Black Holes

There are people who, when you're trying to write, are bad to be around.  They sort of suck your energy and confidence about writing into this pit of dark that makes you think you can't do it.  I realize that one gives them the energy to do so-- they can't do anything to you that you don't let them do.  But if that person is someone whose opinion you want to trust, it's very hard.

Writers need feedback.  I have these ideas, but I do need to know what others think of them. Am I going in the right direction, is the story interesting, should I add this detail, that element?  It's, I guess, a corollary to something I posted on a FB status not too long ago, about how it's much easier to believe the negative things people say about you, for some reason.

I am a glass half full person, most of the time.  And I will keep writing, no matter if I encounter a bunch of vampire-y "I don't like the story this way" types.  I do want feedback, and some of what I've gotten so far has been awesome.  But I can't/won't write the story that someone else wants, that someone else would write.  It is MY story, and succeed or fail, I have to write the one I have here.  It's not someone else's way of doing it.

I feel so different here than I did when writing my dissertation.  All of that was wrestling with the theory gods, sitting down daily to be smart.  This story is here in my core, I feel it there, and right now, I even know which character wants to talk.  It's her turn, and I know, sort of, where she's going.

It's kind of weird, but I like it.   Just gotta stay away from the Black Holes of creativity in our lives, even if we want them to suddenly turn in to supportive perfect writing partners; it's obviously not going to happen, so get over it, right?

Writing and Crying

This morning, I was reading through an old book I've read many times before by Charles DeLint called Memory & Dream. It's a gorgeous bit of magical urban fantasy short story collection that takes place in Newford, a city up in Canada, and featuring a lot of really cool characters. De Lint has also written longer books about a lot of the characters who appear in the book, which is sort of a themed short story collection. While it's not a novel, all the stories have the same feeling of magic and fae beauty.

I was reading one story about a writer who plants a story tree, wrapping it in a poem first and then whispering stories to the seedling. The writer pesters friends to tell it stories and by the end of it, the acorn is a sapling ready to be planted.

I wound up in real tears afterwards. This is SO the way I want to write, this mythic magical fiction that is also somehow realism. Since I'm writing my novel, I am trying to read things that are written the way I want to write, to set the mental mood in that direction. I do that with poetry-- I am most inspired to write good poems when I'm reading Anne Sexton, for instance.

My novel thus far has one full chapter, 46 pages, and 16,905 words. I've started it out with a faux newspaper article, and I have these really cool plans for it. I've been gathering photos of San Antonio and the other important elements of my setting and I have those scrolling through my screensaver. I also made a playlist of songs that work with the mood I'm trying to create.

When I started the novel, it was about a year ago and I think, if I remember correctly, I had just read one of Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire books. The beginning tone of it, thusly, was that quirky kind of funny snarky tone. I am now slowly weeding most of the more snarky bits out of the tone because that's not really where I want to go with it.

I want it to be mythic, to make you go into downtown San Antonio and see the magic there, the ghosts. There are a lot of them, in fact (or fiction, however you want to read it).

They are happy tears. I am so glad to be finally really doing this, breaking through that mental block I have had about sitting down and doing something as frivolous as writing a novel. I've put it off for so long, and there are many things I've wasted time on that I could very well have been working on this, far more frivolous things than writing. But I think it's probably a fear thing; if it's all just in your head and you can tell yourself you're too busy to write, then you don't have to risk not doing it right, doing it well.

Neck is out. Tears are happy.

I so want to be Charles De Lint when I grow up.

Writing Your Second Novel

A co-worker recently had her first book accepted for publication from a respectable publisher & has a three book deal. It's the type of fiction I really love to read, and that I have a couple of books "in the works" myself. (I have two which fit that genre, and a couple which are other genres but which I think will be cool, too.)

I am a little bit jealous, on the one hand, but I truly am also happy for her; it ultimately gives me hope. Hopefully the jealousy is the type that spurs me-- makes me get up off my butt and DO it. Like when someone runs past you, making you put in a little more effort, run a little bit faster to try to catch up. See-- people I actually know have managed the task; it's not just people from far far away with brilliant & genius gifts, awesomely disciplined writerly habits. She is a regular, funny, normal person who writes at a coffee shop and stresses over student behavior, just like me.

And dammit, that has to mean that I can do it too. (This is where it's not about the jealousy but more about a productive kind of hope.) If she could do it, with the English major analysis of the type of book & direct thought about how to create a hit, perhaps I do have it in me, too.

This summer, I did write 10 awesome pages on my first idea for a similar type of concept. I have GOT to figure out a way to make more time to write that stuff for myself. The kiddos are getting to a place where I can leave them to play and trust them to not tear down the house TOO much. And I wish I were like Toni Morrison, who wrote her first book, The Bluest Eye, with kids on her lap. Amazing.

I want to write! Dammit! It doesn't have to be the Bluest Eye-- it can be more like Charlaine Harris or something equally lowbrow. I'm good with that. Muse, please guide my fingers along the keyboards of my life. :)

So I decided to think of it like that old joke about working on your second million dollars, because the first one is too hard to get. So now, I'm working on my SECOND novel. And I will try, very hard, to set time aside over the holiday break to really work on it. I wrote the cool 10 pages I have in one afternoon. If I could do that much in the 20 or so days of break then I'd have a decent sized first novel in progress! So, that's my goal for the break. If I fall off the wagon, I'll probably just work on some academic stuff which is not nearly as interesting. :)