I write scared

Is there an occupation, an employment, a reason for living that invokes such an anxious, desperate exploration for talent within us? Than writing, I mean.

I'm crying cause I'm scared. I'm crying cause I'm a writer and I'm scared. I'm crying because I'm a lazy writer and scared. I write scared.

And the Internet is my foe. My foe set me atop the temple roof and the entire spread of literature - the past masters, with their  and the current masters, blogging and tweeting - and says "This cannot be yours."

Inadequacy. Books a million. Websites a million. And where is my place in it?

I feel like a goldfish in a hurricane. Yes, I have a blog (where I rarely write). Yes, I have a Twitter account (where I rarely write). But, I'm nobody. A nobody writer and too lazy, I fear, to become somebody!

It's come to the point that I get depressed when I read a good story (usually in my favorite lit mags where I can't get published.)

Too many metaphors. The length of the title destroys flash fiction as a construct. Well, screw you! This isn't for us.

So what? What do I do? I'm a young writer, a sheltered human being, who's only recently fallen in love for real. Only recently living on my own. My stories are often caricatured. Oh, how I miss this! I want to workshop so badly!

"No one writes like you." Says my David.

He's on vacation this week and I'm a little weepy. On Monday he told me that God has been speaking with him.God told him that he hasn't been composing in earnest. "I was trying to impress others and be complicated."

Today he says "No one writes like you." Don't compare yourself. It's a trap. You write. You write.

He's right. Writing, or composing, is creative. This means that every creation and its means will be individualized. Other writers cannot be my measuring sticks. I can study their techniques and learn from them, but I cannot judge my talent by theirs.

Talent and skill are not the same. If I am unsatisfied with my skill, then I should stop whining and sharpen it. If I am unsatisfied with my talent, that's okay, because I need so much more than just that.

Rather, if I'm so afraid, I should stop putting a limit on my experience and write in earnest, paying attention to articles on craft, exercising, and writing what I've got.

My love taught me, "No one writes like you." And, he says. "And I forbid you from reading Hobart."

Can You Spell Tourettes?

Soundtrack, cause you know you want one, by Blind Pilot.

David and I have been threshing out a new song (which actually mentions a threshing room floor) called "A Bad Year for Small Animals".

** Please see next post for more details.**

This venture has sent me to Rhymezone a few times and this reminded me of an important rule for writers that I've enforced in my own work, whether for short stories or song lyrics.

First, a lovely anecdote from sixth grade.

One Geography class a fellow student asked my teacher Mr. King if he had Tourette syndrome.

I don't know why you would ask someone who has regular conniptions (who ripped a very expensive atlas from the wall and threw it into the hallway for a forgotten reason) if he had Tourettes, but my classmate was just that stupid.

Mr. King stared at him and said,

"Can you spell Tourettes? Because I don't think you should use words that you don't know how to spell. So for you, that leaves: ooh, uh, and duh."

Tip: don't use words you don't know.

If you have a general idea what it mean, click onto Dictionary.com and familiarize yourself until you can employ it confidently. This rule is especially vital for college students. Every professor and editor can identify thesaurus-driven work. Be smart.

Also, consider this: if you don't know a word, readers will not be affected by it.

Three Artist Challenge Chapter One: Emmy the Great

As I've blogged before, David aspires to be a professional musician and composer.  Following my desire to be involved in such an important part of his life, I want to write lyrics for his music.  So, I wrote "The Ground Never Quite Touches the Sky" ... but, it was so difficult for David to compose music because it had no meter.  I hate meter.

David suggested that I study my favorite songwriters to learn how to write to a beat.  Thus the Three Artist Songwriting Challenge was born.

I'm to choose three songwriters I admire and imitate their style.  With any craft, imitation is the best way for beginners to learn.  In my creative writing classes we did this often.  For example, I once wrote a poem based on Ted Kooser's "Selecting an Reader." (Read it! I love this poem.)

