Doing the Work

If you wanna be a fiction writer, you gotta do the work. It doesn't really matter where you work, like from a gorgeous spot out in the Montana wilderness, but you gotta dedicate the time and the headspace. You'll need uninterrupted stretches to: 

--Think about your story, AKA plotting

--Write, write, write

--Re-read and check your inner critic. Revisions come after the draft. (Are you editing while you're drafting? Ahhh, I see, you're one of those.)

--Capture thoughts about changes (I do this in a spiral notebook.)

--Think some more, AKA plotting

--Wonder what the hell you're doing

--Keep writing

--Resist, resist, resist major editing (Unless you're one of those.)

--Finish a draft

A draft is the newborn phase of your story's life. You don't have anything without a draft – a complete draft with a beginning, middle, and end.

All the other stuff, pacing, voice, character development, world building, proper spelling/grammar, dreams of fame, those can be tackled in the editing phase. Don't get me wrong, editing is essential. But getting the draft down comes first. Everything else can be fixed.

Whatcha waiting for?

Wait, What? AI and Writing

Since my last post in 2022, lots of life has happened. I traveled to Iceland, Canada, Spain and several U.S. locations; I've moved (same city); I've switched jobs then decided to basically take a sabbatical from full-time work. Here we go, sliding into 2023 with a little determination to relax.

How was all that activity on my literary output? A big fat rotten goose egg. But doesn't the saying go, If you can't write something worth reading, then do something worth writing about? I've been thinking about finishing the draft of my new novella, but the old butt-in-seat-hands-on-keyboard method has failed me of late. Part of it has to do with the relaxing part. My job had me spending so much time in front of a computer, the last thing I wanted (or want) to do was (is) spend even more time in front of a screen, even if it was (is) doing something I enjoyed. It's okay. In fact, it might be good timing now that technology has sped up. My next novel includes artificial intelligence (AI) in the storyline, and so much has happened on that front lately.

ChatGPT has become a thing. If you haven't given it a spin, stop reading this and try it. It is an online web portal to pose questions to a computer that is trained to answer like a human. Ask it anything, and it'll give you an intelligible answer. It can even write a book. People are using AI to write just about everything now, including marketing copy. I'm waffling between thinking this is incredibly cool and also thinking of my career as dust. (Ha! Even the notion that I have a career is a little comical.)

Here's the answer ChatGPT gives when I ask it: What kind of voice do you use when asked to write a novel?

As an AI language model, I don't have a personal voice, but rather can adopt to different styles and tones...

And for another five paragraphs, it gives an explanation of how that can happen. Weird? Yes, and a little wonderful. 

Will it replace you and me, the writers of the world? No, I don't think a computer will ever fully capture the human experience. Google's tried to crack the code of our behavior for years (to sell us stuff), and the one underlying bump is that humans are just too fickle. We change our minds a lot, we do things uncharacteristically, veer from our habits. That and the fact that we actually LIVE isn't something that a computer can duplicate. It won't know what it feels like to sit on a beach, watch the sunrise, drink coffee with a friend, be cramped in a stale airplane, witness war, fall in love. Or at least, not yet.

Normalizing Your Writing Practice

Using trendy language and tropes generally isn't a great idea in writing. But I'll use the word "normalizing" in this post because it goes straight to the subject. If you're a writer, if you are trying to cultivate a practice while wondering what the hell you're doing, or whether what you're doing helps/hurts/accomplishes your goals, then one sure thing will support you: a writing cohort.

Sorry to use such a $2 word: cohort. It sounds academic when it's just shorthand. I'm not talking about a critique group. Those can be helpful, too, in other ways: to keep your word count up, to keep your stories honest. But a writing cohort is something more loose; it's the people you know who take their writing somewhat seriously, have produced work that actually goes out into the world for other people to consume, and who are actively working on future work to publish. These are the folks who'll normalize your experience by reflecting on their own. They're the people you'll discuss: "Here's where I'm going. How about you?" You need this conversation once in a while to "normalize" your habits/practice and not feel alone. It reminds you why you are doing what you are doing and that you aren't astray. 
 

This blog is subtitled: Notes on a Writing Life. I can't tell you how to live a "writing life." No one really can. It's as individual as your DNA. How many words you write in a day/month/year has nothing to do with your worth as a writer. "Making it" by getting an agent and a book deal may be your goal. That's all fine and good. But there are many iterations of "making it" that have nothing to do with commercial success. Success comes in many forms and by many paths. Understanding the individuality of your experience by checking in with your peers helps you to discern what's best for you.

I have some good writers in my life. Novelists. Poets. Journalists. They are incredibly interesting, dedicated, outlandish, unconventional, wonderful, decent people. I hope they get from me what I get from them. My habits, foibles, successes, and trials aren't unique. My goals are to keep writing and not stop, to write something people can enjoy and possibly learn from. Here's where I'm going. How about you?

