Entries categorized as ‘writing, writers, and stuff we like’
Earlier this month when I went to hear Chris Edgar talk about his book, Inner Productivity, he said something that struck home for me… uncomfortably. He was talking about procrastination, and he said it is often on our most important projects – the ones with the most pressing deadlines, and sometimes even the ones about which we feel most passionate – that we find ourselves perfecting the art of procrastination. (Okay, those are my words, not his. He probably wouldn’t call it an art, but I know the truth.)
“Why is that?” he asked, “because you’d think it would be then, when the stakes and potential gains are highest, that we would buckle down and do the work that needs to be done, but we don’t.” (I have to say, I liked his use of the word we. It was reassuring given the message was starting to feel like one tailor-made for me.) Inwardly, I nodded, I sat up, I listened. “Yes, why?” I cried (only not aloud).
He said there are a lot of reasons, and he named quite a few, but the arrow that pierced me dead center was “fear of failure.”
Because while it’s true that not writing the book, not performing the piece, not painting the picture or tackling the difficult assignment, is, in itself, a sort of failure, it is different than trying… and sucking. If you don’t try, you can tell yourself how good you would be if you did try. Maybe you have great friends who’ll back you up. “You should do it!” they’ll say, because friends are awesome that way, and you’ll love their faith in you, and as long as you don’t actually do it, you are made of the potential they see in you. You are nothing but the possibility of brilliance. (Of course, there is that other possibility – that you’ll fail miserably – but if your friends are telling you that, you need new friends.)
So sitting in the back row, all sort of hunched over and guilty, I knew Chris was talking to me even if he didn’t say it, and I knew I didn’t want to be that person who writes half a novel during Nano (because 50,000 words is only about half of a literary novel), but never goes back to write the rest. Or the kind of person who writes an entire novel, receives excellent, encouraging feedback from a publisher, and then never does the revisions he suggests. Or the person who… well, never mind. You get the picture.
So, in the last couple of weeks, I’ve gathered some writing partners who will be meeting with me weekly and monthly. We will share our goals, in some cases our writing, and we will hold each other accountable. I’m very nervous about this. And also VERY sure it’s the right thing to do.
But this isn’t a post for writers, encouraging them to get partners. Or at least, it’s not just for writers. What I’m learning is the value of setting a goal and saying it aloud. To someone. Or lots of someones, if you have a blog. I’m convinced that the thing that got me through Nano was the knowledge that you all knew what I was doing. You encouraged me, but you also (maybe without even knowing it) held me accountable. I did not want to come back and tell you I didn’t finish.
Chris Edgar has some awesome techniques for getting in the zone with your work, but for me, that comes after I make the commitment… and tell someone about it. Oh, and something else. I’m learning that the things I’m most hesitant to commit to publicly are often the things I’m the happiest to have done. (Like Nano. And this blog. And the super cool creative blog project I’ll be starting in February!)
Yeah. That was a tease.
Categories: j'epiphanies · writing, writers, and stuff we like
Tagged: chris edgar, creativity, goals, Judy Clement Wall, leaping, moving forward, writing
I just finished reading and reviewing Christopher Edgar’s new book Inner Productivity, a mindful path to efficiency and enjoyment in your work. It’s all about getting quiet, getting focused, getting past the resistance, fear, distractions that keep us from moving forward and feeling positive and sure about the work we do. What makes Chris’s book different than other career advice books is his focus on the inside, on the impulse we have to distract ourselves or complain about our situation, and our willingness to be unhappy or dispassionate about what we do.
A constant theme in Inner Productivity is the mind-body connection. Although most of us do work that requires more of our minds than our bodies, Chris argues you can’t get a quiet mind without being attuned to your body. We store all kinds of stress and hurts and pain in our bodies… we ignore them at our own peril.
I think that’s fascinating. Last summer, I attended an art and wine festival with the super sparkly Terre Pruitt, and I met a friend of hers who is a professional belly dancer. I was so excited to talk to her. Since I know nothing about belly dancing, I asked question after question until she screamed for me to please go away. Okay, no, she didn’t. She was nice, but here’s the part of our conversation that struck me.
I asked about the belly roll. “I can’t imagine having such control over my body,” I said. “Can’t imagine being able to single out the necessary muscles and move them in such a flowing, coordinated, precise way.”
