This has been the longest dry spell I've had---writing and blogging both--since I started my new writer's life in June. I was almost afraid that it would overtake me and really damage my journey. Then I was starting to feel depressed by it. But more and more I am trying to train myself to go with the flow--even these seeming "down" cycles. I read recently that even when things are off-kilter or don't seem to be going smoothly, we should just go with it. Valuable lessons could be lurking in these times of inconvenience, or darkness, or whatever they seem to be when we're not in the Pleasantville of everything going our way.
In this case, it was really a combination of a couple of different events, with a spurt of doing extra/background work for nearly 4 consecutive days. First, our friend visited from London for 10 days. We hadn't seen him in years, and it will probably be years before we see him again, so I felt no guilt about focusing on spending time with him. Then there was the background work, most of which was a great experience this particular time. Then we decided to make a big transformation in our apartment. This is key because it means I finally have a space at home---not quite the dream studio with an oceanview I aspire to, but I did a lot of meditative work and realized that I had to envision a space right now, right where I am. This not only demonstrates my gratitude for what I already have, but it's a show of faith that if I start incorporating the qualities I want in the space I have now, I will be open to further development.
The only problem is that it's meant a sort of domino effect for the rest of the apartment. Two big pieces of furniture moved out, but the rest got rearranged, something major in every room. Which means major cleaning and preparing more stuff for the Good Will or what have you--lots of work. There is still more to be done, but the major pieces are in place. And I forgot a third event---my 12th anniversary! So I've spent the last 4 days celerating with my husband. It was marvelous, and allowed me some reflective time too, so that by the time today rolled around, I decided I needed to dive right back in--the rest of the cleaning will have ot wait. And I have GOT to make fitness more of a priority! So in two hours I will break for a yoga class.
Part of why I feel OK about my so-called "lapse" is inspiration I got from John Steinbeck, which I will go into in my "On Steinbeck" series, probably 3 or 4 posts about visiting the Steinbeck Center in Salinas recently, and reading his work from a new perspective, and reading about him. But mainly it boils down to something I've been working on since I left my desk job in June--there needs to be a time for everything. When something comes up, even if it seems to be appearing as writer's block, or distractions, as writers we shouldn't be afraid to let ourselves investigate it. If we don't feel well, we should rest or take a day off. If we need a little recreation (in the form of a good friend visiting, or an anniversary weekend) this is actually an opportunity to refresh the creative spirit. True, it's good to at least keep up with a journal or stream of consciousness work, if not on a specific project. I'm still working on this aspect too. But I don't feel totally destroyed by missing some writing time. I didn't beat myself up or think that I've failed as a writer. I don't think of myself as starting over from day one to see how many days in a row I can write consistently. I consider myself as starting from the same point I left off with my novel and other projects, only enriched by the experiences I had with my friend and my husband---and well-rested for a change! Since writing is really what I consider my work now, it's no different than taking a vacation from a "regular" job when we need one. I'm also not afraid to do fun things on weekends like see movies or spend time finishing the knitting projects that litter my livingroom. All of these things are part of who I am, and are reflected in some way in my work as a writer--whether I am directly inspired, or just refreshed and able to approach my work as such.
So stay tuned for some Steinbeck in the next few days, and happy writing to all.
Blog Archive
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
An Infinite Equation
Today I feel a little like I did in my college calculus class. Not quite as good as when I got an "A" in that class, but very much like I did as I began to grasp not only that my teacher's intention was to have us learn the principle of how to solve problems rather then just to arrive at all of the correct answers, but that some problems don't really have a final correct answer--in other words, there are those equations can only get one closer and closer to an infinite number or solution. It's the part about getting closer and learning what principles are at work that's the real adventure not arriving at some cold "right" or "wrong".
Today I have approached more closely the basic life I want to lead. That balance I wrote about in another post that contains mostly writing, along with some exercise and fun and responsible stuff like preparing good and healthy food for me and for my husband, and keeping our dwelling from staging it's own coup and swallowing us whole. It also includes time for my favorite hobby, which is knitting, and fun stuff which could be anything from travel, to hiking, to going to the movies. One thing that has helped me is to realize that not everything on this list needs to happen every single day. Ideally, writing and exercising would, but if I have to pick one, it would obviously be writing. And if some wicked event conspires to keep me from doing even that, I try not to beat myself up.
