Why I Write: Part I

For the last few months, nearly a year in fact, I've been struggling like I never have before with my writing.  The months spent buried in my homework made sense.  I had to prioritize, and with three jobs and full time academics, my writing had to take a back seat.  However, I've had two months of "freedom" so to speak, and I have slowly come the realization that I am not making the progress I should be.  I've started three stories, finished none, and am currently staring at my open document in a desperate need to come up with a paltry 1,292 words to make my evening goal.  With my current struggles, I've had to open up a great many doors in my dark, twisted mind, and it hasn't been a comforting find.  This leads me to today: to the need to realign with why I write.  This is part one, and I've decided I'll just have to keep coming back until I can get myself back on track.

I remember the exact reason why I wrote my first story.  It was because I didn't like the way a series I had read ended, so I wrote similar characters, but of my own creation, and ended it the way I thought it should.  Oddly enough, that story has morphed over the years to deviate from my original intention, but that was truly what moved me out of the realm of a few short stories with more beginnings than endings, and into the world of a writer.  I was eleven.  Now, nearly twenty years later, I have a library full of stories - characters of my imagination inspired by a variety of reasons who insisted on having their stories told.  In a way, I echoed the words of Toni Morrison and started as a writer because I wanted to read the tales of my own characters.

For so long, writer and creations were separate.  In a way, my characters were like the monster and I was Dr. Frankenstein (no - it's pronounced Igor...but I digress).  But that all changed last September when I lost one of my dearest friends.  Suddenly, my outlets became personal.  I was no longer Frankenstein, but instead Dr. Jekyll and my Mr. Hydes have been less than cooperative.  I had to deal with decades of repressed emotions through the only outlet I had available - writing.  Creating Summer's Boys was painful, but beautiful - and taught me more about myself than I had known.  However, it's the middle of July now, and I find that I haven't moved on like I should have.  I still struggle to keep the bleeding of creator and creation separate.  Additional personal loss hasn't helped matters either.  I woke up, quite literally in the middle of night recently and realized that it didn't matter what happened to me personally with those I've loved, I owed it to my current character to finish her story.  She was not a part of me.  I was a part of her.  So here I sit, working up the long uphill battle towards finding that balance again.  I can only hope that my writing will benefit, but I know I have a long way yet to go.

In the end, I hope that anyone who might read this will understand the feeling - that maybe you might share a touch of my suffering - and possibly, we might start that slow slog up the steep slope together.  Until we meet again...

Write On
L.E.

Halfway there = Time for a detour

I was all prepared this year to actually suffer through a Camp NaNoWriMo. I had a great idea, even if it was just in its infancy.  I thought I had set my standards sufficiently low enough: just get to 10,000 words and call it good - just in time to finish college finals.  No one said it was a good idea, but it was mine, and I'll be the first to admit it failed.  I managed a little of 2000 words and then got lost.

I've discussed before how I feel that the obsession with "writing every day" is the best philosophy.  Trust me, I completely understand how the stress of life can eat at you from just about every direction.  However, I will say that the concept of editing a crappy page is easier than a blank one works wonders on research papers...

Anyway, I digress.  The fact of the matter is here it is May.  Finals are over.  Camp NaNoWriMo is over.  I didn't succeed, and somewhere in-between trying to start a new idea that I love and standing (or sitting) where I am now, I got lost on a detour of unfinished stories.

I've never been able to determine why some ideas stick with me like a nagging toothache - to where I can't put them aside until they are finished.  Then there are those that woke me in the middle of the night, forced me to pour out over 5000 words in a single sitting, and then sat in a corner waiting...and waiting.  With an entire summer break ahead of me, I had a plan, I was prepared to plot my way through the more completed ideas running amok in my head (even my characters are on summer break, apparently), but if there is one thing I've learned about writing, it is simply to never plan anything.  My characters all have minds of their own, and the sooner I realize that, the happier we will all be.  One can hope.  Let's hope this plan works out better than the last.

Anyone out there with a similar tale?  How many unfinished stories do you have haunting the cobwebs of your mind?  I think I'll count and get back to you.

-L.E.

How Did it Come to This?

I am not one for sharing my political views with others.  My family and I might engage in debates, and maybe my closest friends, but never do I engage with others outside my innermost circle.  As one who prefers to avoid conflict, I know the safest way not to have an argument about politics is to never start a conversation.  And yet...

There is so very, very much wrong with that last full sentence.  A conversation should not be a guarantee of an argument.  A conversation should be able to ebb and flow and allow the opinions of both sides to be heard.  Sadly, in our world today, when two sides cannot agree, the conversation turns toxic in an instant.  One only has to look to the political display going on in our country today to see this in full force.

For the record, I am liberal minded.  I have voted in every election since I turned 18, and largely I have voted for democrats.  This does not mean, however, that I have not voted for more qualified republicans when the issue came up.  I am not blind to party lines.  

