Writing What you Fear

Embarrassing to admit, but two nights ago I awoke in the small hours of the morning to a nightmare revolving around zombies. I have always wondered if it is just the writer in me, or if I dream more frequently, vividly, and with the ability to remember them than others anyway. After awaking a few times, I finally had to get up completely to try and dispel the fear that was overtaking my logical thinking. Why zombies? No idea. While the rest of the world goes on Zombie walks and enjoys all manner of movies/TV, I leave lights on and avoid them.

So there it was 5:30 in the morning, still full dark without Fall Back yet. And I finally sit up, trying to shake off the sleep and fear addled brain. And all I could hear was this licking noise from the recesses of the dark room. My cat. That’s it, out to the living room I go so my husband can still sleep. I turn on the light and proceed to do anything to keep my mind off the dream.

But I have to go back to sleep sometime.

I’ve learned over the years that my mind will quiet down if I come to some sort of conclusion. It’s not too picky on what, any ending will usually satisfy. So half-awake, half-daydreaming, I Mary-Jane an ending good enough to sleep until 9 am.

All of this leads to the true point that as I tell my good friend and writing buddy about this night, he thinks the idea is merit-able. That its writable. That I could really do something with it.

And now I have a Scrivener file for a zombie novel….What the hell?

Case and Point: Brainstorming session today in broad daylight of 7 PM, my friend suggests we watch the first episode of Walking Dead. For those in the know, I barely make it past the part where he gets out of the hospital and ends up with the guy from Snatch and son. For others, probably not even half way.

How the hell am I supposed to write a zombie novel (that I can’t even deny I am slightly curious to try…) when I can’t go out on the my porch to watch the wind whistle through the trees because of hurricane Sandy in the dark without waiting for a rotted hand to reach between the bars…

I don’t know if I can write a zombie novel, especially because doing the research for the genre may well kill any restful sleep I get for awhile. In a morbid way, I want to try. Maybe if I can write through this fear that keeps the hall light on at night for a 27 year old, than maybe I can make it through a show without walking away.

 

Tangental Lines

Writing is my catharsis. It really always has been since I can remember putting pen to paper that very first time with the thought, “I am going to write my own story and it will be the best story.” I was in 3rd(?) grade… and the best story ended up looking very much the same as Bruce Coville’s Into the Land of Unicorns. Yet I have scraps and notes of emotions (very rarely all collected in the same location) that document my life and the emotions going through it.

But I find myself unable to write about this moment:

Inside of me, there a rustle-drag that echoes through my head. The scratch of wood on soft, sandy dirt. It’s the mental equivalent of the line being drawn. There is a part of me, an emotional part, that I am learning was always there. But it never had a name or a title. Without these things, it was a wayward thought. Now, I am beginning to learn it is so much more.

All I want to do is ask others… Others who have lived and made decisions, and found love, only to find that who they thought they were is incomplete. That to deny any longer would actually begin to cause more strife than simply dragging the revelation blinking into the sunlight.

I wish to shout to the world, “I am _____ !” But whispering it in the dark is all I can say for now.

Then one wonders……

If you were raised as <noun 1>. And something you’ve always felt was only a coincidence is suddenly proclaimed as <noun 2> to you, with reasons and documentation and the complete non-judgement of your coincidences. Then would this be reasonable to accept, with your own soul-searching and research, that maybe you are <noun 2>? Finally, if so, how do you then explain to everyone you know that what they all assumed, which was <noun 1> like normal, actually isn’t who you are?

What next?

The Countdown

According to the NanoWrimo website there is 09:09:36:… at the time I start writing this. Can it really be just 9 days? Wow, the time flies.

Do I have the outline I wanted to have? No.

Do I have the hordes of notes I had last year? No.

What do I have? An idea, a character, and a place to go. Discovering writing at its best.

