Dear God, Writing is Hard. Love, Writer
Don’t you wish writing was as easy as talking to God? No matter where you are, it will find you. Blessed is she who writes, for she shall inherit a publisher. Do not covet thy neighbor’s writing. Do unto other’s writing as you would have them do unto yours.
Example Letter to God
When I was little, I believed I had a direct line to God, or at least to my priest. When I was around 7 or 8, I used to write letters to the parish priest, Father Duane, and “mail them” by dropping them off in the collection basket. They never failed to get to him, and I always received a most prized piece of mail in return answering all my weird questions like “Don’t you get sick of singing These 40 Days of Lent, Oh Lord? I do. Did you happen to watch the Barbara Walters special last night? It was captivating. I hate squash and my family loves it, do you think God put me in the wrong family?”
It would be great if good writing was as simple as talking to God, or writing your priest a letter, but it takes a lot more hard work, and often it won’t receive as kind and accommodating a letter in reply. But good writing, like religion, can speak to your soul.
Thank God for the weekend! My awful cold has put my resolutions to shame and I’ve felt guilty for not getting to them all, but most nights I passed out at eight with my clothes still on and kleenex in my nose. It wasn’t until last night when I dreamed I was at the grocery store and I filled my cart full of tubs of cheese spread and cake that I new my appetite was back, and I was getting better. Of course, then I dreamed I got lost in St. Louis, and I have no idea what that means!
So it’s time for Resolution Weekend Madness! (man, I wish I had some WordArt to make that sound cool. ha!) I’ll have to blog ahead, clean my room, and journal for my own enjoyment. Not part of my resolutions, but important nonetheless, I’m also shopping for a superbowl party, Go Packers!, and catching up on some of the Oscar nominations before I host that party in a few weeks.
What are all you up to this weekend, writing or otherwise? I need motivators to basically start over the story I was working on. Yikes!
Ghostly Goodness
A page from Tim Burton's "The Meloncholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories" Click image for goodreads synopsis.
Resolution Update
- Watch a Jane Austen movie. I am currently watching the newest BBC version of Emma since I’m reading that book and enjoying picking up on all the little things that bring the quirks of the townspeople to life.
- Cleaning my room of clutter. Not yet, too busy coughing on everything and carrying kleenex in my arms everywhere I go. Still on my to do list.
- Journaling for my own enjoyment. Yes. And still recounting five things to be grateful for each day.
- Finish writing the icy mausoleum scene in my story. Not yet, but I at least reread what I have so far and found some great things to edit. To inspire more graveyard goodness, I’ll share with you one of my favorite true life ghost stories below.
- Blog ahead at least 2 posts. When did I agree to do that? My readers love my pantser style. Ok, on the to do list.
Ghost Story
You can believe in ghosts if you want to, you can choose to call me crazy too. I’m not sharing this story to change anyone’s opinion of the afterlife, I’m just sharing what happened to me as I recall it.
When I was in high school, I worked in a video store for several years. I had my suspicions at night that someone was in the building. I would hear the sound of tapes (yes, it was all VHS then) being picked off the shelves and put back down down. We had all metal racks in the store. The other clerks I worked with said they heard the same noises when they were alone in the store too, but our manager always denied hearing anything.
I would disregard the noises like the rest of us do when we hear creaks and cracks in our own home. But, there was more creepy happenings. My then neighbor worked out of town and enlisted me to take her dog for walks after school and I would often walk her up to the video store. Our store was family and pet friendly; we kept dog treats behind the counter for when people would come in with their pets. So little me would walk this giant white dog into the video store and head back to the comedy and drama racks or pick up my paycheck from the back office. The thing was this dog, who any other time would run up to people, chase squirrels, lick you to death, would get close to the back door of the office and would just sit down and halt to an abrupt stop. She would not budge. She’d stare at that door and I’d be pulling and pulling her leash to round the corner with me, and she’d be dragged across the carpet, and eventually bolt past the door and halfway down the next aisle before calming down. I’ve never seen her do this anywhere else.
