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Day Forty-Five: Kevin Barry and a Pub

7/11/2015

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First off, my workshop went very well yesterday. That's exciting. 

If you happen to be in the Dingle area (that is, in Ireland) on Tuesday, please come by the Dingle Bookstore to hear me read from the project I'm working on. We'll be there at 7:30 and it'd be great to see you in person. 

So that's fun news.

Now for an embarrassing story.

I took my afternoon nap today, and I woke up because a gaggle of people had come into the hall outside my room at the BnB and started talking loudly. I was then reminded that no, it wasn't four in the morning and I couldn't sleep anymore, because there was a lecture from a famous Irish author, Kevin Barry, that was about to take place in the parlor room across the hall. 

I jumped up, my hair in my face and my jeans sagging, and I grabbed my bag and my keys and my phone, and I ran out of the door ... right into a red-headed dude in a striped shirt who was very obviously Kevin Goddamned Barry.

"Hello," he said, and me, still half-asleep, muttered a "hello," trying to get around him and the landlord's daughter who was fangirling him.  But then he put out his hand. "I'm Kevin."

Well, of course you're Kevin. 

"I'm Jen," I muttered. And he said, "Good to meet you," or something, or maybe he didn't, but I definitely did scuttle, and I used that word earlier, but it was indeed a scuttle, I scuttled away from him and into the parlor room.

"Cheers?" he said after me. 

And I wanted to die.

I'd signed up to have dinner with Kevin Barry and sit next to him, and I let someone else have my seat. Ted asked me why, and honestly it was because I needed a place to kick out my leg, but we know me, and if I really wanted that seat, I would have said damn be to the leg and done it anyway. 

I'm not good at talking to famous authors. I'm not good at talking to strangers. And I'm not good at talking to strange famous authors who I run into with my fat hair in my eyes and one shoe in my hand. 

Kevin was an amazing reader, and I absolutely adored his book. I wish I had the courage to tell him that. I know that I will need to get better at talking to impressive people if I'm not going to be trampled over in this world. But it just wasn't happening tonight. 

I went out with my fellow students to a pub, where we listened to Irish music play. The more I delve into Ireland, the more I feel like I'm entering my father's world. I feel close to him out here, a quarter of a world away, and it's stirring up a lot of feelings that I'm sure would make a good poem if I was a poet. I think I'm going to need a couple of years or something to suss out everything this trip means to me, but I do know I won't be forgetting it soon. 

I started scribbling things down while I listened to the music, but I bet none of it is any good.

I'll just put the first line here:

When my father was in Ireland, it never rained. 
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Day Five: Lindsey Stirling and Healing

6/1/2015

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So I actually got my blog in tonight. I just got home, so if the time stamp is off, not my fault. I'm tired as hell and Alex already went to bed, but the challenge is every day, so I'll make a quick entry and collapse in a bit.

It's unfortunate that I'm half-awake and have to write this now in order to fulfill my challenge to myself, because I wish I was a lot more awake to be brilliant at writing the things I wanted to write, and that there is a sentence to prove that I will not be as eloquent as I wish to be right now.

So today was a crazy day. I had too much to do, and not enough time to do it in. It was my first day working in the outreach program I'm doing part-time in. It's not a full-time job, which is awesome, because it means I can still contribute something and stay active, but not have to worry about overload right now. After that, I visited Alex for lunch, rewrote Chapter One, had a meeting with my mentor Nancy, and then Mom and Dad and I went to the Lindsey Stirling concert.

Surprise, it was an amphitheater. Surprise, it was a gorgeous night. Surprise, I like Lindsey Stirling.

That girl. Like holy God, she's so creative. She has gorgeous outfits, and she dances like a madwoman ballerina on crack while she's wielding these crazy violin skillz, and the stage is exploding with all this stuff she's thought up and has been plastered onto the digital background behind her. And people loved it! People were like, "Yeah Lindsey Stirling, you vomited everything you love onto this stage and we totally think it makes sense and love it!"

The part of the night that really hit me was when she stopped playing music and had a "real talk" with us. She said that everyone always thinks she has always loved herself and that she's perfect. She says that in her twenties, she battled depression. She hated herself. She was in a rut and she hated looking in mirrors. But then she made a change. And now look at her.

Usually these stories don't really hit me very hard. I think it's sort of trite to be like, "Guys I'm famous and lookee me now!" But something about the creative spark in Stirling, something about her originality and her youth ... or maybe just something about where I am in life right now ... it hit me really hard.

I guess this is where I get serious with you.

I don't talk about this publicly, so the idea of doing it here is terrifying. I've never wanted to be that person with a blog who gripes about the things she's gone through. This is a writing blog, not a therapy blog, but I'm starting to think that perhaps the two are connected. I know, I should have made that connection earlier?