At A Crossroads

My next book is coming out, and the opportunity to move in a new direction is imminent.

The conclusion of a book, in this case by publishing it, brings a sense of fulfillment, excitement, and letdown. Why letdown? Because the birth "process" is over. All the labor and worry about the way the story will unfold comes to an end. The process for The Book of Ulie took me more than seven years. Obviously, I wasn't working on the manuscript for a solid seven years. I started it and wrote it in about two, then put it aside for about four, then resurrected it to get it out of my system. Don't get me wrong. I have liked this book from the beginning A LOT. It's a good story. Catchy, infectious. (Even my mom liked it, and she's a hard reader to please.) The break from it was just life happening.

Readers may wonder: Is Ulie you? No and yes. No, she's not how I am as a person. Yes, she comes from parts of my experiences and thoughts. But, she's not the true me. I'd like to be more like her in some ways but not in others.

She's a writer, working on a book, and that's how I am now and always. My crossroads is: What should I do next? How should I change to broaden my audience? Should I write more for personal or commercial success? Ulie asks the metaphysical: Who am I? I guess I'm doing the same. 

Advice for Becoming a Writer

Looking back in the 10-year rearview mirror, here are some lessons learned about writing fiction. If you're new to "creative writing" and want to make a name for yourself or switch careers, let me clue you in:

• If you're not reading, you won't make it. Not only must you read in your genre and good books in general, you should be reading ABOUT your genre and WHY books are good. Not only must you keep learning how to write better, you should be practicing what you learn. Not only must you market, you should be dedicating time to marketing, because in a larger sense, that's the only way anyone will ever see your work.
  
• Don't bank on making a living by writing fiction exclusively. Despite that statement's negativity, it's realistic. If you put that kind of pressure on your creative life ("I must be a bestseller by XYZ or write the Great American Novel before I'm 30"), you will find all kinds of stresses will invade your psyche and take the joy out of creativity. 
• Keep earning a steady source of income, even if it isn't writing and even it if cuts into your writing/creative time. Having resources for food, water, shelter gives you the headspace (and physical space) to write. If you love writing enough, you will continue to write regardless of having a day job, and your writing will reward you in ways other than financial. Can you make it "Big," whatever "Big" means to you? There's always a chance.
• Break the rules, but know what they are first. This goes back to the advice: Keep learning.
  
• Just because you write it, doesn't mean they will come. Readers and sales don't flop in your lap.
• Your work isn't for everyone. That's okay. In fact, if it was liked by everyone that would be an anomaly the likes of an asteroid hitting Earth. Carve out a niche for yourself. If you want to be market-savvy, then hyper-focus on trends and popular tropes in your genre. Or, if you're like me, experiment. There's richnesses in following your own muse.
• Your creative life is yours and yours alone. You don't have to live it any way but your own. If you find success with one piece and like the success enough to repeat it, then follow that path. If you never want to write another story like it again, then don't. You're the master of your spirit. Follow your spirit.
• Have some FUN in your creative life! Do something that puts you out in the world (virtually, these days, of course). Make people smile, and the act will reciprocate.
  

Surviving Coronavirus AKA Chasing My Tail

It's only been a week. We're a week into an usual shift to pull inward. Keep to ourselves. Flatten the curve. Be socially responsible by not being social. Well, I've had a bit of my own "come to Jesus" moments in that last 7-10 days, and they haven't been pretty.

Things about this pandemic that have been a challenge:
Staying off the news feeds. They could be the death of my psyche. With so much information available on an hourly basis (if you toggle, like I'm doing, between the NYT, NPR, and the Johns Hopkins virus tracker map), I'm chasing my tail. I never get enough (peace?) or the thing I'm truly looking for, which is: When will this be over? And, Can I guarantee no one I love will get sick or die? Answers to both are impossible.

Going outside. Logically, I know it's okay to go outside. It's fine. Fresh air is good, but for some reason, it's not as comforting as it should be. Not that I reasonably think anything bad could happen to me out in the open air. It just feels different. Solution? Go outside more.

Being creative to combat the stress. Artistic types are finding creative ways to do their art. So, what's up when you can't muster the enthusiasm to do your art? This is the first words I've written since the national emergency. I thought of a poem the other day but lost it in the dread to go into a grocery store. For the record, I have not stocked up on toilet paper.

Caring what others are doing to stay safe. This one is a biggy, because the directives of the White House, my city, and state, aren't universally being followed. Everyone has a different opinion about their freedom of movement. I can't control the behavior of anyone despite my decision to follow the recommendations. In fact, I can't control anything about these circumstances except my own response. I suppose I could put up a sign in my yard that says: Hey, follow the rules! But that wouldn't do any good either. My heart goes out to essential workers and people who can't afford to miss work. You need support, too.

