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Help! I write more ABOUT writing than I write!

Logo for 100 k words in 100 days

It’s April 10,  so the results are in for the writing challenge I joined, 100 k in 100 days.

They’re a shocker!

The good news- in 100 days I wrote 198, 183 countable words.

The bad news – my story word count was only 41,837.

The rules were:

What you CAN count towards your 100k

  • Novels
  • Short stories
  • Poetry
  • Prose
  • Creative non-fiction (i.e. self-help books, humour, histories, biographies etc)
  • Articles
  • Notes for any creative piece you write, or exercises from creative writing courses.
  • Writing related or creative blog posts. But they must be of the creative variety (i.e. writing related or related to some other interest, incl. pets, children, flowers, photography or your life as an ex-pat) and not just what you had for breakfast that morning. Unless you’re Jamie Oliver and what you had for breakfast is very interesting (so recipe blogs are fine to include).

What you CANNOT count towards your 100k

  • Twitter status updates
  • Facebook status updates
  • emails
  • letters to the editor
  • notes to the milkman
  • letters in general
  • memos or reports at work though I will allow contributions to in-house magazines or newsletters.

I stuck carefully to the guidelines, made sure I only counted permitted words. So considering things were insane at the Day Job for the first six weeks, plus I had my mother-in-law ill and was busy there too, the total word count is pretty darned good.

But the worrying thing is the story word count. Less than a quarter of the total. Sure, I was editing a story and needed to write loads of notes for that. Sure, I’m now planning another story and it’s a historical needing loads of research and working out so I have over 40 k of research and planning notes. Sure I set up a new website for a little sideline business (Vegan Water Kefir) and wrote around 10 k there, and in some related articles.

Even taking all that into account,  for every story word I wrote I wrote three or four times as many other words! I’m obviously a lot better at writing about writing than I am at actually writing! That’s scary and makes me wonder if it’s another procrastination method. The answer is a big loud “YES!”

So, I’m doing Camp Nanowrimo now, with a total story word count of 60,000. Guess how many words I have now?

Zero. Zilch. Nought. Nothing. A big steaming pile of non-existence.

Okay, I have 1752 words, if I want to count the false start, which I’m not. I started writing the story on April Fools day, and looks like I was the fool! I had a load of research and absolutely no planning, and ended up the day with a fab start to a completely different story.

Which is a good and useful thing, because I recognised straight away the story I aimed to write had headed in the wrong direction, and I love the other story that emerged. I’ll have fun writing that next month. But it wasn’t hugely helpful for my April target and the story I want at least first drafted before I pitch it to an editor for my target line on May 8! It did tell me I needed to plan. So planning’s what I’ve done for the last week. I still don’t feel “finished”, but I have enough.

Tomorrow, I start writing again. It’s my 10th wedding anniversary, so it feels like a nicely symbolic day to make another new start.

We’re off to Paris (where we spent our honeymoon) for the day. A looooooong day. We leave home at six am and won’t get home until well after midnight. I still have no idea what to wear, and whatever I wear will be wrong anyway, seeing it will be -1 c when we leave home, about 18 c in the afternoon, and -1 again when we come home. Layers, but which ones? And which shoes for all the walking we’ll do?  And which bag to carry around all the discarded layers until I need to put them on again? Decisions!

Anyway, that’s another story.

But surely somewhere in the seven hours travel time, I’ll be able to pull out my PDA and get Kezia and William butting heads and arguing about whether he should allow her to travel to Australia on his ship. I have a lot of catching up to do to get this story finished in time!


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Little Yellow Writing and Crafting Shed- progress report!

Progress report on my writing and crafting shed- almost all the timber is up!

It’s now completely panelled in spruce tongue and groove, painted white, and all that’s left to do is add a couple more pieces of woodwork to finish the window surround and get that painted white too.

My husband loves the zen simplicity of the white space. He thinks I should just have one cushion and a single polished pebble in there. That idea does have a certain appeal, though it won’t be as much use for writing or crafting that way! He’s right about one thing.  It’s a very small space for the amount I hope to fit in there. I’m trying to imagine how it will look with a wide full length desk at one end and full length shelves lining the long walls.

Smaller. A lot smaller, even though they’ll all be white too.

And smaller again when I add in all the stuff I want to put on the shelves and the windows and the doors and the walls. Lots of books. Big brightly coloured patterned bags holding my fabric stash and clothes for restyling. Boxes and bottles of buttons and threads and other sewing bits and pieces. My sewing machine. My overlocker. My big laptop. My Alphasmart.  A heater for winter. A fabric covered pinboard over the desk and on the door. Patchwork cushions on the chair. A matching patchworked blackout blind on the window.

It will be quite cluttered and busy, but hopefully in a good creative way!

Anyway, unfortunately progress has now halted. I managed to break a tiny bone in my foot on Saturday night, a one of those stupid, clumsy, ridiculous accidents. I’d been standing on a chair putting up a new lampshade in the living room (just one of those lovely cheap big round bamboo and paper ones) and as I stepped down, my foot landed on the side of one of my shoes. I twisted my foot sideways as I fell.

Instant pain and swelling and bruising. The result is, I’m now in a fair bit of pain and have to wear an ugly clumpy walking boot for at least a couple of weeks. And I need to sit with my foot up as much as I can.