But today has been pretty ideal. I got to sleep until I felt rested. I did morning yoga, ate lunch at home instead of eating out (not saying how healthy it was, but having gotten my kitchen in order, I feel good about actually going in there to prepare meals), I took care of some important errands, and I've been writing for the last few hours. In another hour or so, I'll head out for a fitness walk, then home to make dinner with hubby. I've got some laundry to do, and I think I'll try to make a little more progress on either my new story or a new script I've been tossing around.
I feel good about this day. It feels real, and balanced, and productive. Two things I think have been key for me--the first has to do with neatness and housekeeping. It sounds silly, but once I get a certain area of the house really cleaned up and organized, it makes me so happy and not frustrated, and not agitated, to keep it that way as I go along, putting stuff away after I use it, etc. It makes a huge difference in not feeling stressed about all the housework I'm slacking on to go and write, and I'm not depressed and weighed down when I'm at home. I used to hardly be able to wait to leave the house every day--I couldn't stand being in the chaos. Now I either really enjoy just being there, or it's a place I can look forward to coming back to if I've been working outside of the home.
And now I can't remember the second thing--but if I do, I'll come back and edit this post to include it!
Today I have approached more closely the basic life I want to lead. That balance I wrote about in another post that contains mostly writing, along with some exercise and fun and responsible stuff like preparing good and healthy food for me and for my husband, and keeping our dwelling from staging it's own coup and swallowing us whole. It also includes time for my favorite hobby, which is knitting, and fun stuff which could be anything from travel, to hiking, to going to the movies. One thing that has helped me is to realize that not everything on this list needs to happen every single day. Ideally, writing and exercising would, but if I have to pick one, it would obviously be writing. And if some wicked event conspires to keep me from doing even that, I try not to beat myself up.
But today has been pretty ideal. I got to sleep until I felt rested. I did morning yoga, ate lunch at home instead of eating out (not saying how healthy it was, but having gotten my kitchen in order, I feel good about actually going in there to prepare meals), I took care of some important errands, and I've been writing for the last few hours. In another hour or so, I'll head out for a fitness walk, then home to make dinner with hubby. I've got some laundry to do, and I think I'll try to make a little more progress on either my new story or a new script I've been tossing around.
I feel good about this day. It feels real, and balanced, and productive. Two things I think have been key for me--the first has to do with neatness and housekeeping. It sounds silly, but once I get a certain area of the house really cleaned up and organized, it makes me so happy and not frustrated, and not agitated, to keep it that way as I go along, putting stuff away after I use it, etc. It makes a huge difference in not feeling stressed about all the housework I'm slacking on to go and write, and I'm not depressed and weighed down when I'm at home. I used to hardly be able to wait to leave the house every day--I couldn't stand being in the chaos. Now I either really enjoy just being there, or it's a place I can look forward to coming back to if I've been working outside of the home.
And now I can't remember the second thing--but if I do, I'll come back and edit this post to include it!
The Things People Say
So here I am working on a new story. I'd actually started another one today, and was looking forward to making progress so I could put it up on Blue Agate, especially since it promises to be something alot more fun and whimsical compared to some of my other recent stories. But alas, I have the one fun thing that gave me the story idea, as a vehicle, but can't really pinpoint the characters and plot to build a story around it. It's kind of like seeing a beautiful artifact, and just looking at or being around it inspires you, so you want to write a story around it--but do you do the typical Indiana Jones thing, or just write about some old lady who lives on the Upper East side in Manhattan who has the thing and dies one day and her poodle hides it from her greedy children and they realize the dog is the key, and one of them tries to cajole it with raw hamburger and the other just wants to poison it, and the third wants to hire a pet psychic . . . You can see what is happening to me over this. I'm purposefully not saying what the major set piece is that made me want to write a story because I want it to be a surprise. I'm fairly certain I want there to be a little girl in the story, because this thing I want to write about made me feel very silly and carefree and clownish, not at all my age. But who the little girl is going to react with, and what exactly the story will be---well all that is escaping my imagination right now.
