WordFlix

Writer's Journey | NaBloPoMo January

Well, hell: I didn't  manage to blog daily this month after all.  I missed yesterday and I missed my birthday (January 27).  

Note that both misses came after the start of the new semester.  Even though my schedule is theoretically a little more manageable this term,  I'm ... busy.  More to the point, the admin portion of the job really tires me out, so even if I've had a shorter day, it's exhausting and energy-sapping.

Well, here's to a new month.  I'm going to try again to blog daily in February. Hey, at least it's a shorter month -- although it would have to be a leap year this year, wouldn't it?!

Writer's Journey | Fresh starts

It's January 2 and that means the holidays are over, and it's time for me to ease back into a work routine.

For the next three weeks, until spring semester begins on January 24, I'll be working on the article I'm researching about Phantom of the Opera.  My plan is to write and place it within this calendar year. (I have control over the writing of it, of course, but placing it is another issue: the vicissitudes of academic publishing being what they are.  So let's say that the writing of the article is my goal, and the placing of it is my hope!)

It's a luxury to have time to devote exclusively to research and writing, with no teaching or administrative work to get in the way, so I intend to make the most of it right now. Once the semester begins, I'll need to switch my focus to a different research project for which I've received a course release (a book prospectus loosely based on my Ph.D. dissertation -- but it's going to require massive redesign and overhaul) -- and the teaching and admin work will kick in again. I won't really be able to return to the POTO project until the summer, so I'd like to make some headway now.

And of course, who knows what curve balls life will throw my way that will impact how and what I work on, despite my best-laid plans and intentions? But that's always true for anyone:  I'm no different.

Before I can get started today, however, there are two desk drawers that I need to clean out and arrange.  I can't move forward until that's done! The thought of them has been bothering me for a couple of months now: they feel like a 3D metaphor for my brain. My work space is generally cluttered and cozy but organized -- the way I like it -- but as life got busier and busier last semester, I'd open a desk drawer, retrieve an item, and then just fling it back into the drawer, willy-nilly, when I was done with it.  In reorganizing my two drawers (one of them a really deep drawer), I'll be sorting through thoughts in my head as well ... so I won't consider it just busy work.

It's time to get dressed (however informally!), pour myself another cup of coffee, and get down to it.

Writer's Journey | Day 1 of January's NaBloPoMo

A new year, a new month, a new week, a new day. January's National Blog Posting Month has commenced, and once again, in the spirit of getting myself to write daily, I've signed up for the challenge of posting something every day to WordFlix.  

Let's see if I stick with it.  My intentions are good -- but you know what they say about the road to hell.

Actually, long before I discovered NaBloPoMo, I did once almost manage a full month of daily posts -- I think I fell short by a mere two days.  This month, however, I'm aiming for total compliance: at least one post a day. I believe wholeheartedly in the ritual and practice of writing daily: it's how writers hone our skills and our craft. And, in fact, I almost always do end up writing daily in a variety of contexts and within a range of frameworks. But I like the idea of writing consistently in a dedicated spot.  For this month, at least, that spot is here.

For those who don't maintain a blog or aren't into the idea of NaBloPoMo, there's always the fabulous site 750words.com. I use that site for confidential, unadulterated brain dumps, for free writing, for anything that just has to pour out of me.  It's fun and free -- with a word count, badges, a place to donate as little as $1.00 to maintain the site if you choose but no pressure to do so if you don't.

The theme of January's NaBloPoMo challenge is, appropriately and predictably, beginnings. As so many people do, I look upon the new year as an opportunity for fresh starts (though really, every day, every moment, is an opportunity to begin again).  Mine are these:

• Weight loss (I still want to lose about 20 pounds)
• Medical wellness screenings/proactive health care (it's not enough to go to the doctor only when something goes wrong)
• Article/book proposal (I'd like to research, write, and place the Phantom article and get a university press contract for my book in 2012)
• Daily writing (in a dedicated spot)
• Staying present to the present (rather than giving in to past regret or angst about the future)

Those are mine.  What are some of the fresh starts and beginnings you're working on? 

Writer's Journey | Writing-at-home day today

Part of my new 'tude adjustment (which faltered a bit in the past couple of days -- more on that in a moment) involves making sure I spend regular time on my own writing and research, regardless of how much each chunk of time those regular bits consist of. Today is a luxury: I'm dedicating the full day to them.

This makes me happy.

I've had a rough couple of days. though, struggling with feelings of sadness in relation to my new managerial position. For reasons that are simply not of general interest, I feel I'm in a situation where, sure, I have some influence and status in this position --  but zero real direct power to make a difference and intervene effectively on people's behalf. There are all kind of political, institutional, and structural reasons for this right now, and for a couple of days I sort of wept my way through the feelings that came up for me. 

Not much makes me cry anymore, though (I cried through most of the first 35 years of my life!), and so last night I began to realize that the tears and sadness themselves were signs that the situation was tapping back into OLD issues of feeling powerless and constrained from childhood and less about the position in and of itself. That realization was key and triggered the next, which is  that while I can't change the power structure I'm in right now, I certainly have the power to achieve this insight, to reframe with with this new/old knowledge, to step back and not personalize it -- and, ultimately, if I wish, to resign from the position (I'd like to put in a full year before I do so for the long-term benefit of my career, however -- which is a choice I have). 

Whaddya know? The sadness lifted. Now it's back to the usual mild frustration -- so I'm taking that as a sign to spend today on me and my writing and let the admin/managerial stuff sit. It'll all still be there when I return to it. ;)

And now to writing for the day!

Writer's Journey | Writing, grading, obsessing

The title pretty much says it all.

Writer's Journey | I've come home

That's how it feels to be writing again. Because, yes, I am writing again after yesterday's epiphany, and it feels really good.

The last four months of my job have involved what feels like a steep learning curve and vastly increased visibility and accountability, and as regular readers know, they've stressed me out. There are some rewards: I'm learning new skills, working my way toward more options down the road within my chosen career, and I do find some of the problem-solving satisfying. (It remains to be seen whether my bid for a raise, tangentially related to these new duties, pans out. Will update when I know.)

But the things that I'm already good at and feel comfortable with -- teaching and writing -- have had to take a back seat while I learn this new path.  And it's only been within the last few days that I realized I had to reintroduce writing (about something I care deeply about) into my work life once again. Although teaching has been neglected, in the sense that I don't prepare as much for it these days, I can rely on the fact that I've taught one of my classes many times, and the other one is interesting to me and the students and I keep up with it ... barely.  It's the writing that dropped off my radar.

Well, no longer. I began to write again last night, to work on a project that's both 20 years old and brand-new.  The primary feelings I had as I did were relief and a sense of rightness, of being energized. Stress lifted a little and I felt as if I were fitting into a groove again that I'd profoundly missed.

I can't believe it's taken me four months to figure out what an important piece of my life I was missing -- but at least I have and am changing that now.

Writer's Journey | The neglected muse

Okay, I don't really believe in muses for most writers.  Writers write.  But I haven't been writing recently (I'm not counting this blog or the endless memoes I generate). And sometime last night, in the wee hours, I realized that that's part of my problem. I need to be writing to feel sane and connected. 

So it's time to get back to work.  The writing kind of work, I mean.

Now, my current schedule does not really allow me enough time and space to create academic prose that would serve my career just now (aside from the grant proposal that's due October 31). Nor do I have the psychic energy to delve back into the memoir writing I was doing this past summer.  Have to pick and choose where that psychic energy goes right now, you know.

BUT ... since I'm diverting some of my stress to all things Phantom and Love Never Dies these days and that energy is available, it occurred to me around 3 a.m. this morning (as I was listening to the soundtrack of the latter) that I can write about that. I can use that energy. 

In fact, in 1991 I wrote some creative nonfiction around the former, and parts of it are really, really good, though I've never really known what to do about it or with it.  I suddenly occurred to me that I could write something now about myself in relation to the latter, and then peice them together according to some kind of logic that might make sense. The whole idea is to write creatively about how pieces of popular culture both shape and are shaped by our own lives and readings of them. For me, it's these two works. For other people, it's something else.  The points of intersection lie in the meeting of personal and popular histories, the processes of obsession, and other elements I don't want to name here at the moment.

The thing is, I think I might actually like this to be a performance piece eventually (ohmygod, that's only coming to me as I type this) -- something that combines the written word as well as audio, video, and, yes, the spoken word.

Ohfuckme. I'm not a performer ... mayve I've been too long in an interdisciplinary department with theatre that's now merging with music and dance. Stress is causing me to lose my mind.

Argh.  

Well, first steps first.  The writing of the piece around Love Never Dies is Step 1. Reworking it with the original piece is Step 2.  Publishing that somewhere (really funky and avant-garde, that's all I can think at the moment) is Step 3, if I want to  even want to publish it (and it'll be way too bizarre a cross between the personal and the academic for popular consumption). Step 4 will be the point at which I might adapt the work into a performance piece.

