Time to Write

Recently I stumbled across a blog post on “How to develop a story for your novel“. The blog’s title says it all for me: ‘Time to Write’.

To backtrack a little, I spent the spring and summer packing up my house. Writing took a back seat, as did visits to the dentist (my abscess tooth moldered in my mouth for a full two months), and anything that didn’t have to do with Moving House.

It struck me that this is a pattern I’ve cultivated in order to avoid loathsome tasks. My mantra had become: focus on one thing, to the exclusion of all else. Did writing a novel fall into the ‘loathsome task’ category? I thought so, until I spent a Sunday morning, recently, surfing the net. Before I knew it, I had read a dozen blogs – all of them were writers’ blogs, as it turned out, instead of the self-help, motivational ones that leave me feeling more drained of motivation than anything.

But after reading Jurgen Wolff’s practical tips on getting unstuck and moving forward with your novel, I realized that writing a novel isn’t what I’m avoiding in my life.

It’s the feelings of not measuring up, not being good enough, and therefore being unworthy. It’s the pain that follows on the heels of these feelings that’s kept me from the keyboard.

Jurgen Wolff has made it easier to stick my toe in the water. I don’t need to plunge headlong into the deep end.

Instead, I can start at the beginning. He suggests asking the question, What if? Start with the bare bones of your character’s life and flesh out a few possible scenarios.

“Sometimes at the end of a string of “what if” explorations you end up with a totally different character or story than you started with. That’s fine, you’re just playing around to explore and you keep going until you have a story you will enjoy writing and people will enjoy reading.”

In other words, what if I could have fun with it?

Writing is a Job

In a recent Washington Post article, Ann Patchett made a New Year’s resolution. She discovered a “radical concept — time spent working equals output of work.” It dawned on her that writing is a job, and therefore not to be taken lightly. You mean… it’s not something that I squeeze in between jaunts to the supermarket, dry cleaners, hair salon, and doctor’s appointments? Not to mention laundry, scouring the oven, and cleaning toilets?? All of which I do to avoid sitting down at the computer and facing my Inner Editor, by the way.

It’s not that I’m actually afraid of my Inner Saboteur (who, when my writing instructor asked the class to put a face and name to it, turned out to be an annoying Leprechaun, utterly devoid of the power and magnificence of The Great and Powerful Oz).

The fact is…I buy into pretty much everything he has to say. And it turns out that I’m not the only writer who does.

According to Ann Patchett (who, incidentally, is the author of five novels, including Bel Canto (winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize),

“Writing is an endless confrontation with my own lack of talent and intelligence, because if I were as smart and talented as I ought to be, I would have finished this book by now. I would consider avoiding work the better plan were it not for the fact that to have written a book, to have finished it, is such a glorious thing that it is worth whatever suffering is meted out in the process.”

The trick, I think, is to see the Inner Editor for who he (or she) truly is: the man behind the curtain, whose sole purpose in life is to keep us safe – protected from even a glancing blow of failure.

Once I managed to see his true colours, I took great delight in throwing back the curtain, and showing him the door. Not that he doesn’t skulk into my office whenever he can get the chance. But, he’s an intruder, and ever since the day I stood up to him and stripped him of his title of General Know-It-All, I was ready to accept a new voice into my creative hub room. A voice that gently guides me through the miasma of creating something even vaguely readable.

So, who knows? Maybe, now that I have a new boss, and I take the time each day to actually work on this novel that’s been taking up every square inch of space in my brain for the past two years – actually see it as a job – the results won’t be half bad. Or, as Ann Patchett said, it “may well be brilliant. Now there’s a beautiful thought.”

We Attract Who We Are

I stumbled across a blog post about a basic law of the universe: we attract who we are. According to the author,

“Positive persons are:

• Committed to developing compassion towards themselves and others, and having an open heart
• Courageous about following their dreams
•  Those who seek to be authentic and believe in themselves, even when externals are crumbling
• Aware of their darkside, and are trying to heal it
• Willing to learn from mistakes

 Positive persons aren’t:

• Perfect, phony, or positive all the time
• Beating themselves to a pulp over shortcomings or a black hole of pessimism
• Constantly mired in fear or tolerant of letting their hearts harden.
• Squeaky clean do-gooders who neglect their own well-being.
• Saccharine pleasers who ignore their darkside and unconsciously act it out at the expense of others.”

Bulls-eye. It hit me right between the eyes, and came to me at the perfect time.

Today, I made a decision to change my life. Not a life-altering, seismic shift in my life, but rather, a change in the way I think.

In short, I am going to do what I want. No one else will care, but I will. And so, I am packing up my kit bag and going on the road. Nothing like Jack Kerouac, mind you, who is best known for his book, On the Road. More like Laura Ingalls Wilder, who waited until she was in her 60s before daring to show anyone her manuscript.

Well, I’m not in my 60s, but close enough. Close enough to retirement that an inner voice, today, rose up in terror – or could it be I’m just plain sick-and- tired of letting my dream of writing a novel rise up in the air and drift away, like a child’s prized balloon? – and demanded to be heard.

If we attract who we are, then it stands to reason that I need to get proactive. That is, spend time actually writing.

Another blog post came my way, with a great waving of arms in the air, shouting to me that journaling is the best way to practice the art of writing.

“Perfect!”, I thought. In hindsight, I realize this is the reason I created this blog in the first place.

If I am to attract who I am, then let’s get on with it. Commit to my dream, take tiny steps each day to move it forward, and voila! According to the law of attraction, I will attract only positive, like-minded people into my orbit.

What about you? What’s your dream? What have you kept under lock and key, too afraid to show to anyone but Izzie, your pet Iguana?