Despair to Optimism

As I’ve mentioned before, I have long cycle manic depression. Not diagnosed or anything, but every 3 months or so I cycle from optimism to despair.  In the despair phase, I feel like I totally suck. It’s hard to get anything creative done, because, you know, what’s the point? In the optimism phase, I’m manic, I’m going, I’m a creative fireball.

I’m not way out there. In optimism, I’m not unreasonably manic. I’m just upbeat and motivated and getting a lot done.  In despair, I’m not suicidal (usually).  I’m just reamed out, empty.

And, at the moment, I’m transitioning from despair to optimism. Could you tell? By the fact that I’m blogging? 

Something that happens, which I always notice on this part of the cycle, is that I turn outward.  My mind and emotions are no longer a hamster on the wheel. Instead, projects come toward me like road signs and I follow them and everything starts to hum along.  I notice how absolutely fabulous it feels to create and to put things out there. Who cares if these victories are tiny ~ publishing a blog post, posting a photo for photo-a-day, having a meaningful exchange on Facebook with another writer. 

But, the thing is, because I open up and start saying YES to the universe, good things come my way.  A friend recently sent on a call for a writing opportunity, and I followed up.  Had I been in the depths of despair, I would have let it pass. But since I’m revving up, I took it and followed up. And I got the assignment! 

It would be so easy to say, “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, girl! It’s all in your power to control. Why don’t you just be optimistic all the time?” Well, as many of you know, it’s not that easy.  It’s also a subtle way of blaming the victim. “It’s your own damn fault you’re depressed. If you’d just eat better/get some work done/focus, it’d all go away.” Riiiiiight. 

A lot of the time I can white knuckle it.  I can force myself to get things done. At least get up in the morning and get dinner on the table. But, sometimes, I just can’t. It takes more emotional energy and courage than I possess. 

But when I’m on, man oh man. One of my most recent novels I wrote start-to-finish in two months. TWO MONTHS. 

At least I’ve learned moderation in my habits (thanks in part to my supportive husband). That makes the lows less low and the highs more sustained. When I was a teenager and knew nothing about moderation, it was all lows, pretty much. 

But really what I wanted to say was that CREATIVITY ROCKS!!  Nothing beats the feeling of things coming out of your brain and body and into being. Nothing.  It’s manna from heaven! 

What Went Into the Sausage?

So, you're curious about Deep Down Things?  What went into it?  Here is my letter to the reader that talks about what went into the writing of it.  It was a long and arduous process, let me tell, with many doubts along the way. But I'm very proud of the result. And as you know, it's just out in audiobook, read by the lovely and amazing P. J. Morgan.

Dear Reader,

Oh, what I wouldn’t have given to be able to give Maggie a happy ending, to have Jes grow into a happy and healthy young man whose only scars are those left by his troubled father. It wasn’t to be, however. The logic of the story inexorably pulled me to where it ended.

That’s not entirely true. The first ending actually had Jackdaw successfully shooting Jes and then killing himself. So maybe I did pull back a little—at the behest of an editor friend. The conversation went something like this. “The ending is too unremittingly dark.” “But Jes has to die. Otherwise no one will buy it.” “Yes, but does his father have to kill him? AND THEN commit suicide?” Point taken. That same friend said she bawled in public in NYC at least four times while reading it. Now THAT is a compliment.

The inspiration for this story is a friend and coworker who is one of those ideal mothers. If I could have chosen to have any mother in the world, she would have been at the top of my list. She had two boys, and then her third boy was born with severe spina bifida. Watching what she went through was heart-wrenching. When I decided to write this book, a few years after the darling boy had died at age 6, we sat and talked through what at happened. She said that most people act like it never happened and so it was good to talk about it. I hope so, and I hope I’ve in some small way been able to honor what she went through.

Another inspiration for this story is my history of infertility. My mother had seven kids including me, and one of my sisters had seven, and so I never considered that I would have problems having children. Then, my husband and I had five miscarriages, the first at six months. The medical rigamarole that ensued was awful. I’m so glad for it though, because we were able to have our happy ending. A wonderful amazing woman—whom I’d trust almost more than I’d trust myself—acted as gestational carrier for us, and our twins were born. Our son was born with a severe cleft lip and palate, and so that was more medical procedures that we went through. As much as we’ve been through, though, I can’t express how thankful I am to medical science and the wonderful doctors who made it all possible.

The first scene I wrote, I was actually staying in a residential hotel in Denver undergoing IVF procedure for the twins. All those shots. That was August 2005. The first scene I wrote was where Maggie walks into the room and Jes just lights up. He makes her feel wonderful, despite everything, just by the way he beams at her. I finished a first draft by June 2009. I remember because I completed it for a Tin House writers conference mentorship with the legendary Little, Brown editor Judy Clain. The manuscript was an unqualified mess—four points of view with two timelines going concurrently. Bless Judy’s heart for first of all agreeing to do the mentorship and second of all giving me such great advice. Help your reader out. Chronological, chronological! More reflection to let the reader know what to take away from a scene. Her talking with me was simply the best encouragement I could have had.

So I went back and majorly rewrote it. Because of the nature of how I’d written it—two timelines—the beginning and the end was basically written and I had to write through the middle. An odd experience, to say the least, but a good one. It shaped up nicely, although I distinctly remember having writers block and thinking, this is the most horrible thing I’ve ever read. I do that when I write—I go through periods of loving the work and then hating it. Especially when I’m not writing, I think about all the flaws.