But, I did come up with an intriguing theme as I mused last night. Speaking of which, I have absolutely fallen in love with Brandon Sanderson’s Writing Excuses podcast. I just finished the one on character death and due the briefness of the podcast (one of its finer points if sometimes you wish there was more) they left it vaguely pointed in the direction of if you kill them, kill them well, kill them meaningfully, and make it fit within your genre.

The “meaningfully” and “well” caught my attention more than the genre. I will probably be revisiting that one later. But, to kill a character meaningful and well… That seems like a tall order. So I began to dig around in my memory like a child in a closet tossing items behind me as I picked them up and examined them for likeliness of a good example. Besides, I was looking for something specific. Not a major character death. But a secondary character death that makes you cry and jump up wishing you could be the one to pull them from harm’s way. Finally, I found the gem I was looking for.

*  *  *  S P O I L E R   A L E R T   F O R   W H I T E   C O L L A R   (T V   S H O W)   I F   Y O U   C A R E  *  *  *

Second season, Mozzie is shot. Who is Mozzie you may ask, not knowing but still not caring about the Spoiler alert. He is the quirky, conspiracy theorist friend who has bailed the lead and co-lead out of many a jam. Oh, don’t worry, he complained the entire way, but he never once said no when someone needed him. Then he ends up shot, on a park bench, the gun with a silencer, and almost no one caring about the slumped over guy on the bench.

That’s meaningful. Wait, no that’s well. Meaningful is going to be that without this death the lead wouldn’t ever find out what man was actually pulling the puppet strings.

For those who know, Mozzie makes it. So it’s not my best example. But honestly I hate killing characters.

So why I am going on about this then…? Because for NanoWrimo 2012, I am going to kill a character. And I want to make the reader tear up, like I do — sappy me, watching this death happen.

Ah, but the tangent returns me to my intriguing theme: Trust of necessity and trust of generosity. You can trust someone out of need, and it goes so far. But real trust, the kind given in solid relationships, that generosity. It’s a trust that one gives for the sake of giving. Not for further ends.

And that, my friends, is how you make the death meaningful and well: Loyalty. No really, it makes sense. Look at your own examples. Hell, look how most people react when the Pet (mainly dog) has to die in a film: Old Yeller and I am Legend.

Next goal…write loyalty…. Wonder if there’s a podcast on that.

Write long and prosper. ;-P

The Courage to Write

I am reading a new book. I found it in a sporadic stroll I have started recently of “how-to” books for writing. As I slowly wade through, picking my way on each word and paragraph like an explorer through swampy land, I am realizing things. The sedate pace is not because the book isn’t amazing — it definitely is — and I recommend it for any who are struggling to believe in their writing. It’s because something about each phrase resonates so profoundly within me that I cannot rush. There are a hundred things clamoring for my attention right now, and I continue to come back to this book.

“Faulkner had the courage to accept that flawed work (flawed to him anyway) was better than none at all.” – Ralph Keyes, pg 27

That line accompanied by the facts that I respect Faulkner’s work, the section in the book on writing about what you are afraid to write about, and the crazy response to a short, throwaway post here on the emotions I needed to let out to sleep has thrown into sharp relief what I have been hiding from.

Book 1 needs rewriting not editing. 

Let me outline the differences for my own frame of mind. What I wrote last night was emotional and resulted in a gripping snippet. The opening chapter of my book 1, no matter how I edit it, falls flat. Is it bad? Essentially, I don’t think so. There are elements and emotions there that work well, but it was written by a complacent girl who didn’t live or die by her writing. Alright, that’s a bit melodramatic but truthful enough. I lost my job over my writing, I refuse to lose my heart too.

Right now, I am prepping for NanoWrimo 2012. It’s probably cheating to rewrite the book again. But I was worried about having enough prep to write book 2 on a shaky book 1. I think my old-standby will work instead: writing out of order. I will write 50,000 new words for this November, but they officially don’t have to all come from the same novel.

