The Great Unexpected Meeting with an Award-winning Author

This post is long overdue, but it fits here.

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I attended a Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures event of Black, White & Read All Over for Sharon Creech. She wrote Walk Two Moons (Newbery Award), Love That Dog, etc. Lots and lots of children/YA books. Her new one is The Great Unexpected.

I recognized her name because of Walk Two Moons and had managed to finish reading it before the event. Huzzah huzzah. The book had been sitting on my To Read shelf for months. Grad school had prevented me from getting to it yet, and I'd never read it as a child. It's an award winner, so it deserves to be read. And because it won an award, I figured it would be beneficial to listen to the author speak.

I did not figure on meeting her before the event, though!

Mike and I had gotten sandwiches and a drink from the Carnegie Library's cafe. But when we got to its lecture hall, we saw a sign that read: No Food or Drink Beyond This Point in the Auditorium. Well, crap. So while people filed past us, we stood in front of the ticket booth, scarfing the food. A friend of mine worked behind the counter. She recognized me and had handed me the tickets as soon as we had walked up, so that wasn't a problem. And there didn't seem to be many people (sadly) compared to other events I'd gone to (though it was marketed as a children's event), so we weren't too worried about not getting seats together.

As we stood there, a woman lingered near the wall next to us. I just figured that she was waiting for someone else to arrive. But after a few minutes, she turned to us and said:

"Are you here for the event?"
"Yes!" we said. "We're just trying to finish our food because of that sign."
"Oh." And then she said, "Well, I'm Sharon Creech."

WHAT?!

We graciously greeted her and I told her what I had planned to say during the signing. And the words came out much more smoothly than they would have later. There is something about a calmer environment that brings about calmer words. When you're standing in a signing line, you have to spit out your message while being aware that the people behind you want you to hurry up and finish so they can get a turn, and the event's host is ushering people along if they dally too long.

But in that entryway, there was no one but the three of us and my friend behind the counter. I told Sharon that I'd just finished her book a week prior to the event, and that I was impressed by its parallel plot structure.

Then she said, "Are you teachers?" And Mike and I laughed.

To think... she's so used to dealing with children that any adult she meets must either be a teacher or a parent. Why else would 20-30-something-year-old people attend her event? I told her that I was a writer and had just completed my MFA, and that seemed to perfectly smooth over the situation.

By that point, someone started talking on stage. We bid Sharon goodbye, tossed out the last bites of the sandwich, drained the rest of the drink, and took our seats. I ended up purchasing three other signed books while there and got her to personalize Walk Two Moons. While waiting in line, I read and finished Love That Dog, which is an awesome book.

I feel bad, though. In all the hubbub of seeing her again, I just kinda walked up beside her to get the picture taken... without asking... So many people were doing the same that it just slipped my mind. I think I made up for it by making her laugh afterward when I told her how quickly I read Love That Dog. By that point, I had already started Hate That Cat, too. So Sharon, on the off-chance that you're reading this, I'm sorry for presuming like that. 

Post-NaNoWriMo Recovery

It has been four days since NaNoWriMo ended. I managed to complete the challenge on the 29th, though I had to add an extra mini-scene in order to appease NaNo's word count algorithm or whatever it used in that validation box thingie. Stupid thing was about 200 words off...

Anyway, it's been four days since the challenge. I can feel my fingers itching to continue the story. Here at work, where I write for social media, my hands want to grab a pen and start writing again. My fingers want to open a word doc and add a new scene. That compulsion to "Go Go GO!" is still there. And yet, life goes on.

This past weekend, I attended my best friend's baby shower. The event was also a recovery period for her because she also completed the challenge. She's rather proud of herself because she has nearly 100 pages of a story that didn't exist before... both the fleshed out story and the pages. This is the biggest project she's completed of this nature. I'm very proud of her, and eagerly await little Ava.

This past weekend, I helped my boyfriend rearrange some furniture. Specifically, one of my bookshelves. We have a wall-o-books now and an empty corner that, is temporarily housing a keyboard until we can replace it with a treadmill or some other exercise device, if it'll fit. The keyboard will return to its spot in front of my bookshelves, where Ember has continued to lay despite not having a "roof" over her head. Her spot is her spot, regardless of what's there, I suppose.

This past weekend, I finished reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and last night, I finished Walk Two Moons, which will soon be signed at another Drue Heinz literary event. Freakin' thing made me cry.

This past weekend, I did not write. But last night I did. The itching fingers got the better of me and I managed to jot down a few ideas while at work, and fleshed them out a bit at home. I didn't hit NaNoWriMo's required word count, but that's okay. A thousand words is still a great accomplishment for a regular day.