Stupidly, because we’re short-staffed, I went in to the Day Job yesterday. That was a mistake. I managed okay, taking plenty of pain relief, but by the time I got home from work the foot was hugely swollen and bruised. This morning the swelling has gone done a lot, but it’s more painful. I couldn’t have gone to work on it today without going through hell. Not so much the actual job, there are two separate nursing roles in the office and one is fairly sedentary, most phone and email work. It’s the two hour each way commute that’s the killer. Walk then train then walk then bus then walk, and the same in reverse going home. No other way to do it, short of taking a cab from the train to work, which pretty much wipes out the day’s pay! Luckily it’s not too busy right now, despite the short staffing, so I’ll stay home tomorrow as well.

But it’s so frustrating to sit inside all day itching to work on the shed and not be able to! I just need those few extra pieces of wood for the window surround, a door sill, and something for the centre of the ceiling. Then once those are painted, I can get the carpet down. A lucky find on Saturday morning in a car park- boxes and boxes of used but good condition carpet tiles in the rubbish at the back of the carpet shop. I so want to get them down, then I can get the desk up.

And I can’t get the last few bits and pieces of the building work done!

I can’t even start on the sewing for the cushions and blind because that involves standing, too, measuring up and cutting out, even though the sewing part will be sitting.

Well, I can get lots of reading done, which is a good thing. I could even read my rejected Christmas story and start making notes for the re-write. I’m strangely reluctant to do so, probably because I don’t want to have to see all the ways that my story is crap. And I don’rt want to get full of ideas then not be able to write because I’m back at work, or working on the shed. I’m obsessed with getting the shed finished. It’s like my subconscious has made a deal with itself- no more writing until the shed is done.

I wonder how I can convince it to unmake that deal?


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Taking responsibility for why I don’t write

Photo by break.things

I’m still not writing.

So as an escape hatch to stop me feeling guilty about that, I’m questioning if I “should” be writing at all. Questioning whether I have any talent. Questioning if keeping on trying to write for publication is worth the effort.

At least I’m being honest about my reasons. For too long, I’ve blamed so much else in my life for me not writing. My husband. My job. My parents. No room to write. No time to write. No peace and quiet to write. I’ve got angry with the people around me and the circumstances of my life for stopping me writing.

What I’m really angry with is myself for not writing.

I can’t make any of those external factors the scapegoat for me not writing.  That’s bad for my husband, my happiness, my productivity, and my karma! If i don’t write, that’s my responsibility.

 Not my job or my husband or my head cold or the tiny house or anything else. Me.

 The big thing about growing up is taking responsibility for what truly is mine to take. Not feeling responsibility for things that aren’t down to me. Not blaming anyone or anything else for what really IS my responsibility.

 So me writing or not is down to me, no matter what the circumstances are. If I’m not writing, it’s because I am choosing something else. Maybe that choice can be justified, maybe it can’t. What matters most is acknowledging- it’s my choice.

 Not in an accusatory blaming-the-victim “You chose this” kind of way. More of an ”If you don’t like it, what can you do differently next time to change things?”

No matter what the situation, there will always be some choice I can make. It’s hard to imagine likely situations where there wouldn’t be. Being kidnapped and taken hostage, okay, all I can choose is my attitude. But in most everyday situations, I have a choice.

I did it to lose weight. I stopped trying to lose weight, which I’d been doing without much results for a couple of years. Instead, I just did it.

There is no try- do, or do not. Or something like that!

Anyway, it’s so true. Eighty pounds in two years, from a UK size 22 to a UK size 10. 

I had to choose to exercise more and to transform how i ate, not once, but many times a day. Walk rather than take the train. Eat this apple, not that cake.  Eat this salad, not that garlic bread. Say “No” to a second glass of wine (or even a first glass). Over and over again.

 The secret is to keep choosing, and make the choices easy. If I pack a salad lunch to take to work, I won’t be tempted to buy a less healthy meal. If i have lots of fruit and nuts and healthy snacks with me, I don’t need to go near those cakes and biscuits in the office kitchen. If I want to be slim more than I want to eat this chocolate, I know what to choose.

Reinforce the benefits of the positive choices, and don’t beat myself up if now and then I choose differently. 

In fact, if I do choose to eat something I “shouldn’t”, I need to make sure I truly want it and then savour every bit of it and celebrate my freedom to choose. Choosing differently every once in a while  only reinforces the truth- everything is my choice.

 I did it for weight loss, I can do it for writing too.

I need to stop trying to write, and get doing it instead. I need to know that writing is a choice I can make, a gift I can give myself. It’s not another dreary have-to on that neverending to-do list.

Yes, I need to set things up so I have no excuses. It’s my job to get systems in place that give me time and space to write. But first I need to know that writing or not writing is my choice.

I can set up work patterns to give myself time to write. Getting up before my husband on week day mornings is one. Going to the coffee shop for two hours a day on days off is another. Simply getting into consistent work patterns even here at home so Arthur knows when I’m not to be disturbed will help. Encouraging him to get out more, then making use of that time will help too.

There’s a lot I can do to change things. If I want to. If I choose to.

It starts with changing myself. Being real. Taking responsibility for myself and my life. Dropping the blame and resentment, and accepting what is my choice and what I can change. Recognising that I can have some but not all of what I want. Working towards creating what I want rather than demanding it all happen at once. 

Most of all, being a grown-up about my writing, not that hurting ten year old girl whose heartfelt gift of a hand written book was rejected. Hug the ten year old me, love her and tell her she can so write. But don’t let her keep making my choices for grown-up me.