I don't feel comfortable getting into details, but I've struggled with my own demons. And I'm taking steps every day to allow myself to be happy. To allow myself to believe in what I am and who I am and what that entails.

There was a time not too long ago that I'd given up on myself. All of those things I wanted to be when I was a kid was stupid frivolous dreams. I needed to be more practical.

Why is it so hard for us to allow ourselves to be happy? Why is it so difficult for us to believe in ourselves?

My mentor said today it was because we were all from a Puritanical society.

My mentor also said something else today: that I have something to offer.

I'm trying to believe that. I'm trying to get myself to the point that Stirling is at. I'm waking up every day and allowing myself to have a good, happy, and yes sometimes selfish life. I've gone so far trying to erase myself by giving giving giving to others.

Now it's time to bring me back. Now it's time to write.

But actually, right now? It's time to sleep. G'night!
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Music. Music. Music.

9/14/2014

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I used to write music.

I went to a Composer's Camp for children every year for three years. It wasn't as big of a deal as it is now. Now the camp is huge and get decent breakfasts. Back then, we got handed a Honey Bun from one of our professors and told "When you get to Heaven, they give you Honey Buns. That's how you know you've made it to the right place."

That professor was dead when I went back to visit for our ten-year reunion.

I used to play music. My mom started me on the piano when I was five, because her mom had started her on the piano when she was four. It was a rainy Wednesday in March and I was in kindergarten. I hopped out of the Taurus and rushed through the puddles to get to the house of the old lady who would later watch the Reagan funeral over my head while I played my scales for her.

I used to sing. In high school, that's what everyone thought I was going to do, go sing and be famous on Broadway. I got the leads, I got the solos, and I got into the National Choir in Los Angeles. But I didn't go, because I was contracted as a choir girl in the city Opera and they said they'd never hire me again if I went. So I stayed in the Opera, my choir teacher hated me for it, and I didn't get another solo.

It didn't matter anyway. The only way I could get through an art song is if I put a story behind the four pages of notes. I would act out the heartbreak of Sally the Runaway when Mr. SuchnSuch would make me sing Shennandoah, and I would definitely need to understand the characters of Carmen and Dido to get an aria to mean anything. Without the story, I didn't care about the song.


I used to compose. I used to play. I used to sing. Now I don't do any of these things; I mean, I'm currently working on imitations of every Disney heroine for a YouTube video I will never record. But other than that, music and I are the two best friends who went our separate ways but miss each other very much.

But I loved writing more. I write every day, and I had to learn how to write better. Opera stars have a passion deep down in the center of their hearts for music. For me, the music was always about the story, not the notes. Music was a way to get the writing across. And so music and I have found a new way to love each other.

I was thinking about all of this as I sat down for my revisions of my book this weekend. For my birthday, I got fifteen bucks to spend at the iTunes store, so I carefully picked out music that sounded like my characters. Playlists have always been a huge thing that I do in order to plot their arcs. In college, my best friend and I used to make playlists for each others' projects, like our books had movie soundtracks. Somehow it was easier for me to work out the kinks in my story through songs than sitting down and staring at the words.

I decided on The Giver score for this project. It was a small choice, but when I went into the writing, it wasn't just words I was struggling with and had been struggling with for a month now. No, it was alive. I saw them all standing around on this airship, realizing they were going to have to say goodbye to each other. The war is over, and if they return home, they'll lose this family they've woven together.

Run. We have to run.

I used to be a musician. I think I still am. If I wasn't, I don't think I could be a writer. Just like if I wasn't a writer, I wouldn't have been a musician.

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Survival of the Day Job 2014

8/8/2014

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Articles About Authors with Day Jobs:

Lapham's Quarterly - Dayjobs

Huffington Post - 11 Authors Who Kept Their Dayjobs

Writer's Digest - Before They Were Famous

Mental Floss - Early Jobs of 24 Famous Writers

Buzzfeed - Famous Authors and Their Dayjobs

Did You Click Buzzfeed - That Was a Test

Stop Reading Buzzfeed Articles - Go Write

No Seriously - Go Write

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Toto watches over my writing desk. He wishes you good day and good luck.
So this was my first week back at work. About two minutes after I stepped into the building, I started a conversation with a co-worker and mentioned my writing room.

"Oh, are you still writing that series?" she asked.

"Yes?" I said.

Then she gave the look. If you're a writer with a day job, you know what look I'm talking about. It's the look that reminds you how your dreams are silly little things.

It's difficult to be in an environment where no one knows how serious you're taking this, how hard you work to keep both the day job and the night job going, or who you really are and where you're going.

I once said to a friend that there is a fine line between the deluded and the successful when it comes to art.