My writing pal.

Upsides? There are a few:
Old friends are in touch. It has been nice to reconnect with many people this week. Hey, even though we're mostly on social media doesn't mean we're anymore likely to stay in touch. We see snippets of each others' lives from our posts but not the meaty stuff. This week, I'm having conversations that are more meaningful.

I appreciate my home more. So Much More! Frankly, because of my day job, I'm just not home that much. Yes, on weekends (in-between errands). But now I'm more thankful to have a nice place to live and a yard to walk around. I have a fridge and a washer/dryer and a garage that needs cleaning out. Rather than a burden, my overstuffed garage might actually get a makeover.

My pets love the company. My three cats have discovered ear-scratches are available anytime. Spoiled kitties.

My kid made cookies. For the first time in forever. Thank you, Ronnie. You're good to be cooped up with.

Let me know how you are doing.

Retro Writing: Why My Hands Win Out

Sometimes, a writer's job only involves contemplating the story. That's not the same as writing. It can happen between sentences, or it might take the form of long stretches when wistfulness clouds the eyes. Generally, my hearing stops working while my story is swirling around in my head.

This could change with technology, when computers gain the ability to read our thoughts. I've read that a form of this type of virtual reality technology is being developed. In my Luddite-lite worldview, my warning sirens go into Category 5 hurricane mode (BTW, 5 is the most severe hurricane). If thinking a story becomes a way to write a story, would a computer capture every thought and plot line that my brain thinks? How would I revise such a conglomeration? My thoughts go in hundreds of directions before I write them, so much so that the physical act of actually writing a coherent string of words is the thing that makes them coherent.

Writers have been using dictation to write stories for a while. I tried this once several years ago using speech-to-text software, but it wasn't sophisticated enough to understand all my words and the flow of my speech pattern, so I forgot about it. However, a case can be made that speech-to-text could be a productive option for many and make a writer's wordcount soar.

There may come a time when the way we write doesn't involve "writing" anymore. Consumer pressure for more words and stories, faster and faster, to make a living and satisfy audiences could send the keyboard into obsolescence. Then we may find ourselves waxing nostalgically about the days when we used a laptop. Our Chromebooks and MacBooks would fall in with the dinosaurs and the rotatory telephone. (Somewhat ironically, the speech-to-text software marketed to writers is called Dragon.) Or, it could be that this development will peter out like other changes in technology. Hardcopy vs. ebook, anyone? I also know writers who still use pen and paper.

Nonetheless, if you have a rotatory phone because it's cool, rock on! And if your vinyl collection is lovingly intact, you are my hero! Maybe I'll just stay retro and write the old fashioned way, one keystroke at a time. 

Where My Reading Took Me in 2019

Writers need to read, so it's good to look back at the year's consumption. I'm a notoriously slow reader, but ho! I did pretty well in 2019.

Finished Cover-to-Cover

These were a mix of old, new, famous and not-so-famous. Dan DeWeese and Leni Zumas are from the Portland, Ore., scene. The surprise was Elizabeth Hand. Need to read more of her. Venus was a major disappointment.

How to Love by Thich Nhat Hanh
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Fire. Plus... by Elizabeth Hand
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Gielgud by Dan DeWeese
I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan
On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks
Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Ten Poems about Love selected and introduced by Lorraine Mariner
Red Clocks by Leni Zumas

Still Want to Finish

Whitney Otto also comes out of the Portland writing community. Keya is my dear friend in western North Carolina who is incredibly smart and translated the work from Sanskrit. Yeah, it's okay to feel small now.

Dear Life by Alice Munro
How to Make An American Quilt by Whitney Otto
Philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita by Keya Maitra
Game of Thrones, Book One, by George R.R. Martin

Started But Lost Interest In

Gosh, I wanted to like all of these, but my attention span can't absorb multiple characters, too many plot lines (oops, I wrote a book like that!), or over-indulgent, self-centered figures (Henry and Hunter).

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Cat's Fancy by Julie Kenner
Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis
Hunter, The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S Thompson by E. Jean Carroll

Went Back to Again and Again

The Book of Joy, Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by Dalai Lama, Desmund Tutu, and Douglas Carlton Abrams
A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson
Be Here Now by Baba Ram Dass
The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke by Anchor Books

Still to Read

It's good to have goals!

Moby Dick by Melville
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr

Suggestions?

A Brutal Assessment of A Writer's Reality

Yes, I've written a book.
Yes, I wrote another.
Yes, there's a third.
Of course, two-ish untested manuscripts attract dust in a bin.

So what?
That doesn't make me an authority.

That doesn't make me popular.
That doesn't make me write any more.
That doesn't make me happy.
That doesn't make me think I could do any of it again.

They were just something I wrote.
I will probably write again.
I may write quite a bit.
I may just think about writing quite a bit.
I may just think about nothing.