Having four points of view presented its own challenges. If you have a point of view, you have to have a character arc. Something has to happen to that person. They have to change. And therefore all the stories have to be coherent in their own right, yet they have to meld together into this unified whole. “Ambitious,” someone called it, and at the time I don’t think they meant it as a compliment. My initial inspiration for form was actually the movie Love Actually. I was fascinated with how that movie was able to have all those different story lines yet work. I love that movie. It strayed pretty far away, though, didn’t it? Another big inspiration was William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, one of my favorite books. All those points of view tied together in a country setting. Believe it or not, I didn’t actually read Kent Haruf’s Plainsong till late in the writing process. Without knowing it, I had mirrored a lot of that wonderful book, and so when I did finally read it I was a bit thunderstruck.

I deliberately try to have all kinds of people in my books. I regret that I don’t have more diversity in this one, but I am glad I was able to have CJ work through her sexuality. Race and ethnicity and gender and sexuality are not binaries—they exist much more on a spectrum—and I find myself continually fascinated with the complexities of these subjects.

Finally, though I hesitate to bring it up, I often have an extended metaphor or theme that I’m thinking of when I write a story or a novel. In the case of Deep Down Things, it’s the story of Jesus. Many readers would not pick up on it, I think, but Jes’s story riffs on it with details large and small. I’m a spiritual person—though I’m not a religious one—and the ideas underlying the story of Jesus are complicated and compelling and timeless. Self-sacrifice, family relationships, being a good person—these all are just as relevant today as they ever were. And I find by using something like this as a framework, an extended metaphor, I can explore these subjects more deeply. I don’t think of this as a religious book or a Christian book, but I am very invested in the ideas that Christianity presents to us. I am happy, however, if this book helps someone affirm his or her faith or think more deeply about the issues presented.

My final confession is that the ending still makes me bawl like a baby. I don’t think writers are supposed to admit that.

– Tamara Linse, Laramie, Wyoming, 2014

If this interests you, here's where you can pick up the audiobook Deep Down Things.

Amazon.com

Audible.com

iTunes

'The Adventures of Opal the Hound Dog'

While we were on vacation in South Carolina last week, I was telling someone about Opal the redbone hound dog in my novel Earth’s Imagined Corners.  You know how it is. In order to make death real in a book, you actually have to kill someone off.  And so, in this case, I had to kill the lovely Opal. 

My daughter heard and was very upset. “You killed the dog?” she said.

I explained that you don’t actually see the dog dead, but the last glimpse you see of her is on top of a house in a great flood as the house rolls over.  So she may not actually be dead. She may have swum to safety.

“Mom, you have to write another book about just Opal,” my daughter said. “She has to swim to safety and have a long life and then meet up with Sara’s cousin at the end.”

And, so, guess what I’m doing? I’m writing a fun children’s book called The Adventures of Opal the Hound Dog.

And so you can get a taste of Opal’s life, here is where we meet Opal.

As Sara and James made their way home, they saw a young girl in a white pinafore walking along dangling two red puppies with big floppy ears from her arms and talking to a man on the street. The man listened to what the girl said but then shook his head and walked off. As Sara and James came by, the girl turned to them and said, “Would you like a puppy? They don’t cost nothing. My papa says he’s going to throw them in the river if I don’t find someone to take them on.” At closer view, the puppies were indeed small but older than Sara had first believed. They were just beginning to lengthen into grown dogs.

As the full day of liberation left Sara with such a good feeling, she did not want to let this pass—it seemed like a good omen—so she said spontaneously, “Of course, we would love to have such fine specimen of a dog. That’s so kind of you to try to save them.” Relief crossed the girl’s face, who said, “Would you take two, then?” Sara considered it but then glanced at James’s face, which was contained but set. James did not want one dog, much less two. “Oh!” Sara said. “James, would a dog be all right?” James did not respond, so she said, “It could be my birthday present. Please? Just one.” He stood for a minute and then relented with a small shake of his head. Sara turned to the girl. “I’m sorry, but we can only take one of them off your hands.” The girl handed over the larger of the two, a female, and Sara took its wriggling mass into her arms. Its skin felt too big for its body, which was warm and solid and alive, and Sara was immediately overcome with a maternal kind of love. “I think I’ll name you Opal,” she said. She turned to James and said, “Opal was my mother’s name.” He nodded, smilingly resigned to the new acquisition. Sara hummed the whole rest of the way home, holding close the alternately limp and wriggling warm body.

Opal filled their little apartment with enthusiastic motion. When first set down, she immediately put her nose to the floor and seemed led by it on a meandering path all through the space. It was as if the nose had a mind of its own and the dog’s body merely followed on a tether. Opal nosed under the bed and behind the stove and put her paws up on the shelves and tried to sniff the dry goods. She made her way over to the bed and tried to leap onto it but made it only halfway before flopping onto her side on the floor. She stood back up and shook herself, undaunted, and continued to sniff about. After a time, even James seemed charmed by her earnest zeal as she nosed his ankles.

This is the last time we see Opal.

But then James heard the strangest sound. It was low and then undulated higher, and he realized that it was the baying of a hound dog. He twisted to look behind him, upstream, and there, canted at an angle, was the roof of a building, the very peak jutting from the water. On the peak stood a wet red dog, baying. It could not be, but it was. Opal stood there straddling the peak, her head facing downstream. She lifted her muzzle once more, and the sound of her baying voice was time-delayed coming over the water. James searched beside her and what little he could see of the roof, but there was no one else. It was a relief, but then it was not. “Opal!” James screamed. “Ooooh-paaall!” The dog turned its head in his direction as the building swept past the tree, not too close, but the dog did not seem to see him, and then her head turned back downstream to what lay in her future. Just then the building rolled in the water, and James lost sight of the dog’s form behind the tipping roof and then the walls that followed. That was the last he saw of her, though he frantically searched the waters nearby. At that, something broke within him, and he began to cry, though the sound of his loud convulsive sobs were drowned out in the roar and his tears mingled with the rain.