So it's important to remember, fellow dayjobbers, that our coworkers do not define us. Our daily chores do not make us failures. And if we want it bad enough, we need to remember that there are a hundred thousand people who did it before us. If we want this for ourselves, then we need to stick to it and stand on our own and make it a priority in our lives.

So here, I'm making rules for us:

1. If you have time to write, then write. One author shared his story of writing seven hours straight on the days he had off. You don't get a day off if this is what you want.
2. Don't worry about how others define you. Remember, everyone has a job and no one's life is completely encompassed in their job.
3. Don't feel guilty for taking time to make your writing a priority. You cannot always live for other people.
4. No one has a for-sure success in the future. Everyone, even J.K. Rowling and Margaret Atwood, has at some point felt like a loser and wondered if it was worth it. So make it worth it (and by the way, Rowling was on welfare/worked as a teacher before that, and Atwood was a coffee shop barista).
5. Set deadlines for yourself and do not allow yourself to waver or come up short. Give it your best shot so you won't regret anything.
6. Ask those around you in your personal life to support you. If they love you, they will support you.
7. Make friends in your writing community, even if it's just online. In 2014, I don't think it's "just online," I think it's a huge resource.
8. Give yourself a writing space or a place to go write. Turn off the internet. Focus. If you can't write, then read. Blog. Network. But for God's sake, do not Buzzfeed.
9. Believe in yourself. Advocate for yourself. Love yourself.
10. Finally, submit. Nothing will come of you just sitting there type type typin'. Even if you get a rejection, you're having a conversation with the external writing world.

Have a great year, everyone. And if you need a day job writer friend, you know where to find me.
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Reading Neil Gaiman and Ray Bradbury Taught Me the Most Important Lesson in Writing

8/1/2014

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Cover art copyright by William Morrow Publishing
So my reading list has begun for Stonecoast, and this week I actually had two writing retreats: one with Kaitlin, and one with Alex down in the capital so he could take his bar exam. This meant I was shuffled around to hotel rooms with nothing but books and spotty internet access all week.

It was awesome.

So while Alex took his test, I dove into Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, paired with Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury.

And something clicked.

I've always had this weird, dark place sitting in the back of my head. A rural town where things happen. Little boys in overalls and little girls who can see the future. I wanted to write stories that talked about ghosts, dead grandmothers, prophecies out of the mouths of children that live in old weathered wooden houses at the end of gravel roads. I wanted to write about other worlds and boys who never grow up and men who did too much growing up. But for some reason, for some stupid reason, I thought I was supposed to write "a certain way." I was supposed to learn "how to write a short story" and "what sort of a short story people would want to buy."

So surprise when I read Bradbury, and he said no.

Don't write for fame or fortune, he warns. Don't be a liar. Don't tug at your audience and try to manipulate them. Just write for you. Write those stories that you've carried with you since you were a kid.

Bradbury talks about Mr. Electrico, a sideshow worker from the circus who told him as a child during an act "You will live forever!" The next day, little Ray
found Electrico and spent the whole day with him, going around to the different backstage tents and having his own personal tour. At the end, Electrico told Ray that in a past life, the boy had been his best friend and died in the war. Bradbury writes in his book that he doesn't know if he believes in immortality or past lives, but that little boy does. And that little boy has never steered his writing wrong.

This idea of writing from the heart, from the innocence of childhood and magic, is obviously put into place in Neil Gaiman's book. I've been a longtime fan of Gaiman, seeing him advocate for what he wants to write and always being true to his story and characters. I admire his honesty. And I am in awe of his imagination.

In Ocean, he says he wrote a book to explain to his wife who he was. These people who had lived in his head for years now came to the surface and he wrote them all out in two weeks. Ocean was the water on Helen Keller's hand for my brain. It was the sort of book I'd always wanted to write, but didn't know how. And then I saw how Neil put it all together, and I said to myself, "Yes. This is what writing is."

Writing is sitting down and taking all of those parts of yourself you don't think will interest anyone else, but interest you. And you write them. And yes, they will interest others, because although they're old hat to you and they have haunted you for years, turns out we all have different experiences. My knowledge of ghost stories might not have been a thing that you, the reader, grew up with. Gaiman's ocean at the end of this little country lane was a familiar thing to him as a child, but is completely new to our eyes.

And in writing what we are, who we are, what is at the core of ourselves, we write in that ever elusive "voice." We aren't the next Hemingway, like Bradbury warns us not to be. We are what he calls "The New Element." We are true to ourselves, we do not lie, and so we tell one hell of a story.

Write like Bradbury. Write your Electrico. Write your ocean. It may look like a little pond, but like Gaiman says, it's so much more.


