The P Word

Procrastination. There. I said it.

I spent a half-hearted hour on my novel today. I cannot get over the fact that a lot of what is already written is overworked and off-target. It's not feeling or sounding like I want it to.

The only solution is to get myself into a state where the right voice comes out to play... and the only way to get to that point is to sit here and plod along, writing and trying. That's the way to become "inspired." Sit here and do the work.

Except the floors are dirty, the dishes need to be put away, laundry is piling up, the dog needs walking, etc. etc. etc. Yes, there is always something to pull me away.

I am meeting with a writing buddy later today, so that will motivate me to have something to show/talk about. And I am hoping to have a good solid three hours tomorrow to write. Maybe another hour today?

I just have to be ready to write when that voice arrives.

Too Much

"The Muse does not tolerate chaos." -- Stephen Pressfield, The War of Art

I stopped cold in my tracks when I read this very near the end of the book. I realized that I am so bogged down by clutter, stuff, things, chores, toys and oddments that my creativity is trying to swim in this bog.

Fully aware of this, I've been working to collect items for a yard sale. I halfheartedly planned to have it last weekend, but it rained. I realize that I was completely unprepared to hold a sale, but now, I'm eyeballing all the things that clutter corners, and see that they provide a rough surface for my mind's eye to catch on. So creativity is dampened. So much to do before I can really sit down and write, so much to keep at bay while I am sitting down writing.

I suppose I'm not making much sense, but I know it's an all-too-familiar problem with a deceptively simple solution. Sort the stuff: keep, sell, give away. While I try to whittle down my keep pile, I must face one simple truth. I have too many interests outside of writing. Too many books, too many hobbies, too many toys. Some of them required an investment of equipment or stuff, that still has value. That's the big problem now. Sell it? Yes, sell it! But that takes time and energy too.

Do I get rid of stuff with obvious value, store it safely against the day I'll get back to that, or just CLEAR IT OUT at any cost? That's where I am right now.

Another writer who struggled with juggling family and writing said, "Writing is a crime punishable by guilt." That rings true for me. Right now. I just want to sweep everything into the three piles and have it all just dealt with. So I can write.

Maybe it's time to get a bigger broom. Or blinders.

Meanwhile

Amidst all the drama and whining about my physical pain and its mystery, I am managing to spend at least an hour a day writing. Yesterday it was something like three hours.

I'm re-working the draft from the beginning. I have a tendency to overwrite scenes, having too much in the first draft but missing large pieces that make sense. Or missing obvious "moments" of show-don't-tell. This time, as well, I'm keeping a timeline with characters and locations for reference. It helps with chronology and minor characters, so that Robert doesn't become Roger halfway through the book.

There is also a young woman from Mexico in the drawing class, and I have her number. I need to call her and interview her to understand these little Mexican villages better. I don't think I'll be able to go visit one anytime soon, though that might be possible in the summer.

I'm reading a fantastic book called The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, which is a profound yet simple treatise on The Muse and the invisible but real threshold between amateur and professional writer. In some ways, I have been writing fiction as an amateur, and that has to stop. It's time to push the boat out and cast off. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to examine a plausible reason why they are "blocked" or why they struggle with finishing a project.

Next on the stack is Stephen King's On Writing.

I am replacing one or two hours of television and movies each day with reading these books. It's much easier to zone out in other people's stories, but I just can't afford that kind of creative drain right now. I even find myself thinking in petulant almost resentful terms: hrmpf, the writers have done a story kind of like mine already on XYZ show so why should I bother? NOT GOOD for creativity. Period. So my Netflix is on hold, and the remote is farther away than the stack of books.

If I can push through the physical stuff, this book might get written.

Coffee, Tea or Halcion?

How long should I be concerned that I'm tired and prefer staying in bed to doing housework, cooking, doing errands and fun stuff with the kid? This is shaping up to be the third day this week.

Here's a little list of "advice" from a friendly website on self-care tips:

Set priorities and simplify tasks to reduce stress.
Stay physically active.
Make time for activities you enjoy.
Get about eight hours of sleep a night.
Connect with supportive family and friends.
Eat more healthy foods, including fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

HA HA HA! Very funny. When you're feeling ill and/or blue, the last thing you want to do is set priorities, make time for anything or connect with people. Stay physically active? Zzzzzzzzzzz.