Then there's Octavia.
She did what we all do.
Even though she was famous.
Even though she had it going on.
She still needed to remind herself.
Write down why and how she should write.
Reframe the self-doubt, the weakness of spirit.
Push herself to keep writing.

Because, fuck, this is lonely business, and sometimes it gets you nowhere except inside your own head.

Consuming Art, Making Do

When my energy is low for writing, my secret is to consume art. Any kind will do. A gallery or a museum. A movie, old or new. A performance. Live music. Those make me want to write because experiencing other works by other artists, struggling or otherwise, gives me hope and inspiration.

Television, the cable version, doesn't. I don't even have cable (to my family's chagrin).

This is my first post of 2019 because I took the month of January to finish the draft of my last Musketeer book. Then, it took about two months to prepare it for publication. It had been hanging over me for more than a year. I'd drafted most of it in 2017 during National Novel Writing Month, then didn't pick it up again until late last year. I kept telling myself: "It will only take a few weeks to get 'er done." The ending foiled me. Nothing seemed to click, and I finally decided it just had to be over. Someone had to die, and it couldn't be the main character (because, well, Dumas kept writing about Athos after the time period in which I placed him). I found this book to be the most difficult to write because the ending just never naturally showed up like the previous two books. The options were many and my decisiveness, missing.

www.TheMusketeerSeries.com

I'm not necessarily unhappy with the story. The last book wraps up the loose ends to my satisfaction. However, there's no sex in it, probably a big downer to readers of the first two novels. Brace yourself. It's just about a big, redemptive sword fight (no puns).

Another issue bothers me: the  first book in the series isn't widely available. On Amazon, the prices of Book One (Blood, Love and Steel) are astronomical. That's because the book is not available unless purchased as a used copy, and the secondary vendors have jacked the price. However, my shelves are flush if you want a copy. Not much I can do for the random shopper.

All this is to say, I'm making do. I'm relieved the last book is finished. The story stands on it own. It's a nice tribute to the original Dumas novel. There were a lot of days when I went looking for art to get me off my duff to finish the series and keep my head full of hope. All the other artists who piece it together gave me reasons to go on. Making art is a joy and sometimes a burden. It will fulfill you and make you frustrated. Do it anyway.

Obsession is A Writer's Best Friend

When all else fails, obsess.

The heart of the matter is all else. I've bargained with myself. Reframed. Thrown fluffy pillows on the "writing" chair. Switched laptops (not purchased a new one, mind you; just shuffled a few around from underneath couches and such). Bought a new pencil and notebook. Recommitted. But I can't seem to finish the last damn book in my series. So, I have to obsess.

An incentive? Book cover mockup.

Writers who obsess get shit written.

Writers who obsess don't do the dishes (see last post).

Writers who obsess toss out every social invitation, forgo family obligations, lose a few bills, banish the 13-yr-old Golden Retriever to the backyard, ignore text messages, and don't see people for weeks on end. They grow hair where it's not supposed to. They drink too much wine and wear stinky socks (because y'all know I hate sorting them, and I may already do these things regardless of my word count). They forget they have kids to feed. They certainly don't check Facebook. They also don't blog about writer's block. For the obsessed, nothing gets done but the writing.

I NEED to obsess.

Okay, so I wrote 350 words on an airplane using my smartphone's "notepad" app while the folks next to me thought I was a little touched, trying to type a novel into a tiny damn screen on a smartphone with my index fingers. 350 words doesn't count. 350 words is paltry. I need 30,000.

I NEED to push this book out of my brain. Out of my life.

I NEED to obsess.

The Moment I Knew

I don’t remember my first kiss much. Or my first date. Or that boy with dark wavy hair in seventh grade who played the saxophone during band class. Okay, maybe I remember him a teensy bit. But I do remember the first time I wrote something and it gave me a thrill.

Let’s call it The Moment I Knew.

The Moment I Knew didn’t seem like any particular moment at all. At least, it didn’t at the time. In fact, it could have happened in sixth, seventh, or eighth grade. Some of the finer details are a little fuzzy now. What I do remember is locking myself up in my bedroom in Clinton, Missouri, pop. 3,600, and writing a story about a woman who had grown up without electricity. I had interviewed the woman to write an essay for a contest. The Rural Electric Cooperatives of Missouri were offering students the chance to win a trip to Washington, DC. Didn’t that sound special? To a girl from pop. 3,600 Clinton, MO, it sounded more than special.

I asked my parents and friends of my parents for ideas about whom to interview. Several of them suggested a woman who had a warm reputation in town, Mrs. Vansant, who was somehow related to the local funeral home owners. This seemed a strange detail to remember, but not when you’re a kid from pop. 3,600 Clinton, MO. In small towns, folks were known for their strangeness, as if they had a patch on their sleeves that they’d wear about town—to the grocery store (Country Market), the only burger joint in town (Mr. Swiss), and the roller rink (that played ‘60s music). Oh goodness, I never saw Mrs. Vansant at the roller rink. She was in her eighties.

