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.

Hint Fiction Friday (Saturday)

Soundtrack stuck in my head by Dear and the Headlights.

As a shout out to the wonderful authors who together make up the Hint Fiction Anthology, I am establishing Hint Fiction Fridays! Woot!

This is a writing exercise for me and an invitation to all (3, probably) of you to post your own hint fictions on my comments page.

Hint Fiction refers to a story of 25 words for fewer that hints at a more complex situation but is a self-contained implosion of emotion.

Thank you, Robert Swartwood!

Tonight I have written such a story as I whiled away time in the box office.

80,000 Fan Haircut by Emily J. Lawrence

The director gave permission. The child star’s hair, I swept, dusted and tucked into my pocket. Daddy’s the hero at last. But, no. UNFOLLOW.

Of Heroes and Archetypal Design - Using the Hero's Journey to Structure my Novel

The Hero Myth, exposed by mythographer Joseph Campbell, is a spine for the body of fiction. I won't repeat what countless helpful websites already have, but I will summarize:

Every protagonist traverses the archetypal "Hero's Journey." He possesses a need or desire, is incited by a crisis, and accepts the quest to succeed and earn his boon.

Using the steps of the Hero's Journey, I will map out the plot of my novel.

I won't show you this process because I'm still at the Call to Adventure in my quest to complete this novel and I don't want the Temptress to seduce you into pilfering it.

However, I'd like to demonstrate the usefulness of this mapping by naming my characters and the roles they play in this journey.

Hero: Meg Thirske...

a young woman who is happy for the first time. She has lived with depression all her life and knows herself only in the confines of being sad. Now she must acquire the skills to cope with having a happy life, all the while, sad events threaten to cause a relapse into depression

Magical Weapon/Tool: Telescope...

a scarecrow Meg constructs who is given a consciousness (unbeknown to Meg.) She is the narrator and interpreter of Meg's situation. *I can't tell you the end, which explains how she is a tool to Meg. Sorry.* Let's just say that her storytelling eventually gives Meg the perspective she needs to achieve her Apotheosis.

Temptress: Convenience of Known Coping Skills...

The Temptress is not a human (or scarecrow) character in my novel. Not that this is untrue of most modern stories. Meg knows how to be sad and survive; but, her glory will come when she can be brave and live a healthy life.

Mentor: Levi Wells...

Levi is Meg's true love. In learning to have a relationship with him, Meg 1) discovers who she is 2) learns not to "collapse" in old ways but to improve herself, and 3) finds the encouragement she requires to press on in her quest.

Fool/Trickster: Epiphany Bohling....

a classmate of Meg's whose outlandish beliefs test the reality of the other character's lives, in often funny ways. Epiphany also has her own hero's journey, as does Levi and Urriah; however, theirs are subplots while Meg's in the main plot.

Nemesis/Father: Urriah Graham....

a young woman, Meg's best friend, with just as many emotional problems. Okay, Urriah is not the typical nemesis. 1) She is not necessarily against Meg or her efforts, and 2) she is a very sweet and misguided girl who is beginning to rebel against her own beliefs. However, she embodies the guilt that discourages Meg and confuses her efforts to succeed.

This is the notion some Christians have about depression. That people who are depressed are "selfish," they don't have a "legitimate medical illness" and "should get over themselves." These statements, spoken by Meg's pastor and Urriah's father, compound Meg's shame and pulls her back toward depression.

Welcome to Pallet Town!

Descriptions, whether metaphors or adjectives, must be impetuous, tenacious, and memorable - they must poke the reader in the eye, causing him to be more alert to your words. If your book or story were the mob, they would be your made men. They get attention, according to your orders.

You have your adjectives, your metaphors, your similes.

Give them enough bullets to accomplish the job. A full barrel, minus one, so they can't take you out and ruin the operation.

We'll start with one of our basic sets of descriptive words: colors. Try enhancing your writer's pallet.

I've included my experimentation as examples.

Yellow

The house was a yellow houses shouldn't be.

The house was the yellow that Hummers should be but houses should not.

Orange

He handed me an orange cup.

He handed me a tangerine cup.

Red

She painted her toes red.

She painted her toes like a clown's nose.

Purple

I can't wear a dress that ugly shade of purple!

I can't wear a dress the same color as old lady lips!

Blue

When her eyes were closed she was happy; in dark blue, she let her veins swirl.

When her eyes were closed she was happy; in the same blue as water on blacktop, she let her veins swirl.

Green

The grass is so green and beautiful.

The grass, wearing the same color fashion avoids, is yet so beautiful.

Brown

His hair was brown.

His hair reminded her of bitten M&M's.

Ivory

Her skin was ivory.

Her skin was ivory like a roll of Scotch tape.

Pink

He saw the pink rose and knew it was for her.