My friends at the time were obsessed with ghost stories. And one night when I was closing, and it was quiet in the store, my two best friends and a coworker came over with a ouija board. I will tell you right now I will never use a ouija board again in my life. I agree with those of you who think it’s a scam and not real, and I agree with those of you who think it’s a doorway to the spirit world. Why both? I really believe it depends on the person using the board, and when we had just any friend use the board we would get gibberish answers, but when my best friend and I used the board, we who could finish each other’s sentences, we would get creepy real answers.
So, my two friends and coworker planted themselves in a back corner of the store in the action movies and asked the ouija board some questions about who worked in the store, what film title someone who wasn’t touching the board was looking at, and eventually who was it that lived in the video store. Amazed, they ran up to me at the counter and told me there was most certainly a ghost in the store, and he was 13 years old. He knew all the initials of the people that worked in the store. They had learned his family died in a fire years ago.
I had had enough. This was not appropriate at work, and I told them to pack up and get going. I walked home, went about my evening, got ready for bed as normal. My routine at night consisted of looping headphones over my bedpost and listening to one of the mixtapes I made while I fell asleep. That night, I remember waking up and thinking I had only been asleep a short while, but the music wasn’t playing. I reached up to my dresser top and picked up the tape player. I hit play. Nothing. I hit rewind, fast forward, play again. Nothing. “Huh, guess the tape player died. Weird. Normally I wake up cause it makes that slooooow, drooooning battery noise. Oh well, back to sleep.”
The next morning, I awoke and got ready for the day. On a whim, while waiting for my mom, I picked up the tape player and hit play. Billie Holiday crooned, “But I’ll be seeing you…” and the whole rest of the tape was erased.
I assure you I cannot explain how this happened. There is no record button on my player, so I didn’t accidentally tape over it. It was not placed next to anything electronic. Whatever, or whoever, it was, from then on, I closed the store very quickly. And my store manager, admitted to me after I left the store years later that she did think the store was haunted.
I think I have a healthy curiousity but a great respect for the spirit world. Have you ever worked or lived somewhere you thought was haunted?
Room for Rent: Give your writing some space, for the love of God!
I’m stuffing lettuce in my face right now. Guilt tripped after a weekend with the family, I devoured bite size bits of chocolate, ate french toast for supper, and cheesy potatoes for breakfast. But I was leaving soon, and if I didn’t eat them for breakfast, I wouldn’t get any more!
Penitence: a light green salad, smidge of a smidge of a drizzle of caesar dressing, and Morning Star chicken nuggets with barbecue sauce and pomegranate juice. It’s sort of like a kids meal at a fast food restaurant isn’t it, which tells you how well I prepared for this week’s resolution to eat healthier.
I swear to you, come morning, it’s back to Luna Bars and orange juice for breakfast.
Ok, Jess, distract the readers from your failings, what did you accomplish this week?
Let’s see, I relaxed. Sure that may not sound like an accomplishment, but for me, it’s not an easy thing to do. And I bet many of you find it difficult too. We writers can procrastinate to no end, but that’s not the same thing. Say it with me, it’s not the same thing! Procrastinating requires you to be doing other things when you should be doing something else more important. But I had no immediate task to undertake. I was free for three days to lay on the couch, watch movies with my parents, color with my niece, and read 100 pages of Jane Austen’s Emma while either in bed or in the tub. That’s right, I took baths! To some, the notion of a bath is disgusting, as you’re sitting in the same water for so long, but I freaking love them!!! And we have no tub at our house. Well, we do, but it’s in my roommate’s bathroom, and I wouldn’t step a toe in that tub; it’s full of man hair and year old mold. ylech!
I just got to hang out for a few days with my best friend, the red fleece blanket my parents call “Bette.” Don’t ask. I saw my dad attempt to latin dance, and my mother repeatedly fall asleep during every movie we watched. I had my two year old niece pretending to be a monster crawl all over me growling and tell me what I thought was her monster name, “GaGaGooGi.” Turns out, she wanted to recite “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.” *shrug*
I also attended a church service for the first time in maybe four years, Christmas excluded. My dad recently transferred, if you can use that verb while talking about religion, to a new church and my mom still goes to Catholic mass. I decided to appease him and go to his service on Sunday morning. I was a little out of my realm. Half an hour before the service started was pure parish singing, and there were a decent number of raised arms about me. I’m not comfortable with that. I ventured down that path once before, and the more I got into it, the more I found out my beliefs differed from everyone elses. Still, I admit, it was moving. The pastor had a very moving lesson to teach us, and I applied it as fittingly as I could with my current endeavors. The lesson essentially taught us, “God is a filler, not a forcer.” God will never force us to do anything, but if we give him SPACE he will fill it with all his goodness.