I called and made an appointment to interview her. She lived only a few blocks from my house in a neat duplex. When I say neat, I mean well-kept and tidy, not neat as in cool. Cool as in hip, not cool as in cold. Hip as in … oh, you get the idea. I vaguely remember taking a tape recorder to the interview. It might not have worked. We talked for an hour, and she imparted the story of how in her youth, at about my age, electricity first came to her home and neighborhood.

Admittedly, the details of her story take a back seat to mine. My memory doesn’t include so much her story as the sheer joy I took in writing an essay about her that eventually won the contest. I probably waited until the night before the deadline to write the essay. Hey, I was still a kid then, not a writer. There’s a recollection of a stern look or two from my parents. But once I committed to the page, the words flowed.

Not mine, though I wish it were.

One word in particular stands out in my memory. My first dictionary at my side, I decided to look up a different word for “resident.” It sounded too pedestrian (that’s another way of saying normal). In my newly induced writer’s zone, I found a beautiful fresh word. Denizen. Look it up. I had learned a new word, and it made me fall in deep like with language.

The rest of the essay came together, probably after a first, second, third draft. Back then I had a crummy electric typewriter that didn’t have proper erasing capabilities. I recall a few smudges, perhaps a tiny eraser hole in the paper. But my most distinct memory is the joy of the process. It was The Moment I Knew—that I knew writing was a gift of mine. That whatever was causing such a great ah-ha was darn cool by me. It was thrilling, no exaggeration. The weaving of the story, the typewriter ribbon, and the clackity-clack-clack of the keys on the platen (that’s the name of the black round cylinder in an old typewriter), every part of it made me happy. Could the hum of a writing machine and the ease of crafting a story be so wonderful?

This euphoric epiphany (look it up) didn’t dawn on me until much later in life. The Moment I Knew has had time to grow in grand scale to what it actually was. It was fun. Plain. Simple. Fun. And here I am, still clackity-clack-clacking away, thirty-five years later, searching for that next cool word.

Your Writing and the Snowflake

All the words have been written before. All the great lines have been published. The killer plots have been monetized and made into movies. DNA will be mapped. Clones, mass produced. Droids will replace the workforce. Stop now. It's no use.

Except, the snowflake.

Ollie and snow.

How can it be that one snowflake can never perfectly match another? (And I'm not talking about this snowflake.)

Snow forms by falling through the air and is determined by the path it takes to the ground. Water vapor is susceptible to its environment. So, you humanists out there, take heart that environment is more important that pre-determined factors about the source of the water vapor.

My writing, your writing, develops like the snowflake. No one else can write your story because no one else has lived through what you've lived through. You might make mistakes in style, technique, plausibility, wordiness, grammar, but the story is all yours. You might bore everyone by pg. 6, but it's all your boringness, and no one else's. (Congratulations, you're a bore!)

If we writers put our computers away and never write another sentence again, because we think we can't sell our stories, or because we do, in fact, bore people, what do we have left? Would it be like a world without snow? Now that sounds like the interesting start of a good story.

So, I write this blog for me and say that I write it for readers who have an interest in writing (or who know who I am or want to know more). But, mainly, I write it for me. Because I don't feel like a snowflake. I try to convince myself, "Yes, yes, you are meritorious in your pursuit," when a sense of futility weighs more on the scale.

Even famous, prescient writers felt this way. Octavia Butler often wrote notes to remind herself of her standing as an accomplished writer. She needed personal affirmation, even as an award-winning best-seller.

Who am I writing for? A commercial audience or myself? Does it matter? Maybe, like a snowflake, my writing is a singular, floating, temporary entity. Just me.

The Literary Circus in Asheville, North Carolina

Look at those beauties! Writers, all of us. We've become a "thing." An Asheville creative collective of women who write and perform. Of all the ways I could expend energy, this has become one of the most fun and uplifting because we're redefining what it means to be successful writers in a commercial, hypercritical literary culture.

Not that we don't care about quality. We do. We're each interested in improving our work. For Randi Janelle (far left, purple hair) that means cultivating a creative life and mind, channelling, being happy, teaching yoga, and performing. For Alli Marshall (second from left, striped scarf, closed eyes), this means writing every day at dawn because she loves it, working with other artists to make new art, leading a local writing group, and memorizing poems...because, well, shouldn't you? For Nina Hart (middle, abracadabra hand), her work has evolved into a full-time career as a writing and creativity coach. Watch out for Nina--she can spot negative self-speak before the paint is dry on your faux mea culpa, and she may give you a sock monkey to stay positive.