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How an MFA Program Changes Your Life

7/27/2014

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The happiest day of my life was the day I realized I would never have to live in my hometown again. With my belongings moved into an apartment in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, my twin bed siphoned off from my two roommates' beds, and my nineteenth birthday party taking place in my new dining room with my new friends around a German chocolate cake purchased at the two-level grocery store on the corner, I knew that all of my hard adolescent work had paid off.

I now would be free. My greatest fear of withering away at home would not come to pass.

The saddest day of my life was the day I moved from Chicago back to my hometown.

There are a lot of reasons why this happened. For starters, money. For other starters, external pressure. Heartbreak was another reason. But soon I found myself back on familiar streets living an ordinary life in a place where the extraordinary refused to surface.

We have no oceans in my hometown. We have a river, and it's filthy.

Many people feel this hopeless giving up, although I doubt many of them feel it as early as twenty-three. I did good work here, and I continue to do good work, but something was missing. The glimmer that happened when I wrote far off worlds, the echo of my voice when I sang. "Why don't you sing anymore?" someone asked me ... no, a lot of people asked me.

There was no point, I could have answered. It will just remind me of what I could have been, would have been another good one. But usually I just answered, "Oh, I'm busy. And things. And life. And no one wants to hear it, anyway."

It had to stop.

Ray Bradbury writes in his book, Zen in the Art of Writing, that in order to live, in order to "stay alive," we have to keep writing. We have to come up with those crazy worlds no one else can see. We must believe in magic, or "Buck Rogers," as he puts it.

So Alex, my fiance, found Mur Lafferty's podcast and in turn found Stonecoast. For months, the two of us schemed to get me into the MFA program. And then one day, Nancy Holder called and told me the good news.

As you know, I went to my first residency last week. And I am about to tell you why you should stop not singing, start staying alive, and find your own Stonecoast.

The night before, I was afraid.
I told Alex that he needed me, that my dead friend needed me, that the dishes in the sink needed me. "It's too far away, I'm too scared, I can't make friends, everyone will hate me, I'm not good enough." But stalwart Alex lugged my 49.5 pound checked bag all the way to his car, and then all the way into the airport.

In my book, Abigail is a young girl who is trapped in Boston and damned to walk the earth after her airship is taken from her. There is a scene where she escapes, bursting into the sky and seeing the sun strike the white clouds
from above. And when that plane pierced the rainstorm and breathed out into the air, I felt like something new was about to happen.

For the first time in a long time, I had a chance.

Maine is a different sort of place. I say different because it's not like anywhere I've lived. Even my hometown is loud with this incessant noise from the interstate and the planes from the airforce base. But Portland is silent. As soon as I got rid of the jet engines in my ears, I realized how quiet the airport was. And then I recognized silence in the parking lot, the road, the highway, and finally Bowdoin College Campus.


And for the first time in five years, I was welcomed by people who understood what I wanted to do with my life.

It was like coming home.

Stone House sits on a peninsula (which I loudly remarked in our coach bus upon seeing it: "WE ARE ON A PENINSULA!"), and it is beautiful. If you look through the trees in the front yard, you see sailboats and the ocean. Mist hangs in the trees, mud flats magically transform into roaring seas in a matter of hours. At night, I walked around the park with my friend as trails dissipated into the fog. This was the land of Stephen King, Herman Melville, Jules Verne, and my own imagination.

"You are not an aspiring writer," the director of the program told us. "This is the point in which you become a writer. Virginia Woolf had a moment where she became Virginina Woolf. And this is yours."

I ran back to my temporary dorm room and I typed, typed, typed on my story. My teachers knew my heroes, my teachers were my heroes, and I'd read them all my life. This was a place where students published their work and won Campbell Awards.

Stonecoast was a place where people did the things other people talked about maybe someday doing. Stonecoast was a place full of people who said, "I understand. I hurt, too. It's okay. We'll write about it together." Stonecoast was where the Muggle borns came together for ten days every six months to build their armor, give out six months' worth of hugs, and write as fast as our hands could go.

I watched the graduation of the class of 2014, and I saw that this program did not just change my life, but had changed their lives.

I'm back home now, reading Bradbury and finishing up Verne. Tomorrow, I lock myself up in a hotel room and revise the beginning of my manuscript for my mentor. And although I know this year is going to be a long one, I know that I'm not alone. I know I have a goal.

I know Maine exists.

Please do not wrap yourself up in a blanket of malaise. Please go out and do what you love to do. Find people who also love to do that thing. And be happy for it.

It's not too late. Go be happy. Find your magic place where the fog comes in and the sailboats can get all the way out to the ocean.


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My Anxieties About Starting my MFA

7/6/2014

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This Friday, I embark on a magical journey to a faraway land called Maine. And if my current binge-watching of Once Upon a Time is any indication, Maine is a kingdom far away with ruthless pawn store owners and little regard for any actual law.