For those who have successfully managed to read past my political affiliations and are still interested in what I have to say, fear not.  The entire point of this particular post, as it deviates from my politically neutral, "lets all talk about writing theme", is to point out our growing failures as a society.  I have friends on both sides of the political spectrum, and I enjoy each and every one of them.  That's not to say that we're ever going to enjoy a political conversation, and I have a terrible fear that should my well hidden political leanings ever come to light, there would be some who suddenly wouldn't return my calls.

What sort of horrible, one dimensional world does this mean we live in?  We should embrace those who think differently than we do, not narrow down our orbits until we have nothing but like minded people surrounding us.  That is not growth.  That is not opportunity.  That is isolationism.  For a tutorial, please feel free to Google the 1920s.  We all know (I hope) how that one ended.

Yes, our apathy, our inability to challenge the status quo, and the fact that we have allowed politicians to rewrite our own rules to better suit their goals has all led to the nastiest presidential campaign in my lifetime.  But that isn't what it truly tragic.  What is truly Shakespearian in its tragedy is that we no longer even try and "reach across the aisles".  Do my political leanings make me less intelligent?  Less witty?  Less loyal to my friends?  Less willing to do what it takes to help those in need?  Absolutely not.  I work with a majority of democrats, I volunteer with a majority of republicans.  That does not make any of us wrong.  At any point.  We are entitled to our own opinions.  It is what makes us human.  And to allow the vitriolic atmosphere to continue unchecked is only further poisoning our country.  Rather than allow the rhetoric of either side to continue to drive a wedge in our society, we need to find common ground and build upon it.  Only then can we right this ship that has been off course for some time.  I can hope that we might stand a chance, but the wounds have already been made.  We must first finish the battle before we can being to heal.  If we are very, very lucky, we might be rational enough when the blood stops flowing to lick our wounds rather than continue to rip ourselves to shreds.  

I cannot guarantee I will never be inclined to share my political views again, but if you believe in anything I just said, if you believe in the rights set forth at the very founding of this country, then maybe we can still, after all this time, be friends.

-L.E.

Exaggeration as a Truth

So often, we say things that are only half truths, or based on a truth and then built upon.  We often say these things to convey a point or to share humor.  But sometimes, the point they convey makes them feel so very, very real.

It might be seen as some as an exaggeration to say that I would die if I couldn't write.  But as of late, I have begun to truly feel that way.  And it has nothing to do with actual death.  There has been enough of that in my life lately to not want to exaggerate in such a way.  At the same time, there are ways to die on the inside.  I have twice felt that way, where nothing else in this world mattered.  All emotions were shut down, there was nothing worth feeling.  As my farrier told me the second time it happened, my "give a damn" was broken.  

With the loss of one of my best friends, and the very best human being I have ever known, there has been a wrenching sort of grief that continues to threaten to consume me.  I feel this consuming passion to put my agony in words, but life has been holding me back.  There is simply too much going on to take the time to let my heart bleed onto paper, and as a result, every day feels a little bit duller.  And yet the wrenching pain remains.  To start the healing process, I need to write, because to write is to start to heal my soul.  My heart will take longer, and for some reason the two are never on the same page.  But without one, the other is utterly miserable, and neither can start to find peace in the wrinkles thrown into life.

And so that brings me back to my point of the day.  Sometimes the words we say, like "I would die if I couldn't write" are not so much an exaggeration as a truth.  Sometimes our emotional well being is tied into one thing, in this case, the written word.  Sometimes, an exaggeration that might seem a bit ridiculous, speaks more than simple words ever could.

-L.E.

It's Never Too Early...but it can be too late

With the advent of fall, the creative juices for most of us NaNoWriMos start to flow a little more freely.  We're all aware of that fateful day in November when we will see what we're made of - if we can truly manage 50,000 words in a single month of madness.  Since I first started participating, I have loved every moment of the struggle, and the reward of simply winning.  

With this in mind, I dove head first this year into a greater level of responsibility by applying to be my local municipal liaison (which I have yet to spell successfully on a first attempt).  It is an opportunity I am so excited to partake in that I get a little bubbly just thinking about it.  This year will mark the fourth and final book in a series (though I have already decided on add ons for coming years about other characters and the "what if" years after high school).  It will be a year of truly wonderful beginnings and less than wonderful endings.

However, this will also be a bittersweet year.  The inspiration behind my character who is set to star in November just passed away unexpectedly.  Wendy was truly the most remarkable, loving, caring, unselfish being on the face of the planet, and I cherished my friendship with her.  She was everything that people should aspire to be.  She was my friend when I was still a neurotic girl, barely more than a teenager, and she remained my friend for over a decade.  She helped push me into publishing, she always encouraged me to write, and she read everything I ever sent her.  The greatest tragedy is not that I never told her what she meant to me - I did but I could have done more - no, the greatest tragedy is that stories she had wanted to know the end to will never be read by her.  She will never know how Nora and Ivan survive their teenage years, she will never know how Scarlett finds out about her father.  Most importantly, though, she will never know all that Mary Usher has to offer.  Mary Usher was based on Wendy, and the hidden strengths of such a sweet, loving woman were set to come out in this young girl.  

