Murder I wrote?

If you walked past me on the street, I guarantee you wouldn't give me a second look. I'm the girl in the background. The girl you introduce yourself to two or three times because you forget we have met before (honestly, this happens ALL the time...and it's devastating each time it happens).

But, author me is different. Author me kills people with a stroke of my mighty keyboard. Author me writes words I would never say out loud. Author me might rob banks, go on the lam, or be a street-wise private eye with a barrel full of bullets, booze and trouble. Author me might even take home magazines from the doctor's office that definitely aren't meant to be taken home. Author me is just a little crazy. And I am hardly alone.

Graycie Harmon said, "Being an author is like being in charge of your own personal insane asylum."

Love, love, love that quote. It's like a come as you aren't party in my head every time I sit down to write. Anything is possible. Yes, yes, I know that's cliche. But it's also the absolute truth. To an author with a story to tell, ANYTHING is possible.

So, let us raise our glasses to good clean girls who scrub floors and change diapers by day, and run mental insane asylums by night... Take joy in the writing process where, say it with me everyone, anything is possible.

Nothin' to it but to do it?

This is going to be a quick post, but I found this story during my internet wanderings today and thought we all might enjoy it.

Sinclair Lewis was invited to talk to some students about the writer's craft. He stood at the head of

the class and asked, "How many of you here are really serious about be writers?" A sea of hands shot up. Lewis then asked, "Well, why aren't you all home writing?" And with that, he walked out of the room.

Friggin' genius.

I think Ronnie Coleman actually coined the phrase, though, as a child of the 80's, I remember it better from 1979's classic "The Muppet Movie", "There ain't nothin' to it but to do it." We can take classes, listen to lectures, meet authors, ready, study, prepare, etc. But even with the greatest of intentions and the best preparations, nothing ever gets done unless rubber meets road...or in our case pen meets paper. So get writing! Like the muppets say, ain't nothin' to it but to do it. And when has a muppet ever steered you wrong?

And if everything else I have shared with you up to this point is not motivation enough to get you writing, let me share one last thought with you- If I can do it, anyone can. Really.

Stuck In The Middle...

The middle sucks.
The middle seat in an airplane.
Middle child syndrome.
The middle ages.
Those weird middle names parents give their kids to honor dear departed Aunt Gertrude.
Middle America (just kidding folks).

Getting to the middle of writing my story was the absolute worst part of this whole novel-writing experience. The beginning was fun and exhilarating, with boundless possibilities. It was almost too easy to write. But toward the middle, the idea train stopped pulling into station like it used to. And there I was, figuratively stuck in Death Valley, mid-day, in mid-July, the next idea train nowhere in sight, buzzards circling the decaying carcass of my story. I think I spent more time staring at a blinking cursor and perfecting flower doodles than actually writing anything productive for weeks, maybe months when I got to the middle.

My friends at rightreading.com say it best. "It's at the middle where you start to fear that you've painted yourself into a corner, that your work isn't good enough, that you will never finish." No freaking kidding. Been there. Done that. Corner definitely painted.

I remember sending an email to a friend when I had reached the middle of my story. It said something to the effect of, "Poor (main character's name). He's just stuck in the middle of a story that is going nowhere. Will he get the girl? I don't know. Will he win the day? No clue. Might he die in a fiery car crash? It's getting more and more possible." Thankfully that friend was there to stop me from murdering my innocent main character in cold blood. I'm not gonna lie, it got close a time or two.

Rightreading.com goes on to say "You've got to suck it up and work through this middle patch." Alright, rightreading, you asked me to suck it up, so suck I shall! It helped a little bit to write after the black-hole of the middle. When I started writing pieces of the end, the excitement came back. It brought focus and direction back to the unending middle section.

So good luck to all of you out there stuck in the middle. Though offing your main character in some massive space alien battle would feel really good when your are stuck, you too can get through this!

Eat Your Veggies!

Animal Farm
Catcher in the Rye
Grapes of Wrath
Brave New World
Catch 22
Tess of the D'Ubervilles
Lord of the Flies

What do all of these books have in common?
Classics? Yes.
Famous authors? Of course.
All books I had to read in high school but didn't really enjoy? Most definitely.

All of these books, as my English teachers have told me, are scathing indictments of human nature. They are deep and meaningful and shed a harsh light on the human psyche blah, blah, blah.