This just proves my everlasting point that one cannot rely on the Internet for medical, legal or financial advice. EVER.

I think I'll make a cup of caffeinated coffee and see if that "perks" me up. If it gives me the heebies, then I'll know it was the wrong step. But this might be a good time to use caffeine for the drug that it is.

Pain, Loathing, Painting

This will probably be the MOST self-indulgent entry in this very self-indulgent journal.

I have spent four hours in bed so far today, and it looks like I'll spend another four and then it's bedtime! I went to painting studio today which means standing on a concrete floor for hours. I don't notice anything until after lunchtime, usually. I did get thoroughly annoyed by the woman who thought that coming out onto the outer patio studio area to talk loudly on her cell phone was completley ok. I think next time I take a call, I will go into her classroom and stand next to her desk. Otherwise, it was quiet and studious out there. (Same woman came out to glue some shit to her canvas, humming all the while. I plugged in my iPod and tuned her out.)

Anyway, today, right on schedule after lunch, I thought, "Gee, I should sit down." So I went to the computer for about 30 minutes of Photoshop work in a crappy chair.

When I went back to the studio, a few more painters had arrived and the radio was loudly blasting classical music - the drippy noodly kind, and yes, blasting, as in too loud to tune out but not loud enough to appreciate.

I decided to pack it in, and felt rather bitchy about it. As I was leaving, I stopped to hear the instructor talk about someone's painting. It was really discouraging because she is a non-representational painter like me, and everything he was praising her for is stuff that I do. Do I ever hear the praise? No, he keeps telling me that I need to paint 100 paintings before I can really "define" my style. He also says shit like, "maybe you could hang this asymmetrically."

I am not wrong. This is the fourth time or so that I've gotten "damned with faint praise." My painting doesn't interest him at all, and so I get canned, inconsequential comments. I have tried to take his critique and commentary and implement it, but it's just all covered in wrong sauce.

The environment there is COMPLETELY not conducive to creativity. I left. I may not return. Not to be all flouncy, but I just can't afford to spend my time with diminishing returns.

It had rained heavily all morning, but was clearing up once I got to the car. By the time I was turning onto the street, I was in full-blown morose mood. I came home, dove into bed and napped for about an hour. The body pain hit during the nap.

While I managed to get dinner for the kid, I'm back in bed and thinking about pain relief. And chocolate.

Air pressure, humidity, cold, overexertion, disappointment, the big steak I ate last night... all possible factors, but I just don't know which one. And maybe it was nothing. This is the joy of post-polio. It's a hardware problem some days, and some days, it's a software issue. Ask any computer tech – that's the short road to madness.

Follow-Up

After I wrote the entry yesterday, "Lamentations," I felt ill. It started with a mental malaise - moodiness, pissiness. I talked on the phone to a couple of people and found them to be completely idiotic and unhelpful. Then my son came home and I was pissy with him.

WAIT. Hold the phone.

I realized that he was blameless and therefore, this must be Something Going On With Me. I decided that indeed retreat was necessary. So I took a bath, put on PJs and got into bed. At 5pm. Sad but true. Lucy, my champion, laid down with me, curled up and altogether placid and deliciously sweet.

I got up about an hour later and ate some salmon and crackers. By this time, the malaise had become a physical one. I was achy, twitchy, twingy and altogether suffering from whatever it is that the post-polio presents.

I stayed in bed all evening, getting up just a couple of times, and went to sleep right around 11pm. I woke at 4, went back to sleep to crazy niteflix dreams and then woke at 7am. Nearly eight hours of sleep, and I have no body pain today.

So, it was somewhat useful to realize that moodiness and bitchiness precedes these physical symptoms. Maybe it's a signal of some kind?

I shall continue to monitor it.

Another follow-up, perhaps of something unspoken on this blog, but something in my heart: I am no longer in love with the person who did not love me back, though I miss him - the idea of him, the feel of him and the imagined future that will never be.