Only just in this moment do I realise how much power that ten year old still has in my life. No wonder it’s been hard to feel like writing.

It’s time I chose to grow up. Time I chose to give this everything I’ve got, because I love to write and I want to write. And because to have the stories she loved to write read by someone else was what that ten year old most wanted.

It’s up to me to make that happen.


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Disappearing days- and new decisions


Photo by Amulon Photography

 

Disappearing. That’s what’s happened to the last few weeks, they have, quite literally disappeared, with not much to show for them.

 

After the see saw ride of a week while Mum was in hospital, and all the will I- won’t I about whether I should go, a phone call from my sister three Saturday’s ago decided me. I had to go, and I was on a flight to Australia that evening.

 

I stayed over two weeks, came back to the UK, and straight back to work, still jetlagged, so no time to blog.

 

No internet connection while I was there, either, only crazily expensive access via my mobile to send an email or two a day to my husband, who I missed a lot.

 

I’m very glad I went, I know me being there helped everyone. A big, unexpected expense, but worth it. Going was far less stressful than staying here and trying to keep working, and supporting my sister over the phone and email, and worrying about Mum and Dad would have been.

 

Being there wasn’t stressful. Emotional, yes, especially seeing how much memory my father has lost and how it affecting him. Challenging at times, especially the first few days. After that, it felt like a strange sort of holiday, an interlude out of time. I cooked and shopped for them. I did some patient education around managing their health conditions. I tried to get Dad to see his doctor and talk honestly about his problem. I went for little walks with them, as far as they could manage. I went with Mum to her cardiologist. I supported them in getting some home help set up. I helped my brother understand what was going on.

 

I also did my morning pages. I wrote some more on my Wrong Brother story, which is morphing into something very different to what I first thought it was. I read a lot. I enjoyed being back home in Sydney, my real home, not just the place I live. I heard a lot of stories about when my parents first met and their early married life before I was born.

 

Taking that time to be with them was a gift to me as well as them.

 

Then I came back to England. Went back to work. Caught up with my internet writing buddies again. A week after I got back, that time out feels almost like a dream, lost time, time that didn’t really exist, that just disappeared.

 

Yet it changed things.

 

It deepened my relationship with my parents. A true adult relationship, untainted by past hurts. My husband seems to appreciate me more. He missed me, the first time we’ve been apart for over 24 hours since we married. The Day Job seems to have missed me too. I planned to give notice in mid May, give them time to get my replacement in place before I left in Mid September. Instead, my boss is offering me part-time work, a job share. The thing I asked for first, before I decided to resign, and they told me couldn’t be done!

 

I felt so strongly about needing to leave. Giving myself time to explore writing full-time, really focus on that. Though the finances worried me. The fact that unless I sold straight away, and maybe even then, I knew I couldn’t afford more than six months of full-time writing before I’d need to find at least part-time work. Also, being back home and seeing how things were with my parents had got me knowing that I need have enough money to go back twice a year, if possible. And I would love to buy a little doer-upper house in a country town, to have a foot on the ground in Australia.

 

I’d asked for that in my Morning Pages the last full day I was there. Then I had this offer. It felt like an answer.

 

So, I’ve made a decision. I’ll take the part-time position, and delay giving myself what I’ve dreamed of, writing full-time. It’s a dream, and a good one, but I’m not ready for it yet. I need to develop my writing further first. I need to be more ready. I need to be in a better position financially.

 

I’m not giving up, by any means, just modifying my goals. Doing it more gradually, a staged withdrawal from the Day Job. I’ll only need to go two days a week. Yes, they’ll be two very long days, and I’ll still have the commute, but it’s only two days a week. That means I have five days not at the Day Job. The balance has totally shifted. If I can’t write more with five days off a week, I won’t in seven days, either. I can’t use the Day Job as an excuse once I drop my hours. And I will still be earning enough to support the household, just. No money for many luxuries, but just enough to get by on.

 

Maybe even enough for the one luxury I really want- that little house in a small New South Wales country town I like a lot, about four hours drive from my parents. It will need to be cheap. It will need to be rented out to help pay the mortgage. But there are a couple of possibles I want to look at when Arthur and I go back again next month on our planned holiday (tickets paid from by last year’s Qantas cancellation debacle!).

 

In the meantime, I have a new writing goal. There’s a new story idea that keeps nagging me, but I promised I’d finish at leat one of my older stories before I start anything new. Time to stop adding to the long string of unfinished stories I’m trailing behind me. The truth is, I’ve never truly “finished” a story. I’ve only finished first drafts, and I’ve started far more of those than I’ve seen through to The End. I’ve never edited and polished an entire story, only partials. That needs to change.  

 

So, I decided.

 

I’m rewriting a previously rejected story entirely, taking on board the advice I’ve had about what needs doing with it. It was quite rightly rejected. In effect, I subbed first draft. It’s quite nice first draft, I edited as I went for language. But it’s still hardly better than cleaned up first draft. What I left out fixing was story structure. And good old Goal Motivation and Conflict. I had relationship blocks, but not convincing ones. My heroine had no reason for doing any of what she was doing. No reason to keep rejecting the hero. The start was too slow moving, the pacing too leisurely, the emotions just not deep enough.

 

I do believe in the story and the characters though. I know they deserve better. So, I have a goal. To rewrite and polish polish polish the first chapter, do a synopsis, and send it off for the Harlequin Romance Fast Track, by April 23.

