Bright & Dark

A few days ago, a friend asked me how I produce so much fiction. I almost told her that I’m not one to admire right now in that department; I’m under a lot of stress and have very little energy for writing. I’m still producing, but very slowly by my own reckoning. I didn’t say that to her, though, because everything is relative. If someone isn’t producing anything at all at the moment, my 15 pages a week may seem like pie in the sky.

In the last month and a half since I returned home from the Mystery Intensive, I’ve had the same close family member in the hospital three times with as yet no permanent resolution in sight, I’ve thrown my back out once in a medium-bad sort of way and then two weeks later again in a very-bad way, and I’ve had assorted other large stressors on top of those things. Not to mention that in the middle of all that, the Doggie Ranger up and pulled a muscle in his right hind leg and for two weeks couldn’t perform his favorite activity — jumping — to save his life. And, yes, that includes getting into the car to go to the vet for x-rays, which means that Mom With the Bad Back had to do some lifting she shouldn’t have.

In the past, all of this might have stopped me from writing period, full stop. This time around, I’ve made it a point to have a short-term goal and then meet it, even if it would normally take me 4 days and instead took twice that. I have managed to write 3 chapters to go with 2 of the different novel proposals I wrote at the workshop. One of them has been mailed and the other is with my first reader and will be mailed next week. I’ve started a short story that I plan to finish this weekend, and which should be in the mail next week as well. Then I’ll move on to the next set of chapters for one of the other novel proposals. Then another short story. And so on.

One of the other things I’ve made a point of doing is to seize time where I find it. The other day I found 20 unaccounted-for minutes in the morning before work. 20 minutes is one page of writing — the first page of the above-mentioned short story. I’ve had an hour here or there, and in one case, three whole hours, but I’m not setting requirements for how much time I “must have” to sit down and write. Any time in which I have the energy to write is enough “must have” for me.

In the supporting category — in other words, not actually writing new words — I’ve made sure to keep everything in the mail. If it comes back, it goes out again the same day or, if that’s not possible, the next. No stories piling up either on the dining table or in my inbox to stare at me accusingly. In fact, there will be no staring of any kind, buster. Only mailing.

I’ve kept reading, too, filling the well with fabulous stories written by other people. Oh, sure, there’s been plenty of comfort-food type movie and/or TV watching; sometimes that’s really all the energy I have. Monday was one of those days. I curled up on the sofa with a big bowl of popcorn and an icepack (injured back and all that) and watched all three Pirates of the Carribean movies in a row. And then Tuesday I cracked open Justin Cronin’s The Passage, which I am loving (and which is really, really hard to put down; kudos to Mr. Cronin).

In addition to fiction, there’s been Very Helpful and Informative Other Writing. First on the recommendation list are Dean Wesley Smith’s blog, especially his Killing the Sacred Cows of Fiction posts, and of late his free fiction of the week — a new short story every week. Good stuff. And also first (because in this world, there are two firsts), Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s blog, especially her Freelancer’s Survival Guide posts.

And, last but not least (and maybe not even last, since I’m sure I’m forgetting something), I’ve been posting to my weekly goal list. It’s the kind of list that is encouraging rather than discouraging of my attitude and accomplishment rate, and at this stage of 1 month + of life rolls, I need all the encouragement I can get, and am happy to pass a bunch along to others as well.

So: achievable short-term goals, seize time where I find it, keep everything in the mail, read, and encourage/be encouraged. In these ways, slow and steady in times of crisis can stay in the race.

An interesting article with much food for thought — The Pleasures of Imagination, from the June 8, 2010, issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

As a writer, I spend a lot of time in my imagination. It’s one of the reasons I also consider movement to be so important, and am not physically satisfied unless I’ve had some exercise on any given day. It’s easy, if I spend so much time in my head, to neglect the rest of me. But I digress.

I spend plenty of time making up stories, translating them to the page (or computer screen). And then I spend some more time reading and watching other people’s stories, and sometimes re-reading and re-watching them — the book and TV versions of comfort food. And then I make up all sorts of things I never write, or if I write them it happens much later and I’d be hard-pressed to recognize the reappearance of a former daydream. My life would be much poorer without all of this imagining.

There is a certain point at which fantasizing for the sake of fantasizing becomes only a means of escape rather than an exercise of creativity (and, yes, those two can be and often are the same thing, but the difference I’m talking about here is in degrees). If all of the energy is hurtling towards escape and none of it towards creation, then things are out of balance, and I’d best drive myself to Nia and cook something succulent for dinner. And write.

The main point of the article that people experience lives and situations different from their own through imagination, and that although we know rationally that what we’ve imagined (or what the TV producers have dreamed up) is not real, some part of us believes that it is. The term the article uses to differentiate that state is “alief.”

For instance, some fictional characters have become so real to me through re-reading or re-watching that their stories have become part of my personal mythology on some level. To name a handful, Stuart Redman and Nick Andros of Stephen King’s The Stand and the characters of the Joss Whedonverse from Buffy to Mal. While this is interesting to me, this alief as regards these stories and characters, what I find even more interesting is the way the alief translates to or informs my own philosophy of living. I’ve said several times that certain stories have completely changed the way I see the world, and certainly the way I act within it.

The part of this translation the article makes me think of most is something I’ve also written and talked about — I wrote an entire novel based on the premise that a society that loses its stories ceases to exist. A society that continues to create its stories, and to evolve them, thrives.

Based on the quality (in any way you choose to interpret that word), what kind of society are we?

I’m working on a short story this week. The idea came to me in a dream — exceedingly rare for me, that sort of thing — and I surrendered to the idea of waking up long enough to write it down on my bedside pad o’ paper.

