Tag: balance

  • #IWSG – The Path to Publication

    #IWSG – The Path to Publication

    It’s the first Wednesday of the month, which means it’s #IWSG day! That would be the Insecure Writer’s Support Group if you didn’t know, started by the esteemed Alex J. Cavanaugh. Be sure to pop over to the website and check it out. You’ll find a fantastic community of like-minded writer types, all at varying stages of their writing careers. You’ll also find resources up the wazoo on all things writing and publishing related.

    The awesome co-hosts for the September 5 posting of the IWSG are Toi Thomas, T. Powell Coltrin, M.J. Fifield, and Tara Tyler! Visit their sites, say hello, and give them a big thank you for hosting.

    The question prompt this month is…

    What publishing path are you considering/did you take, and why?

    Katherine Karch
    That’s me, dreaming of making it in the publishing world.

    At this stage in my writing career, I’ve got my sights set on the traditional publishing route.

    I just finished up a manuscript and submitted it to Pitch Wars, in fact! I’m pretty darned proud for having entered a competition of this magnitude. Over 3,500 people submitted this year. My chances of being selected are slim, to say the least. But if you don’t try, you fail by default, right? And, if my manuscript is chosen, I’ll work on it with a talented author mentor for a few months. Then, come February, I’ll post it in the agent showcase. Who knows what might happen?!

     

    I want very much to secure agent representation. Getting my manuscripted picked up by big five publishing houses is a dream of mine. My reasons are simple: self-publishing sounds like a massive amount of work.

    Not that securing an agent and then working with a team of folks at one of the big houses wouldn’t also be a tremendous amount of work. From everything I’ve read and heard, things just aren’t what they used to be.

    Heavy Lifting

    Debut authors are being asked to pick up way more marketing and publicity weight much earlier in a book’s release and run with it. But, still. That weight is not 100%, as it is with self-publishing. And then there are the editors and copy editors and proofreaders and cover designers and people who know when the best time of year to release a book is. Stuff like that.

    I’m not sure I’d have either the time or the energy to try and do all that. As with teacher, self-publishing requires a particular type of 

    person. Don’t know that it would be a good fit for me.

    I’m thinking about my “other” life as I contemplate all the work that would go into self-publishing a novel. As a high school teacher, my year just started yesterday.

    New crop of students
    The new crop!

    A new crop of students filled my classroom, and I had to do all the stuff that needs doing to be ready for them. And once it begins, it’s really just a continuous, barely controlled fall to June. Not unlike jumping onto a treadmill cranked up to maximum speed. With a broken deceleration button. You can’t ever slow down. I suspect self-publishing is like that.

     

    It’s that way for big name authors, too, I know. Folks like Victoria Schwab and Jason Reynolds come to mind. They’re red hot in the traditionally published world right now, and they’re both exhausted all the time. I ain't slept in 5 daysJason flat out told me during my final residency at Lesley University that he’s living an unsustainable life at the moment. He doesn’t know when he’ll collapse, but he feels it coming. Victoria has said much the same thing in a few of her videos over on Instagram.

    So, yeah. I’d love, love, love to travel the more traditional publishing path, but life does run in straight lines. Who knows how I’ll feel about this question in a week, a month, a year…

    How about you? Are you published? Traditionally or via self-publishing? Or, maybe you’re an aspiring author, like me. Which path are you hoping to travel?

     

    Thanks for stopping by, and as always, happy writing to you.

  • Refilling the Creative Well – A Must for All Artists

    Refilling the Creative Well – A Must for All Artists

    If you hadn’t yet realized, I’m a big fan of Julie Cameron’s book (and 12-week, self-guided course) The Artist’s Way. I took it as an interdisciplinary course my first semester in Lesley University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. It changed the way I thought about myself, about my creativity, and about the creative life in general. And one of the biggest lessons I learned in taking the class was this: creative individuals need to nurture their creative spirit by “refilling the creative well.”

    The Act of Creation is Tiring

    It is a common misconception among non-creatives and casual creatives that artists don’t “work” at what they do. From an outsider’s perspective, creation looks like play, and to some degree it is, but it is anything but casual play. It is active, and focused, and intentional, and draining.

    That last point is essential to understand. Tapping into your creative mind is tiring, though many of us don’t notice that we’re fatiguing until we’re lying face down like a stick of butter that’s been left out on the counter in August. Letting ourselves reach that point is damaging and dangerous and difficult to recover from, so how we avoid it?

