How To Be A Writer.5

Inspiration

Don’t mind me. I’m just sitting here waiting for inspiration to strike so I can get on with it. I’m also waiting for a chocolate cake to materialize in front of me. There’s about as much chance of that happening so I might as well.

While I’m at it, the waiting part, I shall also be waiting patiently for some magical weight loss, and maybe some cookies.

Occasionally I am struck by inspiration, but it’s usually at an inconvenient time. Inspiration that strikes when I’m driving isn’t all that useful, because if I stop the car and start writing I won’t get to my destination, which means I’ll probably be late for something. If I’m working on a spreadsheet and inspiration tells me to write a short story about numbers, chances are I’ll make myself continue on the spreadsheet, because that’s what we call paying work, and it keeps a roof over my head.

Inspiration is tricky. I have heard people say they’re waiting for it, as if it’s a train that’ll roll into the station at exactly 4:05 pm, unless it’s running late, in which case we’ll get impatient and curse the damn thing for not being there when we want it.

Maybe it is, for some people. Maybe they can only write when inspired. For me, inspiration is a nuisance, because it often comes when I’m traveling, or when I’m doing something else, and by the time I can get a piece of paper and a pen, or a pencil, or my iPad, or my phone, if I’m that desperate, or my laptop, it’s already started to fade away, like a vampire on a sunny morning.

Sorry about the vampire reference, but now that they’re not the hottest thing around I like to mention them.

Or are they? I don’t know. I’ve been too busy trying to find my inspiration to have a clue.

Inspiration, if you’re counting on it to get anything done, and by anything done I mean, “get the book done,” is not the most effective method of doing the work. It involves a lot of waiting and little actual work. I have a habit of waiting for inspiration to strike, and while waiting I eat donuts.

I am now 450 pounds and have no words to report.

That’s not entirely true. I have a few words, and not that many pounds. And I can never find a donut when I want one anyway.

But if I were to wait for inspiration, that is what could happen. Most of my life I waited for inspiration, which explains my dismal output. Between the waiting and the fear of failure and my own expectations it’s a wonder I’ve done anything at all.

Here’s how to find inspiration: sit your butt down and write. Write instead of thinking about it. Write instead of waiting for inspiration. Write instead of reading about it. (Easy for me to say, from this perspective.)

Waiting for inspiration is about as useful as waiting for your fairy godmother to sprinkle glitter on you and make you pretty. And by you, I mean me, of course. Write without inspiration, and the inspiration may sneak in the back when you’re not looking. It may come in the dead of night, a slight whisper that you can barely hear. It may not come at all, because it doesn’t like to be controlled, and it doesn’t like to be summoned. So act like you don’t care about it. Do your writing without it, and perhaps inspiration will start trying to get your attention, like that boy in high school who didn’t like you at all until you started ignoring him, and then he became a pretty good stalker.

Not that you want inspiration stalking you, though it would be a better stalker than the boy from high school. Don’t count on it, don’t let it rule your work, and don’t let it know that you care.

Of course you care, but act like you don’t.

Write without it, and let inspiration know you can take it or leave it, because you’ve got your own life to lead.

Just write.

How To Be A Writer.4

Writing Through the Pain

Everyone has experienced pain and heartbreak. Knowing this doesn’t help when it’s happening to you, of course, since we’re not part of a collective. We’re each sort of on our own here, and unfortunately we can’t ease another’s pain just because we’ve been through it. If we could, we would, but everyone has to go through their own pain. This part of being a person really sort of sucks.

I’ve heard people say it makes you stronger, pain and heartbreak, but I don’t know about that. Maybe we were that strong all along and just didn’t know it. People also say that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle, and that I will disagree with. I don’t know if there is a God, and if there is a God, handing out just as much pain as you can handle and no more, why are so many people having more pain than they can handle?

Perhaps that last sentence isn’t entirely clear, but I’ve seen many people with more pain than they can handle all the time. Suicides are up, depression and anxiety are up, people are having a hard time coping.

It’s the world right now, and as it ever was. And as it will be.

So how are we supposed to write when the pain is so present that it controls our mind? When we can only think of what we’ve lost, or how everything sucks so bad that there doesn’t seem to be any point to writing anything at all? When we’re so busy asking ourselves why we should continue, how we can write past that to keep going?