Despite completing NaNoWriMo, I feel like I have failed just because I didn't write this weekend. Everyone needs a break from the insanity that was November. But was it really insanity? Most of my writing occurred late at night, at least around 8 or 9 for a couple hours. I didn't fret nearly as much as other people seem to, and yet I still fell behind. My best friend would do writing sprints while using an online app as inspiration to keep pushing. Then she would sit down and use a notebook and pen to write thousands of words during the night. She had the schedule to manage nocturnal writing, and I'm impressed that she managed to do so much in such a short amount of time. But are our accomplishments different? Why do I feel as if she is more of a writer than I am, despite the fact that I got the degree?

Why do I feel like I haven't yet earned this degree?

The dilemma of a fangirl writer

The other night I went to a Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures event to see Tea Obreht, the author of The Tiger's Wife. I enjoyed that book, particularly the magical realism elements, and was astounded at the maturity of a writer who is only a year older than I am. It's people like Tea who make me feel inadequate.

Throughout the day of the event, I watched some online interviews with Tea in order to determine what I could ask her that hadn't already been asked a million times. I came up with a nocturnal writing question. It appears that we're both nocturnal writers. If I didn't have a daily, full-time job, I'd be writing from sundown to sunup, like she does. But whereas she succeeded and had the semi-exotic life to back up her subplots, I got wrapped up in school and writing was put on hold. I also learned that we both make soundtracks for our characters and novels, and listen to them and daydream in order to get inspiration. Finally, someone else admitting to it! Someone who was a famous published author! There are many other things that we have in common, things I learned about in the interviews as well as the event itself, and I became excited to meet her.  I don't know what it is... She just "gets" being a writer in her mid-20s. It's one thing to listen to a writer in his/her 40s who have been writing his/her entire life. It's quite another to listen to a writer who is my own age and has succeeded with my same habits.

Tea represents the kind of person I could so easily be. If she could do it, then one day I can, too.

(horrible shot of horrible angle, but you get the idea)

So, by the end of the event, I turned into quite the little fangirl. I was able to say hi to her with my question (which she remembered later) and was then able to chat a little while she signed my book. I told her how I listed her book as one of my inspirations for my thesis, to which she was shocked and then congratulated me on the degree. And then I told her that we were very similar and that I would love to just chat with her, even if it's online. Yes, I went there. Stupid me. But, she wrote down her email address and told me that it usually takes her a long time to respond to messages.

So now I have an email that I haven't looked at yet--because it's probably the one the publicists give out on her website--and don't know what to do with. How do I proceed? Propose a string of questions for her to answer and hope that a conversation can spring from one of them? Or perhaps I should throw the thing away and hope that we meet again under better circumstances in which we can actually talk as equals? Further incentive to be published, I suppose, or return to journalism.

Bumps along NaNoWriMo

Well, due to a couple Pittsburgh Arts and Lecture Series with Neil Gaiman and Tea Obreht, as well as work and general exhaustion plus trying to finish a book review that's long overdue, I've fallen at least a week behind on NaNoWriMo.

Catching up is incredibly hard. Last night, I managed to reach Tuesday's word goal. That means if I managed to write today, I'd have to write for Wednesday and Thursday, and not write today's goal until tomorrow (along with Saturday's goal). You'd think 1667 words a day wouldn't be that much. I envy the people who have massive scenes that they become swept away with, and when they're done they're a couple thousand words in without realizing it. What fun that would be. Alas, it hasn't happened yet. In order to even meet these goals I've had to sketch out ideas instead of really considering the words. It's such a different style for me.

Usually, I revise as I write so that each line is as close to being as worthwhile as possible. The whole point with NaNoWriMo is not to edit while writing; just get the story down first. And granted, without this tactic, I wouldn't have come as far as I did. And I am determined to see how far I can take it. I may not reach the 50,000 words in time, but I'll come much closer than I normally would've in a month's time.

I think the other problem I've run into is the fact that the people I started writing with have all fallen behind as well. One of my friends is long past the 50,000 mark already. The other two who kept pace (and were ahead of me) have stopped and I've surpassed them. A coworker who had been beating me also stopped because of life events, and so right now it seems that I'm the only one whose numbers seem to be growing. It takes away the drive, almost. I've lost that incentive to continue past the "I need to finish this novel." It's amazing what a little competition will do.

15 Minutes of Internet Fame

Hello all you people who came to my blog because of Neil Gaiman's name on it!

Today has been exciting! I didn't anticipate this at all. I've taken video of Mike asking questions to authors before. He even got John Lithgow to do the salute from 3rd Rock from the Sun. When I posted the adventure video, I thought a few people would see it, mostly friends and family. It was for them that I posted it so they could squee with us.