One more follow-up: The A-team called me from the gym. Not the B-team who answered the phone yesterday. They have new equipment, a new room for the yoga class, and they can downgrade my membership to save about $22 a month. So at least for another month, I'm in.

Lamentations

Today is the day that my gym membership auto-renews and charges me for another month. I've gone back and forth for days about whether or not to cancel it. It's quite pathetic that I cannot decide.

On one hand, I want to be the self-determined person who just goes and does it. Who shows up, swims, works out, gets sweaty and heads home. There are decent resources there (no sauna or spa). But I just haven't gone. For three months now. I need to put a stop to the hemorrhage of money, or I need to use the membership.

Of course, I could walk around the block, ride my bike, go to the city pool (somewhere around here) to swim.There are loads of other gyms, and classes to take... I suppose what I lack is the motivation to get off my lardass and JFDI. Any of it.

What I think I need is that cocoon of safety for working out. The happy place where no one will really pay any attention to me at all, but there are people around me who do not get in my way or piss me off. With some kind of external motivation, though.

You'd think that $50 a month would be motivating enough, but apparently, it's not yet to the tipping point.

There is also a part of me who sees myself in the groove of going to the pool at 6am, swimming and showering and making it home in time to get the boy off to school.

But most of all, I want to be comfortable in this body and I want to feel better.

If someone has that magic formula, or the secret (not "The Secret"), then I'm all ears. And it might be worth $50 a month.

As I pause to edit this entry, I have downloaded the schedules for classes and the pool. Again. I'm trying to imagine myself going up there at these times. WHAT IS STOPPING ME?!

I honestly don't know. And just thinking about it some more makes me want to go lie down and nap.

Easter Rain

It rained this morning, Easter morning.

And I am writing. I mulled and stewed and stirred some ideas around yesterday, and have a direction for the new beginning to the novel. Not sure if it's any good yet, but it's more focused on the topic rather than the dark character sketches that began the first draft.

Thinking about the journeys that these characters undertake, eliminating some of the business, MAYBE even eliminating one of the characters... I still don't know where she fits in. She'll tell me, I guess.

(After composing this and editing it, I realized that Marge and Mike know each other, and are very similar. So... indeed Marge did tell me who she is and where she fits in.)

It is definitely a good thing to completely shut out the world - no TV, no radio, no talking, no phones. My stomach is growling though, and I'll have to go into the kitchen. Dishes, Easter eggs to dye and food preparation await, and I'll probably get sucked into my day.

But I'm back to liking my characters again. One of them is very dark but compulsive in his desire to help people. He's killing himself with that, but he helps people. So I have to cling to that in order to get myself into his head.

Makes me wonder what murder mystery writers do about their evil murdering characters. Do they create some unpublished backstory for them that makes it bearable to write about unspeakable things?

As the dog snores here close to me, I might write another 500 words before my stomach completely takes me over.

The Writer's Swamp

It's not writer's block, because I can open a window on a blog and blather away. Or an email to a friend.

But last night, I opened a new window in my novel, and was rather stumped. All the good ideas I had for a second draft were spent in about three sentences. Three very very bad sentences.

I have never had this problem. I've always seen things in my head and been able to write them down. I don't get it at all.

My plan is to read the stack of writing and creativity help books I have piled up, and take furious notes. It worked in the past. I'm not sure why this novel is so hard.

It's a little Christmas story. It's supposed to be charming, quirky and rather simple. There are some huge dark forces at play in the novel, as embodied in the characters (3 main characters, 2 minor), but the darkness and trouble is sorta suspended for the time of the novel, and in some cases, worked out and lightened. Maybe I'm all bogged down in the darkness right now.

For example, there's cancer, hospice care, Mexican drug cartel violence, poverty and crass commercialism. That just screams Christmas, doesn't it? Think Little Miss Sunshine or Love, Actually.

Anyway, I think I need to write this out, but cannot get past the beginning. I have one beginning but it starts too big, too far back. I need to roll those first draft beginnings into the seoncd draft as flashbacks.