Don't get me wrong. These books MUST be read. To me, they are the broccoli, peas and carrots of the literary world. If we are to have a good, solid base in literature or writing, these must be consumed, whether you like it or not (Sorry, I was just channeling my mom there for a minute)

I let books like these stop me from writing for a long time. I really thought good literature had to be about suffering and pain and provide shocking commentary about the social condition. And since I am about as deep as a thimble, there was no way that I was going to be able to produce such deep, meaningful and lasting work as the aforementioned authors had.

But then I had a realization. There are other thimbles out there just like me who may want to read what I want to write. Maybe what I can write would constitute the after dinner mint at the literature buffet. Maybe what I write would be the extra splenda left over in the packet after the rest had been dumped into the after dinner coffee. But I had hope that what I had to say was good enough to at least try to get out there.

So thimbles unite! I'm writing what makes me happy. Even if it is just for me.

My Great Uncle Horace

As I am writing to you, I am wearing my metaphorical sweatbands, dolphin shorts, and even leg warmers. Metaphorical leg warmers. I wonder if those look any stupider than real leg warmers do...but I digress.

I'm talking about exercising friends. Exercising our writing muscles.

Why do doughy middle-aged men, who have NO business wearing them, put on spandex bicycle shorts and pound the bike trails on the weekends? Why do 60 year old women turn on their 60 year old copy of "Sweatin' to the Oldies" volume 2 tapes every morning? Why do I park myself in front of a treadmill for thirty minutes everyday though I'd much rather be watching old episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on Hulu?

The belabored answer to this belabored question: Because its good exercise.

Writing a novel in and of itself is an amazing exercise. It is the workout world's equivalent to a marathon. And sure, anyone could stand at the starting line of a marathon. And almost anyone, whether it be 5 hours later or five days later, can cross the finish line. But what about the exercise we do to get up to that point?

Short writing is great exercise. These silly, insanely narcissistic blog posts are great exercise for my thinking bones. I've even taken up journal writing as good practice, though I shudder for my progeny who will someday have to read it. So while the marathon of writing a novel may be as outlandish as my great uncle Horace with a game leg making up Mount Everest, jotting down thoughts you have every now and then is doable. And even sometimes a little fun.

And I'm sorry Great Uncle Horace, but you and I both know you ain't making it up the side of any moutain anytime soon.

Guts

I found a Sylvia Plath quote on the internet while I was researching ways to break through "writers block" (quick note: nothing great has been said on the subject. I thought I'd save you some time).
She said, "Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it." I immediately copied, pasted, and printed it out. It's hanging on my wall as we speak. I love that she used the word guts.

Putting pen to paper is scary. It takes, well, guts. But there is something even scarier. Giving your fledgling writing to someone to read. As an aspiring author, the only thing that I can compare it to would be to running down the street naked while all your worst enemies from high school hold up signs signifying how much fatter you are now than you were in ninth grade.

Sharing your writing with someone, even someone you trust, can make you feel bare naked. It's uncomfortable because it's the most vulnerable part of you, especially when you are new at it. Heck, for all you know, your work could suck. So you start to sweat and wonder whatever made you start writing in the first place because obviously you can't write! Who do you think you are, huh?

Whoa, I'm getting away from myself.

But getting your writing out there, even if it is terrifying is the price you have to pay to get better. Gut it out. Get the feedback. Get better.

Plath ends by saying, "The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." Well, that and all your high school enemies commenting on your fat butt.

Dirty, Rotten Writing

Not many people can claim to have learned a life lesson from the 1988 film, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. But I have.

In the scene, Lawrence Jamieson (Michael Caine) is talking to Freddy (Steve Martin) about life. Lawrence says, “Freddy, as a younger man, I was a sculptor, a painter, and a musician. There was just one problem: I wasn't very good. As a matter of fact, I was dreadful.”

Pause scene there. Back to my life-

In college, I wanted to be artist. I wanted so badly to be deep and mysterious. Don't we all want that in college? I went so far as to even submit a portfolio of "art" to my university in hopes of being accepted to their prestigious visual arts program. Of course I was summarily turned down. I could almost hear the Dean laughing from his ivory tower as he glanced over my "body of work". I didn't blame him. It was well, dreadful.

Back to the movie-

Lawrence Jamieson goes on to say, "Freddy, what I am saying is: know your limitations. You are a moron."