And yet! Mike somehow managed to (yet again) chat briefly with Neil online (he did before on TurnTable and even asked him what to read of his). He brought the video to Neil's attention. A few minutes later, Neil retweeted the link and suddenly, Mike's and my Twitter handles were popping up in strangers' statuses! I could hit refresh on YouTube stats and watch the viewing numbers rise. And this evening, I discovered that Neil also posted it on Facebook, and my friends and many, many others were sharing and liking his link!

And then I discovered this: Following An Evening of Stardust We'll Never Forget! 

The big take-away from all the great stuff he said last night was probably what he said in response to a question about how to find magic in your life:You don’t find magic or adventure. You go out and you create it.

Admittedly, Mike should have anticipated this response from a fantasy writer. :P

The whole thing is unfathomable... and I hope it's a taste of what's to come. Really, I'm the supporting role in all this. I made Mike read a couple of Neil's novels, bought the tickets, started recording when Mike asked his question, and posted the video online. And somehow, all of this came from it.

So hello Internet!

An Evening of Stardust with Neil Gaiman

Last night, my boyfriend and I went to see An Evening of Stardust with Neil Gaiman, as part of the Drue Heinz Lecture Series Special Events. We weren't able to get VIP tickets when they became available, but I was able to get some decent seats and bring my best friend along (who is 8 1/2 months pregnant). I ran into a few friends while there and we managed to get signed books before they were sold out.

Listening to Neil read his own works is... fantastic. Because you can hear what the characters sound like in his head, and that's a rare glimpse from an author (outside of book tours). Apparently this wasn't a book tour for the 15th Anniversary of Stardust. Apparently it was just us and Neil didn't know what to do. So he stood in front of us and talked about how the idea for the novel came about, and how he wrote it with a fountain pen in Tori Amos's bridge house, and how somehow a movie was made from it, and apparently that movie did amazingly well around the world except for America where the publishers didn't know how to market the story. So Neil told them to market it like The Princess Bride, and they looked at him like he was crazy.

He told us about his new Doctor Who episode, of which I shall say nothing else, and he read us a new section of his new novel. We were the first to hear the section, apparently. At one point, we all lost it because he was talking about electron decay and how the electrons were the smiley ones and the neutrons were frowning and so on. I can't wait to read it. Ocean at the End of the Lane, I think it's called. Laura, my best friend, later told me that Ava was dancing around only when Neil read from his books.

When it became time for a short Q&A, Mike bolted from the middle of our row, surged past everyone's legs and reached the nearest microphone first. He always wants to ask authors questions at these events. Sure enough, he was the last one. So he said hi, told Neil that he was interesting on TurnTable.fm and should return to the site, and then asked a question that boils down to: "The type of magic and adventure in your stories and pennydreadfuls don't exist in this world. How do we find it?" People had an "Awww..." reaction to it, and Neil launched into describing this bizarre workshop and carousel. He ended the answer by saying something like, "You have to make it for yourself and others. You have to go out and find it. It won't come to you." To which everyone started applauding.

Trust my boyfriend to make the question/answer of the night. And a few people tweeted about it, apparently, of which Neil retweeted this morning, and so did I.

How about that for a bit of magic.

NaNoWriMo late start and tactics

Today is my official first day attempting NaNoWriMo. Yes, it began a couple days ago. As some of you may have read in my apprehension post, I had some insurmountable obstacles with beginning on the first. Sometimes, real life responsibilities that propel a career are more important than writing in a story. As a writer, it is a compulsion to write in our stories, and as such t should be blasphemous to say that the real world gets in the way of writing, especially if novel writing is my career of choice. But copyediting for an award-winning magazine is a great resume builder and keeps me in the writing field. So, after a late night Thursday because of copyediting, and watching Wreck it Ralph after a hopelessly bad day at work yesterday, I'm ready to begin this novel.

Because of the word count I already have in the story, apparently I only need about 1,000 words to complete the word count max for today. With that said, I can do better.

There are a couple things people should try when attempting a challenge like this. These are things I've learned while writing my thesis.

1) Sketch

I'm not talking about jotting down notes in an outline, or just details and spots of dialogue. I'm talking about jotting down the scene itself. Get all the words out, all the dialogue and details and necessities for a proper scene. It's like a rough draft of a rough draft. When I get hit by my muse, I tend to write at least 500 words at one time. Often, I'm able to expand that. Bear in mind that one double-spaced page is 600 words.

2) Don't follow a set timeline

You don't have to write each scene as they occur. If you have an idea for a scene that comes later, then sketch it. Get it down on paper. Then, when you're able to fill in the gaps, you can alter that later scene as necessary. Yes, your story will change as you write it. Yes, that later scene could be drastically altered by the time you get to it, or it could be erased. But that doesn't matter. It allows you to get the idea out of your head so you can concentrate on other things.