That worry aside, I'm getting my supplies ready and my homework in order to make this trek, and I would like to share my deep-seated neuroses about beginning this journey.

Workshopping Others' Work

How nice should I be? How mean should I be? I'm editing my classmates' stuff, and I'm used to editing as an editor with a client I am working for. And yes, you as the editor must have a bit of teamwork in that kind of relationship with your client, but at the end of the day, you've either been given many moneys to help that client for your expertise, or you have been hired by a publisher because you know what you're doing. There's confidence in that role. Now I'm sitting not as an editor, but as a classmate, a peer. If I'm too mean, then maybe I'm being precocious. If I'm too nice, then maybe I'm not doing my assignment correctly. Without knowing the culture of the school or how MFA programs work, I might just dip into pro-mode and start giving notes on what must change before this can be published ... before I remember that's not my place in this case.

Getting torn apart in Workshop

So in this program, you submit your manuscript about three months before you actually go to workshop. I've completely revised the crappy manuscript I turned in, working with other editors and writer pals to get it to a better place. Now that I look at my old draft, I am so afraid of what is to come at this workshop. I want to give one of those taboo disclaimers, where I stand up and wave my arms in the air and shout, "I know it sucks! I just worked twelve weeks making it not suck! Please God don't think I suck!" But we all know I wouldn't ever do that ...

Being a Noob

I'm not gonna lie. I am hella awkward when I don't know anyone in a situation. And I know this is a stupid thing to worry about. I'm an adult! I am like three years away from being thirty, I have a full-time career, I have published a book and plays and have traversed some of the scariest American cities all by myself. I worked at a publishing company for three years. I freelance edit. I've started two writing groups. I teach Creative Writing. I have no bed time, damn it!

I am so scared of coming off like a faker, like a false writer, like an idiot who just finally learned what a chapbook looks like. I have this inexplicable fear of showing up and taking one look at everyone and realizing that while I know my stuff, they all got into a secret club long ago; a club to which I received no invite. I know this is stupid, but how as an adult, do I still worry about who I'm going to sit with at the lunch table?

Being Away from Home

Again, a stupid one for a grown woman. My fiance just moved up to this town. We haven't been separated since we ended our Long Distance Relationship three months ago. And now, a week, before I'm about to leave, our friend has died. I'm missing my friend's memorial game night to go to this residency, and I'm leaving behind a fiance who has just realized that mortality exists and we all are doomed to say goodbye to one another. I also will not lie: I slept in a blanket fort last night, because my friend made blanket forts, and when bad things happen, blanket forts sound like the best thing ever and you just want to sit in one and drink mounds of pop out of a Twizzler straw. The idea of leaving home right now is a tough one, but life has to carry on and we have to carry ourselves with it. Oh, happy day!

Not Packing the Right Stuff

So I'm flying to Maine. I have to fit everything I need into like a suitcase. I've never been to Maine, and I've never been to these dorms or this college. I've heard I need a fan. Other than that, I do not know. What if I forget an important book? What if I forget my toothbrush? What if I forget my homework?!

Missing Something

Honesty, again: I plan to glomp onto the nicest, most patient upperclassman I can find and just tail them for the entire ten days. In the unfortunate event I cannot find a willing upperclassman, what will become of me? I will miss a bus. I will miss a class. I will miss food. I will miss the really cool hangout where everyone gets to know each other. I will get lost in Portland and no one will ever find me again!

Not Realizing How Stupid It Was to Worry Until It's Too Late

I've heard that the Stonecoast residency is "like coming home." From the people I've met, they're so very nice.

I've been thinking a lot about my friend. I met them --- and yes, I am using them out of respect, not out of improper grammar --- on Facebook before I moved away to undergraduate. I was so nervous, not knowing what awaited me in Chicago and this university where fancy things happened and fancy strangers attended. So I reached out, to the people on Facebook who were also going to be freshmen in the fall. This was 2006, so there was actually a spot to write which dorm you were in, and so I searched people who would be living down the hall from me.

My friend was one of these people.

Looking back on our very first conversation via chat, because we live in the world of technological ghosts, I see that we were both very nervous about leaving home and going into the great perhaps. I barely knew the person who would become my friend. They were nothing but a stranger on Facebook, and I couldn't think of a scenario where college was an actual day-to-day, real-life thing I would excel at.

Now, eight years later, my friend and I had our last conversation a week ago, before they were taken. Our last conversation, funnily enough, was about that first year of college and who we'd roomed with. We reminisced on the hard parts, but also the good parts. We didn't know it would be our last conversation.