    Try scheduling activities into your life that will nurture your creative spirit. Not use it, mind you. These are moments in which, as an artist, you receive rather than produce. Julie Cameron calls them “artist dates.” She advocates one per week. I agree, though I fall far from accomplishing that once-a-week schedule myself.

    An artist date is anything that lets you to take in and enjoy the external world. Go out to eat at a nice restaurant. Go for a walk in the woods. Visit the beach. See an art installation at a local museum. Attend a concert. These should be private moments when you can be alone. For me, that’s difficult because my beloved is a visual artist. We tend to bundle our artist dates, which is fine but not ideal. Doing anything with anyone else necessarily involves moments of compromise, small or large. Artist dates are supposed to be 100% about you, so my co-dates aren’t ideal, but they’re certainly better than nothing.

     

    Investing in Yourself as an Artist

    The purpose of giving yourself an Artist Date is to “refill your creative well.”

    NeuropathwaysWhether you’re a composer, a painter, a poet, or a novelist the act of creation uses energy. Literally. It also uses neurotransmitters. If you’re continually working on your art, you’re activating and reactivating the same neural networks in your brain again and again. The cells of those neural networks talk to each other via chemicals that are manufactured at night while you sleep. Over time, you can deplete your store of neurotransmitter by using them faster than you can make them.

    That’s the fatigue that sets it. The lethargy, the creative block, the depression, the doubt. You’ve been working so hard creating beautiful art that you’ve exhausted the parts of your brain involved in the process. Athletes know this as “overtraining.” They avoid it by building “off days” into their training programs. Creative folks would be wise to follow suit.

    I’m a writer, but I love the visual arts. Photographs, sculpture, painting. When I feel like my creative energies are waning, I hit up the Boston Museum of Fine Art or look for a local photography exhibit to attend. It gives me a chance to witness, take in, and be emotionally touched by what others have created without activating the pathways I use when I’m writing. Ideas enter from the outside world, not from the inside world. They get in there, bounce around in my subconscious, and mingle with my own ideas like colors swirling on the surface of a bubble.

    The creative well begins to fill once more. When I’m ready to sit back down and start producing again, all kinds of new and exciting things might emerge from having experienced the products of other artists’ creative acts.

     

    Art Festivals are Your Friend

    When is the last time you attended a local art festival? Summer is upon us, folks. It’s the high season for art associations to exhibit their members’ works.  I can’t recommend them enough as a place to go to be recharged and reinvigorated as a creative spirit.

    This past weekend, my beloved and I walked into downtown Salem and got to see some fabulous art at the Salem Artist Festival. We also listened to talented musicians perform and sparkling dancers dance. The square crackled with creative energy and positivity. I soaked it up like a sponge and found myself breathing deeper and smiling more widely on the walk home. Life was, is, good. My creative well is brimming. Check out the photos I took along the way, and if you’re local try to get down there this weekend and check it out.  You won’t be disappointed.

     

    When’s the last time you did anything to refill your creative well? What did you do? How did you feel afterward?

    Thanks for stopping by, and happy writing to you!

  • IWSG January Post – Making the Writing Happen

    The Insecure Writer's Support GroupThis month’s IWSG post asks the question:

    What steps have you taken to put a schedule in place for your writing and publishing?

    How apropos.

    Before I continue, I must give a shout out to this month’s most excellent hosts: Tyrean Martinson, The Cynical Sailor, Megan Morgan, Rachna Chhabria, and Jennifer Lane.  Thank you all for hosting this month’s IWSG blog hop.  

    2018 is right around the corner, and in my household, it is a big deal. I and my beloved don’t usually enjoy marching to the beat of a predictable, trite, or clichéd drum, and the whole tradition of making new year resolutions certainly fits that description. That said, new year resolutions are, in fact, something we do, and we get jazzed about it, too.

    Positive Thinking I’m all about the power of positive thinking and positive visualization. Think forward, not backward, I say. What do I want my future to look like, I ask, and then I act to manifest that future. The first step in that process happens in my own mind.

    The act of ticking over a new year on the first of January is, as I well know, an imaginary contrivance of human perception. Not to mention, it’s dependent upon which calendar you follow. Sumerian? Aztec? Norse? Celtic? Nubian? Heck, I could invent my very own calendar system and start the year on November 12th. Why not?

    Okay, so the start of a new year is a fictitious concept, but it’s one that I enjoy celebrating, almost worshiping. It provides me with a stimulus, a prompt, a chance to pause and contemplate my accomplishments (and failures) of the past spin around Solaris, and look forward to imagine what the next spin might be like.

