In order to get myself posting over here on a regular basis, I’m going to start answering questions from a 30-day writing meme that some of my friends have been playing with.
Day 1: Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.
The flip answer is “the one I’m working with right now”, but it’s also the true answer. Writing projects are like lovers; writers tend to believe that the current project is “the one”, the best one ever, the one you’ve been waiting for. If you don’t feel that way, then your lack of passion will show in the writing. But if you’re in love with your project, man, the passion will be hard to contain!
I’m in that first-blush honeymoon phase right now – I was previously plodding along with another project, listlessly pushing myself to add words that I’d invariably just delete anyway. But then, bam! There’s the sexy new project, all dolled up and ready for me to throw myself in headfirst. In the past, I might have felt guilty enough to continue forcing the previous project, delaying long enough for the passion for the new project to fade. But this time – I credit The Artist’s Way – I decided what the hell, go with the passionate response! I made a new playlist of songs for the new project, and I went out and bought a couple of visual aids to help me plot. I’ve let the new project take over my brain entirely.
It’s paid off; I’ve written more words this past week than I wrote on the last project in a month. I’m carefully not describing it yet, though. The honeymoon phase also has an element of paranoia, a feeling that you need to hide the new lover from well-meaning friends and family just in case they might tell you he’s ugly and why are you wasting your time on him anyway? It’ll just be me and my project for a while, happily lost in each other.
If you’ll excuse me, I have to go figure out ways to destroy a city …
I have nothing profound to post about today, so here, a sample of how my life generally goes on the weekend.*
Saturday: Green River Ordinance, a Texas-based pop-rock band we know and love from The Rock Boat, opened for Kris Allen at the Fine Line Music Cafe. That afternoon, they also played a short acoustic set at the Best Buy in Roseville. It’s always good to see them – they’re fantastic musicians, and super nice guys besides!
A video I shot at Best Buy – “On Your Own”:
Sunday: I took myself to St. Paul’s Grand Old Day; I’ve been living here in the Twin Cities for 12 years, and this was my first time at the semi-official summer kickoff festival! My main purpose for going was to see Dessa play, as her album A Badly Broken Code has been my absolute favorite CD of 2010 so far. I wasn’t disappointed! (And it was a gorgeous day to wander down Grand, so the day was a win all around!)
Video – “Go Home”:
Monday: back to work, but then to the Guthrie Theater for w00tstock – a comedy/music/variety show starring geek celebrities Wil Wheaton, Adam Savage, music duo Paul and Storm, and a various array of guest stars. As an unapologetic geek, I can tell you that it was pretty much the funniest 4 hours and 45 minutes I’ve spent in a really damned long time. :) Explaining it would take a lot of time and brainpower, and quite frankly, I haven’t yet caught up on the sleep I lost that night. If you’re a geek, though, you’d love it. If the show comes to a town near you, go!
Video – Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy (Mystery Science Theater 3000, Rifftrax) wrote a generic national anthem (for sale to the highest bidding country!), and perform it accompanied by the entire cast of w00tstock Minneapolis.
Ladies and gentlemen, my life. Live music and geek jokes pretty much sum up everything you need to know about me, really.
* … okay, so not every weekend is this awesome. I wish.
So, I made the pledge to blog more often. I fell off the map for a little while, but this week, I’ve gotten two signs that I should get back to it!
First, I wrote a small guest post for 37 Days; she is putting together a free ebook in honor of her daughter’s high school graduation, and invited readers to submit short pieces of advice for her daughter and anyone else about to embark on adulthood. I overcame my usual reservations about my own writing and submitted something, and lo and behold, she posted it this week! Consider this: the best days of your life will sneak up on you. I’ve never written for someone else’s blog before – I barely write enough for my own! – so it was a little thrill to see my writing posted on a blog seen by so many people.
Then, today, I came around to contemplate what I should blog about, and saw that Gwen Bell had mentioned my very first post on Twitter! Yet another blogger I admire greatly acknowledged me and my writing, which is kind of amazing. So … I’ve spent the last 9 weeks on The Artist’s Way; I think I can recognize synchronicity when I see it.