But that conversation was full of good memories. Although we'd been nervous about moving to the city and taking on the world, we'd done it. We both found happiness. We both grew into strong adults. We both had been brave enough to take that step into adventure and friendship.

Now I feel that anxiety again, starting a new chapter and a new program. I've met people on Facebook in preparation, and I feel as if I'm about to make a whole new bunch of friends. I can't imagine my day-to-day life being in a place far away that I've never seen in a program I've never experienced.

But eight years from now, I'll look back on this list of worries, and I'll laugh. Because new adventures are always frightening, but they're always worth it.

To all of you starting your MFA Programs, may the odds be in our favor.
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Why I Can't Write Memoirs

6/28/2014

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My baby picture, now available on the internet and wherever Google is found. You're welcome.
This week, I had the horrific experience of writing my first post for the MFA blog, The MFA Years. I am a contributor, and this is one of those amazing experiences that just sort of fell into my lap because I happened to be on MFA Draft '14 at the right place at the right time.

So obviously I didn't want to screw it up.

We were supposed to introduce ourselves, give the audience a taste as to who we were and what we were about. It was an open-ended question that could lead us into talking about applications, writing history, or our pet cats. Seeing as I don't have cats and the application process is an awful nightmarish blur, I opted for the story I thought was most important to my growth as a writer.

How I learned to stop worrying and enjoy science fiction writing.

This piece can be found here. I added pictures from my own personal life, I talked about a personal conversation I had with my professor, I opened up about my grandmother and my weird quirks as a child. I even touched on my elitism in college. While none of this stuff was that hardcore and shouldn't have given me a panic attack, I stayed up until about 3 a.m. reading it and re-reading it, picking over every photograph to make sure my real name wasn't in there, that I didn't say anything bad about anyone, and trying not to anger the entire literary fiction world.

The piece was not controversial. I'm just a sissy.

I guess this is why I cannot write autobiographical things. I tried, for a class entitled Autobiography. I wrote all about my time in the big city and the different people I'd met, but I never published it. I never showed it to anyone who wasn't my professor, and I tried to distance myself from it.

I know other people have this anxiety. We live in an age that anything written on the internet or in a magazine can easily be found by anyone for the next however many hundreds of years that internet exists. This means that some stupid Facebook rant I wrote in 2006 is still very much visible to me and anyone who is interested enough in my Facebook to spelunk  through eight years of selfies to find that on December 2, I was very angry at "You Know Who You Are" for disagreeing with "Whatever Stupid Politics I was Into At the Time!"

So a lot of us have become a little skittish about sharing with the class.

I've read so much memoir lately, and they're all about women who overcame these gigantic odds through different difficult situations, and I just think, "I know everything about you, and I've never met you." What great courage that they stand up and are sometimes the first to say, "This thing that we aren't talking about? It's happening. It's happening to a lot of us."

I don't think I'll ever be that brave.

I watched John Leguizamo the other night, and he discusses his father's lawsuit against him for his autobiographical one-man show. I just thought about my own dad, tearing up because of me sharing something that was between me and him, and I just can't do that. I think about my mom, my ex-best friend, my ex-boyfriends, my old teachers, my college roommates, my professors, that one guy on the bus ... they're all with me and peering over my shoulder when I write about them. I even worry about my grandma, who is now dead and gone. I put her picture up on my blog a few months ago and told her story. I really battled about doing that. Who was I to talk about her? Who was I to tell her story when I hadn't been there or when I just had one perspective?

Like I said, memoir takes a lot of courage. Any one of us can sit down and make up stories and share them with each other. There's a blanket of comfort that we are not those people, we did not make those decisions, we did not lose real friends or betray them or make other people hurt. We made no mistakes. Because those people are fiction, and we just made them up.

But memoir?

I salute the memoirists. You stand up and shout out into the void your secrets and your truths, and other people shout back. You share your most valuable stories and most loved family and friends so we may learn something or so we don't feel so alone. While we all huddle in our own little caves, protected from scrutiny and judgment, you stand out in the storm and take it, just so we know there's someone out there for us.

So thank you. Please keep writing. And maybe someday I'll learn from you how to stand out in the rain.





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Revision: Let go or crack down?

6/13/2014

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 I started writing one of my books in 1999. While other books have been completed, I am still revising this particular manuscript even today.

You have probably been in a similar position with something you’ve written or are still writing or will always be writing. You have your friends go from being excited about your magnum opus to being sad because they think you’re stuck like a crazy person in a padded room. “You think maybe you can send it off now? No? Okay.”

But hey, how long did it take to write Gone with the Wind? A long time; ten years to be exact. So maybe sometimes it takes a while to get something right.

But hey, how long can you wait until the earth has passed on and your book is no longer relevant? So maybe you need to just give up or get it out there.


