I am not a writer, but I play one on The Red Dress Club. And I am honored to be asked to participate in the “Summer of You.”
When I was in college, I had no reason to take any English classes as my major was Psychology. So they offered me a way out of English. A two-hour test, an impromptu subject to write on. Not to prove your knowledge on that subject but to prove that you could, in fact, write, and that you did, indeed, have a good basis of what the English language was and how to use it.
My “prompt” was censorship in music. I thought briefly, just the tiniest of moments of how to attack this. And I began to write. It didn’t matter what I wrote, if I wrote about how great censorship was or how horrible it was. As long as I wrote a 5 paragraph essay. Take myself back to the basics. My mind said to me K.I.S.S. “Keep It Simple Stupid.” And I passed with flying colors. The grader left notes stating it’s been a long time since he had seen such a perfectly written 5 paragraph essay.
Writing doesn’t have to be hard. A 5 paragraph essay is just that easy. And writing is just that easy. It’s when my brain gets in the way that makes it complex. I do it all the time. I am self conscious of my writings as I have been told I have the gift of the depressed word.
I’ve always heard “write about what you know,” so I write things that happen in my life, and I dive so deeply into my words and my experiences that they come from a deep, heartfelt, and sometimes dark place. And those pieces come out fantastic but they make people cry or think “how sad” or “how depressing.”
So my brain gets in the way and makes it all complex as I try to come up with something upbeat, something funny, something, not so depressing. And those pieces, come out as forced and not me.
So I am learning that going back to basics and keeping things simple, helps in creating a masterpiece in my own mind. I don’t need to write a 5 paragraph essay for every prompt, I don’t even need to write on every prompt, but when I keep things simple, it flows.
It’s when I don’t think when I have some of my greatest successes. Go figure!
Today's guest post is from Erin, of My Little Miracles.
Showing posts with label blogging is writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging is writing. Show all posts
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
A Rumor
I am in pain. Not today. But I was. And tomorrow? Maybe.
Pain can be my worst enemy. But more often, it’s where my words are conceived. It’s the feeling that sucks the life out of me, yet gives life to my page. For a split second, the pain will make me want to fall asleep forever, but fortunately, in my heart I am writer. And as a writer, the rush and urgency to tell the story is always stronger than the pain.
The problem with writing out of pain is that sharing it can be ugly. Will I hurt someone? Will exposing this cause heartache? Is this crossing the line? In my experience, the answer is usually always “yes.”
Most often, those are the stories I keep to myself. Those pieces are password protected on my laptop or tucked messily in an unraveling notebook in my drawer. I want to share them, but I never do.
It’s those stories that tell my story. They are the stories I’m most proud of. Those stories bring me to tears and from those tears, I find a rhythm and cadence and diction to write from my gut. As a writer, we take risks, right? We share our most vulnerable selves. We expose the unexposed. We are constantly unearthing our own emotions, and striving to make a connection to our readers.
Writing about pain is a risk. Today, I’d like to take that risk with you.
Pain can be my worst enemy. But more often, it’s where my words are conceived. It’s the feeling that sucks the life out of me, yet gives life to my page. For a split second, the pain will make me want to fall asleep forever, but fortunately, in my heart I am writer. And as a writer, the rush and urgency to tell the story is always stronger than the pain.
The problem with writing out of pain is that sharing it can be ugly. Will I hurt someone? Will exposing this cause heartache? Is this crossing the line? In my experience, the answer is usually always “yes.”
Most often, those are the stories I keep to myself. Those pieces are password protected on my laptop or tucked messily in an unraveling notebook in my drawer. I want to share them, but I never do.
It’s those stories that tell my story. They are the stories I’m most proud of. Those stories bring me to tears and from those tears, I find a rhythm and cadence and diction to write from my gut. As a writer, we take risks, right? We share our most vulnerable selves. We expose the unexposed. We are constantly unearthing our own emotions, and striving to make a connection to our readers.
Writing about pain is a risk. Today, I’d like to take that risk with you.
A Rumor
I heard a rumor that he’d died.
I heard he’d slipped from a high platform used to service the massive Boeing 747’s he’d been maintaining for years. He’d fallen. He’d died.
The details were sketchy and were delivered to me long before I knew how to search for specifics on the world wide web.
This news didn’t make me sad; It didn’t even derail my day. I felt small pangs of regret cloaked in large sighs of relief.