And here is the beginning of Opal’s continuing adventures.

Opal the hound dog stood on the peak of the house roof as the flood raged around her. The house swayed and shook underneath her as it swept down the wide expanse of the Missouri River.

She lifted her muzzle and let out a long mournful howl.

Under the overwhelming muddy smell of the flood, Opal could smell other things, like dead bloated cows and freshly felled trees and even, once, a soggy loaf of fresh-baked bread.

Opal had a really good nose.  She was a redbone hound dog, after all, and she could smell a raccoon track ten days gone.  She could tell you if a bird flying by had nestlings and if a person was likely to pat her on the head or swing a boot.

The house lurched underneath her and she was thrown forward into the roiling river.  The water was cold as it hit her and she gasped just as her head sank below a wave. She kicked hard and her back legs connected with something under the water, and so she shot upward and her head broke the surface. She gasped again, welcomed air flooding her lungs.

She kicked and paddled and kicked, and often a wave threatened to bowl her over or an undertow threatened to pull her down.  But she kept going. She knew she couldn’t swim upstream, and downstream kept her in the middle of the maelstrom, and so she swam at a crooked angle until finally, exhausted, she paddled into a quiet sandy eddy.

She pulled her bone-tired body out of the water and, too tired to even shake, she found the curve of a tree root a safe distance from the water. She curled up and slept.

I’m having such fun with it!

Alyson Hagy on the Roots of Fiction

Today in the Earth's Imagined Corners Bewitching Book Tour, I get to hang out over at Lisa's World of Books. Thank you, Lisa! I also came across a great interview with one of my mentors, the wonderful Alyson Hagy on Whole Beast Rag.

Alyson Hagy

"I was thinking about writers who I thought did a good job writing both genders. It seems to me that it’s more an issue of temperament. I would also say that great fiction often gets written when there are roots of fever or hatred or grief, which says to me that our own failures or fears about love or heterosexual or homosexual interaction fuel our fiction." ~ Alyson Hagy

Read the whole interview here.

That Age-old Writer Question: How Do You Get Your Work Done?

As part of the Earth's Imagined Corners Bewitching Book Tour, I'm honored to be hanging out with Roxanne over at Roxanne's Realm today.  Telling interview ~ you should check it out!  But in the meantime, I am so stoked to have my greatest writer friend Jessica hanging out here today! And she's answering that age-old question: How do you get the writing done? She's amazing in her dedication!

Pembroke Sinclair, aka Jessica Robinson

Pembroke Sinclair, aka Jessica Robinson, is a rock star when it comes to getting her work done.  She has two darling boys and a husband, she works full time as an editor for a foundation, and she occasionally freelance edits for publishing houses.  Yet she has six excellent fiction works and two nonfiction books to her name and lots of short pieces, and she’s a model of how writers can get their work done. You should check out her Road to Salvation series—the second of which (Dealing with Devils) just came out—and also her Life After the Undead series, especially if you’re a fan of zombies.

One of the many things I admire about you is that you get your shit done.  You are not only very productive in your personal life and work life but most importantly in your writing life. How do you do it? Maybe talk about your mindset in approaching getting your writing done.

I’m anal retentive and obsessive compulsive and I have no friends.  Ha!

In all seriousness, when it comes to writing—first and foremost—I have to remember that not everything is going to get done.  There just aren’t enough hours in the day, so I have to be OK with what is left unfinished.  And, believe me, I’m fine with floors not getting vacuumed or dishes sitting in the sink for a few days.  All of that stuff waits for me, so I can come back and do it whenever I need to.  

It’s a sense of priorities, really.  And those change on a daily basis.  My family always comes first, but there are times when they can entertain themselves for a while so I can disappear and work.  

What’s your daily schedule of writing? Do you have any rituals? 

My daily schedule of writing is that I fit it in when I can.  Thankfully, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my boys have wrestling practice, so I have a dedicated hour and a half that I can work on what I want to work on.  When they have tournaments, I work on my stuff in between matches (we’re usually there all day). 

On the weekends, I try to balance my schedule between doing laundry, cleaning the house, and getting writing done.  That usually means I’ll limit myself to writing/editing a chapter, then start a load of laundry, fold a load, or get the bathrooms clean.  Then I’ll do another chapter, and when that’s done, another piece of house cleaning.  To me, writing is a reward after working on my other obligations.

Do you write on the computer or on paper or both? 

I do both.  It’s so much easier to carry a notebook and a pen with me where I go rather than a laptop.  But I do find that when I write on paper, my writing tends to be a bit sparse.  Knowing that, however, means that in the editing process I have to flesh the story out.  

Talk about a project in particular, maybe your latest book.  How long did it take you to write? To revise? What was the process?

The latest project I worked on is called Good Intentions, and it’s the third book in The Road to Salvation series.  That took me 5 months to write, including initial editing.  (At the moment, it’s with the editor, who will no doubt come back with things I need to fix.)  I handwrote that entire story in a notebook before transferring it to the computer.  People keep telling me I got through it really fast, but it didn’t feel like.  Five months felt like a very long time.  I just worked on it every free chance I got and in between all of my other obligations.

How do you get yourself motivated and focused when there are so many other responsibilities and fun things to do?

I’m not going to lie, some days are tougher than others.  Some days I just want to veg in front of the TV or play games on my phone—anything other than write.  And I do.  But writing is a compulsion for me, and most of the time, I enjoy doing it, so it doesn’t feel like work to me.  If it wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t do it.  It’s my escape, my way to explore new worlds.  