The thing about writing is that there’s no one sitting there telling you when it’s ready. There’s no real deadline except for the one you set for yourself. So you can keep pushing it back. You keep learning, so your manuscript can keep growing, right?

When is it time to let go? That’s what we’re going to focus on today. In answering this question, maybe you should first answer these questions:

Why am I still writing this book?
Do you still get something out of writing this book? There is definitely a script or two that I just gave up on because it didn’t matter to me or the world anymore. One of these was a play that was a thinly-veiled metaphor for the 2008 Election (and also my pining after a young man who broke up with me a month prior to me writing said play). But a year ago, I went and looked back at this poor play and decided never to work on it again. Why? Well, because I can barely remember what that heartbreaker looks like, and the 2008 Election was in 2008. So I’m not really getting anything out of it, and neither would the world. It’s best to let it lie and let go.

However, the best manuscripts are timeless, to both ourselves and the world. Genres and hot-topics come and go, but we will always enjoy reading something like Lovely Bones or The Color Purple. Pieces about the universal human condition have a little longer shelf life. But don't ride on that one comforting fact; if the reason you're still writing this book is because you're scared, you need to let it flutter its wings and fly.


Is it worth it?
Do you love this book enough to keep going? If you’ve grown a lot as a writer over the years, you may have to start over from scratch. Are you willing to do that to make it the best it can be? Or is it best to just let it be what it is? I know this is an issue for a lot of graduate students who grow exponentially after starting their studies. Honestly, I have no answer. I've revised many an old manuscript if I love it enough, but that brings us back to the question at hand. Is it worth it?

Is the clock ticking?
Ah, the shelf life again. If you were writing a vampire novel, your ship has sailed by this point. Breaking Dawn II premiered two years ago, and how many successful vampire movies have there been since? Even the dystopian schooner is breaking off in the distance. We’re now looking at alternative historical novels. So are you running out of time? Is the pot boiling over and the chicken over cooking? Is the insert another colloquialism here? If so, then maybe it’s just time to let it breathe and have agents see it before the agents don’t want to see it anymore?

Why haven’t you sent it off yet?
Nothing is ever going to be perfect. Your manuscript is never going to be what you want it to be. Are you holding your manuscript hostage because it has holes and issues you need to fix … or are you just scared? If you’re just scared, get over it and just send it out!

If you still believe in a project, don’t give up on it. But make sure that you’re willing to put in those ten years to make it what it should be. And if you lose interest, it’s totally okay to let go. Sometimes we have projects that just need to die. Sometimes projects are nothing more than stepping stones to better projects.

What’s the longest time you’ve spent on a manuscript? When do you think it’s time to quit? When do you think it’s time to send?


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The Day I Realized There Were Two Girl Characters in "The Lion King" Was the Day I Realized Stories Reflected the World We Live In.

5/28/2014

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This week has been rough.

I wish I had the courage to write from my heart when it came to the shootings in California. But I can't. I can't find the words. All I can do is copy and paste this essay that I wrote a couple of years ago, about female heroes in literature. I guess that's the way I can start to express my fear and repulsion. Because we are writers. Some of us are women writers. And we have a duty to change the tides with our words.

Let's start here:

July, 2012.

This is a blog entry I’ve wanted to write for a very long time. I know that I wrote a bit about it before, talking about the Jonas Exercise and discussing how completely floored I was at Jennifer Lawrence and Suzanne Collins’ work on The Hunger Games. To recap, the Jonas Exercise is taking a male character and seeing if a gender-bend would fly narratively for that story.

However, there's more to say. And I just haven’t gotten around to collecting the words to say it.

I guess I would like to start off by telling another personal anecdote: the day I realized I was a girl, and that meant I counted for less of a character.

I was playing with my brother and cousin at my grandmother’s home when we started picking out what parts we were going to act out for our Disney game. They had a plethora to pick from: Beast, Lumiere, Aladdin, Jafar, Triton, Sebastian, Simba …

I had the princesses. That was it.

And while I loved the princesses, I also loved the current RPG we were acting out in the living room, and that was The Lion King. I quickly had my pick of two characters: Nala or Sarabi. The girlfriend or the matronly mom lion.

I wanted neither.


This led to an argument with my cousin as to who was going to play Goliath in our next game: Gargoyles. My cousin pointed out I was fit to only play Demona, the lone gargolye chick on the show. After already being shunned to playing Nala, I did not want to play Demona. I wanted to play the awesome main character. But my cousin was having none of it.

This led to us deciding to play Power Rangers instead. I wanted to play the White Ranger, and my cousin again pointed out I could only pick from the Pink or Yellow Ranger. And if you know anything about the Power Rangers, you know that both of those characters are terrible. Pinkie is a flippant airhead and Yellow doesn’t have any sort of personality whatsoever.

