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The Myth of Time

Over the past few weeks I've been recovering from a bilateral inguinal hernia. As an aspiring writer I cannot count the times over the years that I've wished for unlimited time to write. If I had the time to do whatever I wanted, surely I could put out 1000-2000 words a day, write 'em in the morning, edit 'em in the afternoon and crank out the first draft of a novel in a month or two.

I was off for ten days following the surgery. The only thing I had to do besides exist and sleep in that time was to write lesson plans for the substitutes who covered my high school English courses while I was off. Essentially, I had all the time I could ever have wanted over those ten days. Grand total of new words on my current manuscript while I was down? Less than 2000 words.

There could, potentially, be any number of reasons for this. I was on a narcotic pain killer for four days. Can't write while you're loopy, right? Well, while I was on Percocet for the pain, there was absolutely no noticeable effect on either my mental faculties or my behavior. It didn't do anything that would have kept me from writing. I didn't have access to the computer because of discomfort, pain, etc. I admit that for the first few days it would have been exceptionally uncomfortable to attempt to sit at the keyboard in my office chair and type. Still, by the fourth or fifth day I was able to spend between an hour and two at the computer at a time with relatively little pain or discomfort. Surely I could have written right? Nope. Not a word. When I did finally write, it was using my laptop, which I set up in the recliner on a food tray generally pulled out a few times a year when someone in the family makes breakfast in bed for someone else. It was a setup I could have used at any point in my recovery. Last excuse I can think of...I was exceptionally immobile and didn't want to bend over to pick up anything. I could have been left alone while my wife was at work with no one to retrieve the laptop for me and since I forgot to ask for it, it sat in the corner in its case torturing me with all the work I could have been doing while I lay there. Uh, no. My wife, by her own choice, is a stay-at-home-mom, and even if she had been busy the whole time my four year old daughter could easily have brought me the laptop and the breakfast tray. No excuses, pathetic output.

One might question my devotion to writing. I do. I question it all the time. Then, when I've had a bad week and I haven't written forever, and I'm grumpy and tired, and I'm convinced that I have never and will never put two words together that are worth the effort to read, I make myself sit down and write, and it just flows. And I find that, to my own satisfaction, and I think I'm a decent judge of quality, I've written pretty well, and I finally, finally feel better, feel complete again. I get very, very grumpy if I go too long without writing. Right now, I have progress reports due in less than twelve hours and a stack of papers to grade that nearly reaches my knee from flat on the floor and I'm doing this, because i haven't written today (well, yesterday, but as I haven't slept yet today is still yesterday, all right?), and I have to get something down on paper. The story doesn't seem to have any juice at the moment so here I am.

The idea that if we had time enough we would escape our restrictions and create great art is crap. The truth is, if you don't want it enough to find time for it in your busy life, you probably don't want it bad enough to make it happen. There are always exceptions, but generally those exceptions occur for short periods of time and in the general run of things, if we want to write, to draw, to compose, to play whatever instrument it is we play etc. we find the time. In fact, given the tremendous pressure and duties of everyday life as a husband, a father, a teacher with a salary low enough to qualify my kids (although, admittedly not myself) for medicaid, a second job, a drama director, a coach, and a still mostly aspiring writer (I've had one small-time publication, and my creative thesis is out there), making time for my writing is when I do my best work. My most productive week of the school year (and only one week was better since I started tracking weekly output in late July) was  September 19-25. I was teaching full time and put in two weekend shifts at the local Carmike cinemas where I work weekends. I totaled 6653 words. Finding the discipline, the desire to carve out the time for writing, knowing the time is precious and that I don't have it in abundance, that I can't wait till later while I watch one more episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, or read one more magazine, or one more chapter in whichever novel is currently topping the stack, means I write more. Less time, a life that demands I be out there doing other things, that makes writing time precious, nearly invaluable because there's no illusion of being able to splurge and make it up, is essential for me to be at my most productive.

At least at this point. There was that magical 14000 word week in Telluride this summer on vacation....