I wasn’t lying about being anal retentive and obsessive compulsive, hence the schedule on the weekends about working.  But I feel like if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t get anything done.  As I mentioned earlier, there’s only a certain amount of time in the day, and it’s about priorities.  More often than not, writing is a priority of mine—especially if I have to decide between writing and cleaning a toilet.  Duh!  No brainer!  So being motivated and focused is only about taking the time to sit down.

Any advice for writers on this topic? 

Writing is work.  Words don’t magically appear on the page, you have to put them there.  You’re the one who decides how you’re going to spend your days.  You’re the one in control of your schedule.  If you want to spend it writing, you’re going to spend it writing.  But something will have to be neglected for writing to happen.  If you want to make excuses, that’s what you’ll do.  The world stands in your way.  It doesn’t care if you accomplish your goals.  It constantly keeps throwing distractions at you.  Only you get to decide if you’ll let them get in your way.

 

Thank you so much for stopping by the blog today, Pembroke! And, readers, please check out Dealing with Devils!

 

White-Knuckling It

(via)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about systems.  How they can work for you or against you. 

Take, for example, making breakfast for the kids in the morning. They say it’s the most important meal of the day, and so we make sure that the kids have breakfast before school.  In fact, they often get two breakfasts because they’ll eat one at home and then go in to have the breakfast at school.

So I’ve worked out a number of shortcuts, systems, that help with breakfast. I make sure I get up early enough. I try to serve a bread, a protein, a fruit, and some milk. I precook sausage so that I can just microwave them.  Cheese is quick and good. So is yogurt. Lots of eggs and toasted things like bagels with cream cheese or toast with butter and jelly.  Sometimes some hot cereal or milk toast.  A parfait, which is nothing more than fruit, yogurt, sometimes cereal, and chocolate chips in a cup.  Sweet rolls sometimes. Every week or two they have cold cereal, or they’ll go on kick where they request it every day.  If I’m feeling froggy I’ll do egg-in-a-hole or pancakes or waffles or French toast.  And some hot chocolate or hot tea with cream and sugar to go along with it. You get the idea.

The point is: I have a system worked out. I try to vary enough to keep them interested.  Balance the bad-for-you with the good. I get up while my husband is in the shower, go downstairs, let the dog out, start making tea for me and my husband, and then lay out what they’re having. Often I’ll have decided the night before.

Life is like that. You need a system for it all to work smoothly.  And if you don’t have a system, it makes it a lot harder than it should be.  If you don’t have a system for keeping the house organized ~ a place for everything and everything in its place ~ you’re hosed.  If you don’t have a system for getting the kids to their practices and school and yourself to work, it’s a scramble. 

And even what system you have makes a huge difference.  This is definitely related to habit.  It’s much harder to be on a diet when you are in the habit of eating lots of unhealthy foods and you eat out a lot and you’re on the road and you don’t cook.  You have to build your life around making it easier for you to make good choices. If you don’t, if you try to white-knuckle it, you’re setting yourself up for failure ~ because as the psychologists say you only can stay strong through so many resistances and decisions per day.

And this brings me to writing.  One of my problems on getting the writing done is that I don’t have a system that makes it easier for me. I often have to white-knuckle it.  This, I think, is what people mean when they say write every day.  It’s not a matter of forcing yourself ~ it’s a matter of having the space there that you just slide into.  It’s making it easy for yourself because that’s what you expect and what everyone around you expects.  You don’t have to carve that creative space out of solid rock. Rather, it’s been hollowed out for you, and all you have to do is walk through the door.

Must carve a cave!!

I Want to Create!

Humans are such desirous creatures. And so creative. Maybe the two are related.

It’s 2 degrees and snowing, and I’ve taken two days off from work to get some creative stuff done.  Haven’t, though, really.  With these kinds of vacations, I tend to collapse for the first couple of days, just relaxing, and so if the vacation is only a couple of days long, it’s over before I get any real work done. I really need emotional space, generally, to get creative work done, and I don’t generally get that in my day-to-day life.  The kids don’t stop needing to be picked up from school and taken to basketball and play practice and, you know, eating.

First-world problems, I know.  But it remains.

There’s so much I want to do!  I’ve written two children’s books, and I’m starting to work on the illustrations.  One is a picture book called ZoLilly and the Feeling of Impending Doom, and the other is an alphabet book called A Blush, a Giggle, a Smack. It’s so much fun!  I’ve always loved art. I took every art class I could, in addition to writing classes, as I was growing up.  So there’s that.

My narrator partner P. J. Morgan and I have just come out with an audio version of my short story collection How to Be a Man. And so there’s promotional kinds of things to do for that.  That takes a lot of creativity not to come across as an ass.

I’m finishing up the design of the next book that’s coming out in January. It’s historical fiction set in 1885 Iowa and Kansas City called Earth’s Imagined Corners.  All I need to finish is the Dear Reader letter and I can send it out for reviews.

I’ve really been into the chef aspect of cooking lately, and so I’ve been trying all kinds of things. I made cheddar and mozzarella for the first time, and I’ve been watching a lot of Anthony Bourdain.

I have this blog, but I’ve been thinking a lot about a couple of other blogs.  One I have created but haven’t launched. It’s called Family Confessional and it’ll be a place where people can anonymously send in their confessions about family. I love this idea! The idea came from Julia Fierro’s Parenting Confessional. But I haven’t had the chance to launch it yet.

And there’s the blog that I created a while back and then ran out of steam. It’s called Native Home of Hope and it’s about contemporary writers of the American West. I still believe in it very strongly, but it became prohibitive to post every day. My goals were too ambitious. But I’ve been toying with the idea of bringing it back as a less dynamic but no less valuable resource for contemporary writers of the west. I could do video interviews every once in a while, and I could put up the list of contemporary writers of the American West (that was rejected by Wikipedia).

