Tag Archives: not writing

The post-conference slump


lacking_focus_koteckiI am a terrible person. I go to these writing conferences  (Iceland…..) and come home, alight with the possibilities in writing, and then I find myself committing acts of extreme procrastination so I don’t have to actually get down to it.

And yet, the conference makes me feel like I NEED to be writing. Ergo: guilt – that floating misery underneath the skin of every properly-raised Roman Catholic gal. And grumpiness from feeling guilty. And restlessness.

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So I needle-felt some animals, do some embroidery, met up with friends I haven’t seen in ages, and even caught a horrible cold that has laid me low for the *(^^*)*^ 2nd time this winter and rendered me voiceless and dizzy. Hard to think with all that going on. I’ve even resorted to knitting socks. I don’t even know HOW to knit socks.

images-2And I volunteered for a facebook list on MS that is so incredibly busy I had to opt out again almost immediately, booked a cottage for June (ostensibly to write), plus volunteered for a festival where I have to camp and take tickets and such. It will be exhausting and fun and I’m looking forward to it – but it all isn’t writing.

Though, every experience gives me a character….And every character has a story…and I read things about strange little historical items like the hospital for the poor and ill nearby that saw so many deaths and has a tiny graveyard lost beside it. It calls for a story, a tale about the inhabitants, those with MS, MD, acquired illnesses…

But I have to finish what I have started, first. Like a magpie, my eye spins to sparkly new things, wants me to shift focus.

cough-till-lung-is-outOr maybe that’s just the ^#&$)Q^ coughing.

I’ve got to focus more, put my head in the game. Now that I’ve paid my taxes (a horrible weight on my soul since I owed), and organized my budget, got through the first days of the cold from hell, I should be able to push my head into writing. I can split my day, write half, felt half. Maybe I can even finish the socks. Need to stick my head into the bridle and pull forward.

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Thats it, I’m done.


pallas-cat-manul-6__880I can’t do it anymore. I took a break, I tried again, I hated every minute. 

I’ve spent I don’t know how many dollars and hours taking writing courses over the years. I took them to learn the trade, to force the inspiration, to try to get closer to some real, for life publication. 

I’ve been published, for short things. I’ve won a prize or two. For short things. I’ve entered contests and placed. Again, for short things. I like the thrill of the dash, the lack of dreadful other stuff – the synopsis, the pleading cover letter, the explanation of WHY YOU ARE THE BEST PERSON to write this particular thing…all of that hangs over my head like a dead albatross, frozen, on a stick. I can’t face it. It is a powerful disincentive to write.

But that’s an excuse, really. The thing is, I’m missing the feeling in writing lately – that wonderful flow. You writers out there know what it’s like. It feels like walking with the gods, hand in hand with a muse. I laugh out loud when that happens, such is my joy.

I remember writing my first three day novel and laughing throughout. It was such FUN! My character took off and I raced behind her with my keyboard, trying to keep up.

There is such intense joy in such moments that it is impossible to continue when they aren’t there.

So I’ve talked with myself. I’ve bargained with myself. I know I can write, it’s not a self-confidence thing, I’m not depressed. I simply don’t want to. The world suddenly feels full of books to read and I think to myself there is no need to add mine to the pile – there are much more persistent sorts than me out there, people who will push, who need to push. 

I did all of that, in my work and in my parenting. I worked hard hard hard. I ended up disgracing myself with a breakdown caused by MS. I parented hard hard hard I played hard, too) – loved those three creatures with every cell in my being, and, well, they grow up. I exercised my way through bilateral knee replacements with MS to a recovery my own doctor finds amazing. I needle felted over 40 animals in the space of a month to raise money for MS.

So I know I can work hard. But I also know my time is more limited now. MS lurks in the shadows. To keep it at bay, I have to exercise every day. I have to rest, every day.

And in the remaining hours, I want to feel that joy, that flow. I find it when I am creating with my hands – building creatures, hooking rugs, constructing things, brewing beer, making bread, throwing pots, tactile things. Perhaps my MS brain has shifted me out of the word side, has pushed me into touch-based creations.

I remember going on a date with a fellow once – we went to Westport, ON, and as we walked along, I ran my hands along the stone buildings, feeling their texture. He wondered why. I couldn’t explain, but it was the same temptation that made me want to run my hands over his shoulders – he was a professional hammer thrower and his shoulders felt like warm granite, bulked with muscle I’d never before felt.

So I’m leaving the darkened corners of my head, that place where writing lurks and refuses to come out and play, and heading into the tactile light. 

Don’t be alarmed if I touch you.
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So, about that being a writer….


from:http://writerscircle.com/2013/09/writing-perspectives-so-you-want-to-be-a-writer.html

So You Want to Be a Writer
By Charles Bukowski

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

Fallow fields


Tis the winter of my not writing…but for a change, it feels more like a resting field than a concrete parking lot.

