The Process

I'm cotton-pickin' busy writing the novel and completing assignments for an online creativity class. I've also joined a live writers' group (as opposed to either a dead or online group).

It all takes time, I keep reminding myself. It all takes time. And what would I have, where would I be if I took this time to do something else?

Well ... there's always this: http://writersdigest.com/article/101-websites-2009

Don't go there unless you're procrastinating. I'm warning you now; you'll fall into the time suck that is the Web if you even peek at one link posted here.

I helped Ted (my husband) and Jay Lake (Writer Guru) break a couch at Iron Springs. Make that: RUSTY Iron Springs. I am proud.

It wasn't like we did anything crazy or illegal (ratz), but it's the first motel/cabin room furniture I can say I helped destroy. There are wood splinters from the demolished futon embedded in the carpet right now; I'm sure of it.

What fun! The bonus part (no, the Broke Back Couch wasn't it) is that I got to hang out with some very incredible, smart, FUNNY writers who are SERIOUS about their craft. My head is still busy sorting through everything I heard and saw (no names mentioned here other than the two I already spilled the beans on in the first graf). What happens in Iron Springs ...

I submitted a very rough draft of detached parts of my very first novel. It's not fantasy, sci-fi, romance or horror. But they were tolerant (of my ridiculous typos and EVERYTHING <cough> manuscript format <ahem>). They accepted me. :-) They rock.

And if they allow it, and the two gurus are into it, I'll be back next year.  I just can't get enough of the good stuff these writers are willing to share. Next time, I'll bring a genre piece -- something less patched and more worked. And I promise to add a zombie or a gnome, and to break fewer rules than I did this past weekend.

P.S. Mr. Writer in Cabin 15: if you're reading this, and Rusty Springs charged you for the damage, let me know and I will gladly reimburse you -- it was SO worth it!

Where's the bridge over the River Contemplation? I need to get to Action. I've been there before, but lately I've been spending more time looking for the bridge to the Place Where Things Happen, than I have anything else.

I seem to let the busy, daily toil take its toll. I'm working things out in my head, but haven't found the time to apply them to the page. So here I am, moaning about it!

There's still time ... my lunch isn't over yet! Back to the book! :-)

I think I use my idea-generating brain as an excuse for not working on my current writing project. I take Raleigh for a walk and my brain is filled with the voices of my characters and then it happens ... I see that someone actually killed a TV in the park. You've seen the bumper sticker, now see the bumper sticker come alive!

It's amazing what can happen to a TV when it's hurled down a 20-foot embankment. Really amazing. The innards spray all over the place (blood splatter patterns, anyone?) and the glass chunks out of the dead center in handfuls. It really looks murdered.

Now, I'm thinking about the history of that dead TV. Who threw it and why? Love quarrel? Not the Final Score in the Big Game some viewer was expecting? Cable gone out?

How about this: The TV killed ITSELF! Now there's a story idea I can run away with. So the next thing I know, I've shut out the voices in my current project and I'm focused on a new one.

Stop the insanity!

I lack focus.

All those half-filled journals and partially completed stories floating around on my computer, in boxes and under my nightstand.

Sigh.

But back to the TV that killed itself -- why? Why oh why would a TV do that? I can think of dozens of reasons and none of them have anything to do with my current work. I know! I'll work it into a dream my protagonist is having.

Ah.

I feel a bit better now.

Back to the project at hand!

I have it. I wouldn't say I suffer from it, but I definitely have it -- Library Lust. I would be happy to live under the stacks, or on top of them as long as I don't get kicked out.

I read a fantasy novel where the characters (fairies) would sneak to the human library at night, skip through the aisles choosing books and then head to the basement where they'd read for hours. Ah! My fantasy exactly.

And why should I settle for just living there; maybe I can also die there and be buried there.

My epitaph at the head of the stacks might read:

Here lies Constant Reader
She read here
She died here
And now she's forever ensconced in the Golden Stacks on High
(Viewing on top of the stacks by appointment)

Not such a bad place for ensconcement, if you ask me.

And no matter how much reading lies on my bedside table, tucked into my bag or borrowed from friends, I can't resist checking books out.

Delight!

I know there's a song titled, "Where the Boys Are," but I'd like to change that to "Where the Books Are." That's where I wanna be.

I'm experimenting with ways to generate new material. I've been doing the John Gardner thing by absorbing all the stuff around me, digesting it and turning it into dialog, plot and character. When I'm IN THE ZONE nothing can stop me. But when I pause to think about my writing (or lack thereof) that's when I freeze and start the downward decline into:

I can't do this.

Even though I know I CAN DO THIS.

It's like that for me: when I think about what I'm doing, I can no longer believe that I can do it. But when I'm actually DOING it, I'm fine.

I'm learning to write more and think less.

...unrelenting and assimilating me like the Borg. That would be my day job I write of here. Yep. My Day-O, Day Job-O.

"Come Mr. Tallyman, tally me banana. One banana, two bananas, three bananas ...BUNCH!"

Except my bananas are really Web pages, booklets and projects. Plus, I have the delightful fun of adjusting to daily change as the economic crisis continues to unravel everything around us.

One very cool thing: I just bought a Kindle 2!

I figure that while the world burns, I'll fiddle around with e-books. ;-)

We're at the beach this week! I've looked forward to this vacation for months and months. It's our first time here for longer than a three-day stint. It's so beautiful; the weather is perfect and a talisman for spring as the fluffy clouds sweep across the baby blue sky.

There's something ancient and eternal here. There's also something nascent and unfinished -- an embryo seeking completion.

My day job is taking a toll. I arrive home feeling wrung wet and undone. There's seldom anything left of me to work on my writing.

Oh but the stories in my head! Is this how it feels to have multiple personality disorder? I have an over-peopled head. It's a crowd in there.

I've got to let them out, no matter if they stink like the unknowable thing washed up on the beach this morning.

No matter.

Here I am. Here's the journal page entry that marks my entrance into another writing "phase." Was I called to do this? If so, why do I fight it so much? Can I write enough to make good stories worthy of sharing?

Sigh ... I examine this thing too much. Time to start doing something and stop picking at myself.