Suffice to say, I punched my cousin in the face and play time was cut short.

I’ve learned many things since then, one of them being not to punch people in the face. I’ve also learned that what I was experiencing is still something I’ve experienced in the past year. Although things are better now for our female characters, they aren’t better by much. They gave us voluptuous potato sacks with the brains of a galvanized frog, and recently they are kind enough to give us perky or rebelliously pretty potato sacks with the brains of a galvanized frog. And don’t get me wrong, I would take Rapunzel over Jasmine or Ariel any day, but I would also like an actual human being. Or a not-princess.

And we were so close, weren’t we? We saw Emma Watson's Hermione. And with Katniss Everdeen, a promising premise to Snow White and the Huntsman, a (gasp) single heroine in Frozen, and an unlikely beauty in Brave, we were on our way. So what went wrong? Why are we still not there?

Maybe because we’re trying to make a strong girl character, and not just a strong character. I believe the two largest problems is this feeling of writers patronizingly making up for the lack of awesome girlness, as if Hollywood is saying “See? We can be hip! We have an awesome girl heroine!” And that heroine, if a hero, would look like a dim-witted selfish prat (Merida), a still sexy but troubled and alone and very marketable princess with a sweet theme song (Elsa), a girl who is supposed to be saving the world but instead is constantly bombarded by a love triangle (Katniss), or a character that makes no decisions for himself (Snow White).

The second largest problem is the idea that women are seen as a completely different species than men. Freud never could figure out what women wanted, and as a woman, I don’t think it’s that difficult to figure out.

So Hollywood. So writers. So book publishers. This is what I want.

I want a character who is not afraid to speak her mind, because she wants what she wants and she doesn’t care what anyone has to say about it.

I want a character who makes her choices and thus brings the plot upon herself, not a Kristen Stewart who bumbles around behind Thor and has things happen to her. Or a Katniss who gets stuck in a bunker and told what to do. I want her to hold the reins and make mistakes and cleverly work through the snags.

I want a character who won’t self-destruct or fall off a cliff without their male counterpart. Bella.

I want a character who has better things to worry about than who likes her or who she likes.

I want a character who isn’t wanted or pursued by anyone.

I want a character who doesn't sacrifice herself for the betterment of a dude or a civilization, like she's some kind of Mayan virgin. In other words ...

I want a character who does not end up married or dead.


I want a character who works hard on her own to earn what she wants.

I want a character who isn’t pretty. Maybe she’s too skinny, maybe she’s too fat. Maybe she has an ugly voice. Maybe she’s too tall.

I want a character who doesn’t wear makeup and doesn’t have perfect hair, even after all hell breaks loose.

I want a character who has never been told she has to grow up and marry anyone.

I want a character who is never addressed with a jeering “because you’re a gi-irl!” from a male character. Even if it's considered motivation for her to prove him wrong.

I want a character who is attempting to honor her mother’s love and her father’s strength. And when one of them fails her, I want her to stand up to the challenge.

I want a character who doesn’t know how it’s going to end up, but she keeps a strong face. Or maybe she breaks down.

I want a character who doesn’t have to shoot an arrow twice as well as a boy in order to prove her worth.

I want a character who isn’t a walking stereotype of a tomboy if she's not feminine.

I want a character who is not a decoration, a mother, a witch, or a spitfire.

I want a character who doesn't constantly think of her femininity. It will of course come up, but no one walks around all day thinking, "Boy, how woman am I? I'm pretty dang woman right now. Oh look, a man!"

And I guess, what I really want is a character boys would want to play on the playground.

But here are a few things you should also know about girls:

Sometimes we do fall down and cry, and that’s okay.

Sometimes we do fall in love, and sometimes we don’t. But if we do, we will fight tooth and nail for that man and ourselves. And that strength doesn’t come out of girlish fancy or stupidity. It comes from love.

Sometimes we want to be pretty, but a good amount of the time, we don’t feel like we are. And other times, we don’t care.

Sometimes we forget we are girls, and we just regard ourselves as people.

Sometimes we are afraid of how the world sees us, and sometimes we have to be brave to walk down the street.


Sometimes we are not quirky nor are we fashionable, we are not ditzy nor are we geeky. Sometimes we are just who we are.

Sometimes we are scared, but sometimes we are steadfast. We always keep moving.

Sometimes we think about things that aren’t boys or being a mother or going against the status quo.

Sometimes we just want to be firemen and astronauts, and it isn't until someone says we can't be that we realize there's a lot of hurdles ahead of us and two girl characters in
The Lion King.

Sometimes we aren’t spunky or strong-willed; we’re just mean.

But most of all, we are always human beings.

So please write like we are just that: human beings.

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