This is all a little demented, but on the other hand, this could be how the creative process works sometimes.

Writer's Journey | Article revisions done

I don't know why I put them off until the last minute (the due date is tomorrow) or why it was like pulling proverbial eyeteeth to do them (there actually weren't many to make), but I'm done with the revisions of the article that grew out of my presentation in Venice last fall.

It's far from my best work, but it's done at last and uploaded to the publishing site. Next phase? I'll review proofs once it's typeset.

But for now? It's off my plate!

Woot! My reward? Installing my first-ever PhotoShop program. I'm looking forward to playing around with it a bit, although at first glance I believe I'll find it totally intimidating!

Writer's Journey | Day 1 of August's NaBloPoMo

I don't quite know why I decided that August would be the month to try out NaBloPoMo, as it's a very busy time for me. I guess I was entranced with the whole concept and decided ... why not?  

I'm trying to blog more regularly anyway, and writing challenges of this sort often help me stretch myself in new ways. At least, that was the case a year and a half ago when I entered (and "won") my first NaNoWriMo.

The idea behind NaBloPoMo is simple: blog every day for a month. About anything, really, though this month's suggested theme is fiction. There are daily prompts available on the website for those who want them, and you can sign up for each month's challenge by end of day on the second of the month.

Which leaves today and tomorrow for those who want to jump on board in August.

Then all you have to do is ... well, do it. For most people there will be days when you don't feel like blogging, but I'm in favor of anything that demystifies writing and encourages you to treat it more as a job. I mean, do you think journalists say "My muse has taken a hike today"?  No, sir.  Their editors would tell them to take a hike. Writing is something you get better at the more you do it, regardless of whether you're in the mood.

And if you're a true writer, you'll ... write. No matter what.

So let's get to it, shall we?

Writer's Journey | Summer writing goal(s) met -- kinda

It's the last day of July and therefore the last day of what I think of as my summer vacation.  

"Vacation" is an odd concept for us academics: our work is never done, never complete. We're always working on and responsible for scholarly or creative projects, even when we're not teaching. Non-academics often forget about that aspect of our profession and believe we just kick back and eat bon-bons during the summer.  Not. (Well, maybe an occasional bon-bon ...)  Nevertheless, summer does have a different rhythm from the rest of the academic year. More relaxed. Less stressful.  And that's what I'll be saying farewell to when I turn the page of the calendar tomorrow to August.

As I mentioned yesterday, fall semester begins in about three weeks, and I'm going to have to move back into full academic mode starting tomorrow. I listed some of the projects I'll be working on, and getting that list down in black and white helped, even as it also made me lunge for some time- and project-management software to help me get organized.

But before I leave August completely behind me, I wanted take a look back and figure out what, if anything, I've accomplished in the last couple of months.

My writing goals for the summer were shaped in no small way by the fact that I was tenured and promoted at the end of May -- it still feels extraordinary to write that -- and so I didn't have to worry (this summer, at least) about focusing on writing peer-reviewed scholarly work for my professional dossier. For a few months I could focus on writing whatever I wanted, in whatever way I liked.

And so I did. 

Just before summer began, I wrote that I wanted to focus my writing on four items:

• The first chapter of a category romance novel
• Literary nonfiction (memoir, in this case)
• A collaborative blog
• The proposal for an academic book

Hmm. Let's take the first thing.  That category romance novel. Still haven't written that first chapter -- or should I say, rewritten it, as the roughest of rough drafts exists in my NaNoWriMo novel from 2009. My goal for that puppy is to publish it with Harlequin, the gold-standard publisher of series romance -- and one day I feel certain I will. Mind you, I don't want to write single-title romances, or novels generally -- just series/category romance because 1) I love it; 2) I know that market and that publishing world well; 3) I'm pretty sure I can do it.

But it's not going to happen in the near term because my priorities shifted to focus on the second item on my list -- the work of literary nonfiction, or memoir. I did, however, do some effective networking with a group of writers and agents I met through my local chapter of Romance Writers of America, that mothership of all things in the romance publishing world. Those are relationships I intend to maintain and nurture.  We meet once a month, and those get-togethers are invaluable.

So I call that a win all the same.

My second lofty goal was to write a full rough draft of the memoir manuscript by the end of summer. <Cough> Hmm, that didn't happen.  However, I did write a complete outline and strong drafts of almost two chapters. And they're good. I rarely say that about my own work, but the writing is strong, and it will find a home. 

On to the collaborative blog -- which is now up and running, with a successful launch in July and which is growing. Our main problem at the moment is lack of continuity: you need to post regularly to a blog so that your readers know when and what kind of content to expect from you, and we've been a little lax on that regularity thing.  That can spell death for a blog. Still, we're growing it, and my friend and colleague K is taking the lead on it: she's always wanted to blog, and she has a vision of what it'll look like going forward.

Which brings me to a side note:  this WordFlix blog. I didn't have specific goals for it this summer, but I'm happy to report that its readership and relationships have grown significantly in the past couple of months.  Here's to the power of networking, of becoming involved and engaged with the blogosphere and with the myriad writing opportunities on the Internet, and of opening new vistas. I'm excited for the future, though that's all I can say about this for now.

On to the academic book -- that work which, in combination with other peer-reviewed publications and projects, should see me through to a full professorship in five to six more years. I've made the decision to revise my dissertation, and I'm meeting with my former dissertation chair in Los Angeles this week to discuss publishers, proposals, and the market. I'll be applying for a sabbatical for the 2012-2013 academic year, using this project as the basis for my application. The application is due in September. so I'll be needing to get my act together on that front, and in fairly short order.

Finally, while I didn't have goals for producing peer-reviewed pieces this summer, I nevertheless received confirmation that a journal wants to publish the article that grew out of my presentation in Venice last November -- so that's a win for the summer right there. Providing I move forward with the revisions, that is.  In fact, that's what I'll be working on one way or another today, because I've put off dealing with the revision for about a week now, and I need to get that article off my plate.

So, was this a successful writing summer for me?  It really was, though in somewhat unexpected ways. I wrote a lot of different kinds of things, I've already published some of them, and other projects are in the works. It feels good to be a writer in my own professional field and to be expanding to a wider readership beyond that field as well and getting really positive feedback. It gives me confidence that I know what I'm doing and have good instincts that serve me well -- and it's exciting.

I'm liking it!

Check out NaBloPoMo for the month of August over at BlogHer and see what the fuss is about.

It's a great way to jump start your daily writing.

I'm in. Are you?

Writer's Journey | August Theme for NaBloPoMo and a Writing Contest | BlogHer

It's that time again; time to commit to posting every day for a full month by joining in with NaBloPoMo. The point? Well, beyond the endurance factor -- of becoming a writing athlete -- there's the benefit from daily writing. I use it as a way to warm up before getting into book writing. And then there's the community aspect: joining NaBloPoMo is like joining a gym. You're writing in a group and feeding off that for motivation rather than writing alone.

via www.blogher.com

I haven't decided whether I'm going to participate in August, as it's going to be a really busy month. However, I believe strongly in writers writing daily, and this might be a fun way to do that.

Okay, scratch that. I have decided. I'm going for it. August's theme is fiction, but you don't have to write fiction or even write about fiction in order to meet the blogging challenge. Click the link above and check it out.

Writers write, right? Ideally, writers write daily. Be your best writing self and give it a whirl.

Writer's Journey | Bulwer-Lytton contest

She had passed the wind farm -- spinning air into gold near the improbably, yet somehow appropriately, named Lake Winnebago -- on the drive from her golden delicious home in Appleton to the state capital of Wisconsin.

via www.mercurynews.com

Check out this year's winner.  (I love this contest for tortured prose!)

Writer's Journey | Self-Publishing -- Pros and Cons

It's important to know the pros and cons so you can make the best choice for your project.

via www.writershelper.com

Check out this article about the pros and cons of self-publishing. As one who's looking for a literary agent with the end of having work published by a traditional house, I'm not seeking to self-publish at this point.

Er. with the exception of this blog.

However, as the piece points out, "there is no one right way to get a book into print. It's important for each writer to consider goals and resources before choosing how to proceed."

Writer's Journey | Dialogue

I spent some time today at a local Starbucks, working on a homework assignment for my online writing class about memoir.

It's the second week of the class, and the assignment focuses on dialogue.  On making it real, not overdoing it, removing the adverbial tags ... and on showing, not telling. It's also, by extension, on voice and character as well.

Here's the deal. I suck at dialogue. Maybe it's because my professional writing is academic and involves zero dialogue. It involves analaysis -- showing, not telling, yes, but a fair amount of telling as well, let's face it. One writes what's appropriate for one's genre, and a certain amount of telling/reporting is appropriate in academic prose.

So Week 2's assignment is challenging for me.