I didn’t know him anymore, and honestly, I didn’t care to. He was my father, but for the last three years, he’d been my enemy.
My parents split in a bitter divorce spurred by illness and neglect and depression and lies. Everyone was left feeling cheated and betrayed and accusatory – and alone. Without question or explanation, my allegiance to my mother was rock solid and unapologetic. I spent the next six years hating every fiber of my father, so when I heard of his death, I exhaled.
Eventually, the rumor was dispelled. He was alive, and I found myself holding my breath again. His alleged death had rid me of the guilt I felt for hating him and had promised that I’d never have to look him in the eyes to explain why I’d abandoned him.
Several years later, I found myself meeting him for dinner. It was our first voluntary face to face encounter in nearly seven years, and in that time, my bitterness and hatred had only multiplied. I’d graduated from High School. My life had changed. The alliance with my mother had been damaged. I was poor, entitled, and lost.
I’d asked for this meeting because I was looking for payment. I’d been suffering, and I wanted compensation. I wanted him to show me he was sorry for what he’d done. I wanted him to apologize for what he’d not done. I wanted him to feel remorseful for missing plays and track meets and graduations. I wanted him to regret being stubborn and never giving in to my mother’s demands. I wanted him to convince me that he was willing to do anything to repair our relationship.
I wanted him to buy me a car.
I was going to lie. I was going to say what he wanted to hear. I was going to manipulate him. Use him. Hurt him. I was going to play this game until I got what I deserved. Until he paid.
Then I saw him, sitting in a large booth in a dimly lit restaurant, waiting for me. Waiting for his daughter.
As I approached him, I was flooded with memories. Memories from before his depression, from before the divorce. With every step, images of my childhood blanketed my calloused heart. I felt his hands on the small of my back, teaching my tiny body to do back handsprings and glide kips. I saw his gentle eyes urging me to tease my mother while we played Uno. I heard his voice sing “Ja, Ja, Ja, Jenni and the Jets”, and I smelled the Zest soap that danced in my nose when he hugged me goodbye each morning.
I tried to force those thoughts away as I slid into the booth opposite him. He was noticeably nervous and noticeably clean shaven. We spent the next hour discussing things I will never remember. Small talk. Surface talk. Things that neither one of us cared about.
His eyes were my eyes. I’d forgotten that. Or, maybe I’d never noticed before? He looked at me in a way no one ever had. Interested. Proud. Unconditional.
I spent the entire dinner trying to make sense of all the things that had gone wrong.
I thought of his mistakes and the mistakes of my mother.
I thought of all the hateful things he’d said to me, and all the hateful things I’d screamed at him.
I thought of all the times I’d wished he’d leave me alone and all the times I’d wished he’d been there.
I thought of being eleven and feeling justified and scared and angry and sad.
But mostly, I thought of how different things should have been.
My guard slowly dissipated as we spent many dinners getting reacquainted. In time, I began to love him. Again. I never asked him to buy me a car. I no longer needed compensation. I had it.
And every single day, I am grateful the rumor had been untrue.
I heard a rumor that he’d died.
I heard he’d slipped from a high platform used to service the massive Boeing 747’s he’d been maintaining for years. He’d fallen. He’d died.
The details were sketchy and were delivered to me long before I knew how to search for specifics on the world wide web.
This news didn’t make me sad; It didn’t even derail my day. I felt small pangs of regret cloaked in large sighs of relief.
I didn’t know him anymore, and honestly, I didn’t care to. He was my father, but for the last three years, he’d been my enemy.
My parents split in a bitter divorce spurred by illness and neglect and depression and lies. Everyone was left feeling cheated and betrayed and accusatory – and alone. Without question or explanation, my allegiance to my mother was rock solid and unapologetic. I spent the next six years hating every fiber of my father, so when I heard of his death, I exhaled.
Eventually, the rumor was dispelled. He was alive, and I found myself holding my breath again. His alleged death had rid me of the guilt I felt for hating him and had promised that I’d never have to look him in the eyes to explain why I’d abandoned him.
Several years later, I found myself meeting him for dinner. It was our first voluntary face to face encounter in nearly seven years, and in that time, my bitterness and hatred had only multiplied. I’d graduated from High School. My life had changed. The alliance with my mother had been damaged. I was poor, entitled, and lost.