There is no question in my mind that Pandora will be dedicated to my wonderful friend.  I just wish that there had been time to tell her what would happen, how it would end, so that she would never have had to wonder while I struggled with the time to put to paper all the complexities mirrored in her fascinating soul.  

For those who believe that the dead watch over us, I hope you're correct.  I hope that for a few, brief moments, Wendy might be able to see that without her in my life, I could never have even had the ability to even try and live this dream.  

Emotions are the fuel that fans a writer's flames.  We live and breathe love, hate, and everything in between.  But sorrow and tragedy are harder still to articulate, especially when we are still mired in the midst of them.  I can only hope that in six week's time, when the world of writers comes together to frantically put together their stories, that I can do justice to my friend, and tell mine.

-L.E. 

When a Passion Becomes a Curse

Most writers suffer writer's block at some point along the way.  While this isn't my greatest issue when it comes to writing, the feeling is the same.  We writers have a grand passion for the stories we want to share, and when we can't do what we love with all of our souls, we suffer.  The darkness that resides in the mind of most writers is often a source of inspiration.  We can draw upon that dark pit that would otherwise eat us from the inside when we need to evoke pain, loss, and sometimes even joy in our words.  We keep the darkness from spreading by writing - and it might be a delicate balance, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

What happens, then, if a writer can't write?  Does the black abyss slowly start to eat away at us, do we fall prey to the darkness that we also secretly crave?  

Well, I don't speak for everyone, only myself, but I can safely say that on a day-to-day basis, I survive.  It is only when I have a moment that I realize how massive the darkness become, how it has seeped into more than just one part of me.  My conundrum now is not only how to keep it in check, to feed the beast as it were, but also how to make it work to my advantage.  

Never, in all my thirty years, have I hated writing as much as I do right now.  This isn't to say I have started to hate my creations - I love them now more than ever.  The less time I am allowed to spend with my literary friends, the more dear they become.  No, my issue now is a horrid college class.  English taught by an engineer is an oxymoron, and torture to an artist.  Anytime I try to let my passion eke out and splash a page, I am eviscerated in the grading.  And yet...I cannot bring my wild, writer's soul in check for the whims of one narrow minded man.  I am now left trying to salvage the raw wounds left from too long spent from what I love, all the while weaving an essay of supreme effort that can satisfy me enough to move one.  Because I have to move on, and I don't mean passing the class.  A year from now, ten years from now, the class will be a memory, but I will still be a writer.  And that is why this grand passion can also be a curse.  It never truly leaves us, but at times, it can be overpowering, and there is nothing to be done but survive.

L.E.

Top 10 Things I Just Learned About My MacBook

This is the first entry in what will, no doubt, be along, winding path as I work to familiarize myself with my MacBook Pro.  Having never really worked with Macs (at least not since public schools), this will take awhile.  In the meantime, for those who are similarly struggling, here are the Top Ten facts I have learned this week.  They might seem incredibly simple, but for anyone who has similarly made the transition, you'd be surprised what becomes alien so quickly after a lifetime of learned behavior with the rest of the computer world.

#1. The internet screen can be minimized, closed, and enlarged by the three colored bubbles on the LEFT side of the window.  Mind blowing, honestly.

#2. CTRL C is no longer the way to copy something.  Instead, it's the key with the apple on it and then the same letters as before.  

#3. On the MacBook at least, the scroll bar was not available when the internet was open unless I hovered over it.  To fix this, I had to go the System Preferences (found either at the bottom with the gear icon or at the top under the Apple icon)

#4. That System Preferences will become your best friend on that first day.  The sound, the mouse control, etc are all found there.

#5.  Speaking of mouse control, there is no right click on this MacBook Pro.  The solution?  Apparently, if you hold two fingers on the mouse pad.  Who thinks of these things?  Thank goodness for Google.

#6. What can and cannot be moved to the trash is really trial and error - but mainly error.  There is a nifty additional option to see what you can do by holding the mouse down while over the icon.  If it doesn't want to leave the task bar, then it won't be an option.  Then System Preferences comes back to hold you hand.

#7. Nifty trick: If you save an image to your desktop, you can simply drag it into your blogs.  Like so:

#8. Chrome is incredibly picky about being closed.  On every other computer I've ever used, I just closed it out with the lovely little "x" in the right hand corner.  Now, it appears, that I have to close it with the left bubbles, but also to go to the top of the screen under Chrome and select Close.  

#9. There's intuition, and then there's learning a new computer.  This is not an intuitive experience.  This is a hunt and peck experience.  It's like watching someone try to type on a reverse keyboard. Only worse.

#10. Last thought of the day: Take it slow.  Nothing is going to make sense.  Nothing at all.  I'm having to get used to this, but it's actually kind of fun.  

I'll see what nifty tricks of the Mac universe I can pass on for next week.  Until then...


L.E.