Photo by Adam MacMillan

As for the last gal on the far right (in turquoise and impossible scarf), she's still figuring it out. She's more about flying by the seat of her pants, playing it fast and loose, scribbling a poem, pecking away at a novel, writing a public letter that uses the word pu**y (the cat, silly!) about 25 times (yes, I read it at the Fringe Festival. No video!). She loves playing with words, publishing a few other than her own, and maybe someday, a few of her thoughts strung together will see the light in an eager audience's eyes.

We came together to take the downer out of being unknowns. With financial rewards and wide recognition seemingly out of reach, we decided to make our goals less about admiration/acclaim and more about pushing the boundaries, airing our creative voices, and enjoying the writing more. A year into this experiment, it's going well. We've had four successful events (with public participation), and we're planning to publish a zine later this year. The fun may just be starting. Hula-hooping encouraged. Bring your sock monkeys.

Maybe Stuck Means Something Else

Okay. I'll admit it. I'm stuck. Not writing much of anything these days that would fall under the category "creative." Oh, I did write a nice little one-liner poem a few mornings ago: "Tiny mouse, the end of your nose is just the beginning." It has potential.

Flipping through my journal tonight, I ran across a notation from last June, when I felt the same malaise. By the way, journals are good for seeing your patterns of thought.

"I haven't written in months. It's almost like I've lost the will to write. Not the will to live, just the will to write anything creative. This is not a sad place. It is just a place. Like a dead space that Moses may have created when he parted the Red Sea." (Funny, this close to Easter and I think, Charlton Heston. I was thinking this a year ago, too.)

"I think of that scene in the movie when people walk down into the sea next to two solid masses of walls of water. Many were scared, but they did it and walked into the void. I guess I'm there, trusting it's the right place to be right now, not knowing how long I'll be in this strange void.

"I don't really have the desire to write on any of my projects. They are just unfinished pieces. Some are done, and some aren't, and I really couldn't care less either way. I've let go of the guilt of being non-productive."

Today, same. No shift. Just stasis. Non-productive dry sea bed.

Except, tiny mouse.

Looking Back to Look Ahead: 2017

Never you mind all the unfinished projects in your life going into 2017. If you don't have a few things left to do, what's the point in getting out of bed?

Happy New Year, or maybe scary new year, depending upon your perspective. I tend to take the long-view of life, see events on a long arc of history, but this doesn't always happen, and often, nagging thoughts about my to-do list get the best of me. My to-do list never ends, and this makes me feel unproductive. But moving into a new year, let's take stock.

Overall, 2016 was a poor writing year for me. Personally, I wrote zero fiction. Zero fiction is not a new genre, like emo manga (which by the way, may or may not be a genre; it just sounds like it should be). Zero fiction, if I were to invent it, would be fiction without punctuation marks. Probably already exists and is labeled something else.

"Licking Flames" Diana Kirk

No, what I mean is that I didn't write anything last year that could be classified as fiction. This sounds as if I were a lazy bum in 2016, but in fact, I was busier than ever. I went back to school, foolishly, to study IT. Guess what? I'm a better writer than a computer programmer. PHP made me crazy. Bleech.

Fortunately, I kept my little micro-press engines boiling by editing and publishing a really great collection of essays by Diana Kirk, who lives in my adopted second home, Portland, Ore. Her project, of the many in my 2016 planner, took a great deal of focus because we essentially started from scratch. She didn't have a manuscript, per se. She had a loose collection. Her book came out Dec. 1. All of you, go buy it. She's outrageous. Strong. Ballsy. Hilarious. She's a go-getter who pushed Black Bomb Books (BBB) to a new level. Her book is "Licking Flames: Tales of a Half-Assed Hussy" and definitely A+ material.

"Diamonds and Moths"

Next, I worked with another writer, my friend Steve Wechselblatt, on a book of short stories, which will be published by BBB this March. He'd been running several short stories through a critique group that we'd formed, and I thought they deserved an airing. His book "Diamonds and Moths" will be the fifth title for BBB.

I've also been reading manuscripts because I'd like to publish a memoir. Two submissions on are on my list to read this month. I read one in October by a woman who was a dominatrix for most of her adult life. And, she had already written about the subject successfully for her own small press and is considered an authority on the pleasure of pain in sex. Wow. It was a pretty interesting subject, but in the end, I decided against it. It was written well, but I look at new work and ask myself, 'Do I want to spend a year on this?' And sometimes my gut answer is no. Selecting material is all subjective and gives me a new perspective on why agents and publishing houses don't say yes very often.

Frances Figart "Seasons of Letting Go"

I spent a considerable part of the summer working for a few magazines, specifically The Laurel of Asheville and Carolina Home + Garden, both wonderful regional publications. The Laurel work led me to help the new editor, Frances Figart, publish a book about her perspectives on grief. She helped her mother during the final months of her life. I worked as a publishing consultant to funnel her book, "Seasons of Letting Go: Most of what I know about truly living I learned by helping someone die," into channels for publication. It's available now and is selling well.