 

I need to get moving on that!


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“Love your art and your art will love you back”

Holstee Manifesto

Okay, I know I’m slow, I only just discovered the Holstee Manifesto! But I’m in need of some positive inspiration today, so here it is.

It’s been a crazy and stressful week, with more emotional ups and downs than the Tower of Terror.

I knew it would be a bad week at the Day Job, as the other nurses were both off at a conference and I was in effect doing two jobs all week.  Monday didn’t disappoint. Crazy busy, no lunch, ridiculously late off, the expected chaos. Still managed my morning pages – 61st day of my current streak on 750words. Still managed to do my at least twice daily touch typing practice- painfully slow but improving. Still managed to write a few pages of the Wrong Bed story on the train- I’m only plodding along, also painfully slowly, but having fun with it. I’m letting myself be as outrageous as I want with that one! So overall, the day could be ticked off as a success.

Tuesday, started the same.

Then the week unravelled.  A phone call from my sister- an ambulance rushed Mum to hospital early the day before after she collapsed with a dangerously slow heart beat, and worse, Dad, who’s been steadily getting more sweetly muddled but normally copes fine, hadn’t been taking care of himself without her there, forgot she was in hospital, and was out frantically looking for her. Worse, he firmly believed a whole convoluted and completely untrue story he’d told himself for why Mum wasn’t home. My brother found him, gave  him a meal and took him home. My sister planned to drive down from where she lives three hours away to stay with him, and I was on the other side of the planet.

My immediate urge was to jump on a plane and go there, but that would leave my workplace seriously in the lurch, and things seemed stable for the time being. My sister and I decided I should wait until she could report just how bad things really were. It might make more sense and support them better, even if they needed help now,  for me to trust my sister could do just as good a job of that as I could. maybe I should wait until my sister had to go home and stay with Mum and Dad them. I strongly felt I should go, but I’d wait. Still, I worked back to 9pm getting everything as done as I could in the office, just in case I had to leave in a hurry.

I spoke to Mum on the phone. “Everything’s fine now.” She definitely didn’t think I should fly over. But she is the world’s biggest minimiser.

“We can manage on our own” is her mantra. Even if the house collapsed around them, she had two broken legs, and Dad was somewhere in the rubble, she’d be saying it. Having other people in their home distresses them, interferes with the routines their lives run by. They are happy living their own life in their own little world and don’t want anyone or anything to mess with that. An email from my brother’s girlfriend suggesting me going could upset them more than help decided me. Despite the inner conflict I felt, despite my gut feelings telling me to book a flight and go, I’d wait a day longer. At least until Mum was discharged from hospital or my sister needed to go back to her own place.

 I spoke to Mum on the phone again. She’d been moved to a bigger hospital to have a pacemaker inserted and was just back from the procedure. She sounded good. But I went to sleep on Wednesday night still feeling conflicted and unsure what was best for me to do. Pain gnawed at my stomach, as it had since the first phone call. The pain of feeling helpless and so far away.

Thursday morning, I explored my conflict in my morning pages. My need to rescue. My nurse/ older sister bossiness and belief no-one could do it as well as I could. I came to terms with the fact that my instinct to go could quite well be based on my own needs to “do something”, and might not actually be helpful to my parents at all. I trundled off to work feeling at peace with nt going charging to the rescue.

It didn’t last long.

I got to work early and called Mum from there, as I’d planned. Juggling the time zone differences made it hard to find a good time to call earlier.  It was evening in Sydney. She’d been discharged, was home already. Dad couldn’t remember why she’d been in hospital. Mum sounded confused too, unlike herself. she couldn’t remember the name of the thing she’d had put in at the hospital.

“Pacemaker,” I told her.

“Oh yes, that’s right,” she replied, but she sounded vague.

I tried not to worry too much, she’d been given strong pain relief, had only had anaesthesia not much more than 24 hours earlier. Sometimes those effects can take two to three days to leave the system.

Then, a series on increasingly worried and upset emails, texts and phone calls from my sister through the day. Things sounded bad.

First we decided, I had to go, but not for a couple of weeks, when my sister went home herself. Then, a couple of calls later, by mid-afternoon, we decided I should go soon. We came up with some plans for what she could do in the meantime, who she could contact in the morning. I worked late again, knowing I wouldn’t be in the next day and probably the next two weeks. Home at 11pm. Straight on to the airline website.

Damn, how could flight prices now be £400 more than they were when I looked yesterday? Well, it couldn’t be helped, I had to go.

But an email from my sister gave me pause. She seemed more reassured this morning, more comfortable with the situation. Mum’s confusion had passed. Things didn’t seem so bad. Still bad, but not as bad as they did the day before. She wanted me to wait until she’d made some calls to book my ticket. We talked about what we saw as the needs in the situation. We both made calls and emails to various aged care agencies who might be able to offer help.  Late, very late, I went to sleep, still thinking that in the morning I’d be buying a ticket to fly tonight.

This morning, I called my parents again. They sounded back to normal. My sister and I spoke for hours on the phone. Made more plans. Decided that it really wouldn’t add anything to the situation to have me there now. I’d be on stand by instead, ready to jump on that plane if things got worse.

Tonight, we spoke again. It’s clear I will have to go, it’s just a matter of when.

So it’s been a roller coaster ride of a week. Lots of drama and stress and anxiety. The main thing is, my parents are kind of okay, emphasis on the “kind of”, but still, okay.