I learned very quickly, and painfully, that the world of visual arts would never include me. I'm an artistic moron. Maybe that's why writing gives me so much pleasure. It's an artistic outlet that has nothing to do with apertures, canvas, charcoal or shading. It’s word-smithing, something anyone can do, though we all do it with varying success.

So here’s to hoping that although I am an artistic moron, let’s hope I fare just a little better in the writing world.

Really, really crappy writing

The great Earnest Hemingway once said, "The first draft of anything is (insert expletive here)."

And that short quote, my friends, has always made me feel better. It also makes me wonder at a real writer's process. Not mine. I admittedly don't know what I'm doing. But I just can't imagine the likes of Hemingway doing what we see so often in cartoons and sitcoms- sitting there with a ream of paper, scribbling something, then balling the paper up and tossing it into the trash can. Can you see Shakespeare doing that? Of course not. From God's mouth to Shakespeare's pen, right? Or wrong?

Maybe in Shakespeare's first draft, Juliet started out as Sally, the plucky, somewhat overweight short order cook for the Capulets. Hey, it's a possibility.

I think what separates the writer from the non-writer is this. A writer puts pen to paper (which can be terrifying in and of itself), writes crap, but then has the hutspah to work with the crap until it is something much more presentable.

Because even if the first draft is *&$%@, it doesn't mean your final draft will be.

Blood from Turnips

Blood from a turnip, blood from a stone...no matter from what you are metaphorically trying to squeeze blood, sometimes it just ain't gonna happen.

I've felt like this sometimes. I put my kid in his jogging stroller, grab my ipod and jogging shoes, and hit the trails ready to be inspired, or to at least get some ideas for the next chapter. But recently, nothing has been coming to me. Nothing. Blood from a turnip.

So I've learned the importance of fallowing. I'm not an English major, so I don't know if putting an -ing on the end of the word fallow is correct, but lets just say for our purposes it is.

The definition of Fallow brought to you by my good friends at dictionary.com-
Land that has undergone plowing and harrowing and has been left unseeded for one or more growing seasons.

Farmers sometimes let plots of land fallow or rest for a season. Overworked land produces poor crops. An overworked mind produces crappy writing. I think of my brain as a field sometimes, and not just because it's full of dirt and bugs. But the field of my head sometimes needs to rest. Sometimes I've squeezed everything out of it. I need to fallow.

During the writing process, I've learned to trust myself enough to walk away, to let my head rest. Let the characters marinate in my brain. When I come back after my season of fallowing, I find that my brain is no longer a turnip, but a field ready to give an excellent growing season.

Inspiration

Recently, I was talking to a very accomplished author who is now a "book doctor" (though she calls herself something that sounds a lot more fancy) about the process of writing. She said what most authors say, which is "read everything you can". And of course I agree with that. But, I haven't found many mainstream authors who say, "watch all the tv you can". That would just sound stupid coming from an author, wouldn't it? Good thing I'm anonymous!

So kids, watch some good tv.

This is going to sound like a non-sequiter, but bear with me. Lady Gaga. See, I told you. Still bearing with me? I was in the middle of trying to write one of my female characters. I'd first written her as just plain evil, but she was coming off very one-dimensional. And then, Lady Gaga happened. First let me say, I'm not a huge fan of hers. I'm not even sure I've ever seen her without something elaborate stuck to her face. Is anyone sure what she even looks like? Anyway, she was on either the Mtv music or movie awards and did a performance that was so outlandish, so strange and creepy, it was inspirational. I loved the desperation and even craziness that dripped out of her. She helped me write this flat character as something much more multi-faceted.

So watch tv, movies, plays. Yes, of course read everything you can. But if you ask me, there ain't nothin' wrong with a little tv time when you are trying to write.

I'm writing a Book

"I'm writing a book."
How often do we hear this from someone we just met? It's like when the 250 pound woman we meet at a party says "I'm training for a marathon" or that stoner we knew from high school says "I'm going to go to medical school". Sure you are. So we nod and smile and worry about their the state of their brain matter that led to these delusions of grandeur.

It seems that most people go through a creative period in their lives when they fancy themselves an author, though it usually doesn't amount to much, excuse my pessimism.

So on that note friends, I am writing a book. Feel free to roll your eyes. If I were one of my friends or family members, I sure would. But here is where I will collect what I have learned, what I have done right, and what I have done terribly, terribly wrong.

Welcome to the show.