For some of us, writing is our passion. It’s what we do. It’s how we define ourselves. (When I’m not defining myself by the size of my jeans, or how much money I made this year, anyway.) We aren’t what we write, but we write because we have to. And sometimes what we need to write isn’t what we choose to write, nor is it anything we want to put our name on.

I have had to write obituaries after watching a body carted out of the house, after watching the loved one die. Stew and my mom both left me behind, dying right in front of me, and then I had to sit down and write the obits. One might think I could have done that before they died; it wasn’t as if their deaths were unexpected, and it’s not as if we couldn’t see it coming, but I couldn’t set it down on paper, or computer, before then. I just couldn’t.

So I sat in front of my laptop and I looked at the blank screen, still not wanting to believe that they had died, and hoping the whole thing was a nightmare.

I’d type out the name and the date. I’d put down key words. I’d think of who they had been, and the joy they’d given while they had been alive. Every word that came out was strained, and every word that made it onto paper was insufficient. But sometimes, if you can get those words out, no matter how insufficient and difficult, you then have something to work with, something you can rewrite and refine. You can have others read it, and comment. And when it’s done you’ll feel like you’ve scaled a mountain. Most likely because you have.

There is no easy way. Not that I’ve found, but if I do find one, I’ll let you know.

It’s not always death; there are many ways for us to be immersed in pain, so many ways for chaos to make itself an omnipotent presence in our lives. And still we have our stories to tell, still we need to force those words out of us and onto paper, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Sometimes it helps if we just write down what we’re feeling, why the chaos is there, and tell yourself, if no one else, about the pain.

This doesn’t mean you’re writing a masterpiece. It may mean you’re writing something you’ll discard later, or you may save it so you can remember, next time, what it was like. It does mean you’re giving voice to the chaos in your mind, whether it’s whispering or screaming (mine likes to talk in a high falsetto, as if it’s mocking me, which it is). For writers, this is a first step in letting it go. Or if not letting it go, because does it ever go all the way away? at least giving it less power over you. That’s what chaos seeks: power. And when it’s inside of you, mixed in with the pain, it has enormous power, and this power is being used for evil instead of good. When you put the words on paper, little bits of evil fall out with the words, and you can brush these little bits onto the floor and then sweep them up and throw them away.

Or have your housekeeper do it.

Keep writing out the pain until you can’t find any more words for it, or until you fall asleep, or until you get hungry, or until you get so sick of it you just want to move on and do something else. You may still have pain, but it will get better.

You may not be able to write past the pain, so you may have to write through it. Don’t let it get the best of you, because we want that part, and chaos has no use for it. Save the best for us, your readers, and let chaos take its pain and crawl into a corner and die, for all we care.

We have no use for it, and neither do you.

How to Be A Writer.3

Drop the ego. Easy for me to say, what with my gigantic ego. Sometimes me and my ego don’t fit in the same room together, so I park it another room, but it still screams at me from a distance. I’m a paradox – I know I’m a crappy person and a middling writer, but I’m fairly convinced that I’m a good writer. It’s a difficult spot to be in. (See this post (coincidentally) by Betsy Lerner, who knows more about how writers think than I ever will - Betsy Lerner's Blog)

The truth is, no matter how much you write and no matter how good you are, some people just don’t care. You may think you’re the best writer you know, and maybe you are, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep telling people that.

The reason I know this so well is because I tried that method and no one cared.

Some writers think that they don’t need editors. I am not one of them. I need an editor. I love my editor. Don’t blame her for my blog posts though – I don’t have those edited. I just write and post. But if someone is going to write a book, someone really needs an editor, and someone may need gasp! Rewrites!

Editing and rewrites to make your writing better means putting aside the ego, just a bit, and asking for help. A different perspective is vital for, because we often can’t see the forest for the trees. (I hate clichés.) We’re so used to seeing what we meant to be saying that when we look at what we’ve written that’s what we see, even if it didn’t quite come out as we intended.

For example, some of my phrasing and sentences might not be clear – from my perspective, they’re perfectly clear and make sense, but from the perspective of someone who wasn’t there (whether fiction or non-fiction), it may just be confusing. We can’t tell because we’re so familiar with what we’re trying to say that we don’t see it.