3) Keep a pad of paper wherever you go.
Anything can spark an idea for your story. Anything, anywhere. Standing in line at the grocery store, in the bathroom, right before bed (when we're more likely to forget things the next morning), eating dinner, getting the mail. You can get little notepads and small pencils or foldable pens to carry in your pocket or bag. Keep a notebook beside your bed, on the floor or on a nightstand. Keep one on the dinner table and drop it to the floor when you eat (just remember to replace it when you're done). Keep one on an end table or coffee table. And, most importantly, keep one in the shower.

For those of you who don't know, there is such a thing as waterproof paper. Environmental geologists and other scientists use it all the time. It can be written on with a pencil underwater and won't smear or drip. Amazon.com sells a small pad that you can suction to your shower wall. It's called Aqua Notes (http://www.amazon.com/Aquanotes-Aqua-Notes-Waterproof-Notepad/dp/B003W09LTQ/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1351972217&sr=8-7&keywords=waterproof+paper). I cannot count how many times I've used it and then expanded what I had jotted down. This is for general ideas or dialogue that you need to get down before you forget it, especially when voice or word choice is specific.

So these are my beginning tactics for NaNoWriMo. Not sure how long they're going to work, but they worked extremely well for my thesis.

NaNoWriMo apprehension

I am not ready for tomorrow. For a number of reasons.

1) Because of not allowing myself to work on the novel project I selected for NaNo, I mentally shifted gears to a second story. I could just run with that story, but I already put the first in motion for the challenge. Time to shift gears again.

2) I have a full-time job. And yes, many, many people who partake in NaNo also have full-time jobs, but I fear that my writing job will sap me of all creativity for the story. Oh, how I miss the days when a story spoke to me and I had no choice but to write down ideas, dialogue, scenes, description, setting, etc.

I asked a coworker (who is also participating) if she was ready, and she wasn't. She has so much to do with Scare House (she's an actress who works/ed at a haunted house), getting her new apartment in order, work, etc. We're hoping that we'll get bursts of inspiration and double the required word count for a single night, just to catch up.

3) I am a copyediting intern for the Pittsburgh Quarterly. I've been involved with its editors since the spring and it's been great. I got to revamp and update its style guide with fellow editors, interns, and the official copy editors, but it was mostly my project. But go figure it decides to send out pages to be proofed for the upcoming winter issue during the few days around Halloween. So, I'm exhausted from work, only to come home and copyedit for hours. Sometimes I can't do it. Luckily, my editor is a very understanding, very kind lady who told me to do the best that I could, as much as I could. I've already caught many mistakes from cursory read-throughs... but the pages aren't nearly as red (yes, I use a red pen) as they normally are.

And so, I'm not ready for tomorrow. I want a few extra days to finish the copyediting. I want a few extra days of reorienting my mind to prepare for the right novel. I want a few extra nights to finish an H.P. Lovecraft novella, put the unfinished book away for next October, and start up Grimm's Fairy Tales (novel research). But nope, NaNo starts tomorrow whether or not I, or anyone else, am ready.

A simple treasure

I always quote a particular line from a movie. "It's the simple things in life you treasure." Galaxy Quest.

This evening was one of those treasures.

My boyfriend and I reheated some delicious leftover Chinese food, sat on the living room floor by the coffee table, sipped from a couple mugs of Oolong tea, and listened to poetry. A while back, he had bought Poet's Corner, which was composed by John Lithgow. It's a collection of Lithgow's favorite poems. The book comes with a CD that showcases certain poems from the collection, all read by popular actors and actresses--Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Billy Connolly, Jodie Foster, and a bunch of others, including Lithgow. It became a treat to recognize both the actors' voices and the poems. For a few, we exchanged tidbits of information, like how Lewis Carroll wrote the "Jabberwocky" because he wanted to show the fickleness of language and prove that people understand the intent of nonsense words.

Before putting in the CD, I didn't want to listen to it. I'd been reading all day and wanted to sit back and enjoy a favorite show or movie. But my boyfriend didn't feel like watching anything. He sometimes becomes "romantic" and wants to share poetry with me, and this, apparently, was one of those nights. And I have to admit, I was having fun halfway through the small amount we had listened to. It was nice to lounge around with a mug of hot tea on a lukewarm October Saturday, with no electronic distraction other than the sound of classic poetry.

Paper, paper everywhere; where it should be

I'm beginning to wonder if every writer should have clipboards of paper and a dangling pen or pencil hanging in every room of his or her abode.

Recently, I bought a small tablet of waterproof paper. Yes, it exists. Biologists and geologist use it when out in the field near streams and in inclement weather. You can use a pen or pencil, though a pencil works best (especially under water). Amazon.com has a small tear-away pad that you can suction to the wall of your shower. The pad comes with a small suction mount for a pencil, too.