To make it more challenging, I suspect that the "lesson" for this week, which was emailed to us, must have come from a course that's not on memoir but on fiction. I can tell from the prose of the lesson that the teacher is a competent writer herself, and I think she must teach multiple online courses.  But the concepts of character that sneak into the lesson on dialogue seem more specifically related to fiction to me rather than memoir. Memoir is crafted rather than unvarnished reality, but there are some characters and situations which remain opaque, beyond narrative understanding,

Does one include them or leave them out?  Alter them for the sake of coherence, or (I suspect) craft them well in all their opacity?

At any rate, I now have the brief (nine page) piece that I'll turn in for this week's assignment. It's far from perfect, and it's not even an episode i want to include in the memoir I'm writing, but as an exercise, I found it somewhat useful.  

We'll see what the teacher has to say about it.  I didn't find her remarks about my responses to her initial questionnaire particularly illuminating, but the jury is still out.

Writer's Journey | Stalled

I had a really nice three-hour writing session at a local cafe with two friends yesterday -- Elle Adair and Hannah Jayne.  

Ell and Hannah are both dedicated, full-time professional writers, so it was inspiring to be able to share some table space and caffeine with them and work on my own stuff in their company.  Right now I'm in Week 2 of my online memoir-writing class, working on an exercise that will find its way into my manuscript, and I made some good progress on that at the cafe.

I feel a bit stalled in my blog writing, however. In theory, my blog is about to become part of a larger network from which I think I'll draw inspiration, but there have been some snafus in getting that piece up and running.

Result: I'm flagging a bit here.  Sorry about that.  I'm hoping it's temporary.

Writer's Journey | Elle Adair

via elleadair.com

Former student for whom I can take NO credit, fabulous person, and a writer who's going to make it. I am filled with admiration for her, personally and professionally.

Writer's Journey | Joint blogging

My friend and colleague K and I have started a new blog (to which I will not link here, in order to preserve some separation between my professional and personal identities), and it's a whole lot of fun for us.

There's a lot to figure out for any new blog, and when you're joint-blogging, those issues are exascerbated:

• Voice
• Niche audience
• Frequency of posts

But we have no set time frame, we're open to experimentation, and we're already thinking about ways to create genuinely creative, collaborative posts, which is what we're ultimately all about.

Chick power, dontcha know.

Fun times!

Writer's Journey | My blog

There are times when I think this blog is simply the most self-indulgent POC (Piece of Crap) I've encountered. 

Dunno.

I maintain it for my own sanity (or lack thereof), but I'm not sure it needs to be sucking up space in the Blogosphere!

What can I say? Moment of Existential Blogging Angst.

Writer's Journey | Writing proposals

Oof!  Today felt like one of those days when I hadn't a clue what I was doing (and I didn't) but doggedly forged ahead in the hope that I would soon figure it out.

I don't know about the "soon" part, but I probably made some progress that will only be obvious to me retrospectively. That's my hope, anyway.

Mostly I worked on my proposal for Venice, realizing in the process that I need to do more background research on the Venice Biennale than I have done to the present.  It should only take an hour or two, but it needs to be done in order to position my proposal to get funding to attend it as strategically as possible. Only thing is, I'm not sure I believe myself.

In general, my work on the proposal led to a series of such discoveries: in order to do X, I first need to do Y.  I have a list of a few Ys now that need taking care of tomorrow so that I can move forward.  Argh.

When I wasn't working on the Venice proposal, I was filling out an application/profile summary to join a blogging network for women that I respect. I was kind of surprised that they'd consider this one, but that's all it is at the moment -- consideration.  We shall see what, if anything, comes from that.

In short, in general I don't feel as if I made much headway today, but I can always hope I'm wrong.  

Writer's Journey | Beginning Your Memoir and Creating Your Narrative Arc

At memoir workshops and conferences, eager people with bright faces rush up and tell me about their personal stories. “I have to write this. I have to get it out of me!” Then, they get serious. “There’s so much to tell, I don’t know where to start!” I love hearing their juicy stories, but they have so many questions.

via wow-womenonwriting.com

The link above connects with an excellent introduction to what many how-to guides to writing memoir address: the importance of showing, not telling -- those same ingredients that are important in any narrative, especially important in screenwriting (I'm not a screenwriter), and equally important in memoir.

Now, most of the writing that I've done and published in my life has been academic -- telling, not showing -- so I'm already aware the even in the first chapter of my CNWIP, I'm doing too much of that and not enough of the other.

For that reason, I decided to sign up for a six-week online memoir writing class through Women on Writing (WOW). The class is ideally timed to my summer, it looks as if it's going to cover exactly some of the issues I'd like a little guidance on, and no matter what the course itself is like, if it corresponds at all to the weekly outline below, I think I'll be able to get a lot out of it as I work on my CNWIP:

WRITE FROM YOUR SOUL: MEMOIR WORKSHOP by Annette Fix

START DATE: Tuesday, July 5, 2011

DURATION: 6 weeks

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Discover the story you want to tell and learn how to turn your personal experiences into a story that comes alive on the page.

Each week, the lessons cover specific techniques to build your storytelling skills, allowing you to tell your unique, personal story in a way that has universal appeal for readers. Through writing prompts, exercises, and handouts created by the instructor, you will begin writing your memoir using specific storytelling techniques: dialogue, characterization, setting, imagery, etc.

It was above and beyond what I expected.” ~ Akanke Very instructional and insightful. Annette strikes the balance between useful feedback, open exchange, and directed exercise. ~ Randi A great experience that motivated me to write. I feel like I learned things that will help my writing. The information and feedback are really useful, plus the techniques to improve your writing! ~ Deborah This was a very constructive and encouraging workshop. I loved it! Thank you. Each session I was inspired. Thank you for doing what you do! ~ Adriene

WEEKS AT A GLANCE:

Week 1: Discover Your Story. Introduction to Memoir and Discover Your Story’s Universal Theme.

Assignments: A questionnaire, prompts, and exercises guide you through the necessary steps to discover the personal story you really want to write.

Week 2: Dialogue. Many aspiring memoir writers tell their story, instead of showing the human interaction and allowing the reader to watch it unfold. This week’s prompts and exercises will challenge you to use the dialogue techniques covered in the handouts to bring your words and the words of the other people in your story to life.

Assignment: Write dialogue scene.

Week 3: Setting/Imagery. Learn how to pull the reader into your story and have them walk beside you, experiencing your life as it unfolds. This week’s prompts and exercises challenge you to use techniques covered in the handouts to revisit where your story took place and bring your sensory memory to life on the page.

Assignment: Write setting/imagery scene incorporating dialogue.

Week 4: Characterization. Vivid characters are memorable characters. This week’s prompts and exercises challenge you to use techniques covered in the handouts to portray yourself and other people in your story as three-dimensional, complex characters that resonate with readers.

Assignment: Write characterization scene, incorporating setting/imagery and dialogue.

Week 5 & 6: Plotting: Beginning/Middle/End plus Backstory/Exposition. You need to know where your story begins and ends, what makes up the middle, what backstory to include and what to leave out. These two weeks will cover specific techniques to determine the path your story will take on paper and help you develop the structure.

Assignment: Create plot outline/story timeline.

Materials needed: No special materials needed. Handouts provided by the instructor.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:  Most of you know Annette Fix as the former Senior Editor of WOW!. She is also the author of The Break-Up Diet: A Memoir, which was a finalist for Foreword Magazine’s 2009 Book of the Year Award and was offered an option for development as a cable TV series. Annette speaks about memoir writing at national writer’s conferences and teaches her Write From Your Soul program online and in-person.

COST:  Special Summer Rate ($100 discount) $149 (normally $249), which includes access to a private online discussion forum, weekly assignments, comprehensive technique handouts and resources, and e-mail support and assignment feedback from the instructor.

BUY NOW:  WRITE FROM YOUR SOUL: MEMOIR WORKSHOP by Annette Fix (6 weeks, starting 7/5/2011) Limit: 10 students. Early registration is recommended.

I've taken one other online writing class and was thoroughly underwhelmed. It was the class and instructor, not me, but I wasn't focused at the time and I think that had something to do with my less-than-stellar experience. That won't be true this time around.

Now, I don't think I'm particularly fond of online classes to begin with (<cough> this despite the fact that portions of the university classes I teach are online). What I liked best about school when I was a student was the in-person, real-time interaction with others, and that's what I like most about teaching as well. It's hard to make online learning compelling, in my view, and most people --  myself included -- aren't very good at it.

However, as I say, I'm very self-motivated about the CNWIP, and I think the class will be one way to help me develop skills as I move forward with my manuscript. I plan to integrate the results of the assigned exercises into the body of my work. My guess is that I'm a little ahead of the curve in some ways and behind it in others, but this will be a good reality check.

One way or the other I'm determined to make this class work for me. 

