Busy Summer

Things have been a little tough lately: lots of weekends away, the end of my online class looming close, WoW beckoning me to power through the home stretch to level 80.  So many distractions!

Tonight, I'm turning that around and putting off outlining my final project in favor of posting a little something on the blog.  Also, as I recently posted on Twitter, Hemmingway wrote 500 words per day.  500 words seems like hardly anything at all, and it makes me want to set a similar goal for myself.  However, I got to wondering, where does this leave me for editing?  Sometimes I'm doing a lot of cleanup work and might not make a net gain of 500 words even though I've written/revised that many.  This is a quandary, but on the bright side, I opened up my manuscript tonight and noticed 1000 words had jumped in there somehow!  I'm now up to 52,528.  In case you were wondering, here's the latest addition (comments welcome):

May Rundown

June is here, May is over, and it's time to take a look over my goals for 2010 and see what I've been up to.  Struggling with ADD often means I lose track of the contents of my days pretty easily, so pausing every once in a while to reflect really helps me figure out what I'm doing with all this passing time.  While everyone at the office complains about doing their monthly reports during the first week of the month, I'm thankful for the benchmark/barometer.

May had 31 days to it this year, and I only sat down and did my daily writing practice for 21 of them.  That's barely even most of the time, so I need some work there.  On the bright side, I wrote a lot on some of those days, in addition to doing some good work on my manuscript.  I just need to make sure I'm carving out time every single day and not letting "extenuating" circumstances become an every-other-day occurrence.



In the latter half of May I finally got myself down to Single Carrot Theatre, which is certainly something I'd like to continue doing.  In college I had a friend who'd take me to plays, and I guess part of me thought I'd always have a person like that in my life.  This month I learned that maybe I need to be that person for others!

A plug for Baltimore folks: Single Carrot is in a great spot (Station North: lots of new art spaces, plus easily accessible and free of the parking and/or transit complications of Mt. Vernon or downtown) and provides an intimate theatre experience not to be missed.  The show I just saw was the sort I can measure by how long I spent cocking my head to one side—it's a slightly embarrassing habit when I'm really studying a piece of creative work.  Plus you get a complimentary glass of wine or soda and a cheerful greeting when you walk in the door!

Directly after our theater excursion, my husband left me all alone for a weekend, and I took advantage of the opportunity to spend the morning writing at Carma's Cafe in Charles Village.  Baltimore plug number two: Carma's is another absolutely can't miss.  Sitting for two hours and focusing solidly on my work was a challenge, but that's why I made it a goal in 2010!  That work session got me over a big editing hump, and I think this weekend I'll try dropping by the Evergreen, where all the trendy writers seem to hang out on their laptops.

In terms of big projects, I rededicated myself to editing my manuscript and got some really nice work done on it.  I also started decluttering the house and making way for my new work space by spending an entire weekend in the basement sorting through stuff (and deciding to give most of it away to the Salvation Army).  Big life news arrived on the scene, too, as I enrolled in an online MBA program concentrating in non-profit management.

While I'm not ready to move/create my office quite yet—our quick-and-cheap basement remodel needs to happen first—I did buy a real desk chair.  My back is thanking me at this very moment, and typing away at my desk feels so much nicer!

All in all, I feel good about May, if not the first half of June.  I've gone through a lot of rededication to my creative practice, and it feels good to be getting my life back again after my surgery disrupted the rhythm of things so much.

Trying to Avoid a Crash

Summer is definitely upon us, and this is one of those busy summers that comes around every couple years.  Last summer was beautiful and adventurous and full of friends and mojitos and space to slow down if we wanted to.  I dug a big pile of bricks out of the yard and used them to edge the garden, I weeded and I cleaned.  I stayed out until 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning caught up in late-night, lounge on the couch, doze off and wake up conversations.

This summer promises to flash before my eyes, swept up in a whirlwind of weddings and scheduled family weekends and reunions and...done.  Right now stands a chance of being the worst of it, with twice-a-week physical therapy, busy times at work, and some ill-planned trips out of town.  We returned from Memorial Day weekend on Monday night, only to leave this Thursday for another weekend away.

I haven't felt an exhaustion this bottomless since October, when I was part of a dreadfully understaffed team putting on our first-ever gala event at work.  I keep wishing for something to grab hold of me and pull me safely to the other side.  Now, like then, I'm not sure how I'm going to make it to the next foothold: next Friday.  A free weekend.

Through all of this, though, I've been making a concerted effort to have restful time in the evenings. Tonight I came home from a nine and a half hour work day and promptly devised a way I could avoid doing laundry until Monday.  Then I played the piano for a while, wrote in my notebook, washed the dishes.  All things that enforce a slowing down.  An even pace.

Somehow, through that dedication to not running myself completely into the ground, I've managed to get into editing full swing.  Chapters are getting chewed up, expanded, soon even added.