That pad has come in handy. Most of the problems in my stories are resolved in the bathroom. I don't know what it is about that place. I solved conundrums often enough that it required a pad in the shower just so I could get the idea or dialogue or description down without using specific words or nuances. So last night, before getting ready for bed, I found myself listening to very specific dialogue between two characters. They belong to the novel my thesis started, which I haven't touched since August. The character voices were unique and particular. I wanted to begin writing the conversation, but the waterproof pad was out of reach and too small. And yet I couldn't shut my mind off, either, because more sections of the scene started appearing, along with details and actions.

I ended up striding into the living room, where my boyfriend and I were watching educational YouTube videos about the Maya calendar and what happens in a presidential election in the event of a tie, and ordered him to "Pause it. Pause it! Pause it, pause it!"

He finally did after I plopped onto the couch and grabbed a notebook and pencil. What followed was a 300-word sketch of dialogue and notes in the worst chicken scratch I've ever written. I type faster, usually, but couldn't spare the time to grab the laptop, log in, locate the document, locate the proper location in said document, and begin typing.

Thus, I realized that maybe it's a good idea to dangle a clipboard and pencil off the bathroom counter, and have a notebook on my nightstand instead of further away on my desk, and maybe one on my To Read shelf in the little hallway. There are white boards and notebooks located elsewhere throughout the apartment.

I told my best friend of this incident. She said she loves when inspiration strikes like that. It's as if the moment takes over you, as if you're living it alongside your characters. And you need to get the idea down on paper as fast as possible without any distraction registering in your mind. No one else's real-life conversation, no facts broadcast from the TV, no song lyrics, nothing. The entire world must pause until the idea is safely on paper, and only then (when the voices in your head quiet) can life resume.

The appeal of distractions

My friend recently posted on her blog about wanting a knitting project to end, how she's tired of it already despite loving to knit and having it be a release for her. A friend of hers commented on that post and said that she, too, becomes tired with a project and finds her eyes roving over other patterns and thinking of other projects she'd love to do instead.

And it made me realize (for the umpteenth time) that writing is no different. Many, many times throughout my college years, I've been assigned a writing project but wanted to do something else halfway through. Sometimes, I'm excited about that first project. Either it's an intriguing concept or it's a story that has been simmering on one of my backburners for years.

And yet, no matter how excited I am initially, I am bound to covet a different story while writing the first one. I don't know why this happens. Take my thesis, for example. That novel has been waiting patiently for about four or five years before I finally got to writing the first third of it for the thesis project. It was intriguing, it was exciting, it actually challenged me every day because it was written in a different style (first person, present tense) from a perspective I don't usually write (a male) and it had some severe handicaps (blindness, medieval-type era) that affected what I could mention. And yet, I kept having ideas for another novel, an easier one from a girl's perspective that is closer to YA than literary. My grandmother read the first half of the first chapter and loved it, and has been waiting for the rest of it ever since. I even won a small award on that little bit of story. I'd love to finish it for her before something happens. I'd love to get it published and place the finished book in her hands. And yet, I didn't choose it for my thesis.

And now that I'm considering NaNoWriMo, I have to limit myself on what stories I can work on. I chose to work on that YA story for Grandma during November, after I had managed to move beyond a particular scene and expand the story. I haven't been able to move past that point for at least two years. Yet the moment I finished my thesis, there was dialogue for the other story. But I can't work on it now because I have to save it for November. And what do I want to do? Work on it.

And what do I have in my head in the meantime? A third novel that I started about three or four years ago that everyone loved. It needs some drastic revisions, rewrites, and general plot and characterization overhauls, but it's still there... whispering... taunting... luring... I put that story's folder on Google Docs so I could get to it during down times at work. And how much do you want to bet that when November finally rolls around, I'll want to write in this third novel instead of the YA one.

Oy. Anyone else have this problem?

Gearing up for NaNoWriMo

This is the first year I intend to attempt National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for those who are not in the know.

NaNoWriMo is a personal challenge in which a person writes 50,000 words (about 175 pages) of a novel during the month of November. According to its website (http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/about/whatisnano) the challenge begins on November 1 and ends at 11:59:59 p.m. on November 30. The site states, "Valuing enthusiasm and perserverence over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved. Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. This approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly."

This means that writers just write a rough draft of a story. They don't have to revise or edit, just write everything out. The goal is to get a story on paper, and then post-November, we begin the revision process. Those who write the 50,000 words successfully can submit the story for "official verification," be placed in the winner's circle, and receive a winner's certificate and web badge.

Writers don't have to sign in to the site in order to participate; they can do it on their own as a personal challenge. And I'm wary about posting the story online in the official forum because it may count as self-publication and, after revision, a publishing company may be averse to "reprinting" it, if accepted.