Writer's Journey | Chapter 1 *rough* draft is done

On Thursday I finished the rough draft of Chapter 1 of my CNWIP. Which is to say, I hit all the points in the outline for that chapter, I hit my word count, and I've even taken a second pass at about 2/3 to 3/4 of it. I'm going to view that as a victory.

By the end of the weekend, I want to have taken a second pass at the remaining portion of Chapter 1. If I meet that goal, then I think I'll feel good enough about leaving it alone and calling v. 1 of Chapter 1 done so that Monday I can move on to roughing out Chapter 2.

I'm a great believer in cranking out the work if the work is to get done.  This is especially true for me because I am a slow writer.  CNWIP is a work of literary nonfiction, and language is exceedingly important in it -- but I'm not going to be able to hit the correct turn of phrase or the most eloquent or compelling way of putting things the first or even necessarily the second or third time around.

Nor am I going to be able to arrive at the final narrative arc, though I have outlined each chapter and the overal structure of the book pretty carefully. Shaping that and refining it will be the task of v. 2.

Slow as I am and perfectionist that I am, that I was even able to generate 8,125 words and 25 pages of literary memoir in 10 days is pretty damn impressive to me. It's particularly challenging to work on memoir because the emotional intensity of reviewing the past competes with the imperative of shaping it into somethig that others besides oneself will care about.

It's not there yet, but with work and time I hope it will get there.  

Others have done it. Why not me?

Writer's Journey | Summer writing routine

Yesterday I felt extremely cranky and out of sorts, and while I was eventually able to identify a few causes for my unusual mood, the key factor boiled down to this: I haven't yet establish a writing routine for the summer that takes into account the competing demands of summer school obligations.

Having an established writing plan is pretty critical for making regular progress and achieving one's writing goals. That routine can change as one's life or schedule changes, but it needs to be in place. Or at least, it does for me.

Yesterday I moved efficiently through some wrap-up grading-related work from last semester and moved on to deal with some back-end online issues connected with this summer's class. By the time I was done with both and had gone out to lunch with my husband and run errands, it was late afternoon. And I hadn't written anything on my CNWIP.  It's one thing to write when one has nothing but free time, as I did last week. But yesterday? I didn't write any of the CNWIP.

My mood became increasingly anxious, irritable, and unpleasant.

I wrote my way through the mood elsewhere, doing some free writing, and was able to identify my lack of work on the CNWIP as a source of that mood.  Useful -- because now I know what I need to do in order to feel good about my writing and my work this summer.

Writing comes first.  It comes before summer school, it comes before errands. No, it doesn't come before my husband, but it is something I need to do first thing in the day. I'm lucky enough in the next couple of months to be able to spend about four hours a day, five days a week on the CNWIP, and I need to make sure those hours occur first thing in the morning.  Then, if my day explodes, those four hours will still have been put in. If, for some reason, I can't schedule my day in that way, I can nevertheless schedule most days like that.  

In the past week I've been getting up around 6 a.m. and opening my CNWIP file by 7:30 or so. Tomorrow, on a day when I have office hours and appointments scheduled for 11 a.m., I'll get up at 5, dispense with my pre-writing futzing online, and get directly to work, so that by 9 a.m. I'll have put in my work on the CNWIP.

It can be done.  That realization calmed me late yesterday afternoon and restored my mood.

And with that, I'm going to dive in.

Writer's Journey | Summer reading and writing

Sitting in front of my computer, with my second cup of coffee of the morning (and many more to follow), I breathe a deep sigh of relief and, yes, contentment. I'm thinking about recent events and looking forward to the summer ahead of me.

There's no doubt about it: even though I figured the odds were on my side from the beginning of the year and it became apparent to me in mid-April that I would probably get tenure, yesterday's official notification of it and my promotion comes as a relief.  As much as possible in this uncertain world and in these uncertain times (particularly for higher education in California), they represent a certain amount of job security. And oh, after those years of abject poverty and un(der)employment in Los Angeles, entirely on my own, I value job security as I value few other material things in life.

For the first time in months I went to bed at a normal time last night and I slept with little interruption. Coincidence? I think not.

It's going to take a while for the driven feeling to lessen -- and part of that is etched in my personality anyway, given OCD -- but I believe it will lift significantly over time. I'm no longer someone who relaxes easily. Again, that's specific to me and my make-up so maybe I never was, but it's also the classic tale of the assistant professor on the tenure-track who has to do without a lot of recreation and social activity in order to focus on earning tenure. A friend on FB has also just been awarded tenure at the same university as I, and he writes that he has done much the same thing. Both of us now want to restore balance to our lives, more than anything else.

What's helping is the prospect of a summer wide open before me. I don't want to squander it; I want to savor it, to relax into it, and also use it to deepen my engagement with activities I find both enjoyable and meaninful.

I've noticed that in the past few years my reading has dropped off significantly. In recent months I've been downloading books to my Kindle iPad application but not finding the time to read them. Not finding time to read them?! That's virtually unheard of for me. I've been a voracious reader all my life, and I have a B.A. and M.A. in English and literature as well.  How have I allowed the simple pleasure of reading to take a back seat to the stress and angst of the slog toward tenure? One word: necessity. Another word: fatigue. 

Well. no longer. I began reading James M. Cain's Mildred Pierce last night, which I've intended to read since I was a teenager but never have.  I'm thoroughly enjoying it -- it's my first Cain novel, and  of course  I have in mind the Joan Crawford film of the same title as I'm reading, and I intend to watch the HBO revival of it with Kate Winslet when it becomes available through NetFlix or some other venue.

Writers read and writers write.  Already I'm finding it really satisfying to have developed a writing plan that I'm beginning to make a reality. It feels wonderful (difficult but wonderful) to be working on my CNWIP at last and to be putting words together in a way that gives shape and voice to those wildnerness years in Los Angeles. The challenge, of course, is to write about them in a way that creates little epiphanies for the reader, rather than to pour them out in a formless effluvia of confession and emotional littering.  In this first chapter, I'm struggling to find the right voice (I have so many), but that's okay ... this is, after all, a first stab, a work-in-progress, baby steps along that path.

If the mind needs relaxation and restoration, so, too, does the body. My poor body. It's getting older, I put it through a lifetime of morbid obesity and Type II diabetes, and now it labors under a lesser burden of weight-loss surgery. I need to take better care of this body, even if it's to take it to the gym and to yoga to let it do the best that it can there. My husband and I rode our bikes for about an hour and a half a couple of days ago, and that felt good. After I finish here, I'm going to dress in exercise clothes and take myself to the gym later for my midday writing break.

I don't have to love it.  I just have to do it.

So, as I turn to the outline of my CNWIP and begin the process of recreating a time that's past for me (thank you god) but that's now colored by my experiences and perspectives since, I am grateful, once again, for second chances. 

Now, where are those exercise clothes ...?

Writer's Journey | To begin my life

 

Dressed in overalls, sipping my third cup of coffee of the morning (yes, I'm a coffee addict), I'm looking at the fruits of yesterday's labors -- the outline of the creative nonfiction work-in-progress (CNWIP).

It's time to dive into Chapter 1, remembering as I do so that it has my permission to be the holey-est and draftiest of drafts.

And so here I go ... 

Writer's Journey | And so it begins

 

Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer, and so it's time to begin my summer writing projects.

To that end, I got up early, dressed for exercise (because, as I said yesterday, I'm determined to incorporate more activity into my days), and have sat down at my computer to get in a few hours of work before my husband and I take a bike ride mid-morning.

I haven't chunked out the calendar yet in terms of how much time I want to spend on which project: I'm not sure if I want to alternate among them (probably, so that I get a sense of progress on multiple fronts) or with what frequency (a week on this? a week on that? with concrete goals in mind for each stretch? That's probably best, given the way I work). 

My task this week, then, will be to finish the outline of the memoir I have in my head. Not sure how many chapters it will take, but that's part of what this outline is designed to help me figure out. At any rate, that's this week's writing goal.  It's definitely achievable as long as I don't insist on perfection.

Perfectionism kills writers faster than strong drink, if you ask me.

Writer's Journey | Summer launch

Although my summer has not yet officially begun and won't until I've finished and filed grades and waved goodbye to students at graduation, I'm treating today as the inaugural day of my summer writing projects. Nearly two weeks ago I wrote about what I wanted those projects to be, and today's the day I take my first toddler steps toward one of them -- a literary memoir.

Later today, once I've put a little work into conceptualizing a possible shape for that, I'm going to continue searching for writers' retreats this summer. A retreat suddenly struck me me as combining the best possible aspects of writing and a brief change of scene.  

Some retreats are astonishly expensive, however, so I won't be opting for those. Others are in different states, but my goal is to keep it within driving distance; I'm more than willing to work a road trip into this scenario, but I'm pretty sure I want to keep it within California. I want it to occur earlier in the summer rather than later, so there's another limiting factor, and I'd like the experience to be worthwhile, of course; too many of the retreats I've checked out online seem as if they'd offer me nothing that I couldn''t offer myself, frankly, and for a third of the money!