So I will rewrite the first chapter, and hopefully have enough courage to maybe post some examples of the before and after here. Either way my writing has improved and simply re-editing the same words won’t add my heart back into that opening chapter and it needs to bang.

Write what I should write. Write the way I know how. The rest will follow.

Doesn’t Belong Here

Not sure this statement really belongs here. I will justify it by saying that I think Twitter has outlived it’s usefulness, almost no one is on Google+, Facebook is filled with people making asinine comments, and otherwise there is just space. Writing is my cathartic space, so here it goes.

It’s only been 48 hrs and I miss my husband painfully.

He is alive and well in Columbus, Ohio driving back to be home tomorrow night. I went to Jacksonville to see relatives while they were closer than usual. It still amounts to the fact that I hate being the only one awake with the hum of the AC to add counterpoint to my sleepless thoughts.

The bitter irony is that the job I am interviewing for and really, truly want includes 100% travel with a six week stint in India. Did I mention it was only 48 hrs ago?

I want to do this. I am excited about the opportunity, the training, the money – but I am scared about staring into the dark 5 nights a week. How does one rectify two such disparate emotions inside one mind?

…..

Instead you close your eyes. The AC cuts off, and the only sound is the ringing your ears make up as they search for something to hear. A deep breath in, held, out…wait, again. You think of calming memories, “happy places,” anything to be able to trust yourself to the void. That peaceful place between waking and sleeping when you reach out in habit and there is no breathing anchor beside you. The emptiness shakes you from your half dream state and you shift to begin the whole process over again. Only hoping this time you don’t reach for what isn’t there.

Though I Walk thru the Valley

I am back. I have to admit how sad it is that it has taken me this long to come back. I have no excuses really. And, just like a sinner who only talks to God in times of strife, I am back to recount the past few months.

I had found a job. It was wonderful. I carpooled to work every day with a close friend. We had lunch together. I was getting to know people and learning the ropes. It was challenging, it was all new, and it was glorious. Hell, on top of all that, it even paid well. A week before Labor Day weekend, I sat down to lunch with my boss and we talked about my prospects to continue. My contract was going to be renewed. I had the prospect of a full time gig. I had options.

 

Three weeks later I was fired.

 

Excuse me, as I was corrected at the time, my contract was terminated. Fucking semantics.

The reason? The purpose? My writing. No, the irony is not lost on me. And, in the truth of the anonymity, my first draft was bad. It was an attempt at a tone and a topic I shouldn’t have tried. But I was given a chance to rewrite it. I did with every bit of my craft behind me. I even recruited beta readers and critiques to understand where I had gone so horribly wrong the first time. And it hurt, but I went through it all and examined my mistakes and honed my words.

It didn’t matter. After reading through the entire second draft, my boss looks me in the eyes and tells me it’s still horrible. My world shattered, exploding apart like fine crystal in slow motion frames. In the span of 24 hrs, I lost my wonderful job, the time with my friend, and the paycheck that was allowing my husband and I to make progress on our debt. I was damaged goods and the company wasn’t going to keep me if it felt like I couldn’t perform.

So three months before the holidays, I am jobless and searching for meaning. But then, most people are one or the other, if not both. 

My writing…sits. The 76,000+ words of progress I had made on my first, rough draft of my NanoWrimo novel lays unedited. A unknown ground that lays fallow as the farmer has lost the will to deal with the seasons. I can’t even give it a proper title. Ceara’s story is still that “NanoWrimo” work. November itself looms monstrous in my mind. Whereas up to my termination, I was looking forward to triumph again, to continue this novel, and to learn who Nathaniel is and what he means to Ceara. Instead, I dread the 30 days of writing for the joy of writing, because I am too afraid to lock my inner editor away again. I doubt my abilities and the editor keeps me safe.

It’s such a simple thing to doubt, but it grows like kudzu in the heat of a Georgia summer. 