I’d asked for this meeting because I was looking for payment. I’d been suffering, and I wanted compensation. I wanted him to show me he was sorry for what he’d done. I wanted him to apologize for what he’d not done. I wanted him to feel remorseful for missing plays and track meets and graduations. I wanted him to regret being stubborn and never giving in to my mother’s demands. I wanted him to convince me that he was willing to do anything to repair our relationship.
I wanted him to buy me a car.
I was going to lie. I was going to say what he wanted to hear. I was going to manipulate him. Use him. Hurt him. I was going to play this game until I got what I deserved. Until he paid.
Then I saw him, sitting in a large booth in a dimly lit restaurant, waiting for me. Waiting for his daughter.
As I approached him, I was flooded with memories. Memories from before his depression, from before the divorce. With every step, images of my childhood blanketed my calloused heart. I felt his hands on the small of my back, teaching my tiny body to do back handsprings and glide kips. I saw his gentle eyes urging me to tease my mother while we played Uno. I heard his voice sing “Ja, Ja, Ja, Jenni and the Jets”, and I smelled the Zest soap that danced in my nose when he hugged me goodbye each morning.
I tried to force those thoughts away as I slid into the booth opposite him. He was noticeably nervous and noticeably clean shaven. We spent the next hour discussing things I will never remember. Small talk. Surface talk. Things that neither one of us cared about.
His eyes were my eyes. I’d forgotten that. Or, maybe I’d never noticed before? He looked at me in a way no one ever had. Interested. Proud. Unconditional.
I spent the entire dinner trying to make sense of all the things that had gone wrong.
I thought of his mistakes and the mistakes of my mother.
I thought of all the hateful things he’d said to me, and all the hateful things I’d screamed at him.
I thought of all the times I’d wished he’d leave me alone and all the times I’d wished he’d been there.
I thought of being eleven and feeling justified and scared and angry and sad.
But mostly, I thought of how different things should have been.
My guard slowly dissipated as we spent many dinners getting reacquainted. In time, I began to love him. Again. I never asked him to buy me a car. I no longer needed compensation. I had it.
And every single day, I am grateful the rumor had been untrue.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Second Wind
Perhaps it's just that time of year, or maybe it's NaNo exhaustion for many of us, but the word that I'm seeing and hearing more than ever is burnout.
Several people have written about it lately. There's a general exhaustion floating about in the blogosphere.
To me, burnout is burnout. And writing is writing. Whether it's on our blogs or on our other pieces, we all reach that crazy point of lethargy at one point or another.
Cheryl wrote about it on Mommy Pants recently, in Toast. She so perfectly described what so many of us go through: "[t]wo blogs. Stat watching. Fretting over stats. Losing confidence. Wondering if it's worth it. Wondering why nobody likes me. Pretending not to care. Not caring. Then fretting about not caring. Over-caring. Caring so much it hurts." (Cheryl has been working through it and we'll have to get her to share her tips with us.)
Natalie, from Mommy of a Monster, also wrote about it in Bloggy Burnout. She described the signs of burnout as when "[b]logging has become just one more thing that is always on your "To-Do" list. It has become a chore." Natalie has since made some changes that seem to be working for her. (Perhaps she'll weigh in in the comments to share some insight.)
Jane, of Aging Mommy, has decided to stop blogging so that she can focus on the rest of her life. She explains that she has begun to feel that blogging "feels too much of a job rather than a hobby." (We'll miss you Jane, but we wish you a world of happiness.)
We blog, we respond to comments, we read other blogs, we comment on other blogs, and we try to craft something, something bigger, on the side. And often, it all begins to feel like an endless pit.
Many of us who struggle with this burnout work through it and get our second (and third, and fourth, and...) wind. But how does that happen, exactly?
What makes you keep at it? The blogging? The writing?
For me, it's knowing that although I neither see myself as the next up-and-coming novelist, nor do I believe I'm a threat to the likes of The Pioneer Woman, I do hope for something more than what I have now. And that won't happen without work. It just won't.
So, when I feel burnout, I take a few days to regroup. I sulk, I wallow, I complain. Then I get sick of myself and get back to it. The sulking, wallowing, and complaining are critical to my process of getting back on track.
Whether it's the blogging, or the work in progress that we all seem to be tending to, burnout is real and we all need some coping strategies.
I'm curious to know how each of you deal with it. I'd love to build a list of ideas that we can all mine, just in case our own methods grow stale and we're feeling adrift and discouraged.
What do you tell yourself when you just don't feel like doing writing anymore?
What motivates you to just do it?
How do you keep plugging along?
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