Oh, and, you know, the YA novel I’m supposed to be finishing. And my on-again off-again photo Project 365.  And, you know, work and stuff. 

But I want to do all these things!  I want to be able to create nonstop! I want, I want, I want!  But that’s a good thing. Dream big.

Oh, the Colors!

The miracle of color in the movie of Oz

I wrote this weekend!  I made progress on the YA novel! Woo hoo!!

It's been a long dry spell where I couldn't bring myself to get anything on the page, and there's nothing that'll drag you under faster as a writer than not getting the work done. As so many writers say: writing is what keeps me sane.

I'm drawn into the world.  When you first try to write, the world is wooden and dead to you, but the more you think about it and the more you write, the more it comes alive.  It's like the real world fades into the background and the world you're creating goes technicolor.  The world you're creating becomes more real than the real world. Writing is like reading only much moreso.

Hence, the Oz images.  Can you imagine?! Seeing films in black and white and then all of a sudden ~ Wham! ~ there is fabulous color for the first time?  It must've been just amazing.  The images on the screen not only matched the world around; they were moreso, a heightened reality.  Wow.

And that's what it's like to write.  You're inner world goes technicolor.

Rusty Barnes's #MyWritingProcess

Today you get to hear from the last cool writer I'm tagging in the #MyWritingProcess Blog Tour ~ Rusty Barnes.  He writes these amazing short shorts ~ check out Breaking It Down ~ and is out with a novel and a book of poems. He's also a great editor and a great friend.  Enjoy!

Rusty Barnes

Rusty Barnes is a cofounder of Night Train, a literary journal, and Fried Chicken and Coffee, an on again/off again blogazine of rural and Appalachian creative work and concerns. He’s published five books of poetry and fiction, the latest of which is nearly brand new: Reckoning, a novel, published by David McNamara at Sunnyoutside Press.

#My Writing Process Blog Tour

I’ve been tagged by the fantastic writer Tamara Linse to talk about #MyWritingProcess, such as it is. I hope these answers will entertain or reveal, depending on what you think of my writing.

What am I working on?

This is always a tricky question, as I’m involved in several different projects at a time. Right now I’m nearly ready to shop a manuscript of poems called Dear So and So, in which I address poems anonymously to a number of people who may or may not be in a position to answer, or willing to talk with me at all, considering our various histories. It’s a series of off-sonnets and other near poems, like in-jokes from my life, which others might have fun reading. I’m also researching a short book on the video game Redneck Rampage, which nearly consumed my soul in the 1990s just as I was ordering my life and goals and writing in light of the fact that I was Appalachian, 41.7% more likely to die of a heart attack than my peers, and destined to have a love/hate relationship with the area in which I grew up. Beyond that, I have another nameless manuscript of poems which should straighten up and behave itself soon or I’m going to whip its ass, and a novel called The Arsonist, again set in my hometown and surrounds, in which a state social worker, Kathleen Brake, gets increasingly drawn into the psychoses of a crazy but charismatic teenage arsonist named Johnny Jones while negotiating the terrors of adolescent relationships with her fifteen-year-old daughter Angie and her own love life with her well-meaning but feckless husband Gallow. And her short-term lover Brady Bragg. All have secrets, all have needs, and when the flames rise, everyone will be affected.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I write in a mode many others do, but I believe my work stands out because of its focus on rural matters, nearly exclusively, and because I try to use as few words as possible to make the story I want to make up. I also believe my stories are emotionally true where others often seem fake. Probably the fakers feel the same way about me and my work. The difference is that I’m right where they’re wrong. :-)

Why do I write what I do?

I have little else to do outside obligations to my immediate family. I have no important skills I can rely on, no rich family to support me in my efforts to produce art, no great intellect to make it easier on me, but I do have a history 250 years deep in a small area of Pennsylvania that so far has yielded material enough for at least three writing careers, and I trust, will continue to provide such long after I’m gone.

How does my writing process work?

When I’m writing on a longer project, I try to get five hundred words a day. Failing that, if I get 250 I’ll hang it up for the session. Rare is the day I don’t get my 500, though. I begin writing for my hour per day after the kids go to bed, more time being devoted to it when life permits. Poems I can work on any time. Fiction takes a concerted effort and schedule. I go long stretches without writing, though, which is dangerous. I always feel as if I don’t write all the time, I’ll forget how. Luckily, that hasn’t proven to be true yet.

The Cool People I’m Tagging

Heather Sullivan is a mama, wife, and part-time philosopher and blogs at Lady Jane Adventures.

Cort Bledsoe, or C.L. Bledsoe, is the author of the young adult novel Sunlight, three poetry collections (_____(Want/Need), Anthem, and Leap Year), and a short story collection Naming the Animals. 

Timothy Gager is the author of ten books of short fiction and poetry. His latest, The Shutting Door (Ibbetson Street Press), was nominated for the Massachusetts Book Award. He has hosted the successful Dire Literary Series in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for over twelve years and is the co-founder of Somerville News Writers Festival.  

C.D. Mitchell's #MyWritingProcess

Today on the #MyWritingProcess blog tour, you get to hear from C.D. Mitchell.  We've never met in person, but I feel like we have through our correspondence and his wonderful writing.  Later in the week, I'll be posting Rusty Barnes's response.  Stay tuned!

C.D. Mitchell

Proud to be a southern writer, C.D. Mitchell is the author of the wonderful story collections Alligator Stew and God’s Naked Will. A man after my own heart, he was raised on a farm and learned how to milk cows, make butter, butcher and cure salt pork, and make pickles, among other things. He earned his J.D. in law from U of Arkansas, practiced law, worked other jobs, and then got his MFA. He’s currently working on a novel and revising his memoir called This, Too, Is Vanity. He says he has been a pallbearer and a groom four times but has never been a best-man, and that in itself is a story waiting to be written. I can’t wait to read it!