My productivity has been shot though, completely and utterly. I did do my morning pages every day. I did do typing practice, at least once, so I didn’t completely neglect my long term goals. But actual storifying has flown out the window. A few notes. A few story words. That’s it.

I didn’t manage to find a still centre where I put aside the drama to write. I didn’t achieve anything for myself.  I didn’t achieve anything that actually helped my parents either. I did support my sister, which is a good thing. Sometimes, the personal goals have to come second.

But today, I’m in need of encouragement and motivation.

I found the manifesto. And I found this-

“We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment.”

In choosing to write, you must choose the pain of discipline. Good news: it’s not that painful, once you get used to it. You just have to make it more important than other things you could spend time on.

Make your art your obsession. Fall in love with it. Experience withdrawal symptoms when you don’t give it your attention.

This weekend, I want to stay available for my parents and my sister, but not get caught up in the drama at the expense of everything else. I want to get my focus back. Because I’m having story withdrawal symptoms.


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Don’t do this unless you’re willing to change

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

Today is my fifty second consecutive day of writing Morning Pages on 750words.

It’s been an amazing process.

It’s generated new story ideas. It’s triggered me seeing it really is possible to make a huge change, like quitting the Day Job. It’s helped me see unhelpful thought patterns, the excuses I use, the limits I set on myself.

 Like the one I wrote about yesterday.

There’s a saying- “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”

And it’s true. Nothing can change the past. But we can stop recreating it in our grown up lives.

Maisey Yates wrote this in her blog yesterday, in response to me sharing that story about dad and the book I made him -

The words people speak into your life, especially influential people, have a lasting effect. There is no denying that. However, for all the support my parents gave me, they couldn’t MAKE me succeed. Yes, their confidence bolstered mine. But they couldn’t make me write the book, or submit it. They couldn’t make me put in the work, and they couldn’t do it for me.

And the people in YOUR life who have said negative things to you can’t stop you. Words do have power. And when you’re coming from a place with no support, from a place where someone has disrespected and degraded you, I know you have more to overcome than I can even begin to understand.

But those people don’t get the final say. They don’t get to hold you back. You have a purpose, and you have gifts, and no one has the right to discourage you from those things. And their words don’t deserve to carry weight.

They don’t.

I need to stop blaming other people for what is in my life that I don’t like right now, my parents, my husband, my boss. I need to start taking responsibility for my own choices, and I need to stop beating myself up. Blaming them for limiting me, and then beating myself up for  letting them limit me, this does not help one itty bitty iota to change things.

What changes things is choosing to let go of my limiting beliefs I formed out of that situation. What changes things is choosing to stop using those limiting beliefs as excuses.

That’s the biggie. That’s the real crunch place. I’ve been using those limiting beliefs as excuses.

I have created the perfect wrong situation, where I can’t fail because I don’t try, and I don’t try because it’s someone else’s fault. The only problem is, I can’t succeed either. and I can’t be happy, because I’m living a smaller life than I could be. I’m still stuck with that desire and drive and need in me to write, to create those stories, to make those little books of mine. Not trying keeps me safe, and it makes me miserable.

So I need to do to give that little girl who wanted to make books the books she dreams of. I need to let her write. and let go of the excuses. The excuses feel safe and secure and free of failure, which is what my father was trying to protect me from, in his cack-handed but loving way.

Failure hurts. But maybe safety’s not all it’s cracked up to be either. The stories never get told. The books never get made.

No more excuses accepted here. 

I want awareness of them, those excuses. I want to be very aware of my negative self-talk, instead of suppressing it.

So when it comes again, instead of ignoring it or using food and drink to suppress it or getting angry and resentful and not-fair and poor-me, I will gently talk to it. I will tell it- ”Thank you for trying to protect me. but I don’t want to play it safe any more. I want to take this risk. I want to tell the stories and make the books. I want to write the best stories I can.”

That means the little girl needs to write with me. She’s the creative genius. She’s the wild mind. Grown up me can only correct the grammar and spelling and give the story a bit more shape, once it’s written. Grwon up me interefering in the first draft makes for dull dead boring stories and the little girl goes and sits in the corner and sulks because i told her she could play, but she’s still getting stopped, criticised, told her writing’s not good enough.

She makes up the stories, for fun. Grown up me can’t make up the real good stories.  Grown up me needs to butt out. I can only stop making crappy excuses, stop criticising her stories, and let her write. Grown up me can stop being Dad. Grown up me can know my place, letting her create the stories then taking them from her, gently and lovingly, once they’re finished. Then I get to edit them. Maybe with tough love, but still with love, and with acceptance, and with thanks for the gift she’s given me of sharing her stories.

And if nobody wants to read them, that’s their loss. The stories have been told, like they needed to be.


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Clearing away the clutter

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography
 

I haven’t posted this week because I’ve been in a black hole, pathetic and sorry for myself. It felt self-indulgent to post what was coming out in my morning pages, maybe disloyal to my family and husband and too self revealing as well.

And I had no writing to report. Nada, zilch, a big fat nothing, zero, nought.

Well, maybe not totally nil, but not anything I could point to and say, “Yes, I’ve achieved this much this week.”

A couple of the Sassies were discussing Billionaire and Baby stories, and a whole new idea came to me pretty much fully formed in the time it took me to get the train halfway home from work. And it has strong characters with GMC and everything! It’s very different to my usual sort of story, but I’m looking forward to writing this one.