“You could do it,” she told me, “but you might not want to.”
When I asked her why, she said that people store their experiences in their body without realizing it. Sometimes when they begin to work deep down inside themselves – not in their psyches but in their bodies – they find themselves coming apart a little, emotions are released, sometimes out of context. It can be very frightening.
No kidding!
But I believe her. I know that sometimes when I’m stressed and do yoga, I really do try to breathe into the parts of my body that are tight. (Which, in less woo-woo terms, just means I focus on those areas while I breathe.) Breathing becomes very conscious, body awareness is high. Without giving any thought to the external causes of my stress, I feel it begin to dissipate. I feel myself relax, become grounded. It’s one of the reasons I love yoga and want to pursue it much more seriously in 2010. (I also want to figure out how to maintain that release it gives me. Right now, for example, despite the yoga-induced calm I felt this morning, I can feel all my stress in my shoulders, neck and head. Sigh…)
I will be doing more posts about this, because I’d like to understand it better – how the mind and body interact. For now, I’d just like to hear what you think. Has your mind ever healed your body, or hurt it? Has exercise or diet ever cleared your head?
To read my review of Chris Edgar’s book, click here.
Oh, and starting 2010 off right, Chris is doing a reading in my neck of the woods tonight, so I get to meet him in person. Woo-hoo!
Categories: on my mind - NOW · writing, writers, and stuff we like
Tagged: breathing, healing, Judy Clement Wall, mind-body connection, productivity, yoga
I’m doing two posts today. One is at isca media. There, I’m talking about the Vagina Monologues, and my girlfriend angst, and the idea that there might be gold in each of us. It’s a cool post. Please go read me.
Here, I’m talking about isca media because the more I work with them, the more excited I become, and the more I want to share how cool they are. I haven’t written too much before because, to tell you the truth, isca media is a little hard to explain. They do not fit nicely into a category, and so when I’m asked about them, I tend to run all over my answer in puppy-like fashion. Seriously, don’t expect anything different now, but here goes.
From the website: isca media “is a collective of independent, freelance journalists, writers, photographers, publishers and filmmakers.” I like that. It’s what initially attracted me. The word “collective,” the emphasis on community and creative collaboration. Oh, and the fact that isca media co-founder Luke James is very funny. And very passionate. He wants to change the world… and I’m only exaggerating a little.
The commercial side of isca focuses on filmmaking and some wonderful online publications, but they have a non-profit arm as well. Making Me funds arts and media programs for adults creating new lives for themselves after confronting significant challenges (including mental illness).
What excites me most about isca is that its business and social goals are fully integrated. Taking on the film and publishing industries’ hypocrisy and obsession with the next big blockbuster idea, isca media believes it is possible to turn a profit and make the world a better place. What a concept, right? I believe it too, and I’m excited to be a part of it.
(Oh, and bonus! They’ve added a translation button at the top of each post, so you can read my isca pieces in any number of different languages. I just read my latest in Croatian. Woo hoo!)
Categories: isca media · writing, writers, and stuff we like
Tagged: film, isca media, Judy Clement Wall, Luke James, media, online publications, vagina monologues, writing
A while ago, I read a post by Jen Lee called “The Things I Can’t Fit On A T-shirt” It’s all about how nerve wracking it can be to meet a new friend – you know, when you really like the new person, but you’re afraid they might not like you because you’ve got all your weirdness and they seem so well adjusted and normal. (It’s a great post. You should read it.)
In any case, I was thinking about it today, and it occurred to me that it would be funny if people came with warning labels. Like this would be mine:
Cranky in the morning (dangerous before coffee). May be prone to flights of fancy and bouts of fidgetiness. Inclined to argue. Clumsy, phone-phobic , easily excitable, pesky. Eavesdropper, neurotic writer, awful singer, inept stalker (but you’re safe if your name isn’t Michael Chabon). Prolonged friendship with J may cause balding.
That was fun. Your turn. And if you’re not in a warning mood, you can do a label of your more medicinal qualities.
Categories: on my mind - NOW · writing, writers, and stuff we like
Tagged: friends, jen lee, Judy Clement Wall, personalities, warning labels
Today is the official last day of NaNoWriMo, but for me it ended yesterday, when I wrote my 50,000th word. (It was “perilous” by the way. I just checked. I figured one of you would ask. Though to be honest, the sentence looks pretty dicey; “perilous” may not make the final cut.)