I can feel the life under the surface, the worms and bugs and roots and earth, cold now, but resting, not dead. As in winter garden, there are still twigs standing, bits of last years’ life, shrouded with snow now and hoarfrost. They show me where the growth will start in spring, they direct my attention.

My writing field needed a rest. Sometimes personal and physical challenges are too much, and require a retreat from writing. I’ve focused on non-verbal creativity, and it’s been a welcome break. I figure it will be another month or so before the fields start to warm, begin to break into greenery.

The writing isn’t really an option. It will sprout when it needs to, as it always has in my life. I’m not sure about what will sprout this year – I know I’ll want to tend my perennials, but the big thrill is always the surprising plant that has blown in from somewhere, the one that calls the eye, makes the heart race.

I’m already scanning for tendrils….maybe a snowdrop will make an appearance….

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The pettiness of the long-distance writer…


Oh, I’m so fed up. With myself, with my not-writing, with this foolishness that I assign myself only to fail.

I find myself avoiding reading reviews of new books because the bitterness of “I shoulda been a images-11” is so strong, though I know full well I don’t have the stick-to-itiveness to finish my writing projects. I read about award winners and hiss inwardly through my teeth, begrudging other writers their moment in the sun, chewing on the regurgitated bile of my not quite able to pull it together dreams.

It’s bloody sickening. Originally, when I felt this feeling coming on, I decided to give myself a three-month writing fast, just so I could ENJOY reading again, stop doing the back-seat driving thing, just enjoy the road, wallow in others gift. And then I found myself signing up for things, giving myself deadlines that I could fight against again, setting myself up to fail and getting angrier at myself all the time.

Yesterday, I gave in. I spent the day playing with felt, hooking rugs, practicing my ukulele. In the evening I dipped my reading toes into the unexpectedly and thrillingly charming “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”. I laughed, I found myself in a local Chapters store reading silly joke books and crafting books and just plain enjoying myself. It was a great day.

And no writing.

I think I may have to do it again.

Time to get fierce with myself…


I’ve always believed in the clever Ashleigh Brilliant’s comment that “wasting time is an important part of living”.
Some would say I have taken this as my life credo.
However, I am usually too busy having fun to listen to these people. Doing what? Well, I’ve taught myself to knit, I can take a ball of wool,fluff and poke it with a needle until it resembles a smallish animal, I can hook rugs, bake ginger cookies, spend hours of time on Facebook (all for book promotion purposes, the Facebook stuff, which is why I play Criminal Case by the hour. I am practising for my mystery writing!) I practice ukulele like I am working towards a symphonic career.
I have a friend who needs a lift often to go places. On a day when I might be writing, I call her up, ask he how she’s doing, secretly hoping there’s a drive needed someplace, any place. Friendships are important, too, right?
And now I’ve decided to move, which has given me mountains of tasks to complete. “I need a move” I rationalize. “I need a new view, a better place, an office.”
The thing is, though, I have at least three writing projects that are in various stages of completion that I believe in, that need to be set out into the world. They are getting annoyed.
My muse is positively stomping around my apartment , knocking over packing boxes in fits of fury, and I’m starting to get that writing anxiety building up. You know the feeling, right? That gradually building bubble like a ball of gas that begs for release (though perhaps, as one author said, this is why no one should write in public). I know my fingers and brain are being primed by the need to pack and tidy but it’s almost been too long. I could explode with verbiage at any moment, start using words like verbiage, you know. Excrete words. It’s not pretty. People who have received my emails at such times are still recovering, writhing on the ground, clutching their eyes, moaning, “too many words, too many words,” like the actor in the Compleat Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged. It’s a dangerous time.
But life and pseudo-connection calls. So I am being fierce with myself, booking two weeks in June in a cottage with a view of the sea and no Internet and just me and my writing and the blissful silence of life. I’ll probably go crazy and end up dusting the place or whatever, but it’ll be me and the muse, hanging out, working out a few things.
One of us will come back, emptied and with piles of pages.
I hope it’s me.

Nanowriwon’t, or how my life conspires to prevent me from writing…


Okay, it’s morning. I’m awake, perky, eager for the writing demons to take over my head and heart and fingertips and maybe even help me type without the need for constant correction. It works best if I don’t look at what I’m typing, so I can’t see the wiggly red lines under everything. Why, oh why, didn’t my mother let me take touch-typing when I was at school??? She said, “No, daughter mine, that WILL NOT DO. You will end up being a secretary and I won’t have it.” So untrue. She should have realized by then that she was the only person I would ever take orders from. Sometimes I even ignored her. Not often, though. She was ferocious.