He saw a rose, pink like little girls' dreams, and knew it was for her.

((The Sound of a Tongue Indicating Death))

I haven't had many battles with that wire-snipping fiend, writer's block. Not that I'm always as prolific with my writing that I wish to be. Ideas are well-stocked up there and I've been too busy to run into writer's block very often.

However, I am not without adversary.

This past week I've had a very bad cold. I didn't write anything. I didn't want to, either.

Sickness is a writer's worst enemy. When the body is drained, it becomes a limp noodle and the balloon of creativity tied on the other end is kaput. All week my creativity has been croaking.

Had I written, it would have doubtlessly come out with all the pride of sputtering tongue.

That's not all. Now that my body is upright and I went to work, my brain is still deflated. I have to pump more life into it. Exercise time!

I have no instant cures for writers suffering colds. All I have is some instant oatmeal. Maybe some brown sugar.

However, for recovering writers, I can tell you: read. Reading will help you build back up

Also, list making and some writing exercises like the one below:

Choose a news headline. Without reading the article, write a story that explains the headline.

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.

Poets Metamorph into Songwriters, but I'm not a Poet...

My David is a lovely guitarist! His music has the charm of shooting stars and picnics on candy striped quilts, clean sheets, still a little damp and warm from the dryer... of a music box inside a teddy bear.  Melodious, sweet, atmospheric... Embellishments are his talent.  And fingerpicking (with his Aspie hands, ^^).  And he sprinkles harmonics through his songs.  Little Tinkerbells, I call them... He wants to compose for films.

For composing he'll use his name, but he also wants to write the sort of songs that have lyrics.  For that band, he's called Half-Hearted Elephant.

That's where I come in.  I want to write lyrics for his songs!  Little scared-of-meter, frightened-by-scansion me.  In these vast fields I feel like such a little bird.  But, maybe, the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs.
But if ever there was a genre of songs for which I could possibly write lyrics, David plays it! Hyperliterate.  A style that concentrates on words without the "convention" of chouruses and lala's, nana's, or oh oh oh's.

John K. Samson, Emmy the Great, Colin Meloy, Ben Gibbard, to name a few, are hyperliterate artists...

I'm twitterpated with the idea of songwriting now.  If David and I wrote a song together... it would be an intimacy of our talents.  An intimacy worth being brave for for.

David told me, "Pick a subject and start writing the words and I'll write the music to it."

Motherhood.  Wifehood.  I'll write about my shyness toward it, my nervousness, and swallow confidence in my ability to be a good wife and mother.

Now on to gathering images and clips to use in the construction:

the dogeared pages of my diary

your cheeks resemble the pennies I rubbed with ketchup to shine

staple kitty's on every lamp post, fence, and tree

sing Beatles songs to our baby, don't forget to let her into your heart

origami wedding gowns made from sheetmusic

hope you didn't fall in love with Mary Poppins

never trusted fireflies to spell out words in the skies

I found love in you like small planes find love in the angeltread


Ah! Even if I fail, I'm having so much fun! I love collecting images! And David loves to compose music.  We can do this if we love it, right?

Love, Emily, pushing Publish Post...

When No Words Come

Those difficult moments of emotion.  No one doubts the power, science, and genius of words except in these moments. We stumble foolishly.  "I'm confused, just so confused."  We say the same thing over and over.  And never say anything at all.  Mean slips through our fingers.

When our throats clog.  When our tongue capsizes.  When our vocal cords go taunt and all sounds are snuffed out.

In those times we often find that holding hands, touching a shoulder or a cheek, kissing a brow, brushing noses provide salvation.  It saves us where words have failed us.

Those times are difficult for a writer.  What do we say when we know there's nothing we can say?

This is why eulogies are so taxing.  And why we are painfully helpless when trying to explain why we love our beloved.  This is why all new mothers can do cry.

Aghh! Excruciating!

As writers, we feel compelled to pin these glorious moments to the page, because they are life and we have committed ourselves to capturing life.  What can we do, though, to capture such incomprehensible moments? Each writer much face this; we can't just shelve the subject.  It's an additional Everest to the Everest of surviving wordless moments.

There are only so many ways of saying your characters as speechless.  That they've reached a moment when living feels like suffocating.  The reader can plainly see that you are the speechless one.  Sometimes readers can be merciless.

We fiction writers must learn from our poet brothers.  They've been endeavoring to do this for centuries.  And many succeed.  (Show-offs.)

Study poetry.  Learn to capture the emotions for which we have no words by manipulating image and sounds, rhythm! Work the words, dig in as with clay, with feeling.  Shout! Drive! Never think big enough.  Go for the superlative.  Awesome, in no small words.  Grip! Clench, you! Write until your veins burst in splendor like beating wings.

When you've written until it hurts, you may have succeeded.

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.