The story is a mad wrangle. My critical voice, having been kicked out of my office for months upon months, storms the castle at least once every writing session, sometimes twice. Can we say annoying?

I can only come the conclusion that there’s something important trying to be expressed here (and by important, I don’t mean that I have or have not committed literature or an excuse for an award nomination, just that there’s something deep and imperative for me to express). In this case, important = dangerous.

As it happens, I’ve come across a link a few times in the past day or two on Facebook that leads to a letter David Mamet wrote to the writers of The Unit. The letter is specifically about writing for the screen, but IMO the text is a great refocusser no matter what medium you’re writing for. It’s certainly helping me with my current wrangle all of a sudden.

Thanks to my friend Thorn for sending the link directly to me so’s I could finally read it.

Here it is for your enjoyment and edification.

Back and finally settled some after having been on the Oregon coast for a week and a half in February. These trips have always been invaluable, and this one was no exception.

First up, novel workshop. I’ve been to these before, but this time there was a new method, moving from traditional Clarion workshop round-robin critique rules to more targeted comments about the marketability of the novels and spiffing up the proposal packages so that they really shone. It rocked. I found the whole experience eye-opening and very useful. And such a treat to read so many really great books.

I took The Heart of the World to this workshop. So well-received. And then mailed to editors, one of whom requested the full manuscript so far. Good stuff.

Next up, a couple of days off, which I mostly spent reading the first round of stories sent in for the second workshop and walking on the beach. Great reading, strenuous walking on that loop down to the beach and around to the inlet near Mo’s, then back up through the neighborhood via the Hill of Hell. Sunshine even graced us some.

And then the anthology workshop with Dean and Denise Little. This one, too, went as usual above and beyond my expectations as far as learning and networking. I wrote my first ever noir for the overnight short story at this workshop. What a blast! And I got to read and learn from the excellent overnight batch of stories and all of Denise’s and Dean’s comments.

Both my first and second story are out to markets.

Add to all this mix a shopping trip to North by Northwest Books and my first trip to Mo’s (no chowder for me unfortunately because of the glutens, but it smelled heavenly; and Mo’s surprised me with a bang-up bowl of chili) and lots of time with so many other professional writers and editors, and you have a recipe for amazingness.

So. Reading back over what I’ve just written, it strikes me that there is no real way to describe what I get out of these workshops and what it’s like to experience them. Because I’ve written about the logistics and mechanics, and that doesn’t include the way it feels to be among people who write professionally, who love it, who love story, who love learning. Or how it feels to completely immerse myself in writing and writing culture for at least a week. Or how it feels to bump up my craft and business knowledge in a way that fuels my work once I return home. You just have to have been there.

I’m betting you have a similar experience that’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t been there. Feel free to substitute words and phrases.

I take “vacation time” from work to do all this, usually a couple of times a year. Everyone, including me, knows that it’s not a real vacation. Not in a million years. I work my butt off. I get very little rest. It doesn’t matter, though. What does matter? Doing what I love. That feeds me in a different way than sunning on the beach or curling up in front a peat fire on a rainy Irish night. Without all those different kinds of nourishment, I feel like a starving woman.

Do what you love. Find a way. That’s my prescription.

As in, The Emotions (woah, woah, you’ve got the best of my love) or “Emotion” (It’s just emotion/taking me over). Or any descriptive passage that could be properly begun with the words “I feel.” It’s been on my mind lately.

A few days ago, my BFF and I drove to Austin to attend Starr’s memorial. Such a different animal than the sorts of memorials and funerals I’ve attended before. There was genuine mourning, sure. And there was also much celebration of Starr’s life. Who she was, the lessons she lived and taught so well by example to all of us, distilled in the messages of her music and in the hearts of everyone present.

It had been a long, long time — in some cases, years — since I’d seen some of the people I reconnected with there. Every hug, every moment spent standing in front of the fire with our arms around each other brought home that this was the way to honor Starr. With love. With community. Always connected, no matter how far we may drift from each other in these individual lives we’re living.

I exchanged many a sad glance. I laughed. I sang out loud when her band, The Lovers, played their set after many, many stories told by family and friends. And I cried, though not as much as I had cried already. It felt important to remember everything and everyone. What is remembered lives on in us. Or, for short, what is remembered lives.

In the religion of my birth, remembering is important. Remembering to keep the holy days, lighting a Yarzheit candle on the anniversary of a loved one’s passing, holding close the essence of thoughts and deeds and love given and received. In this way is memory made to be a blessing to all who live.

All of this remembering — or, better yet — re-membering, as if the whole world and everyone in it were shattered and longed to be whole once more — is not mere rote. It would be nothing without feeling, without emotion.

Over the lunch hour today, I finished reading Melissa Marr’s Fragile Eternity. Warning: Vague spoiler alert. I felt more captivated by the last third of the book than any of its other parts, which is not to say those weren’t good but that the last third touched me in special way because of an unexpected weaving of emotion into the steady, unchanging threads of order. End warning.

What does it mean to bring emotion into the warp and weft of order? How does a person who prides him- or herself on equanimity deal with the ebb and flow of the heart? What is the right balance between logic and feeling? How does it shift and change? Slowly, steadily? So quickly that we give ourselves whiplash? Somewhere in between?

There is a time for more and for less, a time for sharp and bright and dark and explosive. There’s a place for gentleness, for gratitude. There’s magic in all of it — the kind of awe and wonder that goes along with being present, right now, in all of our humanity — however it feels.

The point is to feel.