Superstars Writing Seminars 2013

                               

I had the wonderful privilege of attending the 2013 edition of the Superstars Writing Seminars. This seminar is a business of writing seminar (although craft inevitably slips in a bit when you have this many writers hanging out talking for three days) taught by Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Eric Flint, Brandon Sanderson, and David Farland (Wolverton). They add various guest instructors each year. Last year Dean Wesley Smith and James Artimus Owen attended as guest instructors, and this year’s guest instructors included bestselling romance writer Joan Johnston, Mark Leslie Lefebvre of Kobo, James A. Owen, Tracy Hickman, and Jim Minz of Baen Books. If you’re unfamiliar with any of these names, they are mostly giants (and if you don’t buy giants because it is subjective, than bestsellers is inarguable) of science-fiction and fantasy, although Farland has written outside the genre, and the guest instructors can vary widely. 

With panels discussing everything from balancing a writing life with a “real life” (whatever that means…) to the details of contracts, to inspirational presentations, to an entire day discussing ebooks and indie publishing there is an incredible depth and breadth of knowledge covered here in these three days. In addition the instructors are available for meals which often resemble one-on-one and/or small-group tutoring sessions (I had the privilege of dining/”lunching” with several of the instructors over the three days and am quite grateful for the friendship and knowledge extended each time).

The session is made up primarily of people in the early stages of a publishing  career. That is, this is not eager-beaver college students or still dreaming oldsters who only talk/think about writing. We had several published authors among the attendees, winners of the Writers of the Future Contest, and one of my new friends walked out of the conference and his first follow up post to the seminar’s facebook page was to announce that he is meeting with an Independent publisher who bought his pitch and wants to see his manuscript on Monday. So not that true beginners couldn’t benefit from the seminar, they absolutely could. I left feeling like I needed to keep my head straight so knowledge wouldn’t spill out my ears if I leaned my head too far to one side. And honestly, with only a non-SFFWA (Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) short-story publishing credit to my name, I am probably a little closer to wet-behind-the-ears newbie than most attendees, but this seminar is designed to help those on the cusp push over. 

If you are interested not just in writing, but in developing a career as a writer. Give yourself the opportunity of a leg up. Join us next year for Superstars Writing Seminars. 

Do You Believe in Writer's Block?

Until this fall I'd never experienced writer's block. Oh, I've often spent vast amounts of time not writing. It's scarily easy to do if you allow yourself to think "I want to be a writer" or "I will be a writer someday" instead of "I am a writer." But being out of ideas or not writing isn't the same as writer's block. At least not as I'm using it.

Which of course begs the question, what do I mean by writer's block? Well, I'll tell you. First, several negative definitions: (1) Writer's block does not mean lacking any ideas to write about in the first place. (2) Writer's block does not mean being too lazy to write. (3) Writer's block does not mean scheduling yourself so full of other activities, jobs, priorities etc. that you are too tired, too stressed, or just plain too busy to write (first of all, I think you can always, always make time to write, unless for some reason you don't want to. This may not be true of every day, but it is true of at least 80-85% of the days in even the busiest schedule unless you have some other excuse that makes you not want to write). So, then pray tell, you must be asking, before you beat this horse to death, what exactly do you mean by writer's block?

Writer's block as I use the term refers to being stuck with a project already in  motion. It can happen early while the specific project you're working on is till in the pre-screen or pre-paper stage, seeming very similar to negative definition number one, but it is distinct from lacking ideas in that the writer has an idea, in fact may have many ideas, but can't make headway on the project, can't get from head to paper. Or it may strike later, hitting mid-project in the form of doubt over what to do next, or over the quality of the piece as a whole making proceeding seem either pointless (If you don't know where you're going, why write? You'll just make a mess! [This may be true, but how will you get going again if you don't make a mess and then work through it to get to the other side.]) or impossible (I can't write anything on this, the ideas just won't come. Whenever I sit down to do it, I just write crap and end up throwing it out and starting over!).

I've allowed myself to suffer the first one and am battling my excuses to avoid allowing myself to suffer the second. I've seen writer's who don't believe in writer's block. Who scoff at the idea: "Carpenters don't get carving block, doctors don't get surgical block, teachers don't get teaching block." They say. And they have a point. In fact it's true: Writer's block as an affliction that strikes whomever it pleases and lingers disease like until one either fights it off or it runs its course is total bull. Unlike disease, writer's block can only afflict us if we let it. The insidious thing about it is that it is so easy to let it.