So, if you’re surfing over here because of one of those two ladies, hello! I’m thrilled that people might be reading, and I will try to produce a little more content for you! For now, though, it’s off to Wednesday night crafting, as I’m still participating in 30 Days of Creativity, and whatever costuming/jewelry making/knitting that goes on tonight will certainly count!
I’ve already missed a handful of days over here, but I do have an excuse.
In August of 1996, my sister decided to “buy” me a cat for my upcoming 20th birthday – her friend Jessie’s cat had just had a litter of kittens, and since I’d expressed a desire to get a cat, she took me to Jessie’s trailer and told me I should pick out one of them. The whole litter was black, except for two; the tabby, which Susan had already claimed, and a little fluffy white cat, which another friend had claimed. So, I was left with the task of picking between half a dozen identical tiny black kittens. As I walked through the house, I passed by the kitchen and caught sight of a kitten cowering behind the stove. She looked up at me, and I said “okay, I think you’re the one coming home with me.” I named her Luna, and aside from the three months she spent at my dad’s after I moved to Minnesota, she’s been with me for the past fourteen years.
Until yesterday morning. Early in May, she was diagnosed with terminal mammary cancer; one of her tumors had become infected, and she went on antibiotics. However, the infected tumor never got better, and had been getting exponentially worse over the last week. Saturday night, when I got home from sewing, I saw blood on the couch and on the kitchen table. After some angst, I knew it was time. So Sunday morning, we took her in to the emergency vet, and I let her go.
Luna was the first pet that had ever been mine and mine alone. She was also the first living being I’ve ever actually seen die – I’ve lived through a lot of human deaths, but I’ve never been there for the moment when life leaves the body. But yesterday, I sat there and stroked Luna’s head as the vet injected her with an overdose of anesthesia. She slowly collapsed onto the exam table, and then she was gone. I feel a little guilty, I won’t lie. I can see the places I went wrong over the years, decisions I did and didn’t make that made her more susceptible to this cancer. But, hindsight does me no good – she was sick, and I decided to let her go before she became even more miserable. She’s gone. But, she’ll always be my little girl. I miss her like crazy.
I never thought that the hardest part of The Artist’s Way would be the artist dates. She warns about it in the book, but I thought “hey, I don’t have a husband or kids or a second job, my time is totally my own – this should be easy for me!” But as of now, it’s probably been a good month since I’ve gone on an artist date on purpose.
I have a million excuses – I’ve had lots of plans, I watch a bunch of TV shows, I’ve been sick, I feel bad about going off and not inviting (insert person here) along. But, at the same time, how much time have I spent staring blankly at the computer? A lot. An awful lot. So I need to come up with some plan to give myself an hour of my own time every week. This week, I promise myself that I’ll do it tonight. I have no plans tonight except to raid Super Target for groceries.
The other problem is thinking of something to do. Tonight, I might go up to the park and walk around the lake, because I haven’t done that in several months. But I’m having a hard time finding ideas that sound like fun and that I can do in the evening. I should do some more searching online for idea lists, and pick out a few. I can plan them several weeks in advance; that might be the best idea, because I’m pretty anal about sticking to already made plans.
Slowly, my brain is processing the idea that “taking care of myself” does not actually mean “sit at home and don’t stress out”, because sitting at home does not always equal not stressing out. It’s amazing how long I continued to believe that.
So, the last month or so has been yet another lesson in “try, fail, get up and try again.” That includes this blog. This is me getting up and trying again!
Update on The Artist’s Way: I’m on week 8, version 2. I started week 8 back on the 10th, but I went out of town at the end of that week, and had the plague by the time I got back. I missed my morning pages for more than a week, but this Sunday, I decided to start again and repeat week 8. I also haven’t done an artist date in a while – I did kind of a half artist’s date a couple of weeks ago, when I started going through old magazines and cutting out pictures and phrases for an imaging collage. I haven’t finished, though; I should do that this week.
On impulse, I also pledged with 30 Days of Creativity – what can I say, I like organized challenges, even when I’m not very good at them! But June promises to be a good creative month. I’m getting back into my novel, and I’m learning how to sew as we make our costumes for CONvergence. Can a total novice make a skirt and two blouses in 5 weeks? We will see!