And the hardest part is that to get better I know I need critiques. I need to continue to write, but its something that I hold so dear to myself that it is hard to hold it out for the world to bludgeon. I don’t try to pretend that I am perfect, that I am some artist. I am just a singular soul who can’t NOT write. I only want to tell a story and being told time and time again how wrong the semantics are wear away my foundation to believe I have a worthy story to tell. 

A new job search it is then. Maybe somewhere along the rocky way I will stumble across the sage who knows the words to restore my faith to write again. Ceara deserves that kind of faith. 

It Worked

My persistence paid off. After 5 days ( including my initial introduction day) of shadowing, I have been offered a position. It’s not full time employee, I am a 90-day contractor, but I am in the door and working!!

Which means, since turning in my official resignation to the school on May 17th, I was hired with pay by June 25. As Dave Ramsey talked about earlier this month, there are people who are going through some really hard times, but besides that I think I want to tell the unemployed to suck it. It’s not always perfect, but you work tirelessly beating down doors until someone decides that your skills are worth it. I did.

I have changed my fate and my career. I am now working under a man who doesn’t just think I’m worth it, but went to bat for me to get a position opened up for me. And instead of fear, I have this overwhelming sense of excitement to do well and live up to these expectations. As a teacher, I always believed that a student did better when better was expected from them. Here is my better. And I plan on fighting til the end to keep it.

In 90 days, I may be back exactly where I was on May 25th, but I will know so much more by then. And hopefully, I will have shown the company how much they need me to stay. Either way, I have walked through this fire and made it. I can do it again.

On an original reason for the blog note, editing of the introduction has been coming along in my spare time. Having some help by a beta. So sometime before November I hope to have a legitimate first draft that is worth showing a few more people.

And I’ve started the outline for book 2. New character and everything. But I hope to edit deep into book 1 to really nail down my characters’ voices before continuing on. I want to know them more before I develop the deeper plot in book 2. I read a book once where author truly had ongoing dialogues and arguments with their characters. I need to find that.

So work and a rough, rough, first draft. A good start to the summer if I say so myself. ^_^

Tomorrow

Right now that Annie song is chorusing through my head: Tomorrow, tomorrow. And really, there’s nothing spectacular about tomorrow. But it’s the promise of what it could be.

In the morning, I travel with my close friend who has been helping me job search to his place of work once again. I have a shadow day appointment with the analytics department. The man who is coordinating is a tier two level guy (two sets of peoples below him). We set up the appt last week.

Tonight he takes the time to email me at 10 pm to check to make sure I am coming. I, of course, smacked myself as I realized I should have checked earlier, but I’m learning. I emailed him immediately with a yes.

It’s not a job interview, it’s just more opportunities to network and learn. Yet the promise is there.

So, for now I will let Annie sing. And we will see what actually comes to pass. Now, it means that I have a goal and a purpose.

To really mix things up, in short, I will not go gently into that good night. I am determined to rage, rage against the dying light. 🙂 (Yes, I think that sums it up nicely.)

Last Week

Tomorrow marks the beginning of an end. As poetically cliche as it is, this chapter of my life has found its ending. The last week of school.

And instead of dwelling on that, I found myself unable to sleep tonight (slept in way too late this morning) thinking about all the beginnings I still have occurring.

• I have an amazing husband working his butt off so I can find my own path.
• I have written in less than a year, 74,224 words to date.
• I have started an Etsy store that has sold 2 pieces in 3 months (only one was a friend).
• I have met and networked with amazing people who were willing to take time out of their schedule to meet with a teacher trying to change careers.
• I have a friend who has been standing right next to me through it all.
• I have a mother, father, and sister who are proud of my accomplishments and rooting for me.
• I have a mathematics degree that I might get to use a little bit more.
• I am working myself out of debt.