I believe that these other professions don't speak about being blocked the way some artists (particularly writers) do is because they generally don't harbor the concept of the muse. Despite Einstein's argument for the importance of imagination (or was it the supremacy of imagination? I don't remember exactly) scientists don't sit around waiting for the right moment, or the right feeling to begin doing sciencey stuff. (don't mock me sciencey stuff is a very precise brand of stuff. I have it on very good authority.) While they may speak (often speak) of Eureka moments, you don't hear about them sitting all in a twist because they just can't experiment. Because they just can't seem to think of any new experiments to pursue. Or wondering if they're really scientists or if they're just fooling themselves. Or waiting for inspiration to strike before pursuing the question any further. They're not trying to be a conduit in the sense of sitting patiently for someone to turn on the flow of ideas, queries etc. And yet writers do this all the time. And the fact is, in creative endeavor (and in most/all work) it is possible to reach a state of flow where it feels like your hand is guided, where it feels like you're taking transcription from another plane rather than creating yourself. But not having that feeling is no excuse for not working.

Writing is hard. Sometimes its harder than others. Sometimes it feels like Sitting and thinking until little beads of blood form on your forehead. But not being easy is a trait all worthwhile work enjoys. The secret to writing(said so many times by so many writers that even Hollywood got it right in Finding Forrester) is to write. How many writers have said it? Great ones and hacks, talents and scabs--when the blank page is too much what do you do? You write anyway. When you have no ideas, what do you do? You write anyway. When you're stuck in the middle and unsure of how to proceed or you're convinced that everything you've written on this piece (and often simultaneously everything you've ever written) is rank, stinking garbage, what do you do? You write anyway.

You may push hard against a brick wall. You may write and re-write and re-write and re-write (although I suggest that while you will undoubtedly have to come back and edit/revise/clean up later you may be better served when stuck to turn off the censor as completely as possible and just press forward. You have to trust yourself to wade back into the swamp and make it less swampy once you're out, but if you don't press on and find they way out you'll drown in there) but you must keep going. I think that writer's block, as I define it is a writer beating himself or herself. When the writing is coming at a trickle, if it is still coming you're not blocked. And words will come, they always come. You can squeeze them out. The only way writer's block will set in, that is that you will get truly stuck mid-process, is if you allow yourself to quit when the writing becomes difficult. WRITING ISN'T EASY. WRITING WELL GOES WAY BEYOND NOT EASY. So if you're attempting to write and write well and you feel it must not be for you because it's so hard, well someone fed you a line somewhere about that flow stuff, and/or having experienced it yourself you've deluded yourself into thinking that's the way it always is. The solution is to write your way through your block. If you don't allow your fears (and a block is always fear at the root: fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of something...) to keep you from writing they can't block you. They may slow you down. You may struggle to say what you want, you may struggle even more to say it just right, but you won't get stuck you won't get blocked.

However, once you let fear get you away from the computer, the pad, the whatever-it-is-you-compose-on/in, then you can get blocked. You can allow yourself to get walled off from your project. This takes several forms--not writing at all. For some writers, the easiest thing of all when "blocked" (re: afraid) is not to write. Or rather, to not write. After all there are a million other things that will happily fill up our time. For other writers, the easiest thing in the world is to find little side projects, other outlets for writing that allow them to talk about how hard it is, or how blocked they are, or to just diddle away their time in relatively meaningless writing, scratching the itch but not producing, not advancing whatever the project is. You get your writing itch scratched, and find that with the itch scratched you don't have the gumption to face whatever fear you've allowed to drive you away from the project on which you are blocked.

I heard a distorted version of Heinlein's rules of writing a few weeks ago. After looking up what the internet provides as the "real" Heinlein rules, I prefer the ones I encountered. They've got a bit more attitude, and I'm looking for snark right now. They read as follows: 1. Apply butt to chair. 2. Write. 3. Submit for publication. 4. Repeat from number 1. I allowed myself to get chased away from my preface for my thesis repeatedly. I over-researched. I got started, saw it was hard because of the mountain of material I had to cover and backed off because the amount of work was scary. I read some theses that were shared with me, found the prefaces to be clearer than what I had produced, got scared and quit writing. I allowed myself to direct all my writing energy elsewhere and come to the page late at night and drained and wondered what was happening. I fell into every single trap that allows a writer to get scared and become blocked. And when I finally got going again, it's because i said, I'm going to sit and write this. It may be crap. It may be painful. but I am going to get this on paper because only once it's on paper can I begin workign with it to make it better. Even if that means throwing it out and starting again.