Ok, stay with me. I’m not about to change platforms and write about religion. But I can appreciate situations where I feel uncomfortable. And I can learn from them, and from those around me. Even though my religious views don’t match my fathers, it seemed more meaningful that I go with him, and when he held my hand in prayer, I felt it shake. So, I listened to the sermon, and I said, “Self, how can you make SPACE for your writing? What will you allow your SPACE to be filled with? Who will you show off your new SPACE to? And before you can do that, what must you clear away first?”
When I opened my thoughts to my writing, and how a silly thing like SPACE could impact it, I was sort of stunned. I think it does apply that for us to be creative and embracing of criticism and feedback, we have to open and give ourselves SPACE to hear those things. For us to try a new idea, a new genre, a new publishing venture, we have to give ourselves SPACE to show those things.
How are you giving yourself SPACE this week?
I Write Like I Eat Potatoes, With Cheese
Writers beware. If you’re going to start changing your diet to see how it impacts your life, don’t begin that process the weekend of your niece’s 2nd birthday.
The Weekend Begins
I was supposed to start out early on my three hour drive home, but instead, I slept in, and was lured to stay when my boyfriend offered to cook breakfast. Inventory: egg and cheese sandwhich on toast, hashbrowns, milk, and blueberry flavored coffee. Ok, pack up the car in -11 degree temperature, clear snow off of windshield, check. I was doing really well so far. I only stopped once on the drive to use the restroom, and I wasn’t planning to buy a thing. But the lonely man behind the counter stared me down in his bowling shirt and disheveled facial hair. Inventory: gatorade and cheez its – -damn! Saturday night I successfully finished writing a 10 stanza long rhyming birthday poem of all things Sonja to be read for her party.
The Party Day
The family oohed and aahed before we began to eat. Inventory: Brown sugar french toast, apple cinnamon squash, eggs, bacon, cheesy potatoes, mixed fruit, and broccoli and cauliflower salad. Oh, Lord, so many tasties! I made sure to take extra broccoli, and ok, I also took extra potatoes, but I wasn’t planning to write directly afterwards. I was planning to watch my two year old niece unwrap presents in a quick half hour and then cheer on the Packers during the game. Oh the game!!! Inventory: tortilla chips with chili cheese dip and black bean and corn salsa. No judgement, I needed to replenish myself, the Packers needed all of our cheering help, and salsa as you know helps the vocal chords immensely. On a side note, since some of you have gotten to hear about my father, I’ll have you know he did a rather spastic touchdown victory dance that was something of a combination between churning butter and the hokey pokey.
Upon returning home to my parents’ we skipped dinner altogether as we were so stuffed. But after watching a movie, the urge to nibble striked once more. I opened the fridge. Oh glorious dips! My mother had stocked up at the grocery store and we had french onion, dill, and taco dip sitting in the fridge. NO! I will behave at least once today. I grabbed a bag of carrots. I ate about 15. And then I ate about 30 chips with taco dip. At least they went down together. Have you heard that Mitch Hedburg joke? He talks about eating a carrot and a chip, and the carrot says, “It’s ok, he’s with me.”
I will do better tomorrow. Did someone just say pizza???