I’d go look for an example, if I had the energy.

Get used to the idea that you may have written something astoundingly beautiful and it’s going to be cut. Not that it will, necessarily, but it might. You might have a paragraph that just blows you away, but if it doesn’t fit with the rest of your work, if it obfuscates and goes off on a tangent that’s not relative to the story, it’ll have to go. This is really hard, because it’s yours.

This is when an editor comes in handy.

You can ask friends and family to read your work and that’s fine – but if they’re like most of my friends, they’ll say, “It’s great, love it,” and that’ll be it, which is nice, but not terribly helpful. I do have some friends who are great at pointing out things that are wrong, or need changing or clarifying, but often the people closest to us are the worst at editing.

Get used to having other people read your work and give feedback. We all love it when people to tell us how much they love our work, but feedback may be negative, and you have to be prepared to hear it. Not necessarily accept it – just because it’s negative doesn’t mean it’s right. But also get used to not receiving any feedback. Your fragile ego (and by “your,” I mean “my”) may be expecting a response for everything you do, but your (my) fragile ego needs to get over itself.

Most people who read something, online or offline or some other line, won’t respond at all. Ever. It’s nothing personal, usually, it’s just that everyone has their own stuff. Or there’s nothing to say. Or your piece doesn’t resonate with them. Or whatever. It doesn’t really matter why there’s no response, it only matters that you don’t take it personally, and that you realize most likely has nothing to do with you.

All you can do is write, and do what you will with it. Tell your ego to relax a bit – you may be the best thing since sliced bread, but so are a lot of other people. It’s a fabulous world with lots of great writers.

I Used To Be Funny

Humor is so subjective. People used to think I was funny. Then I wrote this damn book.

Suddenly I'm not funny anymore.

I've had people start reading the book in front of me, while I'm standing there, which makes me uncomfortable, but I feel awkward saying, "Don't read it NOW! I'm right here!" So they start reading it, and they laugh.

This is true.

This is good.

I want people to laugh. All I want to do is entertain people.

But people who haven't read the book don't think I'm funny. They think I'm a humorless mental illness advocate, and they ignore me. They don't want to read a book that isn't amusing. Sure, there's sad stuff too -- I like to think of it as a well-rounded book, but if you haven't read it or heard about it (which is still most people in the world) you wouldn't think it was particularly amusing. Maybe it isn't, particularly, but at least some of it is.

Of course, there could be people who read the book who don't get the joke and don't laugh. Not everyone finds me funny, even when I was known more for being funny than not. Some people just think I'm a smartass, which I am, because it's an excellent defense mechanism.

I don't laugh at the 3 Stooges, and I don't laugh at . . . other things that rely on physical humor at the expense of wit.

However, I laughed so hard at Cabin in the Woods that I insisted we go see the movie again the next weekend, and I never do that. I'm not a horror movie aficionado -- I like good horror movies that rely upon characterization and atmosphere to show us the things we fear most, which is often ourselves, but I avoid slasher movies and movies that are just about the gore and body count. But this movie was so funny. Blood and gore everywhere, all the horror movie tropes brought into one hilarious romp of total disaster. It's the absurdity that gets me, the over-the-top culmination of all horror movie cliches brought together in all their ridiculousness. I still can't hear elevator doors pinging without thinking of elevator doors opening to reveal scads of movie monster cliches emerging to massacre anyone in their path, then closing, then ping! And then open again with more cliche monsters . . . again and again. We Americans like things over the top -- we have to keep outdoing things, going faster, being richer, creating more outrageous events, and this was a perfect representation of our skewed overachieving culture.

We almost just can't be anymore.

I want to be funny again. I want to stop taking myself so seriously, because my life is pretty damn cushy these days.

I did stand-up a couple of times. Other comedians were relying on stale bits, or exaggerated physical humor. One guy flopped onto the floor and acted like he was having a seizure so the audience could see the bottom of his shoes, on which were written . . . I don't remember what, but it wasn't very funny.