It's so helpful to slow down at times like this, remember what makes me feel most satisfied about my life, and stop to do something that gives me space to think.

Speaking of pianos, great news!  Mine arrived safe and sound about a week ago, and it looks beautiful in my dining room.  It's anywhere between 80 and 100 years old, and I've played it every day (assuming I've been home) since it arrived.  This piano has been in my family since at least the 1930s, broken for most of that time, and just now fixed!  Ironically, it just took someone like me saying "I want to fix this," because the repair itself was surprisingly inexpensive.

Waiting.

Organizing manuscript notes and waiting for an order to emerge while I wait for the piano movers to arrive.

Review, Reflect...Reject?

Over the past few weeks I've written a bit less and read a lot.  I tend to operate in phases with my creative work, listening to music nonstop for a couple weeks and then rededicating myself to playing or singing every day, devouring novels one after another before taking out a writing project again, mulling over photography exhibits and waiting for an idea to surface.


Upon coming back from a week-long vacation, the first thing I wanted to do was get my current manuscript out and read over the last half of it with fresh eyes and a good cup of coffee.  This I did, and I discovered exactly what point of the creative process I had entered.


I found myself experiencing considerable distaste for every paragraph.  Had I really created this haphazard story, these preachy chapters full of flat characters?


I always seem to encounter this hump when working on a big project: the no man's land between finishing the foundation work and beginning to see a well-developed product can be brutal.  After spending too much time on something to reasonably turn back, I realize I've brought something utterly mediocre into the world.

This likely happens to every artist, with perfectionists like me experiencing an intensified version thanks to our desire to make everything top-notch material fit to win an award on the first draft.  I know I've felt it looking at half-completed paintings, first batches of photographs, and most recently this manuscript that's taken up weeks (months) of my life.  Suddenly, I'm struck by the question: was this even worth my time?

I suppose what defines the experience -- and the artist -- is the decision to say yeah, it was, and keep moving.  Take the awful last half of that manuscript and make it something to be proud of.  Figure out how to make my characters dynamic and believable people the reader feels invested in.  Plenty of people stop at this point and let that self-doubt get the best of them, let it convince them that they'll never create something amazing.  But some of us don't, and no matter what I think we've got a great accomplishment to look forward to.  Nothing great comes out of an easy task -- otherwise there'd be no reason to feel we'd done anything.

Quelling my self-criticism and deciding to keep developing a project past the tough halfway-point is, to me, one of the most important pieces of the artistic process.  Overcoming frustration and/or disappointment, refusing to feel embarrassed at the quality of a work in progress, and stubbornly coming out with something I'm excited to put on display gives me perhaps the biggest sense of achievement.  It's what -- in my mind -- sets me apart as a professional artist.

Inspiration #12: Minimalism

We must first identify what's most important to us, what we're passionate about, what we want to spend our time on. And then we must focus on those things first.

But the distractions. They get in the way of this focusing, no?

-- mnmlist

Sometimes I think I work best with lots of distractions, when multi-tasking and/or facing a lot of demands.  We all went back to work today, and quite ironically that's when I finally felt productive and motivated and ready to work hard on my manuscript.  My life routine helps me focus, helps me prioritize important work -- because I have to.  Too much down time makes me listless, unmotivated.

At the same time, clearing distractions is essential: setting in-game alarms to make me aware of how much time I'm spending logged into World of Warcraft, grabbing my stack of note cards, and really getting ready to work.  The only real progress I made on my editing this week has been when I disappeared to my writing room with my notes and disabled the wireless adapter on my laptop.  No Skype, no Google Talk, no Facebook, no Script Frenzy information pages, no Twitter.  It's then that I worked peacefully and diligently, focusing on the task at hand until my time was up.

 

NaNoWriMo Revisited: Clip #3

Okay, this novel draft(!) excerpt picks up exactly where Clip #2 left off.  I just made some little tweaks to it this evening and I'm not sure what to think about them yet, but decided to share it anyway!

Inspiration #11: Note Cards

Thanks to a suggestion from the internets, I've started writing down ideas on index cards and accumulating a stack for later: things I know about my characters that the reader might not (yet), questions I have about characters' feelings and actions, plot concerns, etc.  At some point I'll play around with sorting them into stacks and finding that strange order that's supposed to reveal itself.

Inspiration #7: Handwriting

Because I love handwriting!  This will be a short post, just to say that as I read through my manuscript (this is a running theme because I've been stuck in the house for days with it) I can't get over how much I love receiving handwritten notes.  From middle school through college, my best friend and I often exchanged lengthy notes and letters in addition to margin notes on each others' writing.  Now that I've gotten that again, it brings me no small measure of joy to decode all those little scribbles.  Somehow it just feels so much better than the much drier, more professional comment feature in Microsoft Word.