So the other option is simply to rent a car and head off to a lovely, semi-secluded area near woods, ocean, or both, stay in a motel for a few days with my laptop for far less money than something calling itself a retreat, and ... write!  A change of scene and the chance to focus on nothing but words are the whole point, after all.  I'm not looking for feedback on my writing right now, just the chance to hole up for a while and generate some sustained work that I can take home and start revising. I can write anywhere, of course, but this would be a wonderful little break and a small luxury.

The temptation to combine a retreat of my own creation (or any other) with a longer road trip is great, but I think I should stick with one thing at a time so that I don't get distracted.  This isn't about socializing or seeing friends or doing anything other than giving myself a changed environment for a little while and a jump start.

With that tantalizing possibility before me, I'm now going to open a new Word file and -- gulp -- begin!

Writer's Journey | Write it up, write it down

At my university's Honors Convocation the other night, I received a metaphoric shot in the arm that has revived my desire to settle into a period of prolonged writing.  And that's a Good Thing, with summer vacation now just under a month away and several writing projects presenting themselves to me in tantalizing fashion.

The shot in the arm came in the form of a keynote address by a well-known journalist whose work I've read and admired and who was being granted an honorary doctorate by my university for his achievements.  That night I discovered that the journalist is not only an excellent writer but a terrific and motivating speaker as well (the two don't necessarily go hand in hand). With his references to the importance that storytelling has played in his life and his sense of purpose on this planet, he revived my sleeping tendencies to construct narrative, which have lain dormant during much of my pursuit of tenure.

As if to supplement this boost, I went to a performance piece by a graduate student in our department the next night in which the importance of storytelling was also emphasized. Once again I was confronted not simply by my own desire to construct stories but the need I have felt, all my life, to write them down.

Like my mother, I tend more toward the nonfiction, literarary essay as a writer, though as a reader in my own time, I'm all about fiction. With the exception of early to mid-childhood, however, I've never felt the urge to write fiction myself.  In fact, I stopped writing it once I turned 12 and began keeping diaries for the next 10 years of my life. After that, I discovered the literary essay and academic writing, and those have been the genres to which I've kept.

But this summer, I think I want to work on three different projects.  Four, really, if you count the process of identifying one of those projects.  In no particular order:

• A romance novel.  I've written about this before here many different times, and a year ago with the NaNoWriMo 2009 competition, I wrote a first draft of a category/series romance novel.  I've already committed to writing the first chapter of a romance novel by late August and presenting it to the local chapter of Romance Writers of America.   This will be both fun and an exercise in formula and discipline.

• Literary nonfiction.  I have kept some painful but very rich pages I wrote while in the midst of horrifying angst and depression in the mid-1990s. I'm beginning to think that, while they're far too raw and overwrought in their present form, it may be time for me to write the memoir that both my girlhood journals, these pages, and my experience in the last 15 years suggest to me I could write.  Not just could.  Should.  I feel passionate about my struggle to survive the prison of my own experience and the power of second chances and in helping others to do the same. For me, this project is about giving voice to pain and possibility and telling my own story for others in a way that my mother strived to tell her own but ultimately abandoned (read the memoir if you want to learn more about that).  This, for me, is a challenge to find the right language and structure to express that story.

• A collaborative blog. In the interest of preserving separation between my professional life and this blog, I'll say no more about it here, but this project is already well under way and is scheduled to launch in June.

• Academic book.  This summer I need to commit to one of two book projects I have on the burner, so that I can apply for a sabbatical for part of the 2012-2013 academic year to work on one of them. In theory, that book will be part of what earns me full professor in X years. It's either going to be a book for which I have done some work already and written and presented a few articles, or it's going to be a reworking of my dissertation. (I swore that I would never turn my dissertation into a book because it took me so long to write in the first place and I was done with it -- but increasingly, I'm feeling as if the time is right for there to be a new book on the topic of my dissertation and as if I could rewrite and rework it well.  Have to get some input there.)

How do I feel when I think about these projects?  

Excited (they're all great projects).  Nervous (can I really write a good romance novel?)  Apprehensive (the memoir will necessitate revisiting the scenes of my youth [Ophuls]). A little insecure (I don't know how to write an academic book ... except, please, of course I can). 

As I finish out the academic year in the course of the next few weeks, I'll be thinking about how I want to arrange my time this summer.  There's nothing romantic about writing: if you want to write, write well, and publish, you have to put your butt in the chair, write as if it were a job (which it is), and come up with a schedule that works for you.

I'm supervising a class I haven't run before but my friend and colleague K has it so well established that I think it will require relatively little effort on my part, other than to stay on top of paperwork, which I can do pretty easily, and keep some standard advising hours. Otherwise, my time will be my own, and I'm going to think about how I want to chunk it out in terms of each project.  

Excitement. That's definitely my predominant emotion.

Looking ahead to summer

Among last week's iron infusion, teaching week, staying up for the much-vaunted royal wedding, and Honors Convocation, I was tired last night. For the first time in a while, I managed not to get out of bed in the middle of the night (though I was awake) and was able to rise at 6 a.m. today.

A good thing, as I have some work to do this morning and afternoon before meeting a friend for dinner and then watching a performance piece by one of my department's graduate students.

I'm looking at the calendar and counting down the days until the end of classes.  Which, as we all know, is far from the end of work because it's followed by an intense two-week period of grading, and there are also meetings mixed in there.  Nevertheless, classes ending signals a shift and a slowing down.  

And for once, I intend to take some time to enjoy myself this summer. I need to get some professional writing done, but even so, I plan to do so in a more relaxed manner, without the freakout of will-I-or-won't-I-get-tenure hanging over my head.

Bike rides. Cooking. A little gardening. A yoga class. Romance writing. Maybe a road trip.

You get the general idea.

Sneezles

Maybe it was all that partying I did for 50 -- or maybe it was just that there's apparently a cold going around and I've caught it.

Either way, I'm down with a scratchy throat, itchy and puffy eyes, a dry cough, and a generally plugged-up head.  It's not serious enough to complain about (though I am) or get sympathy for. It's just kind of there and slowing my pace. 

Lounging around wasn't making me feel better, nor was writing, so I took a stab at vacuuming and dusting the first floor.  Which was fine, except that I felt as if I'd climbed Mt. Everest afterward. Pathetic.

I've got work to do and errands to run, but the word "run" isn't speaking to me at the moment. I'd crawl into bed, but I'm not sick enough for that, and it just makes me feel impatient. 

I'd best open an article file and stare at that for a while to see see if I can get anything done. It's my day for it. 

The day after (50)

It's the day after my birthday, and while celebrations will continue today and this evening, this morning is going to be devoted to research and writing for my current WIP. This is an article that I expect will take the semester to research and write into a reasonable first draft.

In fact, every Friday morning is going to be given over to research and writing. I've even calendared it, and today is the first day of honoring that commitment.  It's going to take some working out and getting used to, and my first note to myself is do not check your email until the afternoon on Fridays. I usually check it first thing in the morning, as I did today, and that was a mistake: there weren't even really any fires to put out, and yet it took me about an hour to read through it all and deal with it.  

Not gonna do that again next Friday. Email can wait.

My second note to myself: choose where you want to devote your energies. I just got a rejection letter from a second journal for an article I wrote almost two years ago now. It's a nice enough letter, mind you, with some useful suggestions for how I might go about reworking the piece. The only thing is, I don't love it.  Quite frankly, I don't even like it very much, and  the idea of reworking it (again -- it's been rejected twice by a different journal) does not feel like the way I want to spend my time.

The article arose out of a course that my colleague and I co-taught, and we agreed to put our names jointly on pieces we wrote that stemmed directly from that class -- but I haven't managed to place this one yet.  And I just don't want to work on it further right now, either. I want to retire it, and if at some point it's something I want to go back to at a future date, then fine, I will.  

So my suggestion to my colleagueis going to be that we revert to single-authorship of those pieces so that we can pursue the choices we want with each of them -- or not.  It's really a more accurate reflection of their creation: I haven't contributed a thing to her piece, so she's really the sole author. She reviewed and commented on my draft, which was useful, but we're really writing separately. Meanwhile, I feel guilty that I haven't placed my piece yet, and she feels bad that she hasn't finished hers.

We need to move forward and feel okay about our respective choices while supporting each other through the research and writing process generally. That's part of these Friday research and writing sessions (which is actually a joint commitment we made to each other).

And on that note, I'd best move forward with that commitment now.  I think I'm going to begin each Friday with some free writing over at 750Words, and then move into work proper.

Wish me luck!