Throughout November, I’ve been reading Chris Baty’s book, No Plot No Problem which is all about how to write a novel in 30 days. The last half of the book is designed to be read as you participate in Nano, one (tiny) chapter each day. On Day 30 (today) Baty says this:
You could have spent this month living your normal life. You could have gone for long walks with your lover or won points with your boss by coming into work without those big bags under your eyes. Instead you agreed to do something dumb. You agreed to try and write more fiction than you ever have in a month… You stepped up to the plate. And there is nothing more admirable in this whole damn world than someone willing to set for themselves the fearsome task of trying something big.
And that’s the thing about having done Nano. It was big. It was crazy. I had no idea at the outset whether or not I could do it; I just had a feeling that it was important to try. It was scary, and stressful, and it required a lot of things I’m frankly not that good at – fast writing, for instance, focus, faith. Now here I am on the other end of November with a novel. Well, almost. It’s 50,000 words. It’s got a beginning, a middle, and an end. It’s got wonderful, flawed characters doing wonderful, flawed things, and it’s got something to say about how love works. (And how it doesn’t. And how sometimes it does both at the same time.) I’m excited about it. I’m looking forward to December and all the work I have left to do, because I’ve been reminded why I love writing fiction. It’s fun again.
Okay, and besides the book, here are my three take-aways from Nano.
- Turns out, I like doing what scares me. NaNoWriMo is one day behind me and already I’m looking for the next opportunity to leap.
- Exuberant imperfection is good. I do believe that “the quickest, easiest way to produce something beautiful and lasting is to risk making something horribly crappy.”
- Nothing (not even cheesecake or the best wine) is better than friends and family at getting me out of a funk. I had some tough days in November, but I never felt like I was alone.
Thanks you guys!
(Oh, and if you want a sneak peek at Karen From Mentor’s nano novel, check out her post. And say something soothing. She has post-nano-stress-disorder.)
Categories: j's lists · writing, writers, and stuff we like
Tagged: chris baty, fiction, Judy Clement Wall, nanowrimo, writing
Remember I posted a link to Jim Mitchem’s wonderful post Eleven Minutes? I loved his stream-of-conscious ramble and wanted to try it. So, here’s mine – 7 minutes instead of 11 because… I’m sparing you.
11:10 pm
So today, in the last few seconds of a 20-minute Nano sprint, one of my characters had a heart attack. It surprised me. I didn’t see it coming. I think that’s good. I mean, I hope he’ll be all right and all, but the fact that his collapse surprised me is a sign that I am writing with a certain degree of abandon. If I’m going to have to clean the mess up in December, let it be a fine, rambunctious mess. That’s all I’m saying. Like my hair. Okay, it’s not really fine (especially not right this second), but it is rambunctious and it is frequently a mess. And if you’re wondering what that has to do with writing, stop. It doesn’t have anything to with writing, it just crossed my mind when I wrote the word mess. Let’s leave it at that, okay? Because what really has my attention right now is my neck. Or actually just below my neck, and above my shoulder blade. I slept on it funny and it’s been bothering me all day. Remember the good old days when you never hurt yourself sleeping? I do. Those days were awesome. Not that these days are bad. They’re pretty good actually. I’m having a lot of fun, getting to try a bunch of new things. And actually I was thinking about that recently. About motion. About how I am now, without a doubt, in motion, and it feels very forward, very north star-ish. I was thinking about this in the car. I was driving and two things happened. One, I wondered how you know for sure you’re moving forward. How do you know you’re not moving sideways. I could be taking a seriously scenic route, and not be moving forward at all, but I guess that’s okay; you know, all that stuff about the journey being more important than the destination. Whatever, for the sake of my 7-minute post, it doesn’t really matter because the second thing that happened was a duck walked out into the middle of the street. Three ducks to be precise, and a goose, because there’s a pond near where I live and there are ducks in the pond, and sometimes, they’re stupid. They are. I’m convinced that ducks aren’t, on the whole, very bright, probably because we humans aren’t very bright either, and we feed them bread crumbs and God knows what else, as we lean against the signs that say “Please don’t feed the ducks.” So anyway, these ducks walked right out into the street, spaced equidistant apart so they effectively blocked two lanes, and stopped. It was this weird duck-vs-human suburban showdown. Eventually someone honked and the ducks hurried, first one way and then the other, but in the end they made no real progress at all.