But then as I was writing an e-mail to my aunt, another story, which may actually be a novella by the time I get finished with it, popped into my head. I kept thinking and thinking about how I wanted it to start, and all I could think of was a conversation taking place between two of the characters. And I decided that's how I wanted to start it. So now I'm wondering what, if any other stories or novels or chapters of stories or novels begin with dialogue. I don't remember any of my teachers in the MFA progam I was in forbidding me to do it, and I actually think it's an interesting way to get things started--just like if you go to a movie or sit down to watch a tv show and the first thing you hear is a telephone conversation or the first thing you see is a split screen with people calling each other, or just one character talking on the phone. It sets things up for a "happening" of sorts--is the person trying to get more time to pay a bill? Calling to apologize to a lover after an argument? Calling an attorney to help them get out of trouble? Have they just answered the phone and been given news that a loved one was killed in an accident or discovered that it's a dear friend calling who they haven't talked to in years?
I've dedcided I'm a fan of this "device", although I certainly don't intend to overuse it--maybe I'll never use it again after this story.
Anyone else out there care to chime in?
But then as I was writing an e-mail to my aunt, another story, which may actually be a novella by the time I get finished with it, popped into my head. I kept thinking and thinking about how I wanted it to start, and all I could think of was a conversation taking place between two of the characters. And I decided that's how I wanted to start it. So now I'm wondering what, if any other stories or novels or chapters of stories or novels begin with dialogue. I don't remember any of my teachers in the MFA progam I was in forbidding me to do it, and I actually think it's an interesting way to get things started--just like if you go to a movie or sit down to watch a tv show and the first thing you hear is a telephone conversation or the first thing you see is a split screen with people calling each other, or just one character talking on the phone. It sets things up for a "happening" of sorts--is the person trying to get more time to pay a bill? Calling to apologize to a lover after an argument? Calling an attorney to help them get out of trouble? Have they just answered the phone and been given news that a loved one was killed in an accident or discovered that it's a dear friend calling who they haven't talked to in years?
I've dedcided I'm a fan of this "device", although I certainly don't intend to overuse it--maybe I'll never use it again after this story.
Anyone else out there care to chime in?
Friday, July 10, 2009
Speaking the Truth
Back when I was working on my MFA (I decided that, for now anyway, I don't need a degree--I just need to write!) I had decided that my thesis would be on using dialect in dialogue--whether or not it hinders the reader, or adds authenticity to the story. I started by contrasting works like Uncle Tom's Cabin and Huckleberry Finn for instance. Stowe's writing seemed to capture the authenticity of her slave characters, and no two of them "sounded" the same. Whereas I felt that Twain's use of dialect for his black characters made them far too stereotypical, and I found it difficult to know them as individuals.
Even though I abandoned the MFA program, and was frankly quite glad not to have to write the paper and present it to the review board for that program, I found myself revisiting the question a few months ago as I began to restructure the novel I've been working on, and again this past week as I revised another story. I had chosen the topic originally because it really was the only sort of academic topic that had any meaning to me as a woman of color.
In both the cases of the novel and the short story, the main characters are black. I had been forcing voices onto them that ended up being so pronounced in my effort for them to seem real, that they were almost caricatures. In the short story, there is a character who largely represents my father in real life--but I was trying so hard to mask him, that he wasn't like any real black man I'd ever met or talked to. Just a string of cliched phrases made up his dialogue and actions.
So this topic is still important to me, along with other questions--will I be accepted by the black literary community if I write any pieces that are only about white people? In other words, can I claim success as a black American author and market myself as such if my characters aren't black? I think others will agree that the black experience is as vast, varied and individual as the entire world population. There is no one right black experience. So I am becoming more comfortable as an author with my own narrative voice, the subjects I choose to write about, and the characters in my work.
Ethnicity aside, I wonder how authors build authentic characters and "realistic" stories.
Even though I abandoned the MFA program, and was frankly quite glad not to have to write the paper and present it to the review board for that program, I found myself revisiting the question a few months ago as I began to restructure the novel I've been working on, and again this past week as I revised another story. I had chosen the topic originally because it really was the only sort of academic topic that had any meaning to me as a woman of color.