I heard of this challenge years ago while I was a sophomore in college, or around then. And every year since, though I've had stories in mind, I've never been able to participate. School or work always got in the way. Fifty thousand words is quite an endeavor in itself when one is used to short stories, or when one hasn't ever finished a novel idea. It's more of an endeavor when you squash what should take months into just one month.

I gained a little perspective about this challenge this past year while I wrote my thesis. The story itself is about 160 pages and is the first third of a novel, at least. It is also only 43,155 words. It took me about six months of strenuous, almost debilitating writing. Graduate school does this in general; it punches you down and grinds you under its heel and then builds you into something better. You feel exhausted and depressed because you no longer feel as if you're cut out for that education, and that you're no longer a writer. And somehow in the end it works out.

This particularly happens during the thesis months. But I had amazing support from my thesis director and the other professors on my panel, of which I was able to choose with their permission. My director was incredibly patient with me--she knew that life often takes precedence, especially when it deals with job changes and moving--but pushed just enough to keep me writing and turning in the right amount of work on time.

And I plan to squash all of that into one month without that support. Except for my boyfriend. He loves the idea that I'll be writing a novel again (though he has yet to read my thesis). And I have a few friends who will also attempt the challenge for the first time. Still, I worry that I'll consider the challenge, and maybe begin it, but then drop it a week in. I have to stick to it, this time. Without the workshop environment from school, I'm not as compelled to write a story. It isn't a necessity anymore, just a hobby.

Maybe this challenge, if I stick to it, will turn writing into a necessity again. I have so many stories in my head, it would be nice to get them down on paper before I forget things.

The thing about deadlines

We all hate them. At least, that’s how we were trained to view them. They were something that looms over us, as if always threatening, “You better get that project turned in by such-and-such a time, or else!” We suffer debilitating symptoms of stress and fret over our livelihoods because of deadlines.

But then something changes, and somehow we begin to thrive off them.

At least, that’s what a couple of my grad school teachers said about me. And it seems to be true. Most of the time, I am more likely to do the bulk of the work a day or so before it’s due. And that’s not completely caused by procrastination. I will work on copy edits, for example, over the span of a full weekend after receiving the work on a Thursday and still pull an all-nighter in order to turn in everything by Monday morning. If I had chapters due for a class or workshop, they would be written a day before the deadline.

It’s not as if I like doing this, either. I would love to pace myself and work on little bits at a time. But there’s just something about deadlines that forces me to work. Some imperative compulsion that keeps me rooted to the computer and better able to reject distractions. The way it feels earlier in the week, the project is not yet important enough to deny other things in my life, or I feel as if there’s still more time to work on it. And then as the day draws closer, I realize that there is no time left and then try not to panic.

Sometimes I wonder if I work well with deadlines because of my journalism experience. We’re given an assignment that is due that afternoon, the next day, or at the end of the week. We’re forced to get used to deadlines and actually work off them. It almost creates a co-dependency with an abstract concept. When we’re given a project that isn’t due until the end of the month, we look around as if we’re lost and wonder what we’re going to do with our time between now and then. It becomes as if we can only do work if we’re under a deadline. Is that why I thrive under them? Is that why I can’t seem to break the habit of doing most of the work the day before something is due?

Is that why I haven’t been writing in my stories—because I don’t have any more deadlines? Or someone to hold me accountable for my work?

Lack of workshopping environment

First, to my friends. Thank you so much for reading this. Your support, just by glancing through these blogs, means so much.

Today, I met up with Kim and Rosemary for our annual summer EnP run. We started it a couple years ago when I stayed with Kim and her mom during Chatham's summer residency. Because we were all located in the same general vicinity and hadn't seen each other since graduating from SRU, we thought it would be nice to get together again. We sat on the patio of the EnP in the Waterfront, watched the river and talked about writing and our lives since graduating. It was nice enough that we did it again, and then again. This year makes our third year and an official tradition.

We brought up a topic that I also posted about on Facebook. The lack of workshopping or a writing environment. People will argue that anywhere is a writing environment, anywhere we happen to write. But that's not necessarily true.

There is something about being around writers that makes a person want to write. Writing begets writing, I suppose. When we step into a classroom or into a summer workshop, and are greeted by friends who are on the same skill level and who inspire us to write, to make ourselves better. We have teachers who communicate through emails and who are willing to read our work line by line. And it isn't just "Here are your grammatical errors," or "You have a plot gap here." They mold our craft and make us better. Graduate school destroyed me as a writer. It ground me down and then built me back again into something better. It was hard work, emotional turmoil, and yet I stood taller at the end.

And then, a month or so after graduating, we sit at our computers, begin to write, and realize that we have no  mentor anymore. No students with which to work. Our friends have lives, their own stories, and it doesn't feel right to bombard them with requests for edits or comments. What are we to do?