But in the meantime, what about the morass of half-finished stories I already have?

I’ve played around some with my Wrong Bed story, having fun with that, but I stopped myself by telling myself I needed to know more about the characters before I wrote any more. (Okay, it wasn’t me who said that to myself first, it’s a workshop I’m doing.) Well, I tried, but all I ended up with was a pile of overcomplicated stuff that just didn’t feel true for the characters. The workshop is great in many ways, but I know for this story, I need to just write and let it happen however it happens and find the characters that way. So it may not produce a saleable book, but it’s what I need to do right now.

Jackie did a fab post on the Sassies blog about this. About letting go and writing for herself, for the pleasure of creating a story. That’s so much what I want to do. Stop stressing about all the rules and the have-tos and writing for a market, and just write for the pure joy of it.

So what’s stopping me?

The same thing that’s stopping me writing any more on my Spring Fling accidental cougar story. I know I need to tap into emotion. Anger, passion, pain.

And I’m afraid to. Because a whole lot of past pain has jumped up and bit me on the bum. A whole lot of doubt and negativity about writing and things I’ve believed were true for a long long time. I’m a bottle of pure rage and resentment and self-pity, 175% proof. I don’t want to take that lid off, unscrew that cap, let that particular spirit out of the bottle, ‘cos I’ll never get it back in there again. Of course, what’s needed is to really let it go, and then throw away that bottle too.  I won’t need it any more.

I can’t write wild if I’m hiding from all my unpleasant emotions and cutting myself off from joy. By acknowledging, revealing, and dealing with those emotions in myself, I can also mine them for my characters and my writing.

Right now, I’m skating on the surface myself. The surface of old hurts and fears and resentments. So no wonder my characters skate on the surface too. I can’t dig deep to get to their real emotional pain when I’m busy avoiding my own.

I’m not sure why it’s come up so strongly now, I suspect in response to me making the move towards writing full-time. My internal saboteur, trying to keep me safe from being hurt, told me it was selfish and self-indulgent. That didn’t work. So it’s pulled out its big weapons, the psychological photon torpedos.

Now I grew up in a very negative family. My parents weren’t just not encouraging, they were actively discouraging. There were lots of times hurtful things were said, but I’m remembering one particular episode, when I was about ten. I loved making up stories and spent a lot of writing them and making little stapled books. I wanted to write, more than anything. One day Dad complained he had nothing to read. So I went away and wrote him a story and made a little book for him. I don’t remember what it was, but I think some sort of adventure story, probably involving boats.  I gave it to him, and he threw it away without even reading it telling me it wasn’t a real book, it wasn’t good enough, and I didn’t write well enough for him to want to read it.

So casually, unintentionally, destructive.

And forty years later, I’m still carrying around that voice echoing in my head telling me I can’t write and I’ll never write a real book and that nobody wants to read my stories.

Of course, I shouldn’t let it affect me. I should be able to forget and rise above that. I’m a big girl now and I should be able to write how I want without needing support and encouragement. When I look honestly at how I feel, a lot of the rage is with myself, not him. He didn’t know better, I do. He didn’t mean me to take it that way. I wrote well for a ten year old, but he didn’t want to read a ten year old’s story. I know that intellectually. Yet I still let his stupid unkind words run my life.

He wanted to be a writer, I think, except his Dad made him leave school at 14 and do something practical. How the destructive family patterns get passed on! He read a lot, and I am grateful to him for passing on his love of books, as well as those bloody “you can’t do that” messages. Now I just need to prove him wrong.

I can do it. I will do it, I’m going to do it. That hurting upset little girl who had her precious gift of love flung back at her can have a big hug from me, not more abuse with me telling her she should have been strong enough to not let that affect her. She didn’t stop writing, not then, not ever, but I realise that was when I gave up the dream of being a “real writer”, someone who lived by their stories.

So now I need to be the good parent. I can tell her the truth. Tell her “Your writing is good enough. You can do it. People do want to read your stories. You can make money writing. You can write real books. You can.  I’m going to set things up so it’s safe for you and so you can write as much as you want.”

I can take her stories from her and read them and treasure them, not keep on repeating repeating repeating that old pattern and flinging them back in her face, telling her they’re not good enough. Because that’s what I do everything I let my critical editor mind butt in during first draft and say what’s wrong with it. Stops the writing dead. Of course, the stories will want editing, but first draft isn’t the place to do it!

I’m the one stopping myself now. I’m blaming my father for discouraging me, and yes, it’s regrettable it happened like it did. How much nicer and easier would it have been to have encouraging parents, not depressed angry resentful ones. But the past is past. Right now, I can stop recreating that pattern, stop being depressed and angry and resentful myself.  

A big part of my preparation for quitting the Day Job  in September is a sort of emotional and physical clearing process. I’m looking at my limiting beliefs, wanting to break bad habits of unhelpful thinking. I’m working on my eating patterns trying to eat cleaner, so I’m going through the kitchen cupboards and throwing out all the old out-of-date-never-going-to-get eaten food. The two processes are amazingly similar!

Just like I’m finding seven years out of date food in the cupboard that needs to be chucked in the bin, I’m finding forty year old beliefs that I took on. Some of the food is fine still in date and edible, it just doesn’t suit how I want to eat now. I’ll box that up and take it to the homeless shelter. Somehow I don’t think those beliefs I don’t want any more will be boxed up  and given away so easily, but maybe they can!