My Writing Process Blog Tour

I became a part of this process when Tamara Linse tagged me to follow up on this blog tour. I generally do not participate in such things, but this seemed intriguing, so I tossed my hat in the ring and tagged two fellow writers I admire, Shonell Bacon and Brett Riley to follow me. So here goes!

What am I working on these days?

I am working on a yet untitled novel that will involve smuggling of guns, drugs, and illegals up the Mississippi River and its navigable waterways by riverboat barge. A chapter of the novel, one that deals primarily with President’s Island in Memphis, is scheduled to appear in Memphis Noir sometime this fall. The novel deals with river barge traffic, a largely unregulated means of travel during the early 1990’s. I envision a mix of Mark Twain, Robert Earl Keen and Cormack McCarthy in the final text. My main character has purchased an electric shock therapy machine at a flea market in Mississippi and will eventually use it to collect money on fronted drugs.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

A recent review of my story collection Alligator Stew called the writing “Dirty Realism.” Many of the reviews of my work posted on Goodreads and Amazon.com have observed that I write about situations others shun or ignore. I create real characters faced with desperate situations. I don’t spend six pages describing in flowery language how a dog crosses the road to take a shit in the ditch. That is not to say that sentence construction, word choice and rhythms are not important to me. They are, and they must be important to all writers. But my emphasis is story. Shit happens in the stories I write!

Why do I write what I do?

Because too many others lack the courage to face the reality of life. I write to expose the incredible hopelessness faced by the schizophrenic, by the impoverished, by those cursed with bad luck and misfortune. I write to expose the hypocrisy of the Bible-thumping zealots who would steal our freedoms away and impose by law their own brand of morality upon US citizens. I write because I have to. It has always been a hunger I must feed. I write because the best day of writing is always the best day of my life!

How does my Writing Process work?

I have always heard of binge eaters and binge drinkers; I am a binge writer. I develop an idea for a story or book. I note it in my journals and I write about the idea. I research and develop the characters. I read newspaper articles and interview people. At some point, the influx of information builds like water pressure behind a dam until I am forced to open the floodgates and release the weight of all that has accumulated. I have binges where I write every day, and during those times I commit to 500 words a day. Promising myself 500 words allows me to sit down when I have little time, and to get up when I simply must leave. But more often than not, 500 words become 1500 or even 2000. I endlessly revise, going back and rereading as often as I can. For instance, my current novel has had me researching Electric Shock Therapy Machines on the internet and trying to buy one on Amazon.com. I have interviewed a close friend of mine who ran river boats up and down the Mississippi and intra-coastal for thirty years. I am booking an evening ride on the Memphis Queen so I can approach President’s Island from the river, and I will also make a trip to the Island and hopefully spend some time exploring the Wildlife management Area that exists there within the city limits of Memphis. I have just begun the writing of the book, and the research will continue.

Patty Chang Anker's #MyWritingProcess

I'll be posting the great responses to the #MyWritingProcess blog tour this week for the wonderful writers I tagged.  Today, you get to hear from Patty Chang Anker.  I first met Patty at Bread Loaf, and I couldn't have asked for a better roommate.  She's so warm and funny and lovely. Later in the week, I'll be posting the responses from Rusty Barnes and C.D. Mitchell.  Stay tuned!

Patty Chang Anker (photo by Alison Sheehy)

Patty Chang Anker is the author of the hilarious and insightful memoir Some Nerve: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave  (Riverhead Books), which Oprah.com calls “downright inspiring.” It is a  Parents Magazine ”Mom Must-Read” and is “a lesson plan in courage 101″ (Better Homes & Gardens). She's all over the net with great stuff ~ blogging for PsychologyToday.com‘s Anxiety section and her own award-winning Facing Forty Upside Down, as well as many other great places. Check out her TEDx Talk here. Patty lives in a village north of New York City with her husband and two daughters.

Without further ado, here's Patty!

#MyWritingProcess Blog Tour – 4 questions about how and why I write

Today I’m taking part in a #MyWritingProcess blog tour, in which writers answer four questions about their writing process and then tag other writers to answer the questions as well.  I was honored to be asked by Tamara Linse, author of  HOW TO BE A MAN. Her answers ran here last week and stay tuned next week too, as I’ll be running the answers by the great writers I’m tagging.

What am I working on?

Right now I’m working on blog pieces for PsychologyToday.com (about overcoming anxiety during the learning process), BikingtheBigApple.com (about Team #SomeNerve training for the TD Five Boro Bike Tour), and Facing Forty Upside Down (about finding community as a way to fight fear). I’m also preparing a talk, and drafting content for the paperback of Some Nerve.  The long term  thinking, working, revising a book length project have turned into quick turnarounds for shorter pieces, mostly about how to apply the “lessons learned while becoming brave” in our lives.  It’s fun to take the stories from the book out into the world.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My work is part immersion memoir, part journalism, part self-help.  It’s different from most memoir because it’s set in the present and is as much focused on other people as me. It’s different from most journalism in that while I do often observe classes, therapy sessions, and other interactions without interfering and I do interview experts in traditional settings, I also actively participate at times. I will introduce someone with a fear of driving to a  driving instructor, or take friends with a fear of heights to a ropes course. I set story lines in motion without knowing what’s going to happen and then write about what does.   And it’s different from most self-help in that the information, whether it’s techniques from Toastmasters or psychological approaches used by therapists, is related by what it’s like for me or others to experience these things and not through case studies or tip sheets.

Why do I write what I do?