I’m wanting to somehow link that little story back to my thought about forward motion, but I have no idea how to do it meaningfully, and even if I did, I’m out of time.
11:17 pm
Categories: on my mind - NOW · writing, writers, and stuff we like
Tagged: 7 minutes, Judy Clement Wall, nano, ramble, stream of consciousness, writing
Okay so my real, exciting post today is over at isca media. It’s about my Director’s Assistant gig. I feel so important – in an absolutely second banana sort of way!
And recently Luke (of isca media) and I met to talk about what neato things I could write for them. (He didn’t say “neato.” He’s British. He probably said “smashing” or “fab.” Or, wait. That might have been me too. I do go on.) Anyway, we came up with some very cool spread-my-creative-wings sort of ideas that I can’t wait to try. Stay tuned for more!
(Now, go read me. I’m just a click away!)
Categories: isca media · writing, writers, and stuff we like
Tagged: isca media, Judy Clement Wall, vagina monologues
So, either I just finished week 3 or just started week 4 of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I’m never exactly sure where we are on this thing. (And yet, just for the record, I do not believe the rumors that NaNoWriMo kills brain cells. That’s just silly… I think…)
No matter. Whether ending a week or starting one, today I finally got it right.
I wrote 5,414 Nano words today. Sadly, that just caught me up. I’m now on track, whereas before today I was languishing a bit in the dust of my fellow writers, some of whom have already passed the 50k finish line. (I know, right? Note to self: Befriend slackers.)
But this post isn’t about being behind, it’s about the good the bad and the ugly of nano, as I see it now, poised at the start of our final week.
The Good
- It took me until today, but I think I’m finally learning the true meaning of the word DRAFT. Writing 5,414 words on the same day that I did laundry, went to the grocery store, called my mom, and typed this post would be impossible if I were also worrying about the poetry of it all. Yesterday it dawned on me that writing a 50k novel in 30 days is like story boarding a movie. All the key elements are there, but no one should mistake it for the final product.
- There is something in the frantic pace of Nano, in the chaotic impact it has had on my life, that bleeds into the actual writing. I am far more willing to veer off course than I was when I wrote Beautiful Lives. There is a certain amount of daring that is required when you’re moving this fast. I veer off course and see what happens. More than ever before, imagination rules my writing day.
- I am proving something to myself. Choosing to do Nano was a lark. Choosing, once I started, to take it seriously was a leap, an act of faith, as all creative endeavors are.
The Bad
- This is crazy! And, in fact, I feel crazy a lot of the time. Overwhelmed. Guilty about the things I’m not getting to. I sleep less. I eat at irregular intervals. Today, I did not go outside (or even look out the window) until 5 pm! Which prompted me to suggest that writers would make good vampires.
- It’s (more than) a little stressful to feel like you never quite have control of your novel. It’s the kind of thing that wakes you up in the middle of the night and sends you wandering in search of your muse.
The Ugly
- The ugly is me, most days, typing from my fetal position, hair like a red-headed Einstein, mumbling incoherently, scaring the boy.
- The kitchen is ugly too. I work upstairs, especially now that it’s winter because heat rises. The kitchen is downstairs. I live with three boys and a big, unruly dog. Left to their own devices – which they so often are these days – they can make a kitchen downright scary.
But here’s the best thing about nano. The cheerleaders. There are the other Nano writers, of course. Tweet that you’re struggling, and you get a flurry of tweets telling you it’ll be okay and urging you not to give up. My friends call, and email, and post encouragement on Facebook. My family carries on bravely in the face of my neglect.
And Karen from Mentor sent me a button! I got it today in the mail and I’m floating three feet off the ground because of it. I put it on the bulletin board above my desk. (Some people might call it a dream board, but I don’t because I’m not prone to such woo-woo phrasing… but a dream board is totally what it is). The button says “I believe in j.” It’s so wonderful, I took a picture of it so you could see. I put the button right next to the picture of me and MC because a) I know you all secretly wanted to see it, and b) Karen will understand that’s a place of honor.
Thank you so much, KS! You rock my Nano world and beyond!