In both the cases of the novel and the short story, the main characters are black. I had been forcing voices onto them that ended up being so pronounced in my effort for them to seem real, that they were almost caricatures. In the short story, there is a character who largely represents my father in real life--but I was trying so hard to mask him, that he wasn't like any real black man I'd ever met or talked to. Just a string of cliched phrases made up his dialogue and actions.
So this topic is still important to me, along with other questions--will I be accepted by the black literary community if I write any pieces that are only about white people? In other words, can I claim success as a black American author and market myself as such if my characters aren't black? I think others will agree that the black experience is as vast, varied and individual as the entire world population. There is no one right black experience. So I am becoming more comfortable as an author with my own narrative voice, the subjects I choose to write about, and the characters in my work.
Ethnicity aside, I wonder how authors build authentic characters and "realistic" stories.
Coming Out of the Writer's Closet
Now before you readers get all up in arms, I don't pretend to know what it's like to be a gay individual coming out of the closet to your loved ones. I only know what I've been told secondhand. Still, when I think of what it's been like over the last few weeks to have finally staked out my life as a writer, and all of the disapproval, doubt and skepticism I've faced over so many years, it's the closest analogy I can think of that describes what I've been feeling. So no, I don't pretend to know what it's really like in one sense, but for me, it really has been a little more than nerve wracking to finally declare that while I have a loose structure for earning income, I'm really almost totally focused on writing at last.
I won't bore everyone with my Psychology 101 account of how I wasn't supported in childhood (although I think I spoke about it in a recent blog), or all of the sidetracking and distractions I've experienced over the last several years.
What I really wanted to say in this entry is that my "coming out" or "coming clean" or finally telling my loved ones that I left my steady corporate job over a month ago, actually went much better than I thought it would. I'm convinced it's because I'm finally in a place where I feel good about it instead of waiting for permission or approval. Although the lingering hope that my loved ones would give me their stamp of approval and the fear that they wouldn't is what made me so anxious about telling everyone.
I gradually let the cat out of the bag, first with a few friends, then with my mom, who left a message on my cell phone saying she didn't think she had the right work number for me any more. Then I told my in-laws, and finally my knitting group. There were just a few comments which I don't even consider to be aggressive or negative--like how courageous I am, or how there will probably be a period of adjustment. Only one person asked me how much money I am making doing background TV and film work for income. The best surprise of all were my husbands relatives, technically cousins, but more like aunt and uncle because they are our parents' age---who have always been supremely supportive of their kids, one of whom is a documentary filmmaker, and another a writer, and another a singer/performer. Even Becky, the mother, is a performer, and when I told them, they thanked me for sharing my momentous decision with them and Becky said that she had made several returns to her performing life along the way as she tried to balance raising 6 kids. It made me feel so good.
But even though I feel a certain relief that I'm not living this secretive existence any more, it's still a daily pep talk to myself that I'm doing the right thing, that I'm finally living or at least approaching the life I always wanted. And I have the moments of supreme joy, like finishing my play, or finishing anything, and really feeling good when a story starts to flow the way I want it to when I can feel the words flowing and I know it's good.
I've started the journey--now I need to do a lot of inner work on the issues of non-support from loved ones and feeling like I've wasted so many years. But the good part is, I know I'll never go backwards now that I've started.
I won't bore everyone with my Psychology 101 account of how I wasn't supported in childhood (although I think I spoke about it in a recent blog), or all of the sidetracking and distractions I've experienced over the last several years.
What I really wanted to say in this entry is that my "coming out" or "coming clean" or finally telling my loved ones that I left my steady corporate job over a month ago, actually went much better than I thought it would. I'm convinced it's because I'm finally in a place where I feel good about it instead of waiting for permission or approval. Although the lingering hope that my loved ones would give me their stamp of approval and the fear that they wouldn't is what made me so anxious about telling everyone.