As long as I’m pledging things to myself, I pledge to post on this blog once a day between now and the con. It’s my perfectionism that keeps me away – I want to post wonderfully eloquent and inspiring things, but when I don’t have any ideas for something super intelligent, I just say “eh, maybe later.” But, you know – making a habit and writing posts, any posts, will make me a better blogger. (Which is a different kind of writer than I am normally!) So, here we go, 36 days of posts … stay tuned!
Reading deprivation is damned hard. I haven’t quite kept to the spirit of the exercise – I email people while I’m at work, I’ve watched my TV shows, I’ve played my video game a couple times – but I haven’t read any books or magazines, and I’ve stayed away from all the places on the internet I usually visit daily. You don’t realize how many times a day you read for pleasure or information or just out of boredom until you can’t do it anymore. For example, right now I’m making myself write this blog entry rather than go read in the internet on my lunch break.
In The Artist’s Way, she talks about how this week will probably be full of emotional ups and downs. That’s been true for me, in a quiet sort of way. I’ve been forced to think about a couple of small problems I’ve been having, and have come to some conclusions. I’ve purged a ton of my belongings. I’ve had a mini-meltdown about whether my current novel is working or not. But mostly, I’ve just felt isolated. I guess that’s the whole point. Cut out incoming stimuli, concentrate more on what’s going on inside your head. What’s going on inside my head? I’m not sure I could tell you yet. I feel kind of blank, but that could just be because I’m purging all the stupid thoughts that get introduced when I stare at the internet all day.
A couple of friends have emailed me and said “boy, you’re missing XXX discussion in fandom,” and my gut reaction has been “oh, god, I’m so glad I’m not reading that right now.” Honestly, staying off the internet has been great for me. I miss the personal interaction I have with my friends, and I miss hearing news firsthand, but I do not miss the in-depth discussions/arguments/flame wars (depending on the day) that do nothing but leave me unsure of my own thoughts and abilities. Yes, there are times when I do need my thoughts challenged, but when I’m trying to recover my own creative process, I should really stay away from the discussions about other people’s creative processes. I’ve been on the internet for fifteen years now, most of that in one fandom or another, and I’ve seen every single discussion about writing and reading and inspiration and characters and plot et cetera at least a dozen times. Are we talking about Mary Sues again? Must be springtime. The thing is, my confidence in my own writing ability is shaky right now. Removing myself from the path of everyone else’s opinions has made me realize exactly how shaky it is. I’m never going to recover that confidence if I continue to let all these outside thoughts take up residence in my brain. So … when I do go back to the internet, I’m going to have to be careful about what I read.
In a way, I consider deprivation week over as of this afternoon. Not that I’m going to start reading again until Sunday, but I’m out all evening tonight and out of town for a night starting tomorrow afternoon. It’s easier to avoid reading when you have other distractions! But, I hope I don’t go back to the same behavioral patterns when this week is over. I think habit changes would do me a lot of good.
A few weeks ago, I went to the mall after leaving my usual Saturday morning writing group. I decided to grab some lunch while I was there, but since I can’t eat alone without a book to read, I visited Borders first. Instead of my normal tour through sci-fi/fantasy and romance, though, I ended up in the self-help and motivation section. I didn’t know what I was looking for – something to kick my ass into gear, I guess, something to break through the ennui I wallowed in for most of the winter. Julia Cameron’s name jumped out at me almost immediately, and something clicked in my brain.
I’ve had a copy of The Artist’s Way for more than a decade. I’ve started to follow the program four or five different times, but I don’t think I’ve ever finished all 12 weeks. Once, I think I might have gotten up to week 8 or 9, but I’m easily distracted. It’s been a few years since I tried, but seeing Julia’s name in the bookstore reminded me of the red and gold book sitting on my bookshelf at home, and I said to myself, “Okay, you were looking for a kick in the ass? You already have the tools, go to it.”
(I ended up buying another of her books – The Sound of Paper – which has also been incredibly helpful, but that’s probably a different post.)