    What am I proud of doing? What are my regrets? How can I transform those regrets into positives moving forward? What challenges can I throw at myself that will test me and improve me either physically, intellectually, or spiritually? That’s what celebrating the new year and making resolutions is all about in my house.

    It’s serendipitous that this month’s IWSG prompt deals with finding ways to fit writing into my life because it’s already one of my resolutions for the new year.

    2017 was an unacceptably sedentary year for me in which I got a lot of writing done, but not enough and it always felt shoved in last minute. Most of my writing happened in the late afternoons, at the end of a long day of teaching, or worse, after dinner when all I wanted to do was go to bed.  It always felt forced.  I was Sisyphus, standing at the bottom of the hill, hands against the boulder.  Not good.

    Here’s my plan for 2018:

    1. Wake up at 5 am every day except Sunday, so that I have time to:
    2. Work out for 20 to 30 minutes with my beloved, then:
    3. Write for one hour.

     

    KettlebellsNotebook with black cursive writing sits atop an open laptop

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    That’s right, the big new year’s resolution for me is to become–wait for it–a morning person! My writing time will become part of an established routine. I’m not stipulating what I’ll be writing. It could be rough drafts, editing work, blogging, journaling, anything as long as it is writing.

    The great thing about my plan is that I’m not alone in it. My beloved and I are engaging in this resolution together. We’re going to support each other, motivate each other, hold each other accountable. In other words, misery loves company, and I’m going to have some. Technically I already do, because I wrote this post on December 27th, but it won’t go up until January 3rd. By the time you read this, I’ll have three early mornings under my belt. Feel free to ask me how it’s going a month from now; most failed resolutions die in the third week of implementation. (Not me, not me, not me, not me <– see that? Positive thinking, baby!)

    2018, here I come! If all goes as I’m visualizing it, 2019 will see me healthier and much, much farther along in my writing career.

    If you’ve got a plan for getting more writing time worked into your schedule, or if you’ve already successfully done it, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

    Happy 2018, everyone, and happy writing.

  • IWSG – On Finish NaNoWriMo Projects

    IWSG – On Finish NaNoWriMo Projects

    The Insecure Writer's Support GroupIt’s IWSG Day again! The question this month is…

    Win or not, do you usually finish your NaNo project? Have any of them gone on to be published?

    This is a doozy of a question, but allow me to drop a plug for IWSG before I dive in. The Insecure Writer’s Support Group, founded by the esteemed Alex J. Cavanaugh, is an online space where writers (insecure and otherwise) can come together to share stories, successes, struggles, and all the rest of it. The website is chock-o-block full of great stuff. There’s a Twitter Pitch, which I haven’t checked out yet, contests, books, swag, conferences, and more. Be sure to jump over there and check them out! The awesome co-hosts for the November 1 posting of the IWSG are Tonja Drecker, Diane Burton, MJ Fifield, and Rebecca Douglass! Do follow the links and jump over to their sites to say hello.

    Okay, back to the question. NaNoWriMo. Do I usually finish my projects, and have I gotten any of them published? I’ve written about my views regarding the merits of NaNoWriMo before this. If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, check out this earlier post I wrote that explains all (well, nearly all).

    Here’s the thing. I’m a fiercely competitive person. It’s ugly, or rather I turn ugly when I engage in activities with a competitive component. There are dark times in my childhood related to Red Rover, pick-up games of football at recess, gym sports.

    Despite what some might argue, NaNoWriMo does have a competitive edge embedded into it, and if I’m not careful I could slice myself wide open on it. Not to mention my friends, my family, my graduate studies, my job.

    Do participants actually compete with other folks during the event? No. However, there are achievement badges we can earn, forums where people can “support” each other. I have “Writing Buddies” whose progress I check on. There’s definitely an inherent feeling that I need to keep up with the authorial Jones going on when I participate.

    I Always Win, but…

    I cheat. Oh, Thor! Do I ever cheat! The first year I did it, I won fair and square. But that was the only

    Cheating cyclist
    That guy running up the steps during the bike race? Yeah, that’s me.

    time I penned all 50k in November. And, that project was far from “finished.” That draft didn’t wrap itself up until March! It’s not getting published, by the way. It’s a steaming pile. Which is fine. I learned a LOT writing that draft.  Of course, cinderella stories exist about breakout authors whose best-selling debut novels were drafted during NaNoWriMo.  I remain highly skeptical. To discuss further would merit a whole other post.

    This year is the first year since my original foray into the world of NaNoWriMo that I haven’t begun working on my WIP early. No, wait. Scratch that. I totally gave myself a 12,000-word head start. Why? Because I have a problem, that’s why.