I gradually let the cat out of the bag, first with a few friends, then with my mom, who left a message on my cell phone saying she didn't think she had the right work number for me any more. Then I told my in-laws, and finally my knitting group. There were just a few comments which I don't even consider to be aggressive or negative--like how courageous I am, or how there will probably be a period of adjustment. Only one person asked me how much money I am making doing background TV and film work for income. The best surprise of all were my husbands relatives, technically cousins, but more like aunt and uncle because they are our parents' age---who have always been supremely supportive of their kids, one of whom is a documentary filmmaker, and another a writer, and another a singer/performer. Even Becky, the mother, is a performer, and when I told them, they thanked me for sharing my momentous decision with them and Becky said that she had made several returns to her performing life along the way as she tried to balance raising 6 kids. It made me feel so good.
But even though I feel a certain relief that I'm not living this secretive existence any more, it's still a daily pep talk to myself that I'm doing the right thing, that I'm finally living or at least approaching the life I always wanted. And I have the moments of supreme joy, like finishing my play, or finishing anything, and really feeling good when a story starts to flow the way I want it to when I can feel the words flowing and I know it's good.
I've started the journey--now I need to do a lot of inner work on the issues of non-support from loved ones and feeling like I've wasted so many years. But the good part is, I know I'll never go backwards now that I've started.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Notebooks
Nicholas Sparks apparently only needs one notebook--the one in his novel of the same title--the one in which his main character chronicles the love story of he and his wife so that he can read it to her at the end of her life as she battles Alzheimer's. Touching isn't it? Lucky bastard (the husband, not Nicholas Sparks). As a writer, I've never been able to survive with just one notebook. Ever. The same way I've never been able to carry a purse that isn't big enough to stuff a toddler into. I just can't. I've tried. But I start to panic and think I'll need all the stuff I've left behind just to have this teeny tiny bag, which usually only has my glasses case and my credit card because it won't handle my giant wallet. I digress.
So for the past two weeks, when I haven't been otherwise occupied, I get up in the morning and traipse off to Borders with my purse and Bag O Writing stuff--which includes my netbook and its accoutrements, several pens, any reference materials---and at least three notebooks. OK, there's my general diary. Then there's a notebook in which I can just jot ideas or freewrite in. Then for any larger projects, like my play or my novel or a specific story, they would each have their own notebook and I would have brought with me any of those I felt inspired to work on that day. My process (in general) is that I compose longhand, and I consider my first revision to happen when I type it into the computer. Although, with my play, once I started typing it in, I changed so much, that I hardly referred to my written draft at all--but the foundation was still in my mind.
I can't help myself. I love pens. I love journals and composition books and spiral notebooks. Part of the reason I think I liked school so much as a kid is because at least until I got to high school, there was so much writing (as opposed to using computers for everything). I mean come on, who doesn't remember their Trapper Keeper? Compartments, and sections and folders, Oh my! And getting back to purses, the more pockets, the more I love them.
If I see a beautiful journal or notebook, I'll buy it, and it will be ready for me the next time I fill one and need to start a new one. Sometimes I just get bored with the one I'm writing in and start a new one anyway.
Suffice it to say, one will never be enough for me, when it comes to notebooks. I wonder how many Nicholas Sparks has going at any given time?
So for the past two weeks, when I haven't been otherwise occupied, I get up in the morning and traipse off to Borders with my purse and Bag O Writing stuff--which includes my netbook and its accoutrements, several pens, any reference materials---and at least three notebooks. OK, there's my general diary. Then there's a notebook in which I can just jot ideas or freewrite in. Then for any larger projects, like my play or my novel or a specific story, they would each have their own notebook and I would have brought with me any of those I felt inspired to work on that day. My process (in general) is that I compose longhand, and I consider my first revision to happen when I type it into the computer. Although, with my play, once I started typing it in, I changed so much, that I hardly referred to my written draft at all--but the foundation was still in my mind.
I can't help myself. I love pens. I love journals and composition books and spiral notebooks. Part of the reason I think I liked school so much as a kid is because at least until I got to high school, there was so much writing (as opposed to using computers for everything). I mean come on, who doesn't remember their Trapper Keeper? Compartments, and sections and folders, Oh my! And getting back to purses, the more pockets, the more I love them.
If I see a beautiful journal or notebook, I'll buy it, and it will be ready for me the next time I fill one and need to start a new one. Sometimes I just get bored with the one I'm writing in and start a new one anyway.