Mommy Dearest and other Literary Gurus
I can have an entire conversation with my mother and never say a word. Hold on, before you get all settled in your cozy chair and starry eyed expecting some mother/daughter tale of the bond eternal, wait. This is not that story. True, my mother and I both like to talk. Growing up, I have countless memories of her singing in the kitchen as she washed the dishes, spying on the neighbors through the windows, acting as her own personal neighborhood crime watch captain; she could talk the hind leg off a mule about anything. There were endless stories of distant cousins I never have, and never will, meet in far away places like Arizona. There were stories that went something like, “Did you ever meet John Hussey, the man that lived down the street from Aunt Judy and Uncle Vern (who weren’t really my aunt or uncle) and used to come to the restaurant all the time?” “No,” I’d answer. “Well, he became terribly ill about six years ago… Was it six? January, February, March, April…yes, it had to be at least six years ago. Suffered from vertigo, but then he got cancer in his liver. Well, he survived and Dad ran into him the other day. Dad had to go shopping in Janesville. He was gone for four hours! I had no idea where he was and all day the phone was ringing. Well, John is moving to Florida! I can’t imagine…” I’d lose interest somewhere after that.
This is how phone calls are with my mother. Only, I get a second edition a day later in print. Yah, first she calls me and tells me all the news she can recall, and then the next day, I get the same news in a letter from her. She likes to peek her audiences’ interest on the phone with lines like “Well, I wrote you about it yesterday, but you’ll never guess who I saw at the grocery store! She was in your class and she had a boy with her, actually I think they’re engaged now…”
The mark of a phone call with my mother is this: sitting down trying to eat or watch a movie with the phone up to your ear. You will not be talking. You will hold the phone up to your ear till your neck aches.
Occasionally, I have placed my mother on speaker phone. She despises this. “Well, I just wanted to ask you what your roommates thought of their Christmas presents, but not if someone’s listening in.” As if it would matter. On speaker, I’ve discerned, my mother can hear nothing from my side of the line. I will ask a question, and she will continue to talk right over me. This will repeat three times until I am yelling something stupid like, “Well, why do you have to take hummus to the dinner party?!”
My in-law siblings have all come to know this phone call ritual. Whenever they see one of us walking around the house trying to multitask, nestling the phone in the crick of our clavacles, they know. We are on a kind of hold, a hold that does not play elevator music, but talks about people we don’t know with great enthusiasm.
What brought on such a rant about the woman who gave me life, you might ask? Well, I can hardly say I’m nothing like her. From childhood, I was nicknamed “Chatterbox.” I have a terrible habit, albeit one I’m workin on, of interrupting people. What inspired me to write about my mother is the new book I’m reading called Only as Good as Your Word: Writing Lessons From My Favorite Literary Gurus by Susan Shapiro. 
The book’s introduction begins with a quote from Shapiro’s mother, “You made me sound like a bimbo, and I’m writing a rebuttal about a daughter who lies about her mother all the time.”
Well, this could be me one day. If I ever write about the people I love, inevitably their quirks that make them who they are will come out. And in Shapiro’s words:
That was the message my mother left on my answering machine right after I published my first personal essay, about our close albeit complex relationship, in Cosmopolitan. Getting paid $5oo from a national glossy women’s magazine was a very huge deal for a twenty-three-year-old Midwestern girl who’d dreamt of being a writer from the age of three. I had assumed Mom would be proud and get a kick out of being immortalized. Listening to her less-than-thrilled reaction, I was shattered. Yet what could I do – but steal her line?
“You’re funny, I’m gonna quote you on that,” I called her back to say.
This week’s resolutions for writing on The Happiness Project:
- Definitely read more Shapiro.
- In fact, read for pleasure every day for one hour.
- Write and record at least three family memoirs. Challenge: Be brave enough to post them on your blog.
What are your writing resolutions this week?
Just for fun, check out:
Pitching and Mooning!
Anne tells Gilbert the "what's what" when it concerns her writing.
Happy New Year! Being the sentimental schlub that I am, I spent the afternoon watching a favorite film that tells the story of another redheaded writer. When I was young, I wanted to be Anne Shirley, the title character of the films Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea. You would have often heard me making up new names for myself (“You can call me Cordelia”), reciting dramatic readings of poetry in the living room, and living up to the full potential of the stereotyped misgivings of a redhead. Anne, with an E, just may be my writing heroine. She is an extremely bright and witty young woman who can talk people into giving her the benefit of the doubt, just enough time to dazzle them with her talents. This film is one of my favorite guilty pleasures to remind myself that it’s ok to fail. Anne makes mistakes, but she also makes the best apologies. She writes terrible over the top romance stories before she finds her own and writes about the people she truly loves. A very happy six hours spent.