    If I don’t take some of the pressure off by getting a block of writing done in advance, thereby lowering the daily word count goal from a genuinely challenging 1,667 to something closer to 1,000, ugly me might emerge once more. Plus, it makes the volume of words I need to write in November actually fit into my life without harming my spouse or my children. Yes! My children! I do it for my children! Justification accomplished.

    It’s Not Really About Winning or Losing

    Chimpanzee at a TypewriterThe spirit of NaNoWriMo is about getting writers to put words on the page. If that’s the ultimate goal, who cares if I get a head start, especially if the story is calling to me?

    It’ does, too. The closer November first gets, the more I find myself thinking about the story and itching to get at it.

    For me, that itch is one of the biggest pros to taking part in NaNoWriMo. I just need to mitigate the underlying competitive aspects of the event, dull the sword’s edge if you will. 30,000 words in a single month is still a challenging goal for me. It’s just… less challenging, and therefore less likely to bring out the I-must-win-at-all-costs-and-if-you-get-in-my-way-so-help-me-I-will-end-you side of my personality.

    At the end of the month, I log my wins. That first year, when I won fair and square, I celebrated by purchasing Scrivener, a new fountain pen, and a new notebook. Every year after that, I’ve rewarded myself with a new fountain pen and a new notebook, but I don’t feel right about taking advantage of the coupons and discounts and whatnot if I don’t load all 50,000 words into 30 days.

    When my kids get a little older and I’m not in the midst of a graduate program, then maybe I’ll put the edge back on NaNo. For now, though, I’ll stick with my Bokken sword.  Speaking of which… I do believe it’s time to do battle!

    I can’t be the only person who does this. Fudge the start date, I mean. How about you? Do you usually finish your NaNoWriMo projects?

  • Life! Will You Just Chill Out Already?

    Writer's BlockAaaaaaaaaarrrgh!  Life, my good man, please!  Will you just chill out already?  I mean, criminiddly, I am trying to be a writer over here!

    In all seriousness, though, I have not be getting words onto the paper of late, and it is starting to make me feel a little crazy.  There has been a whole lot of family stuff going on over the last couple of weeks.  Kid stuff.  Supporting my creative spouse stuff. Parent stuff.  Pile onto that all the scads of “extras” that my teaching gig has been throwing at me.  Then, just to see what my max lift in life is, cue my third submission deadline on October 2nd (which I only partially met).

    It was legitimately too much.  I felt like the kid who stuffed one too many peeps into her mouth and was realizing that the gooey wad of yellow sweet stuff was blocking her airway. (By the way, I’ve never actually done the peep challenge.  I’m not that dumb.  I did the chubby bunny challenge.)  So I asked for an extension on my craft essay, and my amazing mentor gave me an extra week.  Phew!  What a relief.

    Boy tries to pop a bubble
    That’s the bubble. Bursting.

    And then I looked at my calendar for that week and saw evening obligations for my teaching gig that were going to keep me on campus late into the evening for four of the five weekdays.  And school play and scouting stuff for my kids.  And PTO meetings (which I skipped).  And my writer’s group meeting (which I also skipped and felt super crappy about).  And non-negotiable visit to my MIL’s house.  And a scout-sponsored camping trip this past weekend. 

    Yep.  That week-long extension gave me just one additional functional writing day.

    But I got the draft done and got it turned in on time.  That did feel good.  A weight lifted from my mind, and I thought, “All right!  Now to get back to the fun stuff!  Back to my story.  Back to writing!”

    And then I took a look at my calendar for this week.  Science team meet on Tuesday eats up that evening. College Rec letters are due on Friday.  I have 52 trimester one indicator grades and comments due on Monday.  One of my kids has an imminent birthday coming up that we really should do something about, since, you know… parenting and stuff?

    *sigh*

    *glances wistfully at the Scrivener icon sitting neglected in a corner of the desktop.*

    I’m sure I’ll get back to you one day, WIP.

  • The NaNoWriMo Debate: Are You “For” or “Against” It?

    The NaNoWriMo Debate: Are You “For” or “Against” It?

     

    The Debate Rages On: Is NaNoWriMo a good thing or not? 

    Emotions run high when this question is asked.  Poster for National Novel Writing MonthI mean, folks get seriously heated.  Fans of NaNoWriMo start heating the tar and gathering the feathers whenever someone suggests that maybe NaNoWriMo isn’t the best thing ever.  Critics of NaNoWriMo sharpen their pen nibs in preparation to eviscerate the works produced by anyone during the event.  It’s a little crazy, to be honest.