Suffice it to say, one will never be enough for me, when it comes to notebooks. I wonder how many Nicholas Sparks has going at any given time?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Strange Days
I just want to give a fair warning, this post may be more like a journal entry than most. Feel free to skip it if it gets too touchy-feely for you.
I've felt this sort of weight on my since last night. Never mind the usual pull of inertia as I try to exercise daily discipline. I know that, just like working out, this will get easier to fight off the more I get into my routine. But this was something else. Old voices haunting me. Now that I'm into my new writer's life, ghosts of disapprovers past raised their howling voices again. In a way I feel more equipped to deal with them now that I've taken some real and important steps for myself. In another way, I wonder why I just can't seem to let go of these haints forever.
Two specific memories popped up. One of my first feature article coming out in an international daily newspaper, me telling my dad about it, and him just never going out to get a copy of the newspaper. Eventually I sent him a copy, but to this day I wonder whether or not he ever read it. The second is of a woman who was almost like a mother to me (and don't get me started on my own mother's criticism of my poetry) saying "well I guess you must be writing SOMETHING in all of those little notebooks of yours." These are followed closely by more unpleasant memories--my dad trying to force me into computer science at college, and grudgingly accepting journalism as an acceptable consolation prize instead of a full-blown return on his investment in my college education. Also of Iris (that was her name) telling me that people like she and my dad (i.e. business professionals) would never understand my creative desires. Both are dead now, but I am stuck with a question I want to scream at them--I know Iris at least loved movies and books, so did she, did either of them really think that the writing of these was for the select few? Did they think I just wasn't smart enough, talented enough to beat the odds? I think this ties into my present fear of telling my mom and in-laws that I have in fact left my 50+ hour a week job to finally become a writer. Iris's remark still hurts, as does the memory of my dad's lack of enthusiasm and support for my article. He expressed the same dull interest in the next two articles I published as well. At least in my dad's case, I know he abandoned his talent for art. His girlfriend (another soap opera for another blog entirely) told me that he told her he'd never pick up his drawing pencils again. I ended up giving a good deal of his art supplies to a guy in NJ that was really grateful to have and use them. I still keep a handfull of his pencils--I've taken them to every Joe job I've ever had. I can't draw worth a darn, but it comforts me to have them near. Once I finally get my writing studio together, I will put them into a pencil cup once again. I don't write in pencil, even when I'm composing longhand, so they'll never be used, but they will be there, as a reminder of the art he let go, and the one I'm finally grasping onto for dear life. So, at least in his case, maybe his inability to be supportive of me stems from his own guilt and sadness at letting his art die. As for Iris, I can't say. So if any of you writers and artists out there have encouragement, I'd love to hear it. I know I just need to give this up. My mom is starting to come around--she's excited about my children's book. But I'll never get approval from my dad and Iris, mostly because they're dead. And I may never have gotten it if they had lived to see me become me.
Moving on, I'm experiencing something interesting which may help me as I continue to learn script writing. After a couple of unsuccessful classes, I am taking my friend's advice just to write, and then share it with people I trust. I recently started a treatment for a comedic web series, which I felt would be a better format for the idea I originally tried to make a romantic comedy out of. As I'm writing along, I realize that I've allowed myself to be more, well, "me" on the page--more conversational, quirky, funny. Not so worried about form, especially for a treatment. I want whoever reads it to laugh, and be interested. I'd never done this before, and it's really freeing. To a certain degree, I'm willing to follow my own rules.
I'm blaming June gloom on my sleepiness and struggle to stay focused, although I did perk up this afternoon and get some real work done. I think I can look back and feel good about this week. I booked my first gig as an extra on a film set (my new source of income, since I can take my laptop and continue to write while I have hours of down time on a set), got some great resources including a photographer for a decent head shot, for which I have an appointment on Monday, through a contact I met when I was registering a casting agency, and a pretty decent amount of work done on both my play and this treatment.
I'm also spending a few minutes each day doing this guided journal called 40 days and 40 nights, which was given to me by a co-worker on my last day at the office. I thought it would be a good time to start it. I'm also doing fairly well with yoga, decent food, and vitamins, but my fitness needs improving. Off to do the journal now, then to Target for a couple of things I need for my outfit for the shoot tomorrow, then to knitting group!