The Artist’s Way treats creative block as an addiction to be overcome, much like alcohol or codependency. It is a form of codependency, really – you’re relying on a variety of excuses and activities to avoid thinking about creative things you could be doing. The beginning of the program isn’t terribly necessary for me; I already believe that my creative endeavors are worth the time and energy I could be spending on them, I just have a serious discipline problem. There is a measure of fear in that, though. I’m afraid that, once I start, whatever I produce won’t be any good. I’m also afraid that giving up certain other activities will leave me disconnected from some of my friends. The internet is an addiction. Boy, do I know that, but it gives me topics to discuss with friends, knowledge of events that I can have in common with friends and strangers alike. But really, Jaime, what benefit does playing Bejeweled on Facebook have? Do I really need to check the blogs on my Google Reader more than once or twice a day? Are the wanky comments on that AbsolutePunk post amusing enough to spend fifteen minutes reading? (Answers: none, probably not, and only when some shitty musician has made a fool of himself on the internet.)
Luckily(?) for me, next week is Reading Deprivation Week – or, more honestly in the internet age, Media Deprivation Week. The goal is to read nothing that is not necessary to life and work for the entire week. No books, no newspapers, no blog posts, nothing. TV deprivation goes right along with it, to be true to the spirit of the week. The point of it all is to concentrate on the words and thoughts inside your own head, instead of filling it up with everyone else’s words and thoughts. Only twice have I made it past this week. It’s scary for a media addict! But this time, I find myself almost looking forward to it. A ready-made excuse to withdraw and quit worrying about being connected all the time? The deprivation would be unhealthy if it lasted longer, but for a week, I’m in. I’ll make certain rules for myself – skim email subjects on the Blackberry to make sure nothing needs immediate attention, allow myself to skim one social networking site per day, something like that. I’ll also allow myself to post to this blog – because that’s concentrating on my own words, isn’t it? Check back in a week to see if I’ve driven myself crazy.
Maintaining this blog is one step I’m taking towards discipline. Keeping to The Artist’s Way for 12 weeks is another. I’m teaching myself to stop, sit down, and do the work. It’s the only way I’ll ever accomplish anything!
I’ve tried to keep a blog before. I’ve started, stopped, started again, forgotten about it, procrastinated, deleted, tried again … I’m not always very good at following through. Why? Partly, it’s because I get scared. What do I have to say that seven hundred other people aren’t already out there saying? Does anyone else care what I have to say? I get hung up on the idea of having a theme, having one particular reason to blog. I’m a random person by nature – I flit from one thought to another without a pause in between. But in blogging, you’re told that’s a liability; people want to read someone with focus! Someone dedicated enough to one topic that they become an expert!
That person is not me. So, I fell away from blog after blog. What was the point?
But, a few days ago, I read Gwen Bell’s post about Exuberant Imperfection, and it resonated with me. I tend to worry about being perfect when I’m writing, no matter what form it is. Writing has always come easily to me; getting myself to concentrate on practicing so I can get better, well, that’s a different story. I’m slowly teaching myself to show up to the page with my fiction. If I want to write blog posts, why not treat it the same way? It’s all writing. Two different audiences, two different styles of writing, but the underlying principle is the same. Start writing, try different things … eventually, I’ll get better at it!
I suck at being bad at things. I hate looking stupid, and doing something badly always makes me feel like someone out there is going to laugh at me. I’m trying to get over that, because avoiding new experiences makes for a boring life! I’ve got a handful of things that, when I look back at my past, I say “damn, I wish I’d just gone for that.” My goal for the rest of my 30s is to never have to say that again. Actually, I have a whole list of things that I want to try in the next few years. Maybe that’s the theme of this blog – Jaime’s journey to do the shit that scares her. Not much of a tag line, but hey, it’ll do in a pinch.
… and hey, I’ve had this domain name for several years now, but it matches that desire, doesn’t it? If you’re not familiar, my site is named after the Great Big Sea song “Consequence Free.” I’ve always wanted to call that song my theme song, but the truth is that I’ve always been too scared for it to really be true. Let’s try to change that, shall we?
Wouldn’t it be great if the band just never ended
We could stay out late and we would never hear last call
We wouldn’t need to worry about approval or permission, we could
Slip off the edge and never worry about the fall…
So, here we go, a blog. I have a tentative posting schedule and a desire. Who knows where it will lead me?