    NaNoWriMo Explained

    Okay, let’s pause for a moment.  If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, let me explain.  No, there’s too much.  Let me sum up.  The acronym (which I’m too lazy to type yet again because of the annoy placement of capital letters) stands for National Novel Writing Month.  Folks can go to the website, create an account, announce a novel project, and then attempt to write 50,000 words of material in a single month.  That averages out to 1,667 words a day.  I won’t bore you with the history of how this international phenomenon got started.  For that story, click here.

    For or Against?

    I am FOR!

    With some qualifications.

    Poster advertising National Novel Writing MonthI agree with many others that NaNoWriMo is not a good fit for everyone.  Justin Brouckaert articulated my feelings pretty well in his guest post on the Submittable blog titled A Case Against NaNoWriMo.  Despite what the declarative title suggests, Justin is not vehemently anti-NaNo.  He just wrote a horrible piece of trash (I’m paraphrasing him) in NaNo and thought he was going to go nuts from the pressure.   

    Different people have different writing processes. 

    Some folks absolutely adore extrinsic motivators, which is pretty much exactly what NaNo is.  Other folks fold like a wet napkin in a high wind at the first sign of pressure. 

    Some writers thrive on establishing a rock-solid daily writing habit.  I like to write every day, no matter what.  (Not that I always get to do things the way I want to.  See my earlier post about my kids for more details on that front.)  Other people tend to write best when they produce work in a more accordion style, with long stretches of empty pages followed by rapid bursts of prolific words.

    Some folks are communal writers.  They love talking shop with other writers, joining up at coffee shops or in library meeting rooms to sit and write together, posting updates on all the social media platforms.  Hooray for the global connectedness that is the internet!  Other writers, though, are solitary people (when they’re creating, at least) and find the whole social, communal aspect of NaNoWriMo repellant.

    NaNoWriMo Participant Badge

    My Own Experience With NaNoWriMo

    All I can say is this: for me, there are more positives than negatives in participating. 

    For starters, participating in my very first NaNoWriMo taught me that I have the capacity for self-discipline needed to write an entire novel. 

    Also, the stamina.  I mean, people!  Writing a novel is like running a marathon.  That might be too gentle an analogy.  It’s like taking part in an Ironman competition.  I went into that first NaNoWriMo all, “Yeah!  I’m going to write a whole novel in just one month!”  Well, that’s not what happened.  I did “win” the event by writing 50,000 words in the month of November, but I was startled to discover that my book was far from finished.  I continued writing (every day, thanks to the habit I’d cultivated during November) and proudly finished up my book in March of that year.  It topped off at just over 96,000 words.  

    It was a disgusting beast of a first draft.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say it was a horrible piece of trash.  But it existed.  I’d done it.  I’d written a full draft of a novel.  If nothing else, I now knew that I had the sheer stamina necessary to write a book.  I tucked that draft away in the bottom drawer of my writing desk, where I shall probably keep it until my dying day.

    See, I think of NaNoWriMo not as a chance to pen a masterpiece, but as an opportunity to simply practice the art of writing.  It inspires me.  It excites me.  Heck, it bolstered my confidence enough join the North Shore Writer’s Group to apply to the MFA in Creative Writing program at Lesley University.  NaNoWriMo exposed me to new people and new ways of thinking and new opportunities.

    So, yes, I think NaNoWriMo is a positive force for creativity, despite what some might say.

    What do you think about NaNoWriMo?  Have you participated?  Will you again?  Why or why not?

     

  • I Teach, I Write, I Parent, I Busy!

    Hermione Granger Time Turner
    Excuse me, Miss Granger? Could I borrow that time turner for a moment?

    Yeah, Yeah, I know.  We’re all busy.  We all wear a lot of different hats in life. I teach, I write, and I parent.  It doesn’t always happen in that particular order.  Priorities shift daily.  Time bleeds out of my as if I’ve severed some existential artery.  Last night, I fell into bed at 9:00pm like a corpse.  This morning I woke feeling not much livelier than an awkwardly reanimated corpse.  Why in the name of Odin am I so tired?!

    That was the question I had on my brain when I sat down to do my morning pages.  [side note: I’m back at Julie Cameron’s self-guided course The Artist’s Way.  Journaling daily in the mornings is part of the program]  

    …anyway, I just could not understand the level of fatigue plaguing me this morning after getting an amazing eight full hours of sound sleep last night.  Is my thyroid slowing down? Am I developing a vitamin D deficiency (again)? Could low-grade depression triggered by the start of a new school year be the culprit?  What?  What am I missing?