The first artist in my challenge is Emmy the Great! I love her frank and vivid language.  She's my favorite artist of all, so she was garunteed to be the first.  I chose "Absentee" because it was stuck in my head, found the lyrics (edited them... stupid hard of hearing fans), counted the syllables in each line, and marked the rhyme scheme.  I didn't bother with scansion because I will never understand those cups and strikes.

I took the blog post I wrote "Surprise Paper Bag" and now it's a song.  (I changed the skeleton of the song near the end to suit my own purposes.  When imitating, don't be afraid to go off on your own ideas.  Duh.)  David was so happy! And I was brimful of joy!

Surprise Paper Bag

Half-Hearted Elephant

Don’t know who I really am

Staring, in Daddy’s T-shirt, bangs with one curl,

At a surprise paper bag, the one marked “girl”

Dull ribbons

The dollar store will be closing soon

Crumpled dollar bill in my fist waits to hear

The verdict. Wheels grind in my ear

What’s in it?

Yo-yo? Squirt gun? Doll whose paint runs?

I am a surprise paper bag

What will I be if I break inside?

And who would like the things that I find?

If I shared them.

I see a small bright face, a boy

Standing down the aisle. How long has he been?

Blue juice from a gumball dribbles down his chin

Smiles at me.

Shy he finds beautiful, loneliness, too

He picks the bag though sullied and bruised

Pulls out things I thought I was born without

Says don’t pout

Glow in the dark stars

“You’re beautiful and I love you”

Pearl studded hair bow

“You’re you and I want to be with you”

Gold foil glitter glue

“It’s all there and I want to be there, too”

And a pinwheel made of spoons.

Neither Crayon nor Diary nor Blog...

Way back, I thought having a diary would make me write.  Back further, I thought having a crayon would make me draw.  But it didn't.  Not even a pink leather-bound diary with gold embossed carnations.  Not even the coveted salt-water taffy blue crayon.

I never out-grew this delusion.  It's like an embarrassing pink bunny suit that grows in perfect approximation with my skin and bones.  I thought that having a blog would make me write.

Bzzt! Wrong.

Fellow writers, especially ye young, nothing can force you to write.  Not even burgeoning inspiration.  Writing is a physical action.  And a voluntary one at that.  Not a reflex.  Not a heartbeat.  Not a breath.

You may have oodles of inspiration, images, similes, characters, plot, description, all the clippings, glue, glitter and origami flowers - but it can all clog, roll up in a ball, and hardened if you do not pick up a pen, press it to the paper, and move it like you learned in Kindergarten.

Writing is a craft, it's a commitment, it's an exercise.  You work, you exert, you sweat.  It's move it or lose it.  Condition yourself.  Don't count on it to be easy or you'll drown.

Write.  Review.  Edit.

Only you can build your writing muscle.

I Suck at NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo...

A good idea.  A good practice.  Yet against the advice given me by my wise writing prof.

Sort of, anyway.

You see, November is the national month for trying to bleed 50,000 words toward a novel.  If you can do it, you get to showcase your lovely - messy, yet complete - novel on the NaNoWriMo website.

I signed up to do this on the 2nd (already a day behind) endeavoring to write a novel I've had trapped in that butterfly net brain of mine.  We'll All Collapse Like Stars is its title.  I sifted through my files, edited the first chapter, and inputted my word count.  585.

It's now the 8th, my computer tells me, and I have not. written. a. single. word.

Of the novel, that is.

I have written a short story, a couple chapters of a novella I'm working on (What Broken Jars Hold, a modern Christian fairy tale), part of a novel review.  I've edited different short stories.  Written more words than just 585! ... But not for Collapse.

And why? Because my writing professor taught me to work on multiple projects at the same time.  You should always have something else developing in another niche of your brain, in another section of your notebook, in another Microsoft Word file.

1) If you run dry on one project, you might have fuel for a different one
2) When editing, you should set aside a project for a week or two - don't even think about it - then put it back on the table
3) Working on different stories keeps the creativity blooming, and the craftmaking sharpened

But, this NaNoWriMo thing...

One novel.  One month.  50,000 words.  Maybe I'm just not that kind of writer.

Depressing.

Pressing Publish Post... now.