Fresh starts

It's a new week, the dawn of a new semester, and I'm going to concentrate on the positives today:

• I lost 3.6 pounds last week, after an imperfect but mindful week of eating and tracking my food.
• I'm about to make another batch of healthy vegetable soup (with a small amount of meat in it for protein) to see me through this week.
• I've stocked my desk drawer at the office with protein-rich snack options for those times when I've forgotten to take an insulated bag of food to school with me and need to grab something quickly -- not a burger and fries, thank you, but nuts, protein bars, and so on.
• I have class materials for this week ready to photocopy for first meetings.
• Regardless of the dean's verdict today about the distribution of labor. teaching, and release time, I've committed to my own priorities, which are my students -- insofar as my assignment allows me to address their needs, and that assignment comes with time limits that I will honor for my own sake -- and my writing and research.
• I've made a recurring research/writing date throughout the semester with my colleague and friend K. We won't always get together for it, but we will be accountable to ourselves and each other on Friday mornings for focusing on our own work and stay in touch through email, IMs, Twitter ... whatever it takes.

These are the steps I'm taking to protect my own time, further my own goals (which, let's face it, are not the priorities of the institution for which I work), and live a life I find rewarding and non-crazy-making.

Another positive this week?  Wait for it -- it's coming -- yes, my 50th birthday. Mine, mine, mine.  Me, me, me! I've ordered two cakes: one for tomorrow morning's department meeting that's a shared birthday cake with other January birthday folks, and one for my husband and me on Thursday, my actual birthday.  

I'll be celebrating in low-key fashion throughout the week, with my husband taking me to dinner on the evening of my birthday and my friend and colleague K spoiling me rotten with a girls' night out on Friday night, complete with overnight stay in a lovely hotel downtown.  

So -- no matter what happens in today's meeting with the dean or in the coming few days of orderly or disorderly chaos, I'm going about my business, maintaining perspective, and not getting sucked into any internal dramas.

I'm turning 50. I get to be a grownup and live life according to my own internal compass.

 

Carb hangover

It seems no decision regarding administrative/teaching assignments within our program is forthcoming until Monday (have I mentioned that classes start on Wednesday?). With that news late yesterday afternoon, I dived neatly into some leftover pizza and a cinnamon roll (yes, both -- breads are my downfall) and ate through my frustration.

As a result, I woke up this morning with a bad carb hangover -- the kind that makes you feel lumbering and dull-witted -- and I'm sipping my first cup of coffee as if it were a lifeline.  First decision: not gonna do the salvation-by-food routine again today.  For one thing, the pizza is gone (though the cinnamon rolls aren't), and for another, I will feel both mentally and physically better if I concentrate on protein and vegetables today.

Old habits die hard: I'm a stress- and emotional eater from way back. I had weight-loss surgery five years ago; I've pretty much maintained a 100-pound loss, but 20-30 of the old pounds have snuck back on. That's okay: my health is still good, post-op, and such a gain is not unusual. I still like the way I look, although I liked the way I looked better 20 pounds ago!  

Gains are not unusual but they're not inevitable, either, so I'd like to see those 20 pounds depart once more. I'm working on it.  I can even have the odd slice of pizza or occasional cinnamon roll and still reach my goal.  But not both at once in the quantities that I had them last night!

It's probably a good thing, then, that this morning I have a local chapter meeting of Romance Writers of America to attend. It'll take my mind off frustrating university situations and give me a break from course prep, and I'll be able to connect with something totally separate and distinct from academia. I wasn't able to make the last two monthly meetings, so this will be only my second time there.  

Then later this afternoon and evening I'm meeting my friend T from another department for a movie and dinner, and that will be another kind of break as well. 

Between the two events there will be some time at home to work on classes if I want.  There are still things left to do to prepare for the first day on Wednesday.  Mostly, though, I need to take care of myself without resorting to old, old comfort mechanisms that soothe me in the moment (pizza! cinnamon rolls!) but leave me feeling like crap the next day.

I guess it says something about how I've changed that I'm looking forward to the vegetable soup I made earlier in the week instead of carbs.  Five years ago I'd have been plotting how to eat more of what soothed me yesterday.

Full moon rising

There was a full moon last night, I didn't sleep well as a result (no, that bit about not sleeping well during full moons is not an old wives' tale!), and so I'm only just now getting started on my day (it's around 8:30 a.m. and I'd planned on a 6 a.m. rising).  

First full cup of fresh coffee is on my desk (that half-cup of warmed-over coffee I had to wake me up doesn't count), and I'm considering my options.

As my Twitter feed on the left indicates, I spent some of yesterday reading through two sections of my now-decaying dissertation with an eye toward major overhaul and revision in order to turn them into a single publishable article. I'd cut and pasted those sections into a new file, and for the first 15 pages I was pretty grim-mouthed.  

In retrospect, I remember that my dissertation chair hadn't liked those pages, and while I didn't really get why at the time, I do now:  too much plot summary of films, not enough analysis, and what's my point, anyway?  And when I do make my point, it's like, really? That's it? Who cares?  In addition, especially today, the points sound rather ... um ... dated and irrelevant.  The field has been there and done that.  Move on.

So I wasn't happy with what I was reading.  

But then I got to the last 15 pages, and I perked up.  There's lots of good stuff there. It all has to be reworked and reframed to bring it up to date, and I need to do a fair amount of prep work and background reading in order to do so -- but the basic material is smart and interesting already, and I believe there's lots of potential.

Did I mention it will take lots of work to transform it?  

There are a couple of major decisions I have to make about strategy as well.  Do I want the article to be a case study, or do I want to position it as a piece that speaks to what's going on in an entire genre of film from a certain period?  I've all but abandoned the idea of rewriting the dissertation as a book ... all but. However, if there's any bit of me left that retains that intention, then that affects those strategic choices about approach.

As I feel anxiety rising now, I remind myself that I don't have to answer all these questions today, and I don't have to have the article written by tomorrow. I've given myself until May (i.e., the length of the semester) to work through such issues, revise, and to have a final draft of the article ready to send out.

The dissertation-as-book (DAB) question is one that I'd like to resolve over the summer because I anticipate applying for a sabbatical in Fall 2011 for the following school year (hey, universities move slowly) in order to work on a book. It's either going to be the DAB or a newer project about which I've also presented at conferences and published pieces.

The university won't care which it is.  I simply have to make a compelling case for whichever one I decide to do.

Really? That's it?  No problem then. <Cough>.

So these are the matters that are whirling through my brain as I contemplate my day.  

On other fronts I need to do more course prep, particularly for one class, but the powers that be still haven't communicated to me whether I'm actually teaching it or whether I'm being given release time for that course in order to administrative work for the department. Um, classes start on Wednesday, kids. However, as long as that issue is outstanding, I find myself a tad distracted from preparing for it.

And later this afternoon I'm getting together for coffee with a former grad student of mine who now has her Ph.D. Smart woman, older than I, who raised five children and then got her doctorate in her late 50s/early 60s.  She's amazing.

In fact, I'm about to try to get her dissertation onto my iPad (and possibly into the Kindle application) in order to read the introduction and first two chapters of her dissertation, which establish the theoretical foundation for her work in theatre. I'm hoping to find something useful there for my own work, even though we work in different fields.

Time for more coffee ...

It sneaks up on you

The new semester, that is.  Sometimes it hits you over the head, and sometimes it's sneaky, and this one is sneakier.

It doesn't start until January 25, but course preparation has to take place before that (that kind of goes without saying -- an expression which needs to be stricken from all writing). But that's to be expected.

It's the meetings to which I refer.  They've already begun. For reasons I won't go into here, these meetings are necessary and urgent, and so it's okay with me that they're taking place.

But I don't have to like the fact of them. Or that I actually find myself thinking about what I should wear to them!  

(Really?  I can't just show up in sweats, as befits a person on break? Nah. However insignificant what I wear is in the scheme of things, I just can't bring myself to do that. It could be construed as disrespectful, inappropriate, or lazy.)

The plan for today? Work on my own research this morning.  And, um, a meeting in the afternoon.

A good day's work

Phew!

For the last week or so I've been stressed about revising and sending out an article (AGAIN, though to a new journal) and also reviewing proofs for a book chapter that are due in New Zealand tomorrow -- and I'm happy to say that I've gotten both things done.

Now, just because I've sent out the article again doesn't mean it's going to be accepted (it got a mixed reaction -- twice -- from one journal, so I finally decided to select another and see if it fares better there; if not I'll have to decide if I want to put more work into it or bag it altogether). But at least I've got it off my plate for now.

And the proofs turned out to be no big deal. It was kind of fun to see how the chapter will look when published. They were only able to use one of the images I included, as the others were insufficiently high quality to be reproduced.  Oh well.  There are three illustrations, and the one they were able to use that I supplied them with is pretty cool, given my subject matter.

In preparation for the coming semester, I've opened a file for revising a portion of my dissertation into an article -- probably the last piece from it that I'll be able to do that with. It's old but it's got some good stuff in it, and enough time has passed since I finished the dissertation (seven years? really?  I think so ...) that I'm no longer bound up in the critical argument I was trying to make then so I can now revise with a critical eye toward now. I still love what I wrote about and still care about the topic, so that's good.