Just a tip of the iceberg. But this isn’t a list of things to be thankful for. It’s a list of things I’ve begun, have and will succeed in. It’s just strange how sometimes modesty overrides our ability to actually stand up and say, “This is what I am good at, and beyond that, this is why I am absolutely awesome.” I mean, who actually likes answering that question in a job interview, “Why would you be good at this position?” or the even better one, “Why should we hire you?” It puts you on the spot to defend yourself wholly about why you would rock their socks off if they hired you. Sometimes it easy to answer, other times we get to do a little acrobatic reasoning. But the result in the same, if we want it bad enough, they be able to tell in our voice and our mannerisms.

I joked to my friend the day he helped me network, “They don’t have any idea who they are hiring. They aren’t just hiring some girl who needs a job. They are getting a woman who is literally giving up everything she knows to jump headlong into a new project. They have my undivided attention, and I am a very fast learner.” It was spoken in jest, but rings true in hindsight. I am a very fast learner and I can do what I set my mind to. Hell, first time out of the gate, I wrote 50,000 words in 30 days (even starting 4 days late).

So, in imaginary toast as I finally crawl into bed, I salute new beginnings. May they be ever so exhilarating and ever so enlightening as always.

I’ve never taken the easy road yet, why start now?

The Art, the Book, and the Way

So a few ideas to address today:

First, yes, I am still writing. I have recently decided to change careers. And, so as if I wasn’t doing enough previously, I am now job hunting for a new career. It’s exciting and super scary at the same time. I am leaving the comfort of what I know for an unknown. And worse, an unknown that I don’t wholly feel prepared for. Either way, I am doing it. My resignation paper was turned in two days ago. I am not changing my mind now. Teaching, sad as it is to say, is for someone who cares a little less than I.

Second, the book has morphed in a series. I had the sneaking suspicion that it what is was going to do to me. Not so worried though. It may mean the the end of Ceara’s story is farther off than I expected, but it finally feels like the book is more than a one shot, shallow, cliche paranormal story. Now I just need to write it like it is that unique. Thankfully, someone new, a Nephilim by the name of Nathaniel just walked into the book the other night. So I am going to wrap up book one, set down notes and outlines for book 2/3 (November is coming on fast…), and be prepared to finally read through my first manuscript beginning to end. Ceara, Jean, Koma, and Derrick need a little more flesh on their bones before I go running off half-cocked into a deeper truth. Can I do this before the next Nano? I have no freakin’ clue.

Third, I was able to read an article about the downward spiral of the Arts. That article refers to the original Salon article here. Are we really losing so much of our respect for the arts? The sad part is it might have already been gone. The Greeks and Romans revered their art. I remember sitting in class once, Anthropology 1101 if I remember correctly, stating how societies grew and evolved. My professor mentioned that you could measure a societies achievements in their leisure. Not laziness, mind you — there is a distinction. But the ability to not have to spend every waking second never ceasing towards finding where food would come from, shelter, safety. I agree with the Etsy article point of view that too many people think that art is just a hobby. Music, painting, photography, metal working, glass blowing, we are all considered eccentric crazies that have too much free time. People see us and think, even worse for those that may do it full time, unable to get, hold, or want a REAL job. It’s the same reason I listened to my parents, went to college and received a degree in mathematics instead of trying my hand on Broadway. In the end, I’m still happy with my choices, but it has the same connotation. Now, I’m a writer, a jeweler, a photographer. I am quitting my teaching job to work a 9-5 somewhere closer to home. A job where I won’t have homework to do and I can spend my time at home with ME. The job is a means to an end. Hopefully, one day, enough people with accept self-publishing (respectable self-publishing I will add) and homemade crafts as willingly as we proudly announce our Made in the USA stickers.

Until then, fellow readers, writers, artists, musicians, dabblers, entrepreneurs, experts, and pedestrians we will continue to ply our crafts and find the little joys in the kind words we receive from friends. Coveting the thrill of compliments and critiques of strangers who at least saw our work. For now, that is good. Even if it isn’t nearly enough.