I also finally started the motions to layout a non-fiction book that has been put away in a folder for some time, one of my own, a compilation of magazine articles about artists in the Northwest from my reporting for a trade journal about leather goods. While living in Portland, I met many people who make a living with their hands creating boots and saddle and tack, beautiful stuff, and now that book will come out in 2017. I had a draft of it finished two years ago. But, good intentions often fall to the wayside.

"The Gulf of Folly" Doug Storm

I would be remiss not to mention the poetry collection BBB put out last February, a fine volume of work by Doug Storm in Bloomington, Indiana. As a set, like Steve's essays, Doug's poems work some sort of magic when grouped together. Maybe my long-view of life also informs my editorial self. On a side note, Doug resisted titling his book "The Gulf of Folly," a reference to a Melville passage, but I finally convinced him it was the strongest one of a long, long list. Those damn lists, again.

All this happened in 2016 while I moved back into the professional sector. I'm lending my skills to improve understanding of the science behind climate and weather, and oh, the many new things I've learned tell me the world is in a tentative place.

I will be returning to writing fiction again this year. I'm clearing space to finish my last Musketeer book. It's taken me a while to create the time, but this will happen in 2017. And then, there's that novella on my list...

Why Writers Need Each Other

It's official. I now have more writer friends than any other kind. Bully! This means maybe, just maybe, I have a chance at making it.

Here's why: Writers pull other writers outta the gutter, the place we trip into regularly, absolutely sure that's where our work should be, and, oops, there we tumble over our shitty drafts. Once we're soaking in the sewage and our pages are illegible, sometimes we feel that's just where we should stay. But it stinks in the muck. Then look up, and lo, see all the other writers who just climbed out of the same stinky gutter but were cleaned off by a good, hard rain. They're offering you a hand up. Jeez, thank you.

Take the help. Squeeze the mother-loving milk out of it and wait for the next rain to rinse off the stench. You'll need that gang of travelers again and again and again. The gutter has a funny gravity and the road won't be any less slippery. My turn comes to extend a hand.

This year, in addition to launching a micro-press BlackBombBooks.com, I feel a need to start a patronage circle for working writers and artists in my community. We all need help, usually in the form of money, and wouldn't it be good to raise a few bucks for CREATIVITY'S SAKE?  Not for a political agenda, or a church, or a disaster fund, but for people who make art and take risks to expose the human condition, entertain us, and make life a lot more interesting.

Nina Hart is our guinea pig. Nina and I met years ago in a group called Women Writing in Asheville. She read these wonderful vignettes that elaborated on quirky characters and situations the likes of which I had never imagined. Her quirky stories of strangeness usually left us all a little excitedly befuddled and wanting more. She kept working on her craft and decided to start her own business, WritingFromTheTopofYourHead.com, to encourage other creative writers. She's been at it for three years now and wants to go to the next level by taking an intensive, yet expensive, training course. I say, let's help. We'll be having a party for her in the coming months. We'll drink, be merry, talk, recite some lines, and generally make life easier on some level for Nina.

Er, Cat Therapy?

Two months ago, my kids convinced me to adopt a new pet. The day-long search ended by bringing home two new pets -- litter mates. We renamed the long-hair domestic feline beasts Fish (gray) and Slayer (black). At the intro of the new cats, my two-year-old short hair, Ollie, made noises we'd never heard before. Deep, unhappy, throaty growls. We immediately began an on-the-fly program of assimilation. One set of cats on the kids' end of the house; the other younger cat on my end; wet food inbetween. We've seemed to survive Ollie's incessant, instantaneous grumbling phase. Now, he just deals, snout in the air. The cats have formed an uneasy alliance. The dog slinks about, trying not to get in their way.

My project list has evolved into a similar state of détente. I have papers in various forms stuffed in folders and anti-version-controlled computer files (anti-version-controlled is my way of saying, if I bother to open it, it must be the right version). One box holds a memoir. On the desk, a folder barely keeps the loose contents of a precious novella. Another stack is marked non-fiction book. An unfinished novel hasn't even justified the ink. Each book doesn't cross territories. I kinda wander in and out of the words, and generally watch passively as they decide whether they want me to pet them.

At some point, all those projects were something like therapy. Good for the gut and brain to spill out. The stories, whether real or made up, had a point and a purpose. Then they become something else. Real objects to consider. Revisions to undertake. Thoughts to apply.

I watch my cats instead. They're easier therapy. I know what to expect out of the fur fatties and their short lifecycles. The books, less so. I'm still trying to define their territory. Maybe I should just kick them out of the house. Tell 'em to make it on their own. I'd done with you, manuscript! Just get out in the world already. Leave me to my cats. 