My bit was actually funny. I mean, I can't tell, but the club manager said I had good material, and a good deadpan delivery. It was so much fun, just making people laugh. If I had the energy I'd go do it again.

Then again, if I had the energy I'd go do a lot of things.

And time. Time and energy.

But I'm not sure if I can be stand-up funny again.

But now that I think about it, the best thing about doing stand-up was that I got Stew to go up and do it too. He didn't want to -- he was pretty apprehensive around crowds by then as it was, and then he tried to pull out at the last minute, while we parked at the club.

"I can't do it," he said, "I just can't," and he was shaking.

I told him he didn't have to if he didn't want t o. It's not like it was mandatory. It was supposed to be fun.

"You don't have to, but I'm going, so you do have to come in and watch me."

And so we went in, and after I did my bit and people laughed he decided, "What the hell," and he got up, and he went up on that stage and he performed. Well, I thought he was funny the first time I met him, so I wasn't surprised he could do stand-up well. It took a lot out of him, but he did it. I was so proud.

We were both similar in that way. We just want to make people laugh. I'm a strong believer in laughter for medicinal purposes.

When Andrew and I are together we're always making jokes. Stupid jokes sometimes, but humor is such a part of our daily routine that it makes me happy just being around him. He comes up with the most outrageous things.

Maybe with his coaching I can stop being so serious and start being funny again. Then again, my humor is often so deadpan even I don't recognize it.

Or can I?

We all need things to make us laugh, whatever it is. We have so many options to choose from, if we only know where to look.

How To Be A Writer. 2.

Today someone sent me an email asking if his wife would like my book.

How do you respond to that? (By you, I mean me, obviously.) How do I know? Maybe she only likes romance, or is a 50 Shades sort of person (in which case . . . oh, never mind). Maybe she will, maybe she won’t. I can’t be so pinheaded as to not realize that there may be people who have read it and don’t like it – they just don’t tell me about it afterwards. Far as I know, everyone loves it and it should be a bestseller.

(No, it’s not, but publishing being what it is, things are what they are.)

(By the way, I hate clichés such as, “things are what they are,” “at the end of the day,” “where’s my machete when I need it?”)

This is the same guy who a week ago expressed some amazement that the book has done as well as it has. Really? You need to say to someone, “I’m just surprised it’s done as well as it has.”

This from someone who knows me only from an email list and hasn’t read any of my work. I just said, “Eh,” and moved on. This is what you do with comments like that, unless you want to engage in a discussion of everything you stand for. I wanted to respond, “And I am surprised that you’re still breathing. I can’t imagine the amount of thought you must put into staying alive every day.”

But I didn’t.

After today’s question about whether or not his wife would like it (in which my response was, “I don’t know, other people seem to,”) he responded again with this gem:

“I guess I was just thinking that if it wasn’t nice to the psych health care field she might not like it, but then again that doesn’t seem likely. I’ll pick up a copy in the next week or so.”

Yes. My entire point was to be nice to members of a profession to the exclusion of telling the actual story. Or, alternatively,

No, my entire point was to be mean to members of a profession to the exclusion of telling the actual story.

Sheesh. People. I hadn’t actually considered whether I was being nice or mean to people in the psych health field because that’s not what it’s about. It’s about friendship, and finding hope when it seems there is none. It’s also about what we’re willing to do to save others. Those are the themes. Mental illness is just the backdrop.

It’s an important backdrop, but there it is all the same. I wish people in the psych field would read it. Or students studying in that field, because it’s a real-life case study of what happens without a safety net, and a first-person account of what is actually in the head of someone with mental illness, someone who’s desperately trying to put his life back together.

Some days I want to move on, but then I realize I really do want people to know this story, so I press on with talking about it.

When you’re a writer, you have options. You can write about anything and there’s a niche for it. And if there isn’t, you can make one for yourself, if you can find enough people interested in what you’re writing about. You can put as much of yourself into your work as you want. Sometimes I write to entertain, and sometimes I write to inform, and sometimes I write because otherwise my head will explode.

My husband has asked that I please not explode. It’s very difficult to get brain out of the carpets.

The choice is ours. Some people who have read the book feel like they know me, and that’s all right with me. (Though they could email me more often – it wouldn’t hurt to keep in touch.) I didn’t hold back, and this is a story that’s so very important to me.