I write what I need to read. I need to acknowledge all the crazy talk in my head, poke a little fun at myself, figure out how to find strength to push forward when I’m scared, have enjoyable – even peak – experiences more often,  find out how other people tick, imagine being different tomorrow from today, and then commit all of this in writing so that my girls will remember me as more than “Mom sure was tired.”  I’ve been through many periods of feeling alone – and I write to reach anyone else who feels that way, to tell them it’s ok, come out into the sunshine, come laugh with us and we’ll become brave together.

How does my writing process work?

For quick short pieces I write well during the day while the kids are at school but for the book, the old “butt in chair” and “writing is a job show up for your job” or “every day set a timer produce X number of words” advice didn’t work at all.  I found the enormity of writing 100K coherent words on deadline overwhelming, and when things needed to be done for the house or the kids once interrupted I couldn’t pick up again.  I was so consumed by what I call my Greek Chorus of Perpetual Doubt “You can’t do this, you don’t know how, another day is gone, tick, tick TICK” showing up for my job left me exhausted and actually steps behind from where I was the day before.  I realized I needed to forge my own way, which was to focus on research until I felt ready to write. This took 8 months out of the 14 I had before my deadline and was nerve wracking. I’ve always performed best close to deadline but it’s one thing to do that for a term paper, it’s another for an entire book! But I’m glad I allowed myself to just be in the field because once you’ve fully absorbed the experiences the stories take root and the brain makes connections to other stories from your past and before you know it elaborate plots with fully developed characters are alive and begging to come out.  Once I was ready I wrote when I felt most free to write –  at night when I was least likely to be interrupted, when everyone else’s needs were met and I wasn’t expected to be productive.  I wrote until 4 in the morning, alone and in the dark but laughing and weeping with all these people I’d grown to care so much about, remembering incredible stories of them at their most courageous, feeling less alone than I’ve ever felt.

So much of writing is getting out from under the guilt that we should be doing something else, or we should be doing this a whole lot better.  I say wherever and whenever you can push through that secret bookcase that leads you to a hidden room where you feel most free, that’s where and when to write.

The Cool People Patty Is Tagging

Una LaMarche is the author of two young adult novels, Five Summers and Like No Other, and a forthcoming collection of humor essays based on some of her more questionable life choices. She is also a contributing writer for The New York Observer and The Huffington Post, and blogs at The Sassy Curmudgeon. Una lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son. You can follow her on Twitter @sassycurmudgeon, and if you pre-order her next book, somewhere up in heaven, a dance circle will form and an angel will successfully jump over its own leg.

Ava Chin, a native New Yorker, is the author of Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love, and the Perfect Meal (coming in May), which Kirkus Reviews called “A delectable feast of the heart.” The Urban Forager blogger for the New York Times, her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Saveur, the Village Voice, and Martha Stewart online. She blogs about foraging, green living, and DIY-food at www.AvaChin.com.

The #MyWritingProcess Blog Tour

(via)

Today I’m taking part in a #MyWritingProcess blog tour, in which writers answer four questions about their writing process and then tag other writers to answer the questions as well.  Like an addict, I love hearing how other people do it, you know, and so I was particularly honored to be asked by the lovely and talented Bonnie ZoBell, author of What Happened Here.  Here are her answers, and stay tuned next week too, as I’ll be posted to answers by the great writers I’m tagging.

What am I working on?

Oh, I’m having such a great time! I’m working on a young adult novel called Pride that’s Pride and Prejudice set in contemporary Wyoming.  My protagonists tend to be teenagers anyway, and so YA is a natural fit for me.  Plus, you wouldn’t believe how well-suited British classics are to present-day adaptations.  I mean, down to the very movements of the dialog.  Sure, it’s different language, but you can say exactly the same thing.  Plus I’ve set it in Jackson Hole.  If you remember, Pride and Prejudice is a lot about class, and so Jackson is perfect because you have the well-off people flying in for vacation or they have summer houses or winter ski condos, and then you have the locals who can’t actually afford to live in Jackson.  I’m thinking about developing a series called the Wyoming Chronicles.  The girls’ YA novels will be rewrites of Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights, and the boys’ YA novels will be rewrites of The Island of Dr. Moreau and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide.  And they’re so much fun to write!

How does my work different from others of its genre?

Now that is a good question.  What first leaps to mind is that I have two major influences, the Western and literary fiction.  The genre of the Western hangs heavy over life in the West, even today, and people still hold it close to their hearts.  Literary fiction, on the other hand, has always been close to mine because I’m interested in trying to capture the subtleties of lived experience, two people in a room and the small violences and small kindnesses they do to one another.  This is reflected in the two writers I admire most ~ Hemingway and Virginia Woolf.  I love Hemingway because he’s our natural inheritance here in the West, and I love VW because she also tries to capture homely interiors and relationships.  So I guess you could say that I write literary fiction but it’s setting of the contemporary West is unusual.

Why do I write what I do?

This question seems to imply a choice.  I don’t think we have a choice.  Sure, we are drawn to certain genres and types of writing, but that’s just it.  We’re drawn to it. It’s inexplicable sometimes why we like certain things and not other things.  Growing up on a ranch, you would think I would love the Cowboy Way and country music and horses, but I don’t. Or rather, I do and I don’t.  I’m deeply ambivalent about it.  I take to heart the advice that your best material is what makes you uncomfortable, what embarrasses you, what obsesses you.  All that stuff and the underlying psychology fascinates me, obsesses me, because of course it’s the water around me, to quote David Foster Wallace. 

How does my writing process work?