Inspiration #5: Friends

Tonight in Baltimore we're eagerly glancing out the window and wondering how much snow will be on the ground by morning.  Forecasts are calling for a legitimate blizzard, so all signs point to a weekend spent solidly indoors and away from the roads and sidewalks.


Today I was lucky enough to get the first 60 pages of my manuscript back with comments from a friend -- the best way to prepare for some dedicated time inside.  While this kind of peer review can be scary, it is in many ways what I've been trained to do.  Critique -- including critique of work in progress -- is part of being an artist, part of having a fine arts degree.


Skimming over my pages was without a doubt the most inspiring part of my day because the comments in the margins were exactly what I was looking for: the kind of feedback you can only get from someone who is comfortable enough to be 100% honest with you and also willing to think critically about what they're reading.  Creative people don't share works in progress with each other to hear things like "oh, it's really good, you're a really great writer/painter/photographer."  They do it to hear things  like "I don't think this character would have done this" or "your proportions are off -- see how that shoulder doesn't look like it fits with the rest of the body?"


I feel privileged to share my life with people who will provide me the kind of feedback I also love to give: feedback that you have to be ready to take constructively, feedback that makes you realize you're still a long way from the finish line but you have something excellent to work with.  Sure, there's plenty that can be hard to hear, especially when you've already invested a lot of time and energy in a project.  But it's exciting and difficult and ultimately what helps you become better at what you do.  I guess it goes back to that old cliche I hate so much: "you can't create art in a vacuum."

NaNoWriMo Revisited: Clip #2

It's time for another excerpt from my NaNoWriMo novel!  I've had to be a little strategic so I'm creating interest rather than giving key plot points away, which is a challenge I didn't anticipate.  Anyway, this is actually only half of the excerpt, so I'll be posting Part Two soon.  Enjoy!  And thank you Oli for picking it out!

NaNoWriMo Revisited: Clips from the Real Thing

I've been getting some requests lately to share the 50,000-word novel I drafted in November, and while I'm sure everyone thinks I'm just putting them off (maybe I am), I really do want my words to be read eventually.  However, I feel like revealing your newborn projects to too wide an audience can be dangerous, hence why I've only given the manuscript to two people for feedback so far.

I do appreciate that a number of people -- including some of my lovely family and friends who read this blog -- would like to see proof this thing exists.  And I'm excited to share a few pieces, so I've asked those two aforementioned friends to give me a couple of their favorite passages.  Over the next couple weeks or so I'm going to take those excerpts, polish them up where necessary, and post them here for your consumption.

I hesitate to characterize this as a "young adult novel."  It just so happens to be about a young adult.

Click on the jump below to read it.  As always, feedback is welcome!  Thanks to Tyson for picking this one :)

Breaks.

Lately I've been wondering about my creative process, wondering if breaks are a necessary gear keeping the process spinning or whether breaks are just that, a break in character.  A skip, a foible.  Between Christmas and New Year's I took an honest and true break.  Though I carried my notebook to Pennsylvania for Christmas, its pages remained largely undisturbed for the length of the trip.

But now I'm typing this with my laptop on the kitchen counter, reheating the last of the Christmas leftovers, and really telling myself -- it's over.  Break's over.

While I was home from work (lucky us, our office closes between Christmas and New Year's) I stayed up late, mostly slept late, drank champagne and played board games, spent whole days in my pajamas watching movies and playing World of Warcraft.  Occasionally I'd feel a twinge and think, "I should be working on my novel," but then I'd realize I'd let writerfriends take it away, force this break.

By Sunday, though, the last Sunday before returning to the office, I was finished.  Even on Saturday I had an inclination to start planning a zine, got out a sketchpad and some old stuff and laid in my writing room, back on the floor and eyes glued to the ceiling fan.  So much of the creative process can be laying on the floor surrounded by papers and books.

But on Sunday I was full-on done with breaks.  I twisted an incense burner out of tin foil and struck out to the basement to sort through some of the boxes down there, thinking I might find inspiration in purging, sorting, making plans for the space after I empty it of clutter.  I watched Angels in America and relished the way it put my soul through a wringer, lost myself in it as an artist and a human.  I started writing again in earnest, returned to my daily practice.  I had a significant personal revelation.

My question is, did my break pave the way for all this?  Did it prepare me to work again on my novel after I receive it back full of red pen?  Did it leave my heart open for new ideas, new inspiration, did it give me new eyes? Or was it just a delay, a hiccup, a missed opportunity to immerse myself in a project?

We have such a need to create, but I'm feeling oddly guiltless about taking some time away from "real" things, "productive" things.  Accomplishments.  I'm feeling like the past week left me open to realize even after taking so much time out for myself, I still voluntarily return to my words.  I miss them, need them.  I can take a break from them, go on vacation, and know full well I'll be more than happy to come back.