    So, I recapped this past week, I wrote everything out on paper.  Once I saw it all, I was flabbergasted but had my answer.  I am busy!  Like, Hermione Granger with her time turner level busy. 

    Between lesson planning forward a few weeks (necessary to keep me from completely losing my mind) for three different high school science courses, scoring varsity volleyball games, prepping way too many solutions for a diffusion and osmosis lab, doing one-on-one check-in’s and phone calls with my new advisees and their parents, attending my bi-monthly meeting for the North Shore Writer’s Group, getting my eldest to Scouts, and meeting my Friday submission deadline for the Widgets & Wizards novel-writing class I’m taking as part of my graduate studies, I was in near constant motion.  And, like a complete goober, I decided to start lightly restricting the ridiculous volumes of food I was shoving into my face so I might stand a chance of losing a bit of the weight I put on during my first year of grad school (you know, so I can fit back into my work clothes and not look obscene).  

    The start of a new school year always knocks me down for a few days.  It’s the sudden shift in mental alertness that does it.  This year, though, this year I feel like I’ve got a brutal case of jet lag mixed with seasonal allergies and a touch of the flu.  And the load doesn’t look like it’s going to be lightening up any time soon.  This coming week is even busier than last week was. Tonight it’s a PTO meeting. Tomorrow I’ll be back at the volleyball scoring table, and Thursday night I’ll be leaving the house at 7:00am and returning home from my teaching day at 9:00 pm thanks to it being “Parent’s Visiting Night.” 

    If I’m going to make my next submission deadline, I’m going to have to be on my organizational A-game.  Part of that means MAKING TIME TO WRITE!  Parenting might have to take a back seat to the teaching and writing this week.  Thank Thor I’ve got a loving and supportive spouse who, because they’re a creative individual who went back to school to study their specific creative medium, understands and supports me and is willing to step in and pick up the slack when necessary.  And this week it will be very, very necessary.

    Last night, I added another 800+ words to my WIP.  Today, I need to match that or do even better.  I got a very encouraging note from my mentor this morning saying I’d nailed my MC’s voice in my last submission, so I’m feeling optimistic that I’m on the right track.

    As for writing, [deep breath, cracks knuckles, swigs coffee], here we go.  

     

    What times in your year do things tend to pile up on you?

  • Chuang-Tzu, Things with Wings, and the Writer’s Life

    Chuang-Tzu, Things with Wings, and the Writer’s Life

    At some point between 369 BCE and 286 BCE, western philosopher Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) wrote what is commonly known as The Butterfly Dream Parable. Here’s an excerpt:

    “Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhuangzi. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”

    The butterfly parable popped into my head today as I stood at my kitchen sink, gazing out at my back yard with unseeing eyes. This morning’s writing session was a darned good one. I’d written just over 1,200 new words and wrapped up a lengthy scene in one of my two current WIPs.

    For weeks, I’ve been banging my head against this particular project. The first third of the story had its own set of wings. I mean, the story just flew out of my brain. It was great. Then… it stopped being great. I hit the dreaded “middle” of the plot, and mental quicksand sucked me down. What was the point? Where was it going? Ugh.

    So, for weeks I ruminated and whined and avoided trying to write anything. The one scene I did write was absolute trash. I’m convinced it won’t survive the second draft. Frustrating? Oh, you bet.

    Then, someone posted something on Facebook about Mary Carroll Moor and the idea of writing “islands.” The general idea is to abandon the process of writing a story chronologically from scene to scene when you run up on writer’s block. That’s the moment, this person said, that one might benefit from writing whatever scene happens to bubble up into your mind without worrying about where it would fit into the story, or even whether it will end up being part of the finished product. It’s a form of discovery writing, I guess. Since I discovery-wrote that first smoking hot third of my WIP, I figured I’d give the island writing thing a try.

    A few night’s ago, a flashbulb scene popped brightly into my brain, of my characters attempting a hairy river-crossing. The scene in my head was only a few seconds long, but it was incredibly vivid. For the past three days, I’ve been writing that scene. Today, it sprouted wings, caught an updraft, and took off.  I disappeared into that scene completely.

    When I returned to myself near midday, I felt a little hazy, like I was in that half-awake-half-asleep place. Which brings me to my moment at the kitchen sink and Chuang-tzu’s butterfly parable.

    As I stared out into my back yard, it occurred to me that I have spent very little time in the outside world this summer. Sure, there have been a few days when I’ve set up camp at the teakwood table in the shade of our massive maple tree. Even then, though, I was elsewhere. I was inside my writing, my other world.