Categories: writing, writers, and stuff we like
Tagged: 50k, Judy Clement Wall, michael chabon, nanowrimo, writers, writing
It’s been a while since I blogged about Twitter, but now Twitter has lists. I know. Lists. Be still my wildly beating heart!
It works like this. You group the people you follow into lists and then you can, at a glance, see what all the writers you follow are talking about. And all the lawyers. And the foodies. And the lawyers who are also foodies. You’d be surprised. There are a lot of those! I have a whole complicated, very mathematical theory about why lawyers might be inclined to cook gourmet foods. The first line of my theory looks like this: 1 − (x2/2!) + (x4/4!) − + …, where ! denotes factorial. But I’ll go over that in a later post because this post is about… ummm…
Oh yes, lists! So I haven’t put anyone I follow into a list yet. I will… when NaNoWriMo’s over and I can get TWO SECONDS TO THINK, PLEASE!
Oops, sorry. Little nano crazy there. I’m fine now.
I love the lists I’m on. Most of them, 22 out of 35 are “Writer” or “NaNoWriMo” lists. That’s cool, because on bad days, I need the external validation. Yes, j, you’re a writer, because if you weren’t, smart people would not put you on their writing lists. (Thank you smart people!) Here are the other lists I’m on (some of which I’m so proud of I could burst.)
- Great writers (Okay, yes, that is technically a writer list too, but it has the word “great” in it. Makes me giddy.)
- Hot-thinking-babes
- Without whom I’d perish
- Favs
- Hilarious Friends
- People who make me snort
- Amazing women
- Keen
- Quickquide
- Good in bed
- Superstars
- Wordsmiths
- Tweeter pals
That is an awesome list of lists to be on. And it got me thinking about how fun it would be to just have lists for all my friends and family. Like all you guys could definitely be on a list titled “These are the androids I want.” Or maybe (for you non-Star Wars fans) “Better than chocolate.”
I like thinking of list titles. I think everyone I know could fit into one of these three lists:
- People I would go on vacation with
- People I wouldn’t go on vacation with
- People about whom I’m unsure on the vacation question
See? It’s fun. You should try it. Let me know what list I’m on, and feel free to comment with your great list name ideas.
Categories: j's lists · writing, writers, and stuff we like
Tagged: Judy Clement Wall, silliness, twitter, twitter lists
So, as it turns out, Week 2 was every bit as bad as Chris Batty, NaNoWriMo (Evil) Mastermind, warned it would be. I struggled with my story, my writing time, my priorities, my nano/life balance, my dog. (She is not helping. Believe me. You don’t even want to know.) While I never seriously considered stopping (hope no one took those drunken middle-of-the-night phone calls too seriously), I did consider checking myself into an asylum to finish the work.
My biggest problem is this: Life has not stopped to wait it out while I undertake adventures in lunacy. My life just rolls on ahead, keeps right on doing what it does – requiring that I eat, sleep, tend to my personal hygiene (more or less). It keeps putting things on my calendar that startle me when I remember them. It creates more (and more) laundry, dust, and dirty dishes than I can safely ignore. (There are men in suits hanging around outside my house. I figure they are either health inspectors or figments of my overtaxed imagination. Either way, I’m feeling just a little bit tense.) Life – in the form of my family – still wants to see me sometimes, and not always when I’m crying.
I have learned a few things during Week 2, and to the extent that they are universally applicable, I’m sharing…
- Stepping away from the computer (whether lured by a need for sustenance or someone you love) is almost never as catastrophic as it seems it will be.
- There are not enough hours in a day. I’ve proven it now. I know it to be true. Knowledge is power.
- In a pinch, typing words like “always” and “sometimes” as “all ways” and “some times” gives you double the bang for you nano word count buck. (I’ll fix it in January is my new favorite phrase.)
- If you pull your hair hard enough and often enough, it will fall out. Beware.
- It is true that sometimes you have to write five pages to get to the sixth, which, lo and behold, is where the magic happens.
One last Nano note. I’ve started a list of people to whom I must formally apologize once this is over. (Love you, mom.) If you feel you’ve been wronged and want to be on the “J Gives Good Apology” list, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.
And now, onward! Week 3… ready or not.
Categories: writing, writers, and stuff we like
Tagged: apology, balance, Judy Clement Wall, nanowrimo, word count, writing