The Truth About Improving Your Wordcount

Blogging can be a responsibility. I believe that if my words carry any weight, it's because I've chosen to write the truth. Many bloggers take different approaches. Some offer helpful advice and expert opinion. You can spot those blogs because most of the titles will read something like "Five Ways to Improve Your Wordcount." Sure enough, in the post, you'll find five ways to improve your wordcount, delineated by a pithy intro and subheads for each pointer. And the phrase "improve your wordcount" will be mentioned about ten times in the course of the post.

This isn't that kind of blog. A few of you already know that.

I tell it like I experience it. And writing for a living is not an easy road.

First, let me divulge the truth. I don't make enough money to "live" off of my writing. Very few writers (who write fiction) do. Here is my educated guess on how many writers in my creative, artistic community of 80K do: seven. Seven writers who write full-time and have sold enough books to dedicate their lives to writing other books. This, compared to the 200 to 250 fiction/non-fiction writers (or more) in my community. I'm ballparking these figures because there are no reliable stats. The majority of us struggle to finish/edit/sell a manuscript. Most of us, if not retired, have other jobs. Even though I write for magazines, I still don't make enough money to support my family as a writer.

If you don't feel a little down-hearted now, good for you. You know what you are in for. If you are feeling down, that's normal. Writing is a difficult road to success, recognition, credibility. The last one will come before the other two. I say this because if you stay serious enough about your writing, you will be considered a good resource for other writers seeking guidance. But credibility doesn't pay for buttered toast. I like buttered toast. I like coffee. I like to go on the occasional road trip. But a few years ago (after the publication of my first book) I abandoned the idea that this is the road to making a "living." It's a road to a lifestyle, and in many ways, this must be enough.

You will meet intriguing people. You will read and hear some fine and not-so-fine writing of others. You will write some fine and not-so-fine writing about many topics you thought you wouldn't write about. You will experience moments of ecstasy, for a passage or a project, and it will make you so high that nothing will seem impossible. Success will seem possible. Big success. And then, you'll crash. You'll feel the rough bottom many times. Experience the kind of self-doubt that most ordinary people with ordinary jobs don't understand. You'll have friends who understand, friends who will ask politely but not understand, friends who never ask you a whit about your work. It will become your "work."

You won't write. For months, maybe years at a stretch. This will release you from the burden of having to produce but also shadow you with a tinge of melancholy.

And you'll get fan mail. From that one perfect person who "got" you. You'll love

Solenne Poltier, my perfect fan.

them and wish for more like them. Or, maybe you'll never publish. And you'll come to terms with feeling satisfied that at least you wrote a book, something most people in the world will never say they've done.

In other words, your wordcount will suck and soar.

I wish I had some pithy ending for this post. A silver lining. Another cliche to throw out at you to make it all better. That your journey will be worth it and satisfying by the time you finally put away your pen or laptop for good. But, I'm not there yet. I'm still on the road.

The Bane of Earnestness

Earnestness and writing may appear to go together, when in fact the opposite seems to breed success. Too many writers gyrate themselves in the public social sphere and succeed at selling their work. Do reclusive introverts, the loners at home with their dogs, make best-selling writers? Only the damn good ones -- the really damn good ones who spend the end of their lives in seclusion, writing backstories for all their famous characters, while hunched over manual typewriters in wooded shacks, down the hill from the main house where the fifth spouse does laundry. Okay, maybe that's a hair exaggerated.

Not happening for most of us. It's a new age. Get your platform-on, sister. Jesus, I hate that word. Platform. It doesn't really mean anything. I wrote a damn book, and then another, and a few other things, and by God, my brain wants me to write a few more before my wrists give out. But I'm freakin' earnest. I'm probably not going to crank anything resembling a marketing machine into something viral.

Ego is a good asset to have to market a book. When you have a big one, it doesn't matter if pieces fall together or apart because the next sales trick will work, and so what if it doesn't? You're a genius, or so your ego says. It induces a bolder-is-better attitude and license to TRUMP the message. BUY MY SNAKE OIL.

Dog in Space.

I'm sitting here writing poems between novels (poems, for God sake) because they give me a sense of accomplishment. I can finish one in a day, an hour. Novels are gangly and complicated. (I'm sure a few poets would argue with me.)

Ariel Gore, an earnest writer who's earned literary success for her memoirs, says after her books reach the 100-page mark, they become harder to manage. The story can't be read in one sitting. It can't be diagnosed and fixed easily. That means more time, more thought, longer stretches between publication, unless you write full-time like mad. Unless unless unless. Ego, madness, kinda go together.

My next project? I'm thinking sci-fi. Why? Because the story can be out there. It can have space monkeys. But damn my soul, my book idea is stricken with earnestness. The protagonist is left behind on a dying planet with a dog. Hmmm, life and art track oddly close together.