And along with so many others out there reexamining their lives, I too, dug out my bin of old journals to review resolutions and stories from new years of the past. To my surprise, my resolutions hadn’t changed a bit. Every year it looked like this.
- Act healthier. Excercise, eat better.
- Save more money.
- Take a vacation.
- Write more everything.
So, if anything, this blogging community and all the writer’s in the craft books I’ve been reading have said you’ve got to give yourself realistic set goals. So I’m making plans.
- Act healthier. 3 times a week, at least 10 minutes, excercise. Or take a walk outside.
- Make a specific dollar amount to save for the month. Deposit said amount in savings each month.
- Take a vacation. Joe and I are already thinking of going to Canada. I know, why? But why not?
- Write more everything. This is where I’m really focusing my time. I am enrolling in a writer’s workshop this April. I am going to write everyday. And am actively reading up on the craft of writing and seeking out writer’s groups, book discussions, etc.
What are your new year’s resolutions? And what guilty pleasures did you celebrate on new year’s eve?
Everyone is Given a Box of Crayons in Kindergarten
So my wonderful blogging network of new friends has given me so many words of wisdom and helpful sites for writers to go to. One of which included reading the book “Ignore Everybody and 39 other keys to creativity” by Hugh MacLeod. I won’t re-tell you about the book, you should check out the blog post I read or the author’s site. But one of his chapters is a reminder that everyone is born creative.
“Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they 
take the crayons away and repace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the ‘creative bug’ is just a wee voice telling you, ‘I’d like my crayons back, please.'” -Hugh MacLeod
The book is full of wacky cartoon drawings and keen combinations of hysterical no nonsense advice. It talks inspirational process along with business necessities. Mostly what I appreciate is the author’s honest voice that creativity is work. The ideas that come to you can shoot out like fireworks, but somebody’s got to measure out the gunpowder, safely and securely measure out the display base, and strike the match. He reminds us that good ideas are worth fighting for, and you’ve got to show up for the battle.
So this week, my quest was to practice writing prompts every day. Today I went onto www.writeordie.com which is a site many other bloggers, writers, NaNoWriMo’s have all suggested, and I thought what better week to try? The site offers a timed space for writing to measure word count, and if the author fails to complete so many words after a short period of time, subtle hints are given on the screen. First off, I think write or die will be my mental undoing. Always a bit of a competitor in the language field, I went straight to kamikaze mode on a grace period level of “strict.” At first the sudden color change made me jump a little, I wasn’t expecting that. In amusement, I watched as the screen went from a happy-go-lucky pink into a dip-dye evil red. I was hoping there would be another color, but suddenly multiple words were deleted from my story. Scrambling to put them back together I barely had time to think about what my character would see next before the pink background began it’s bloody dripping down my screen again. I lasted only 12 minutes. Write or die is not a place to do the brainstorming for your story. Write or die is a place to take your brainstorming and crank it out on page. Duly noted. I should tell you the next level up is called Electric Shock Mode on a grace period of “evil.”
The one fantastic thing write or die did for me was illustrate just how much I need to brainstorm the next plan of action for my short story. I’ve recently dumped my protagonist, Lydia, into a labyrinthian underworld through which she must walk a series of strange parallel worlds. In order to bring her to life again I have to plan what will happen to her, who she’ll meet, what she’ll find.
And that brings me to next week’s writing resolution. I will create a storyboard. I’m an immensely visual learner, so trying to brainstorm while using write or die only distracted me more watching the color of my screen change, so my brainstorming needs to occur beforehand. Crawl, then walk, Jess! Duh! Using photos and language that inspire me, I’ll make a storyboard of Lydia’s journey. I also plan to read before bed each night. I have a hard time “turning my head off” as I call it, I lay awake thinking about the day, about work, the laundry list of things to do (which reminds me I need to change my laundry), so I plan to read before bed and hope I think about my story as I fall asleep. Better keep a pen and paper handy too, just in case inspiration sparks! Good luck to all of you on your writing endeavors!
Jess Witkins' Happiness Project 