I avoid.  I feel guilty.  I think about it and cogitate and work it out in my mind.  I avoid some more.  I think some more.  Sometimes the idea goes away.  I have lots of ideas all the time, especially when I’m being productive, and so they’re always slipping away from me.  But then sometimes I’m able to set boundaries and tell the world to go to hell and start writing.  Getting started is by far the hardest part.  Once I get going, it usually just flows.  I’ve thought so much about it that it carries me along and it’s fairly final when it gets on the page.  Sometimes stories will require major restructuring, but usually not.  Novels on the other hand almost always need major rewrites. Which sucks.  I rewrite as I go too.  I always reread and edit through what I wrote the last couple of days before I start writing that day’s work.  It helps with continuity and also helps the work improve every day.  Once I have a complete draft, I put it aside and then reread it.  Okay, to be honest, I reread it obsessively until I can’t any more.  If I send it out, I reread it obsessively again.  You know how it is ~ you’re trying to see how other people see it.  Often, if I haven’t read something for a while, I get to thinking about how bad it is, but then when I reread it I go, “Hey, this isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was.” 

The Cool People I’m Tagging

Rusty Barnes is an appalachian writer and an editor of Night Train and Fried Chicken andCoffee, among many other things, and he is the author of the flash collections Breaking It Down and Mostly Redneck and the novel Reckoning.  I know from experience ~ he’s a great editor.

Patty Chang Anker is from NYC and is the author of Some Nerve: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave.  Her blog is Facing Forty Upside Down and her work has appeared in Psychology Today and O Magazine, among many other great places.  Oh, and she’s funny and a great Bread Loaf roommate.

C.D. Mitchell is a southern writer, the author of Alligator Stew and God’s Naked Will.  He grew up on a chicken farm and got his JD in law.  I love the influence of ghost stories in C.D.'s work.

Bonnie ZoBell Talks About Her Writing Process

I'm so honored to be part of a #MyWritingProcessTour, where writers talk about their work.  I don't know about you, but this fascinates me! Today, the fabulous Bonnie ZoBell is visiting here.  Before we get started, a little about Bonnie, and make sure to pre-order her great new collection, What Happened Here. 

Bonnie ZoBell lives in a casita in San Diego with her husband, dogs, cats, and many succulents. She is the author of What Happened Here and The Whack-Job Girls. She's a recipient of an NEA Fellowship and a notable story included in the storySouth Million Writers Award, among other awards, and her publications are numerous. Bonnie is one of those amazingly supportive writers with such subtle and moving work that I seek out every time I get a chance. If you don't know her, you should!   

Bonnie ZoBell: My Writing Process:  Blog Tour

Today I'm taking part in the #MyWritingProcessTour. It's so interesting and instructive to see how other writers go about their work. I was nominated by my friend, Susan Tepper, writer extraordinaire.  Be sure to get a copy of Susan's latest book, The Merrill Diaries, beautifully written and a thought-provoking romp through the U.S. and parts of Europe.

The awkward part about writing this blog post is that at the moment I don't have much of a writing process because besides teaching, I'm in the process of birthing my newest book, What Happened Here: a novella & stories. I'm doing everything I can to ease her passage into the world, making sure she's nurtured in every possible way, and giving her a good wholesome introduction with the hope people will be as good to her as they've been to me. At the moment, it's on pre-release and available only on my site, but she'll be officially launched on May 3^rd. What I'll do here is write about my process when I'm writing. I warn you: This process isn't entirely the healthiest for children and other living things, in other words younger writers. Don't show this to your students.

What am I working on?

I've gone back to an old novel, most recently called Animals Voices—which I worked on for many years—because I think I've finally figured out a solution to a problem I was having. The story starts out with some young kids, the boy very curious about the unusual girl, after he gets over her strangeness and the way all his friends make fun of her, because she can communicate with animals. They grow up and marry and he is diagnosed with AIDS in the early years. Communication is difficult when no one will acknowledge the disease, probably even more so than communicating with owls. Then I'm going to go back to another novel that I also spent years on called Bearded Women, about a woman who goes to an electrologist because she's hirsute. There are class issues between her and the electrologist, and it comes down to the main character needing to pluck other parts of her persona as well.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I'd call what I write literary fiction, though I'd like to write more magical realism. Oh, give me anything to read that contains beautiful language and a good story, and I'll devour it. Perhaps mine differs because of my love of setting. I'm thrilled going back to Animal Voices, getting the chance to revisit the southern part of Del Mar in San Diego, land filled with an estuary, all kinds of unique crawly life, and the magnificent Torrey Pine trees. These gnarled pines grow crooked because they're on the bluffs right above the ocean and therefore get a lot of strong winds. They'd be creepy if they weren't so beautiful.

I'm no minimalist, though I try to be as spare as I can. I like to think that sometimes I'm successful at writing beautiful, in-depth descriptions that let you see images in life in a unusual way without going overboard. 

I'm whimsical.

Why do I write what I do?

I write because I love language and because writing fiction helps me figure out the world. I'd be lost without it.

How does my writing process work?

This is the unhealthy part: I'm a binge writer. I can go for days, weeks, even a couple of years and do nothing but write. I ignore my husband and animals, my hair gets dirty, my bills don't get paid, and I wear clothes that should have been recycled some time ago if I get really passionate and possessed about what I'm writing. But it takes a toll. So after doing this for a while, it's hard to allow myself to go back there—there's so much deprivation. Unfortunately, the other side of it is that I can also go for a long time not writing at all. That's where I am right now while I promote and regroup from my collection. But I'm daydreaming about those Torrey Pine trees

Bonnie is tagging the lovely Myfanwy Collins, author of  Echolocation, I Am Holding Your Hand, and The Book of Laney, and James Claffey, author of Blood a Cold Blue, as well as myself.

I'll be posting my responses to these questions next Monday, and I'll let you know those writers I'm tagging.  Stay tuned!!