    It can be easy for writers to disengage from the real world, to forget about it as they immerse themselves in their self-generated fictional worlds. On the one hand, it’s a wonderful feeling when the writing comes alive so vividly that you don’t want to leave it. On the other hand, my doctor informed me at my July physical that I have a vitamin-D deficiency.

    My back yard is gorgeous. We’ve had a good amount of rain this summer, so the lawn has stayed green, and all of our flowers and fruit trees are lush and vibrant… and I’ve barely noticed any of it. Maybe I should take a moment to wake from my fictional world and spend some time in my non-fictional world.

    So, I spent a bit of time outside today, and I took some pictures of all the beautiful things I’ve been missing. Here they are.

    Have you had the experience of vanishing into your writing? Do you ever struggle to come back from that place? How do you balance your two worlds as a writer?

  • Life: It Happens to the Best of Us

    It’s been my experience that a creative person’s goals–fragile, beautiful little things that they are–frequently crash headlong into the mercurial realities of life.

    This morning, as I sit at my kitchen table to do my morning pages, I can’t help but catch sight of the wall calendar opposite me and notice that August 28th is a mere sixteen days away. Time appears to have sprung a leak this summer. Just a moment ago, it was June 16th, and I was attending the end-of-year faculty party.

    Ah, summer vacation. The kids would be in camp all day. Hubby would be hard at work with his stuff down in his studio. I’d have two

    Monhegan Island, Maine
    A visual representation of my mental image of summer in all its leisurely, creativity-inspiring glory.

    months crank out as much work for my graduate studies as possible. Heck, I might be able to knock off every third-semester assignment before the end of August when I had to return to my full-time job of teaching science to high-schoolers. The future looked bright.

    Now, I have less than three weeks before I’m back in the classroom and my creative endeavors become relegated to a dimly lit, neglected corner of existence. What the heck?!

    Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote in 1785, “The best laid schemes of Mice and Men go oft awry.” Isn’t that the truth?

    Now, sitting here, faced with irrefutable evidence that yet another blissful summer of writing has snuck by me, shielded by the dust kicked up by the mocking chaos of reality, a couple of thoughts spring to mind.

    First, I spend perhaps a bit too much time cursing J. K. Rowling for thinking up that damnable Time Turner from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Why, J. K.? Why did you have to tease me with that thing? I’ve never been good at math, but even if I were a genius with numbers I still wouldn’t be able to count all the times I’ve wished for things that don’t exist: the ability to fly, a non-evil and therefore helpful clone, a sable-coated prehensile tail… and now, I can add a time turner to that list. Garr!!

    Additionally, I find myself thinking yet again of the first episode from the 1980’s reboot of the Twilight Zone. In “A Little Piece and Quiet” (directed by Wes Craven), a housewife with way too much stuff in her life and no time for herself digs up a necklace/amulet in her flower bed that gives her the power to stop time completely. It’s fantastic until nuclear war breaks out, and then it’s not fantastic anymore.

    There she is, realizing that her fabulous discovery has just ruined her life.

    Hey, it’s the Twilight Zone. Nothing ever ends well in the Twilight Zone. That’s what I loved about it and still do. The thing is, I first saw that episode as a rerun when I was fifteen or sixteen. That was… a very long time ago, yet it’s still with me. A magical necklace that can stop time! Not unlike that half-alien chick from the TV show of the same era, “Out of This World” (which, in stark contrast to the Twilight Zone, was terrible) who could stop time by touching her fingers together. The time-stopping amulet was way better because of its mysterious and potentially sinister origins.

    Anyway, I think about Hermione’s time turner and that doomed housewife’s time-stopping amulet all the time. If only…

    Well, I’ve finished nursing my cup of coffee. The tea kettle just whistled to let me know the water’s hot and ready for my post-coffee cup of Constant Comment. The kids are awake and ravenously ready for breakfast. And the home-repair project that ate up my entire day yesterday sits waiting to be finished. If I’m to be honest with myself, this day is probably already spent, and I shouldn’t get my hopes up regarding being able to sneak in any creative writing. That said, you never know what might happen. I could be picking roofing nails out of the lawn and stumble across the uncovered corner of an ancient rune-encrusted box containing a mysterious golden amulet. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she.

    What do you dream about in the harried moments when life devours your creative goals and spits out their shattered little bones at your feet?