I've felt this sort of weight on my since last night. Never mind the usual pull of inertia as I try to exercise daily discipline. I know that, just like working out, this will get easier to fight off the more I get into my routine. But this was something else. Old voices haunting me. Now that I'm into my new writer's life, ghosts of disapprovers past raised their howling voices again. In a way I feel more equipped to deal with them now that I've taken some real and important steps for myself. In another way, I wonder why I just can't seem to let go of these haints forever.
Two specific memories popped up. One of my first feature article coming out in an international daily newspaper, me telling my dad about it, and him just never going out to get a copy of the newspaper. Eventually I sent him a copy, but to this day I wonder whether or not he ever read it. The second is of a woman who was almost like a mother to me (and don't get me started on my own mother's criticism of my poetry) saying "well I guess you must be writing SOMETHING in all of those little notebooks of yours." These are followed closely by more unpleasant memories--my dad trying to force me into computer science at college, and grudgingly accepting journalism as an acceptable consolation prize instead of a full-blown return on his investment in my college education. Also of Iris (that was her name) telling me that people like she and my dad (i.e. business professionals) would never understand my creative desires. Both are dead now, but I am stuck with a question I want to scream at them--I know Iris at least loved movies and books, so did she, did either of them really think that the writing of these was for the select few? Did they think I just wasn't smart enough, talented enough to beat the odds? I think this ties into my present fear of telling my mom and in-laws that I have in fact left my 50+ hour a week job to finally become a writer. Iris's remark still hurts, as does the memory of my dad's lack of enthusiasm and support for my article. He expressed the same dull interest in the next two articles I published as well. At least in my dad's case, I know he abandoned his talent for art. His girlfriend (another soap opera for another blog entirely) told me that he told her he'd never pick up his drawing pencils again. I ended up giving a good deal of his art supplies to a guy in NJ that was really grateful to have and use them. I still keep a handfull of his pencils--I've taken them to every Joe job I've ever had. I can't draw worth a darn, but it comforts me to have them near. Once I finally get my writing studio together, I will put them into a pencil cup once again. I don't write in pencil, even when I'm composing longhand, so they'll never be used, but they will be there, as a reminder of the art he let go, and the one I'm finally grasping onto for dear life. So, at least in his case, maybe his inability to be supportive of me stems from his own guilt and sadness at letting his art die. As for Iris, I can't say. So if any of you writers and artists out there have encouragement, I'd love to hear it. I know I just need to give this up. My mom is starting to come around--she's excited about my children's book. But I'll never get approval from my dad and Iris, mostly because they're dead. And I may never have gotten it if they had lived to see me become me.
Moving on, I'm experiencing something interesting which may help me as I continue to learn script writing. After a couple of unsuccessful classes, I am taking my friend's advice just to write, and then share it with people I trust. I recently started a treatment for a comedic web series, which I felt would be a better format for the idea I originally tried to make a romantic comedy out of. As I'm writing along, I realize that I've allowed myself to be more, well, "me" on the page--more conversational, quirky, funny. Not so worried about form, especially for a treatment. I want whoever reads it to laugh, and be interested. I'd never done this before, and it's really freeing. To a certain degree, I'm willing to follow my own rules.
I'm blaming June gloom on my sleepiness and struggle to stay focused, although I did perk up this afternoon and get some real work done. I think I can look back and feel good about this week. I booked my first gig as an extra on a film set (my new source of income, since I can take my laptop and continue to write while I have hours of down time on a set), got some great resources including a photographer for a decent head shot, for which I have an appointment on Monday, through a contact I met when I was registering a casting agency, and a pretty decent amount of work done on both my play and this treatment.
I'm also spending a few minutes each day doing this guided journal called 40 days and 40 nights, which was given to me by a co-worker on my last day at the office. I thought it would be a good time to start it. I'm also doing fairly well with yoga, decent food, and vitamins, but my fitness needs improving. Off to do the journal now, then to Target for a couple of things I need for my outfit for the shoot tomorrow, then to knitting group!
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