It’s time to start telling myself a different story. A story where the book that little girl made gets read. A story where she gets all the love and support and encouragement she needs. Now it’s time to stop believing it and just do the work/ play of writing, without all that crap from the past getting in the way.

Hugs to anyone else experiencing doubt and discouragement.

Living well and doing what each of us knows in our heart is right for us, no matter what anyone told us otherwise, is definitely the best and only satisfying revenge. Continuing to give them power over us by making ourselves small makes everyone lose out- them for being so tied up in their own limitations they couldn’t see what a precious gift of a human being they had in front of them, and us for letting them make us choose to become less than we were.

It’s taken a long time but I’m learning it at last – being small doesn’t make those people who’ve tried to make us smaller feel better like they hoped it would. So let’s be all we can be, the biggest, best, most loving, most self-nurturing selves we can be.

And let’s give our gifts of story to the world, those little and not so little books from our hearts.


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Staying positive

I read this quote from an interview with writer Amy Spencer at GalleyCat, about staying positive as a writer -

It’s our passion. Some people grow up and live an entire lifetime without having a passion. They can’t figure out what they want to do, they try to do different things, but nothing really clicks in their soul. As hard as writing can be, it is worth remembering that you have something you know you are passionate about … I would rather be doing this than hiking to some particular job in some particular office, doing something that didn’t feed my soul in any way at all.

It’s also helpful to remember that the more you write, the better you get. Always. Whether you are writing a blog post, the fourth version of your novel, grants or technical writing to pay the bills. Whatever you are writing, it is making you better. There is no lost time, there is no lost cause, there are no lost words. Everything is going towards something good.
 

There’s also an MP3 here.

I love her concept of emergency optimism, as a tool we can call on when needed. She believes we can all train ourselves to be more positive and optimistic. She talks about seeing the hard slog of writing as a “present to our future”.

I need to remember that, when I feel that I am wasting time. When the writing doesn’t seem to be moving forward. That chapter that didn’t work and was binned. That character stuff I wrote and never used. That sub-plot that I had to rip right out because it added nothing to the story. That 100 page false start. The workshop exercises that will never be part of a story. All that is making me a better writer. A stronger writer. A writer who’s not afraid to edit.

Hopefully, a writer who learns how to write good, emotionally deep and powerful stories that can give my readers joy.


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Quitting the creativity killers

I’m in the crazy mixed up state of simultaneously angsting about and happily anticipating quitting the Day Job in September.  I know it’s not a logical or sensible decision, of course. I’m not yet published. Even if I was, unless a writer cracks one of the big publishers, it can be hard to earn enough to live on from writing.

But hey, I’m doing it anyway and seeing what happens. Maybe I’ll step off this cliff and fly.

 Last year, I sat for hours on a headland near Sydney. A warm sunny day with a gentle sea breeze. Big sky, and endless ocean. I went to watch for whales, ended up watching the paragliders. Those guys do literally step off the cliff and fly.

Except when they don’t.

The first time I saw one drop over the edge and not come back up, I worried. Was he broken and bleeding on the rocks? Caught up on a tree or an outcrop half-way down? Should I do something? I’m scared of heights. I didn’t dare go close enough to the edge to look over.

Just when I thought I’d have to look, he reappeared. Trudging up a path I hadn’t noticed before along the side of the cliff, carrying his parachute.  I peeked over the edge. There was a small grassy patch between the hard cliff face and the rocks at the water’s edge. Perfect for a soft landing.

The paraglider unfurled his purple and lime parachute again. Waited for the wind to fill it. Waited some more. Stepped off the edge again. This time, he flew.

I hope I do too.

At least I know, if the parachute of my writing ability is too small and flimsy to carry me, I can use the handy dandy back up chute of part-time work. And there’s just enough money in the bank to give me a soft landing.

I’m using the next seven months doing all I can to prepare. Writing a bit differently, not for publication but to build my skills, playing around and having fun with new ideas and new ways of doing things. I’m trying out new methods, like times free writing. I’ll be learning practical skills I should have done a long time ago like touch typing and voice recognition software. I’m figuring out how I can give myself a better writing space. Sitting crossed legged on the bed with the netbook on my lap may not be the most ergonomically sound way to do it when I’m writing six to eight hours most days!

I’m reading lots of different blogs. I’m working on building good habits to help me write, and working on breaking the bad habits, the ones that get in the way. The habits holding me back that I need to quit, before I quit the Day Job.

At Copyblogger, I read this-  8 Bad Habits that Crush Your Creativity And Stifle Your Success

Here’s their suggestions for habits writers wanting to be more productive and more creative need to break-

1. Creating and evaluating at the same time

Most people evaluate too soon and too often, and therefore create less.

Something I’m learning is a key problem for me. I’m constantly judging what I write, as I write. Correcting, finding fault, criticizing. The two elements of writing, drafting and editing, need to be kept separate. Some writers like to do the first draft all the way through then leave it sit a few weeks before editing. Some writers like to write a few pages then wait a few minutes before going back and editing them.

What’s key is not trying to do them both at once. Do, and chances are you’ll end up with dull, stilted, lifeless but grammatically correct story like me! I’m doing a “Care of the Muse” course with Mary O’Gara over at Savvy Authors this month. She talks about the creative process and how important it is to . First use one part of the brain, tell it to switch gears, then use the other. Something as simple as getting up and walking around the room between drafting and editing is enough.