  • Finding Time to Write (or, My Endless Struggle)

    Finding Time to Write (or, My Endless Struggle)

    I swear my kids want me to flunk out of grad school. They also might be psychic, because when I sit down at my desk to check email or indulge my Facebook addiction, they happily find quiet and unobtrusive ways to keep themselves occupied (okay, I have time management and procrastination issues). The moment my fingertips touch my keyboard for the purposes of doing some actual creative writing, the little demons arrive at the office door and demand my undivided attention. True, my six-year-old is my primary antagonist in this battle. My ten-year-old less so, but he is not an innocent bystander by any means.

     

    Do I want to build with Legos? Do I want to play a board game? I’m bored. There’s nothing to do. I’m hungry. Can I get them something to eat? No? Well, then, let’s up the ante. How about a game of chess, Mommy? It’s educational, my youngest will point out to me in angelic tones. Do you know how hard it is to say no to a kindergartener pleading with you to play chess, for goodness sake?! You instantly feel like a terrible person for saying no to that one, and my evil little demon knows it.

     

    If by some miracle, I manage to stay strong and say no to all of these requests, there’s always Plan B. Commence with Operation Escalation. They will begin to fight, loudly, about anything and everything. You’re on my side of the couch! I’m using that blanket! I was playing with that! You knocked that down/destroyed that on purpose! You’re cheating at this made-up game that has no rules! You’re punching too hard! The point of the argument is irrelevant, only that the battle escalates until one of them is injured and crying. Oh, yes, they are devious, diabolical strategists.

     

    My husband does intervene on my behalf… sometimes. At other times, though, he retreats to his art studio in the basement and pretends not to hear what’s happening. I don’t begrudge him this. That’s a lie. I totally begrudge him this. In fact, I want to murder him in those moments, even though I simultaneously understand his reasons for it. The problem is that by the time I get home at close to six o’clock from a long day of teaching science to high schoolers, he’s already been on kid duty for three and a half hours, and our kids are human tornadoes in the afternoons. They’ve been pent up inside an elementary school classroom all day. Even the mile and a half walk home does little to vent their pressure-cooker energy. He can boot their butts out into the back yard on days when the weather permits it, but even then, he has to stay alert for sounds of outraged or injury-induced screaming. So, I get why he succumbs to the temptation to go “off-duty” when dinner is done, and the kitchen is cleaned up. That doesn’t mean I don’t mentally curse him to eternal damnation from my spot at my writing desk when I’m looking at a blank page, and my kids are screaming in the other room.

     

    I want to yell at people when they lament that they can never “find the time” to write. Yeah? Well, neither can I. Why? Because it doesn’t exist. There is literally no time to write, no magical empty block with nothing going on where I can sit down with a steaming mug of cozy chamomile tea and put on some relaxing classical music and snuggle in my fluffy PJ’s and write. Nope. If I’m going to write, I must MAKE time to do it. I must set boundaries, barricade the door, and defend my selected hour like the violently seized territory it is. If I let my guard down, that time will be taken right back from me.  There are 101 articles and blog posts that offer use struggling saps tips for carving out time in our busy lives for our writing.  Here’s a good one from Writer’s Digest. I’ll let them tell you what to do, because (if you haven’t figured it out yet) I am a hot mess and shouldn’t be giving anyone suggestions on how to do anything.

     

    Sometimes I literally leave. I pack up and head to the local library or to a coffee shop. That works, but it breeds resentment and strains marital relations, so I leave those trips to do-or-die deadline situations. More often, I will abandon my office space for my bedroom, which has a lock on the door and is upstairs from the chaos. I will put on my headphones and drown out all attempts at Plan B that may erupt below. My husband feels better because he knows that, should a genuine emergency occur, I am still close by. My children seem to be slowly adjusting to the fact that mom is in grad school and that grad school trumps their need for my undivided attention.

     

    Maybe this will be good for all of us. My kids might finally learn how to self-sooth. My husband is learning the fine art of reheating leftovers (though let’s give credit where credit is due: he does 90% of the cooking already because I’m not so great at cooking things that are edible). Who knows? I might actually get my MFA in creative writing. I’ll let you know how it goes, but right now I’ve got some writing to do.

     

    (I’ve been told that bloggers are supposed to end their posts with questions designed to jump-start a discussion in the comments thread. I’m pretty sure no one has stumbled across this secret little blog, but I may as well engage in best practice blogging, right?  After all, when I’m a successful and famous YA author, I’ll probably have to keep an actual author’s blog where I can interact with my thousands of awesome fans… sigh. We have to dream, folks.  Anyway, here’s the leading question(s): are you in a similar position as me?  What things in your life vie for you time and pull you away from your writing?  Are you able to resist?  If so, what are your strategies?  Do share!