Now, about those books: I have Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit, The War of Art (How to win the inner creative battles, etc.), No Plot? No Problem by the NaNo creator, The Plot Thickens by Lukeman, The First Five Pages by Lukeman, and The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing. Usually what happens for me is that I read along for a few pages and then am overcome with the urge to write.

Let's hope that happens next, and that it's productive writing, not the usual self-indulgent noodling I've been doing.

And if I go too far down that road, ALL of novel writing is self-indulgent noodling. The purpose of the first draft is to get down the rough framework and see if you have any kind of spark, or even tinder that a spark can ignite. I think I've done that, at least, to my eye. I am not sure any outside reader could look at this drivel and see a novel. When I tell the plot to people, they do respond somewhat favorably.

So then, the purpose of a second draft is to actually make it something of a novel, with a beginning, middle and end. Adding what needs to be added, subtracting, deleting, altering, shifting and re-organizing (or organizing in the first place).

I am really not sure what mindset is required for this. And I'm not sure if it isn't a screenplay. However, I know that I want the end result to be a novel. Thinking in screenplay terms is NOT helping, and so I am thinking that I might need to declare a moratorium on TV and movies. Which will be terribly difficult for me... I really don't have much else going on but my handful of shows during the week. That's how I'm coping with the pressures of getting through the day.

Helping my son with a language arts project has been good. To hear/read the young adult fiction reminds me that I do have the skills. But seeing the book jackets, esp J.K. Rowling's monster fame, is strangely intimidating.

So, I'm at a somewhat bitter and scary crossroads, and maybe that's what writer's block is about. I have to choose to step off the road and into the swamp, wading knee-deep through the tangle of mud, reeds, vines and frogs. No breadcrumb trail is possible either. Tie a rope around my waist? If I pull three times, haul me in?

Weight Loss, For the Last Time

About a month ago, I started Weight Watchers again. Previously, I lost about 18 pounds, but gained it all back when my grief hit the big time (and I hit the Texas state line). I did my rounds of Popeye's, chicken fried steaks, Tex-Mex and cobbler. But then it became time to lose it. For good.

By counting the WW points, I write everything down and thus, I account for everything, including booze. I detach myself from any guilt or encouragement or feelings re: food because the last thing I need is to "celebrate" food victories with food. So no celebration when I weigh less... just progress reports.

My goals are to lose back to where I can fit into the summer pants I already own. I have other vain goals, but that's the practical one. I also know that I'll sleep better and feel better if I weigh less (ie, less body pain). My ultimate goal (one of the vain ones) is to look hot in jeans and a white dress shirt.

I also use my weekly points and if I'm running low, I either do some activity, or I just skip a meal. I'm working slowly back into yoga, walking and swimming, and hope to add dog agility into the mix when I get in better shape.

What works out for me over the years is to shop and keep foods that are healthy for me. I have eliminated certain entire classes of food. I don't have soda, cookies or snacks in the house. This makes me creative w/r/t snacking. But it takes more effort to eat a snack than it does to not eat, or grab an apple. If we are out, I go ahead and have the thing I'm craving because if I don't, I'll obsess on it and eat double when I finally do break down and eat it, but I write it down and count the points.

I weigh things, and I measure things. I don't eat fat free anything that is supposed to be a fat. I eat the real food. I put real sugar in my tea. I measured how much I use? and it's 16 calories. Except we have started eating "light" cream cheese.

I'm trying to LIVE, not diet. I stopped all the excuses and justifications. I've had all the Church's fried chicken I "deserve" in my life... I don't feel deprived if I don't get a dessert or a main dish. I still love food, and have found that if we indulge a bit on Monday and Tuesday, our week goes by much better. Last night, we had two kinds of ice cream and tater tots. That was my dinner.

Tonight, I plan something chaste like fish and asparagus. But it has to take totally delicious. I've discovered that if I'm not satisfied, I will continue to eat. That aspect of WW is new, and has been useful. They ask you to rate your hunger. Just adding that to my post-meal calculations brings awareness to the fact that I'm FULL and HUNGRY. Oh. That's a different non-food problem.

So, it goes. My reward system is a little odd: when I lose 10 lbs, I'm getting new underwear. When I lose 25, I'm getting a pony. Maybe.