• Message them anyway and hope for the best.
• Join a city workshopping group and hope for the same level of quality, professionalism, and drive, and that they won't steal our work.
• Message professors to see if they can take time out of their insanely busy schedules to continue to help.
• Take the training wheels off, trust our instincts, and work by ourselves.

John Green once said something along the lines of writing being for introverted people who have a story to tell. I've come to find that writing is a very solitary, very lonely practice. Especially when our environment changes. We work through our stories--if we can find the time, energy, and inspiration to write--edit them ourselves, and send them out to lit mags with the hope that they're good enough.

More often than not, they aren't. But sometimes we get that stray acceptance letter that almost seems like a fluke. It bolsters our self-confidence, pushes us to write again and send out more, and makes us feel wanted and appreciated.

That is why my friends, and anyone else who reads this, mean so much to me. They read my words and come back for more. And after a while, I don't know if I'm writing for myself or for them. And yet, I still haven't figured out whether I'll message them and ask for workshopping opportunities, or respect our differing lives and hope for the best. 

I dreamed a dream

The other night, I dreamed a dream that was real life. It was mundane, boring, and each second slowly ticked into the next with such consistent regularity that I was not aware I was dreaming. Normally, I am aware.

It was another of those 30-second dreams that I don't remember upon waking. It returns only in flashes, and even then I have to peer at the memory in order to understand. In the dream, I walked to pick up an object from the ground. I stood over it, held out my hand, and concentrated. I do this in real life sometimes. It is an attempt to force The Force to work, an exercise in telekinesis that always fails but still I try again. In the dream, the object rose into my hand.

For a second, I became confused. The dream was real life. I felt time slip past, every small sensation. Events were organized in a linear fashion with no skipping scenes. I remember looking around me, near a school bus, and wondering if this was a dream, when it would begin to feel like a dream, and if I would wake up.

It brought about an interesting thought afterward. If magic exists in the world and we find ways to harness it, how will we know we aren't dreaming? If Jesus Christ is reborn and walks the world, preaching his song of peace, would Christians (or everyone else) believe and welcome him? Or would they deem him to be a raving lunatic and shut him away for the rest of his life, pouring medicine down his throat and electricity into his brain until his divinity is stamped out? How would he prove himself? By performing a miracle--an act of magic that is irrefutable by science.

And even then, would we believe we are dreaming?

I must ponder this and see if I can incorporate it into a story. Granted, something like this has been done. Freakin' Inception. Perhaps a psychological piece--though this topic of what is a dream and what is real, what is real and what is insanity, has probably been exhausted by now.

Most of my fresh ideas come from dreams, but they still have a basis for inspiration because our subconscious takes what we see and registers it through symbols. This process helps to turn short-term memory into long-term memory. That means that even dreams are not really fresh ideas...

My broken elevator is a long, dark tunnel

I think Neil Gaiman once said that dreams cannot give us a story. Perhaps he meant that dreams cannot present an entire story to us and that we won't remember it all upon waking up and long afterward. I can almost argue this, but he still wins in the end. A few years ago, I experienced a dream that presented a story. It was like watching a movie with a bunch of different subplots and intriguing elements. It was as if I was separate from it all and wondering how it would end, what it would do next, and how it all worked together. I could feel that it was weaving together to form something spectacular. Upon waking, I tried to get up to type it all down, then woke up again and had to rush to the computer to remember everything.

Sometimes when we try to remember dreams and write them down, we discover that we have yet to actually wake up and we lose everything we had been trying to remember. It's as if the act of trying is the very thing that erases the memories as we work through them. I was able to get a lot down, though, and the idea tugs at me to this day. It is the mark of a good story when it sticks with you for years and you feel compelled to finish it. However, there were elements that I couldn't remember properly, like a twisted nursery rhyme that is the key to everything. It took a couple years until I realized that I should give a character the same hassle of a faulty memory. Did he hear one word or another? Did he misinterpret? Of course he did, because he's not perfect. And yet the dream ended before everything came together, so I have to figure out everything that happened in between, all the side characters, and how it all ends. That is probably why Gaiman said that dreams cannot hand us a story; they can give us ideas, but not a full story.

That said, this afternoon I had a dream that was like... the first page or so of a story. Nothing was explained. It was as if I was just living this character's life for about 30 seconds. I was a girl who usually goes out running with a set of headphones and an ipod/mp3 player. I was in a neighborhood park, somewhere around the early evening on a partly cloudy day (the sky looked to be yellowish-orange). In order to get back to my apartment, I had to travel through a pedestrian tunnel that went along the ground through a massive brick wall. An upbeat song started to play that set my body jumping like I wanted to take off running and let the rest of the world fall away, but I couldn't do that because a woman was walking her baby in a stroller ahead of me on the narrow paved pathway. I had to slow down and wait, like I used to do when stuck behind a slow walker in a school hallway. The woman veered to the side and took the baby out of the stroller, and I swerved around them and up the stairwell, pulling at keys that were hooked to one of my belt loops. The woman was a few paces behind me. I unlocked a large arched door, as if I was unlocking the main door to an apartment complex, and inside was a long, dark tunnel. We needed to turn on lights before entering. It was pitch black because the door on the other side was also shut and locked. The woman held the door for me with her free hand. The dream ended as I reached to turn on the lights.

