bucolic, wouldn’t you get, well, bored after a while?

I think it mainly looks attractive to us because we are so busy.

And busy I have been. This new project I’ve been working on that’s so political involves countless meetings and hours of phone calls. Visiting and revisiting deadlines. Then I had another project that I had to deliver by midnight on December 31, which is not nearly as magical as it sounds. My colleague worked all week on it, when I wasn’t on other calls or going to meetings. She read over it while I took a shower at 6:30pm on New Years Eve and then I emailed it off. David and I made our 7:30 dinner reservation.

Normally, January 1 is a busy day for me. I come from Marie McGee’s School of How to Make Them Think You’re a Lady (Even If You’re Not) and one of the tenets written in stone is Thou Shalt Take Down Thy Christmas Decorations on New Years Day. Anything else TACKY. (Nothing is worse than “tacky” in Marie McGee’s world.) And normally I like that, starting the new year clean and fresh.

But you know, I just wasn’t feeling it yesterday.

I started this blog one year ago on January 1, so I had planned a bit of a year in review. Revisit the metrics. Discuss how it went. That sort of thing.

Wasn’t feeling that either.

I dragged myself out of bed at 9am, which is the longest I’ve slept in for quite a while. Though we did stay up until 1, which was also impressive. 9am is just the time the sun hits the big armchair on the west side of the living room. David brought me coffee. Then oatmeal. I sat in my nightgown and read.

When the sun moved off the chair, I spread a blanket on the floor, and followed the sun across the floor all day — until 4:17 pm, in fact — reading and gazing at the sky.

I watched the sunset. I took a bath and used all of my scrubs and lotions. We watched a movie and I went to bed at 10.

I did load the dishwasher before bed, but that was my lone concession to productivity.

I’ve never had a dream of doing nothing, but it truly was all I thought it could be.

Avatar

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Yahoo! Avatars

No, not THAT one.

Though we did see the movie the other night and I get why everyone is raving. The story is stirring as any great fable should be. But the visual imagery is what gets you, sweeps you up and rolls you over. All night phosphorescent blue giants strode through my dreams and I find myself with a slight jones to see them again.

Pandora seduced us all.

I think I’m spoiling nothing here, but if you’re one who wants to know nothing about a movie before you see it, stop reading now. The reason why it’s called “Avatar” is because humans have their consciousness downloaded to an empty alien body, so they can move around on the alien planet and mingle with them as nearly the same creature.

I remember the first time I encountered this particular use of the word “avatar.” It was when Yahoo Instant Messenger first came on big. I use Yahoo IM extensively. My work team is scattered all over the country. We use Yahoo IM as a way of shouting over the cubicle wall, as it were. I also use it to communicate with friends family. From early on, Yahoo allowed you to design an “avatar,” an online representation of yourself, which you could make accurate or not, as you chose.

Okay, okay — for all you gamers out there. I know the usage came from that first. I just had no experience with it.

The thing is, “avatar” is a Sanskrit word that specifically refers to the descent of a deity to earth in an incarnate form. It’s from Hindu mythology, but really every mythology and religion has a form of this concept. Even Jesus Christ is an example of this: god made into man.

So, you can see why this makes me squirm a bit.

Sure, the analogy is a good one. A human from a spaceship descends into an alien body and uses it like a puppet. A gamer manipulates her online character, controls her destiny.

Godlike, indeed.

People make fun of the Mormons for this kind of thinking. That they, okay, the men, get a whole planet to be god of when they die. To populate with their wives and children. Sounds like a little much to some.

There’s an idea that when god “made man in his image” that this is a way of conveying that we all have a piece of divinity in us. Christ, Prana, what have you. This is what raises us up from the animal. That this is what we must strive to nuture and bring to full flower. Some think of it as trying to reach Enlightenment, Nirvana, to become one with god.

Of course, what no one can agree on is how to get there.

I’m thinking though, that taking on godlike qualities can get one in trouble. With great power comes great responsibility, and all that.

So even as I fantasize about walking a world like Pandora, with a beautiful blue Amazonian body, I can help thinking about the thoughtful sequel. In which we discover we’re not gods, after all.

Which is a good thing.