What we haven’t got to yet is how to turn that internal editor/ inner critic/ bloody pain in the butt off long enough to do any drafting in the first place. If anyone has any tips on how they do that, please let me know and I’ll give them a whirl!

2. The Expert Syndrome

Every writer’s path to success is different. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. What works for someone else won’t work for us. I’m exploring different ways of doing everything to discover what works for ME.

Also in this category is the “You can’t sell a story with that in it so don’t bother writing it.” Someone has to be the first to create that new subgenre that five or ten years ago was impossible to sell. Vampire stories. Stories about sheikhs and princes. Stories about wizards and witches set at boarding school. One writer had to invent or reinvent these categories. If you believe in your story and your characters, write it, even if no-one else is writing anything like it. The best way to be the next JK Rowlings by creating a new genre, not copying what’s already out there.

I’m not sure that will be me, but what I do want is to discover the stories I want to write and I can write, not write poor imitations of other people’s stories.

3. Fear of failure

No one wants to make mistakes or fail. But if you try too hard to avoid failure, you’ll also avoid success.

This is a biggie for me and so many writers. Not subbing because we don’t want the rejection, or my personal method, subbing first draft or close to it, so when the rejection hits I can brush it off using that as the excuse. “Oh well, I didn’t submit my best work.”

Well, why the frick not? There’s a not so fine line between holding onto a story forever, reworking and reworking it because “It’s not ready to sub yet,” and submitting dreck.

4. Fear of ambiguity

Unfortunately, life is not neat and tidy.

Good writing isn’t necessarily neat and tidy either. A work in progress needs permission to be a mess. Only final versions ready for subbing need to be neat. I need to drop my bad habit of constantly stopping myself when I’m in full writing flow to go back and correct typos, then by the time I get back where I was I’ve lost my momentum. Multiply this by a hundred or more times per writing session. That’s a lot of lost momentum. A lot of creative thoughts short-circuited.

Maybe if I could live with messier first drafts, I’d write more and better.

5. Lack of confidence

When you understand that ideas often seem crazy at first, that failure is just a learning experience, and that nothing is impossible, you are on your way to becoming more confident and more creative.

Instead of dividing the world into the possible and impossible, divide it into what you’ve tried and what you haven’t tried. There are a million pathways to success.

Time to stop limiting myself. Try doing the crazy thing (like giving up a job to write full time when I’m unpublished!) for a change, just to see what happens. Have fun. Have adventures. Believe that whatever happens, I can pick myself up and carry on.

6. Discouragement from other people

Even if you have a wide-open mind and the ability to see what’s possible, most people around you will not. They will tell you in various and often subtle ways to conform, be sensible, and not rock the boat.

Ignore them.

Can’t add much to that. Except to say thank goodness for the internet. For writing buddies I’ve never met. For people who get why I want to write romance and don’t say “But why don’t you write a real story?” For people who understand that just because writing is hard work and I haven’t succeeded on the first, second, or even the tenth submission, that doesn’t mean I can’t write and should stop.

7. Being overwhelmed by information

Acting on a good plan today is better than waiting for a perfect plan tomorrow.

I love the research stage of writing a story! Getting to know new characters. Finding photos that fit how they look in my head. Doing nifty character charts for them. Googling details of their jobs, where they live. Working out turning points and story structure and filling in more charts for that. It’s fun. And it’s possible to spend weeks doing it and not actually write a single story word. It can become a way of procrastinating, avoiding the scary real work of writing, avoiding finishing a story, so I don’t have to sub, so I don’t have to face another R.

Some writers swear by all this pre-writing. I’m not actually convinced I’m writing any better and screwing up my stories less. I’m still missing key points. I’m still having to do major rewrites that change the story completely. I’m still needing to write half the story before I feel I really know who the characters are and how they act.

I’m not going to stop doing those prewriting things. I do recognise I need to limit them though. Knowing when I have enough to start, and then starting. That’s what I need to do.

8. Being trapped by false limits

Be open to anything. Step outside your comfort zone.

If you’d asked me three years ago if I thought I could lose 60 pounds in a year, I wouldn’t have believed it possible. If you’d asked me last year if I thought I could save over half of my salary, I would have told you it couldn’t happen. For a long time, I wouldn’t have even considered trying to do either. Yet I’ve done both of those. Maybe I can achieve the equally impossible, and make a go of it as a writer! Where else are we limiting ourselves, telling ourselves something just can’t be done?

So, I feel good to recognise these things. Because what I’m aware of, I can change. No beating myself up for not being Mrs Perfect yet allowed!

What about you? What are the habits you’ve already broken that were holding you back? How did you crack them? What habits do you still have that could be holding you back?


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Maisey on Letting Go of Our Writing

 

Image by Capture Queen

Fab post over on the Sassies blog on learning to let go of our writing once we hit send, from the talented and awesomely prolific Maisey Yates!

These lines especially resonate with me, with what I’m thinking about and knowing I need-

But what it all comes back to is this: I can only control what’s happening on my computer, in my word document. I can’t control what happens next. And worrying about it impacts my writing in a negative way. That is not okay!

It’s not easy, and it doesn’t mean I’m able to be zen every day, but it’s been a conscious effort on my part to let go and move on.

Take control on your end. Write the next MS, apply what you’ve learned. Submit. Submit a lot. Because editors can’t buy a manuscript they don’t have. Don’t let fear stop you. Send it out, let it go, and write the next one.

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