After waking, I thought of Beth's personal challenge. Her story-a-day goal. Then I started to deconstruct the dream. Why was there a tunnel? Was the park private and somehow separated from people who did not live in the neighborhood, as if the sheltered park was a perk for residents only? Were there apartments in the wall that housed the tunnel, or was it just a wall? And why did its doors have to be locked? Why was the tunnel (and thus the wall) so tall, wide, and long? It was easily a quarter of a mile long and the wall itself stretched far past the limits of my periphery vision. So there must have been more tunnels along it, or there was a corner of the wall/enclosure that was just past the treeline. My dream self imagined/remembered what the tunnel looked like with the lights on, which is not too different from a tunnel we drive through in the real world. And where was the dream going? The characters would go in one side and out the other and that was it? For such an uncommon structure, nothing happens? Surely my subconscious had something planned before someone accidentally rang my shrill doorbell and yanked me from sleep so quickly that by body barely had time to register proper movement while I tottered to the intercom.

Then I realized that this is a classic scenario. Not my waking, but the tunnel. This is no different from the setup and exercise of "place a couple characters in an elevator and have it break down, thus forcing the people to interact." My elevator was the tunnel. Much longer, much darker. Would my dream characters be locked in somehow? Is the other door barred or broken and thus won't open? What would prevent the characters from turning around and going back into the park? Would they come upon a scene on the other side that would require remaining in the tunnel for safety? Would the power go out? Is it a survival story or a waiting-for-help story?

Remember, the woman had a baby. That alone presents numerous possibilities. If they need to hide from someone, the baby cannot be trusted to remain quiet; it would reveal their presence. And what about feeding? If the mother took the baby out for a run, she might not have provisions for a few hours. What then? The baby looked to be less than a year old, so is it teething or weened from breast milk? What about food, diapers, entertainment, somewhere to nap? How does the main character, the girl with the ipod, feel about and react to babies? How would the mother react to being stuck in a tunnel with a stranger? How many "mother" instincts would surface, if any? Would she remain calm and placate the baby as best as she could, or would she turn into a cornered mama bear?

So much to think about, and it all leaves me with the question of whether I sit down and sketch the beginning scene, or ponder the overall story to figure out what happens and why.

Lately, I've felt like someone took the training wheels off my bike and I'm setting off for the first time without them. This will be the first year that I won't restart school in the fall, the first year without professors as impromptu mentors. The first year without workshops or the environment that pushes me to write. A few days ago, I finished a revision of a travel narrative (creative nonfiction) that I wrote for a class. I contacted my professor, with whom I'm on decent terms, and asked if she'd be willing to workshop the story with me. She's insanely busy and hasn't responded yet. So today, I researched lit mags deeper, chose four, and submitted the story anyway. It's time that I trust myself and work on my own. My pedal has made a complete revolution and I'm still balanced on the bike. Only if each one rejects me will I totter or fall. But what if one doesn't? What if I encounter another magazine like Separate Worlds (which recently accepted a fantasy short story; my very first acceptance for fiction) that gives me a chance? Then I remain upright and my pedals make another revolution.

Yesterday a friend, Beth, posted on FB about a personal challenge she's undertaken. She wants to write a new short story every day. She intends to experiment to see how many she tosses, and how many she keeps for future expansion. It's more like an experiment in worth rather than quality or completeness. She gave herself 1,000 words with which to work, and then invited her friends to do the same. I started thinking about the itch I experience sometimes, the one that makes my fingers want to type or hold a pen to scribble across a page. The one that doesn't care that I don't have an idea; it just wants me to write. I could use an experiment like Beth's. But then I really thought about it and realized that if I have nothing to write, then first lines (which are killers in and of themselves) would not appear. I have a couple concepts I've been meaning to toy with, but they're not enough to begin a story. I need characters and a plot, and they don't seem to accompany the concept.

Then I thought about cheating, which Beth condoned. I have a couple stories that I've toyed with in the past but never fleshed out. Flash fiction attempts, sketches, ideas... And yet, for each one I'd have to be in a particular frame of mind. Predatory and beguiling, scarred and resentful, mysterious and horny. And then some ideas might better fit a larger novel. So, I have a feeling that it will tug at me but, in the end, nothing will come of it because I couldn't let my mind settle on something, couldn't manifest the idea into something greater. And when I set about writing something just for the sake of writing, the endeavor resulted in this post.