When we write, we take little pieces of ourselves and we stick it on the paper, and we hope people like what we’ve done with it. Our writing is not us, and we have to keep ourselves separate from it, but it is a part of us. So tend it with care and nurture it, and don’t give up on it, even when you’re certain that would be the best course of action.

I myself give up at least once a week, but then I keep going anyway. I don’t know if it’s because I’m slow to catch on or determined, but since the result is the same, it doesn’t matter. Ignore the people who want a nice little story that won’t offend anyone, and go with what you want to write. Use your own pieces of yourself.

How To Be A Writer.1

There are two things in the world that I know about, and one of them is writing. So here’s how to be a writer:

Write.

I hope you were paying attention so I don’t have to repeat that.

If you’ve noticed, part of the fun of being a writer is that it’s so accessible. As in, half the population at any given time is either engaged in calling themselves a writer or they have a book in them that they know would be fab if they could just get it out.

The thing about writing is that the writing itself is the easy part. You sit down and you type out words. If you’re old-fashioned, you write down words on paper. The words form sentences. The sentences form paragraphs. The paragraphs can form an essay, a chapter, a story. It sounds simple enough, which is perhaps why there are so many writers in the world.

As I said in the beginning, there are two things that I am good at, and one of those is writing. The other is bookkeeping, which is also accessible, because everyone can add and subtract. Therefore, my particular skill set shouldn’t be in heavy demand, should it? I’m getting by though, so don’t worry.

Say you’re a writer. What’s the most important thing to know about writing?

1. Words don’t happen by themselves.

2. Waiting for inspiration is a good idea.

You can only pick one of the above, and if you picked number 2, good luck.

When I was, oh, I don’t know, 7? 8? I handed my mom a newspaper I’d put together. Except for mixing up a couple of names of high profile individuals, it was pretty good. I mean, for someone my age. My mom looked at it, oohed and aahed, pointed out my mistake, and I think that was one of the last times anyone in my family commented on my writing. It was a useless skill, something that writers did, but not someone like me. I kept writing, always knowing I was a writer, but also knowing I wasn’t good enough to do anything with it.

I’ve tried to give up writing so many times, and yet I can’t.

I want to not care. I want to be happy not writing. I want to not have all this stuff in my head that keeps asking to be let out. I want to be able to walk into a bookstore and not think that I should have more books written by now. I would like to be good at something else.

But that hasn’t worked for me. I give it up, and then I go back. Over and over again. It’s like an addiction, but since it’s not particularly harmful and keeps me off the streets at night, it’s not a cause for concern.

Except for the fact that I do care.

Here’s something about writing: It’s true that some of us have the writing thing in us from the beginning. It’s always been with us, something we carry around even if we’re busy making a living, or teaching, or ignoring it. But it’s also true that it can be taught. Either way, the only way to get better at is to keep writing, and to keep writing as often as you can.

Write until you think you can’t write anymore, and then write some more.

Write until the words on the page don’t make any more sense, and then add some more words. (This is why rewriting and editors are so important.)

If you want to get good at writing, you write.

It’s also true that there are many best-selling authors who are not writers. They’re celebrities, or famous, they have a name, and all they needed to get published was to say, “Hey, I want to write a book.” Or a publisher saw the chance for some quick cash and approached a celebrity and said, “Hey, can we put your name on something written by someone else?” And the celebrity says, “Sure, why not?”

Celebrities get this sort of thing all the time, so I hear, and who turns down free money? The reading public is fickle, and the reading public likes to read about celebrities.

You, however, are not a celebrity. I am not a celebrity. Most of the people I know are not celebrities. (Wait. Maybe none of the people I know are celebrities.) If we want to see our name on a book we have to either 1) do it ourselves, or 2) work really hard to get someone else to do it. That’s just how it works. If you’re willing to work at it, you’ve got a chance.

Sometimes all we need is a chance. And sometimes we need a million of them.

Lesson 1: Read Stephen King’s On Writing. Find On Writing here. It’s been a few years since I’ve read it, but if you want to learn how to be a writer, it’s a good place to start. It’s even a good place to check out mid-stream.

Or check in. Please, no checking out.