Still and all, I miss the touch-typing skills. By the time I decided I needed to learn it, I’d already developed my three fingers and thumb method and that, my friends, is impossibly hard to retrain.

So up I spring, joyous, ready. But wait. What sound through yonder door breaks? Tis the dog, and his walk must begin. Well, fair enough. I can’t expect to have him cross his legs until I finish the novel, tentatively titled “Stigmata”.

Of course that’s a working title. Of course I know there have been other books and movies and such already written, viewed and trashed with that title. But it’s a good short form for the story I plan to write. I already have the visual. I need a visual to start a story. It’s my method.

But first, the walk.

We meet everyone today, which means the walk is punctuated with pauses to allow said dog to smell other dogs in areas I avert my glance from, plus the usual inanities of conversation over a pooping dog, which of necessity are distracting and yet not so much so that you lose the location of the poop, which you must them carefully enclose in a bag for disposal. Perish the thought you leave a bit behind. And heaven forbid the dog urinate on the condo’s lawn, as hordes of shrieking aged ladies will drive by in their Lincoln Continentals and throw tissues at you (used) from their sleeves and say such ridiculous things as, “We prefer they don’t,” nose wrinkle, “urinate on the lawns.”

It’s tougher than it looks, this dog walking routine. But finally we are done and I tell myself, well, that was a good thing. The air is fresh, it was good to get out and around as now my brain is freshly aired and ready, yes ripe for the task.

I turn on the computer.

There’s a whine at my feet.

Ah, yes, dog needs feeding. So off I go again, scraping something into the dog’s bowl that looks suspiciously like the stuff I just picked up in my precious bag. He ignores it. He wants the milk from my cereal, which of course requires that I pause to have some cereal. All good, I think. A brain needs carbohydrates to work. I eat, and look wistfully at the coffee pot. Ah, the heck with it, I argue. Caffeine is a writer’s best friend. I make a pot, which requires some hovering because I have foolishly become attached to a Bodum and must wait and stir the coffee grounds with a special spoon until it is perfectly dark and then push down the handle just so before I can drink it. I’ve even knitted a coffee cozy to keep the Bodum warm. That was on another day I was going to write. It’s brown and I haven’t sewn the buttons on it yet, but not today, I tell myself firmly. Today I write.

Back to the desk, and I open my email, just to check for emergency notices which I am sure to get because my life is very very important and if I don’t check and respond to email (well, and Facebook) right now the entire earth will be suspended in space and time.

So now it’s noon.

The dog needs to pee again and is lounging around with a chew toy in his mouth looking at me like I am the most horribly neglectful pet parent the world has ever created. At some point in my wasted morning (though I did have a good conversation with my sister on Google chat and we sorted out some things about siblings and travels and stuff), he’s eaten his food and licked the bowl absolutely clean, and then gone rummaging in my yarn for a treat I unwisely laid under it last night.

I detangle.

We walk.

It’s lunch, so I eat.

It’s two o’clock and I’m feeling a bit sleepy. Perhaps if I take a nap, I’ll be much more able to write later in the day. I’m always best in the evenings, I tell myself. I work quickly then, feeling the panic of an unused day leaning on me.

But I suddenly realize – other than the walk, I haven’t exercised.

We all know how important regular exercise is to the body, and to the mind. I’d better get in a few moments on the bike before I get started. I wipe off the dust and sit in place. Hmm. Need a book to read while I cycle. Go get Kobo, wait for it to wake up, start reading Lawrence Block’s “Spider, Spin me a Web”. It’s almost the same thing as writing, reading about writing, right?

I do my fifteen minutes, arguing that I’ve walked at least fifteen and have met my required “thirty minutes a day or die” requirement.

I smell bad.

I skipped a shower this morning, as I was so keen to get writing this morning. Now I can barely stand myself. My hair itches.

And I know I’ll be more awake if I have a shower. Isn’t everyone?

It’s now six pm.

The dog is looking at me with a lean and hungry look. I go to feed him again. He ignores it. He would prefer my dinner leftovers, but I’ve decided in the interest of actually getting something, anything written, I am going to skip dinner and just drink wine. Antioxidants, right? I might have a carrot or two later. I need to lose weight anyway.

The image of food is dancing through my head. At least I think it is food. The wine has made me a bit muzzy. I watch a few videos on YouTube while I sober up.

I have never been so hungry. I want beef, and lots of it. I happen to have some stew made up in the fridge, but since I abhor microwaves, I have to heat it up on the stove. Which requires some hovering, since it sticks to the pot as I have so frequently burned things in it.

And of course I must have more wine.

I eat. The dog licks the plate. We are both happy.

There was something I was going to do, but I have no idea what it was.

Never mind. Tomorrow I will rise with the sun and leap into writing, fresh and vibrant and alive.