I even have a journal targeted for the piece, though given my schedule once the semester starts, I probably won't be able to finish the article until early summer.  But I may be able to get a good strong revised draft done.  That's my hope, anyway.

With the new work week almost upon us and the start of the semester now just over two weeks off, it's time to start putting together my course syllabi and setting up the websites for course content management. 

Uh, and I might want to order books.  EEEYIKES.  I always forget that part.  Gee, I know what I'm going to be doing shortly ...

Script Frenzy 2011

I've officially signed up for Script Frenzy -- which you can do for free, by the way -- because I figure that, despite the fact that I've read very few scripts, taken no classes in screenwriting, and have never particularly wanted to write a film -- nothing ventured, nothing gained. At least I'll have the opportunity to learn exactly what I don't know, so to speak, and to decide from there if I want to learn more.

Just as November is devoted to NaNoWriMo, April is devoted to Script Frenzy.  I tell myself that I'll read a couple of books by then on screenwriting, just to have them under my belt, but that's pretty unlikely once the semester starts.  The most I'll probably do is poke around on the Script Frenzy website and see what resources they have (and they do have some).

100-page script in 30 days.  Three pages a day.  Doesn't sound that hard until I remember that a) fictional story-telling is not my forte; b) I suck at dialogue.  Right.  Eek!

However, I have a one-line idea for a script already germinating.  I think I'll look into Celtx and other free screenwriting programs and see what my options are for taking some notes ...

Rise and shine

In preparation for the university going back into session tomorrow after winter break, I got up earlier than I have been since filing my grades a couple of weeks ago. My way of practicing getting back into the work habit, dontcha know -- because there's nothing in me that feels like going back to work, the closer that the necessity of doing so comes.

On days I teach, I sit down to my desk at 5 a.m., but that seemed just a wee bit extreme to me for this morning, so I settled for 6 a.m. instead. Besides, at the time it was pouring rain and I thought it'd be cozy to sit at my computer with a first cup of coffee, do some morning pages at 750words, and sort through my thoughts. And it was.

If I were wise, I'd write a couple of letters of recommendation for students today and start reading manuscripts for a romantic fiction contest that I agreed to judge. I expect to enjoy myself thoroughly, actually, with that competition; it's just that at the moment, the prospect feels a little too much like grading (it's not at all the same thing, I realize), and I've never done it before, so I'm a little nervous.  One thing I could do today, I suppose, is take myself to a local coffee shop and work on some of that there. Sometimes it helps me a bit to get started on something new in a neutral place.  Anyway, it's something to consider.

Something else to consider is what the hell to do with this blog!  Believe me, I've noticed that it totally lacks focus or theme, and I haven't maintained it very well in recent months.  The second aspect has to do with my filing for tenure in the fall: I simply didn't have time to keep up the blog and meet assorted obligations.

But now? I don't know. Several years ago when I maintained a weight-loss surgery blog, that had energy and focus -- but then that aspect of my life became much more integrated into my everyday living and it no longer was a sufficient source of material for me.

I tried the pure writing blog approach here, but that lacks a certain something as well.  For one thing, the world has any number of really excellent writing blogs, and it doesn't need another from me. For another, there was something about it that flattened my voice (for better or worse, and to the extent that I could be said to have a voice in the first place).

I don't particularly want to keep a diary or confessional blog. Not good if it's discovered by one's work peers or bosses.  

So the question remains:  what is it I want to do in this blog and to accomplish -- for myself, not for my career or anything else, but for me?

Thinking that one over.

 

2011 Resolutions

They're pretty straightforward this year -- which isn't to say that they'll be easy for me. But in the spirit of developing greater discipline around writing and exercise, here are the actions I want to take in 2011:

• To write daily.
• To exercise every other day.

I'm keeping the goals really focused on concrete behaviors and on basics in order to maximize my chances of achieving those core goals.

I'd like to reserve two days a week during teaching semesters for my research and writing. I'd like to exercise a minimum of five days a week. 

I'd like to be an incredibly prolific academic writer and author of romances. I'd like to enjoy going to the gym and participate in some kind of walk, run, or race.

And maybe I will.

But come hell or high water, I really want to be able to look back on 2011 and say that I stuck with two projects that are important to me, regardless of whether I wanted to do them on any given day or in any given moment.

It's not about inspiration or having the time. It's about the commitment and the discipline. I have those qualities in certain areas of my life, but I see them in other people in ways that I admire, and I know I both can and want to do better.

So ... there's no time like the present to get started. Whether I write multiple articles and books of whatever ilk or none, whether I walk in a race or simply walk around the block, I will consider myself successful in meeting these 2011 goals if I write daily and exercise every other day. They don't sound that difficult, I know, but doing those things consistently over time?  Yeah, they'll be hard for me.  They're not beyond me, but they won't be a walk in the park.

You have to start habits somewhere, though.  These two points are where I start.

Happy New Year 2011

I hope you all had a happy and pleasant New Year's Eve.  Here my husband and I did what we always do, which was to fall asleep early, wake up at midnight to the sound of firecrackers and other incendiary devices, and give each other a Happy New Year kiss.  Mr. and Mrs. Excitement we're not, but for as long as we''ve been together (almost 11 years), that's how our New Year's Eves have played out.

In a recent post I reviewed my resolutions for 2010, decided I'd done pretty well with them, and realized I needed to think about what I wanted to focus on this year.  Emphasis on the word "focus." And I guess, for me, it's boiling down to discipline:  I want to develop more discipline in two areas -- writing and exercise.

It's fine to write when you feel like it, or when you're under the gun of a deadline. It's fine to exercise when you're on break and can easily make the time.  But what about when those conditions are absent? Writers write and treat writing like a job.  They don't wait for inspiration; they make a commitment to writing, and they make it a habit, and most importantly, they do it.  

Folks who are genuinely fit and healthy don't wait until they feel like going to the gym or taking a bike ride; they do it, like other people take out the garbage. It's something that has to be done, and so they do it. They don't angst over whether, when, or how they'll do it. It gets done.

So today I'm still reflecting upon the details of how I want to develop that writing and exercise discipline: the more specific and realistic you can make your goals, the more chance you have of achieving them. 

But for today, I'm writing this (deathless prose, I know -- not), and I'm dressed in my gym clothes ready to head out the door.  

Because, while I'm not a corporate logo kind of chick, Nike does have a point.  Just do it.

 

Old and new year

We're not quite at the new year yet ... still in that interstitial space between Christmas and January 1. However, now that the former is behind us, my thoughts turn to the latter and to an assessment of how I did with my 2010 resolutions.

Here, without the commentary or explanations available at the above link, are those resolutions:

Work

• Practice saying no (to myself, to colleagues, and to students). PROGRESS
• Limit time spent on work email. PROGRESS
• Pick one class each semester to further my own research. DONE

Health

• Stay current with lab work and medical wellness appointments. PROGRESS
• Establish relationship with dentist. DONE
• Improve DS-specific nutrition. NO
• Incorporate regular exercise into my week. PROGRESS

Writing

• Revise/resubmit apocalypse article. DONE
• Place Random Harvest article. DONE
• Write draft of Heavenly Creatures chapter by June 1. DONE
• Read The Screenwriter's Bible and Save the Cat by March 31. NO
• Consider participating in April's Script Frenzy, NO
• Maintain and develop WordFlix. PROGRESS

All things considered (and I'm talking about more than simply this list), I accomplished a lot in the past year. In its waning days I'm considering where to devote my energies in 2011. I think my twin goals are going to center around writing and increased fitness, but creating specific intentions and measurable actions around those areas is what I'm mulling over now.  

As much as I like Christmas, I'm not sorry to have it behind me. It carries many wonderful memories with it but also a lot of old baggage, and so I'm happy to move forward to the new year now, those particular bags checked at the door (at least until next Yuletide season!).

Lots to think about.

Do the best you can

with what you have where you are." That's one of my favorite quotes (Theodore Roosevelt), and I'm repeating it to myself today because I'm determined to have the best day that I can -- under the circumstances.

Not that circumstances are bad, necessarily.  A certain set of them are out of my control, however, and that never feels good to me.  The department is late in delivering its vote and write-up/recommendation regarding tenure (which I pointed out to the chair yesterday), and so now I'm supposed to get it today.  We shall see if Frightmare Colleague on the committee has caused trouble or not and if so, what action I choose to take.

So there's that.

I hold office hours later this afternoon and teach tonight, and until then I'm home, working. I'm going to devote up to an hour to cosmetic edits to TMG and then do some reading for the Venice project and a little course upkeep.

As I see it, my main task today is to be good to myself, get things done (which is part of that), look after my students, and stay sane.

All right, then. Forward.

P.S. Oh! And I made my first mini-goal in weight-loss this morning.  Once again I offer up thanks for the DS!

Grab time where you can

 

There's a level of dysfunction and pathology in my workplace that severely compromises both student learning and faculty's ability to do their jobs well.

Beyond that observation, I will remain mute, except to say that it is with a sense of genuine relief and rightness that I have chosen to pay attention to my own writing career and devote my energies to my own production of work, my students, and not to the aforementioned dysfunction and pathology.

And with that rather labored (re)declaration of my priorities, I'm going to work on TMG for the next hour and a half.  Then it will be time to shower and dress for the day and teach my morning class, today from within Second Life.

A fiction chick?

Tuesdays are not teaching days for me this semester, and on lucky Tuesdays, when I don't have other campus obligations, I can stay at home.

So the plan for today?  I have a set of exams to grade and I'm going to work on really basic edits of last year's NaNoWriMo novel The Master Gardener (TMG)

I should be working on my paper for Venice, but instead I'm letting that percolate still on the back burner. I think I'm going to have to go into major production mode on that this coming weekend.

We shall see how far I get today. Those basic edits to which I refer are, for the present, very basic as I navigate my way back into the manuscript of TMG. For one thing, as I've mentioned, I wrote it using some free word processing software (yWriter5) that was very useful for cranking out quantity and looks to be very good for generating plot spines and so forth, but I'm still far more comfortable writing in Word.  Fortunately I was able to take the yWriter5 file, save it as an .rtf document, and cut and paste that into a Word document, and now what I'm doing is cleaning that up a bit in preparation for revision.

In addition, there were parts of TMG that were simply placeholder text, so I'm going through, deleting those, and highlighting where I'm going to need to write entirely new sections. I'm trying hard not to think about what and how I will revise right now, other than acknowledging that I know that 11 of my 12 chapters are part of one kind of romance novel and the remaining one belongs in another, different kind. If I start thinking about the whats and hows at this point, I may talk myself out of it!

What's terrifying (but kind of exciting) is that, actually, this means I will have two novels in progress once I start the one en route to/in Venice (and I'm thinking that will be the one into which I incorporate the odd-man-out chapter from TMG.

Ohmygod.  Has it really taken me 50 years to realize that I can write fiction after all?

I'm so excited!

Reflections

 

Along with the realization I've had about wanting to publish a romance novel came several more:

I don't want to publish just one.  I want to write and publish several. In fact, what I'm realizing is that last year's NaNoWriMo novel is one kind of romance novel -- but  one of its chapters actually belong to a different subgenre of romance.  I want to revise the novel within its category, write the second to which the errant chapter more properly belongs, find an agent, and publish both.

For starters.

And I'm not waiting until after the tenure verdict to begin.

I hadn't anticipated the reaction I'd have to filing for tenure.  I thought I would feel some sense of achievement or anticipated relief that I'd come this far and that the odds are in favor of my being awarded tenure at the end of the school year.

Instead, the process brought up all manner of resentment and anger that here I was, once again, having to jump through hoops for a job I'd already demonstrated I deserved by getting it in the first place.

And it was exhausting.  Last summer was no break at all, and it shows: I'm completely burned out right now. COMPLETELY. And I'm angry about that because it began to compromise my health, physically and emotionally.

So the last thing I particularly want to think about at the moment is my academic life. Instead, what's occupying my mind in the back of my head as I move through my day is my novels -- next steps, carving out time for writing and revision, and so on. I have to write this Venice paper (and I'm still interested in that, so that's good), but once I'm on that plane, headed to Italy?  It's all romance novels all the time.

Practically speaking, I know this means I need to carve out formal noveling time after my Venice trip. And that's where my energies during winter break are going to go. So, as I work through the sort of allergic reaction to filing for tenure that took me my surprise, I can look forward to that.  It's less than a month away before I can tap into something that makes me genuinely happy and excited.

My husband likes the idea, too.

OMG - Internal shifts occurring

I'm doing it.

I've decided to revise my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel -- which, until yesterday, I hadn't looked at since pressing the 'send" key on the NaNoWriMo site to verify my word count and have myself declared a NaNoWriMo winner.

What's more, revisions are under way NOW.

My first step was to print out the .rtf file I had and put it all into a binder so I can read through it carefully in the near future.

My second step was to convert that file into a Word document.

And my third step is happening now: I'm simply making very basic formatting changes in preparation for real revision, chapter by chapter: double-spacing the single-spaced text, inserting page breaks between chapters, highlighting pure placeholder text, and so on.

Next will come the much more difficult process of actual writing.  But I'm half thinking of taking that first chapter, revising it, and submitting it to a contest within the romance writing industry. There are several, and ... why not?

AND it has also dawned on me that I want to start another novel.  Just ... start it.  In Venice. After I finish presenting my paper, of course, and not spending a whole lot of time on it at that moment because there will be other things to do -- but I have another romance novel I want to write, and I want to make sure I have a couple of irons in the fire.

In six years' time I'd like to be a full professor. And a published romance writer. And, if all goes well during this, my tenure year, I think those goals are realistic.

That's why god gave us pseudonyms. ;)

RWA - Update

So today for the first time I went to a local chapter meeting of Romance Writers of America (the RWA is a key organization for published and aspiring authors of romance), and to my surprise, I had a great time! There was a good mix of published and unpublished authors, the people were very welcoming and friendly, and I found myself volunteering to jury an upcoming competition (I'm not published in romance myself, but hey, they seemed to want the help).

As I mentioned in my previous post, I went with a former student in her 30s who's now an MFA student in another department, who's working on a novel, and we had a good time together. It felt REALLY great to plug into the writing side of myself that exists outside academia in some kind of structured way, and to have another outlet for creativity and friendship.

And as a amusing anecdote: three people did double-takes when they saw me, which I noticed but totally did not understand, until the third person said, "For a second I thought you were X" -- and named a big romance writer whose books I've read and liked. About all she and I have in common in the way of looks is short red hair, but I laughed and told them I'd take that as a good omen. :D

Self-care

Perhaps the middle of the semester, with all its angst and grading -- or being in the midst of what I suspect is a low-ferritin phase with all its accompanying fatigue -- is not the most opportune time to carve out a bit of peace and balance for myself.

But I certainly need to, and so that's what I'm making efforts to do these days, in a few different ways.

First is finding time for my own research and writing for the upcoming Venice conference. I've begun to work through relevant readings, opened a file for the paper, and even written a few words. I can feel my brain processing material in the background, as it were, as a computer would, even when I'm working on other things, and that feels positive.

Tomorrow I'm dedicating the day to my own research, either here at home or at the infusion center, if that turns out to be something that happens. Hey, they have wifi. And mostly I'll be just reading anyway.

It's also time to lose some of the weight I've gained in the past year. Chalk that up to  lax eating and then totally ignoring what I ate over the summer and into these early fall months ... in the stress of the quest for tenure, it was easy to revert to comfort eating.   I've been given the precious gift and responsibility of the duodenal switch, and it's time to take care of it and myself once again.

I don't have a concrete goal in mind.  5% of my body weight, which is already is sight, looks good as an initial number to shoot for, and then I'll reassess. If that feels okay, I have it in mind to go for another 5%. But as I say, I'm making up my mind as I go along.

To that end, I'm using www.fitday.com again.  It's a wonderful tool that allows you to track foods in whatever way you want. For me what's important are calories and grams of protein, carbohydrates, and fat. It's a good reality check.

A fatigued writer

Now that the tenure dossier is filed and on its way up the university food chain (read: now that there's nothing further I can do to maximize my chances at earning tenure), it feels good to reclaim at least one day a week for my own research and writing.

That had largely fallen by the wayside as August dawned: first I was getting ready for the fall semester (including two new course preps), and once that was done, then September was here, and I was working on the dossier.

So now I'm trying to return to some kind of routine involving research in writing, just in time for the November conference.  The organizers emailed me yesterday with information about my slot on the program:  right smack dab in the middle of the conference, though in the later afternoon.  (I'd rather be first thing in the morning on the first day and get it over with, but oh well.  It is what it is.) Nothing like being scheduled to light a fire under you!

The main obstacle at the moment isn't even class or administrative work, however (not that you could say I'm caught up on those fronts; I never am), but this overwhelming, debilitating fatigue I feel. I'm fine for the first few hours that I'm out of bed, and then I just want to head back there, no matter what I'm in the middle of doing, and spend the foreseeable future under the covers, unconscious.  I'm also colder than hell these days.

Low ferritin, anyone? That's my guess, and after today's bloodwork comes back, I'll know. I've already told my doctor that if I have to have an iron infusion, I'd like it to be done this Friday.

Okay, well, none of this alters my need to keep working, so back I go now to readings about narrative architecture ...

Relief

I think I achieved lift-off yesterday on finding (and understanding) some useful theory for my upcoming conference paper. I even opened a new file and began to write.

True, I was mostly just copying over my proposal for the conference -- but it reminded me that I did have some things I'd wanted to explore to say.

Onward.