So if you get scared, write. And if you have no ideas, write. And if you don't feel like writing, write. And if you're afraid you're writing sucks, write. And if you're afraid that you're off task, write. And if you're afraid you're too busy, write. And if you want to write, if you want to publish, if you ever want to squish that damn fear and feel brave again, to get past it to the state of flow that lies somewhere in the great beyond, Write. Write, and write, and write, and keep writing and if there's some problem write more write extra. And if you don't feel like writing, if you're afraid of writing, if you're convinced it's all no good? Write even more than that and keep on going until all the fears, doubts etc. are washed away in a flood of your defiant verbiage. It may indeed be no good, cliched, trash. But it will be on paper. Hemingway tells us the first draft of anything is crap (well, he said it slightly more colorfully). We must be willing to be bad before we can be good. To be beginners before we can be masters. So if we feel great? We write. And if we feel crappy? We write. And if we believe? We write. And if today disbelief seems to have taken firm hold and made everything feel impossible? We write. We write. We write. We write. We write. Because no one can stop us. And we can only block ourselves. And, it follows then, that only we can unblock ourselves.

One last time. What do we do? We write.

Repurposing--Thoughts on the Bifurcated Self

I tend to want to segregate things that I care about/get excited about. That is, I tend to segregate my writing notebooks, wanting a different notebook for each project, or with books (of which I have way too many) I have several separate shelves, of varying genres etc. and each organized within itself in a fashion different from the others. This is a pattern I tend to follow through most (all? maybe not all) areas of my life. A further example: I was thinking the other day that I should get a different USB drive for each writing project that I am attempting and back up the material by saving it in its own folder, and then on its own USB and then within its own Google Docs folder. See? CWWWAAAAAAZZZYYYY.

In any case I have done just this with my blogs. I didn't want to delete my blogs, (well, not all of them) and so I figured I'd leave them where they were and repurpose them, adding the blogs I wanted (a random personal blog, and a new family blog, along with potentially two blogs based around some of my work at Peyton High School) at Tumblr, because it's really cool. And, increasingly popular. Still, I do have these blogs, each purposed for educational type stuff (having each originated with a course requirement in my Grad school program) and decided that they should persist as education/professional type bloggy thingies. There we go. That is evidence of education and professionalism right there, don't you think? ...yeah.

Anyway, This blog, Thoughts on Comp I want to maintain as a forum for venting about --I mean reflecting on my teaching--as a teacher who has voluntarily traded my high school's senior English British Lit course for a speech and composition course instead. I intend to be doing a lot of reading and hopefully some pretty thorough reflections on what works, what doesn't, what I'm reading on the subject (as I am a compulsive reader) and--yeah stuff like that. And it seemed that the already extant title "Thoughts on Comp" was fitting so there you go.

The Blessings of Literary Theory in Teaching Composition

One of the debates that I had with myself in attempting college level instruction for the first time (I am teaching the "College Prep English" course, our unofficial AP Lit/Comp course), was the benefits that literary theory provides students in learning the art of college level analytical composition.

My wife told me early on in the process of formulating my curriculum for the year that I should be sure to include literary theory as a portion of the class, and that I should do it early. Being enrolled at the time in the introductory Grad school theory class and encountering anew the pleasures and challenges of our major theoretical thinkers, I was surprised at her adamant suggestion. However, after some thought I agreed to give it a try, figuring that Literary theory couldn't hurt and I could always adjust.

She was absolutely right. And I'm not certain why it hadn't registered with me before the benefits this could provide. What had become second nature to me through undergraduate and now graduate training, namely that there are multiple set perspectives from which academics traditionally approach literature most of which can be employed to provide a legitimate reading of any given text, was (of course) news to my students (prisoners of the "correct interpretation" myth) and helped immensely in what has proven to be the most demanding aspect of my course for them - knowing what to write about when the teacher refuses to tell you.

What I had forgotten, or failed to realize, was that a basic knowledge of theory provides instant topics for analysis. I keep a small tool chest of basic analytic options that I can whip out at anytime that something new and striking doesn't just jump out at me as I go through a given text. I know that there are always several old tropes I can fall back on that will provide academically sound analytical work. My students didn't have this tool chest, and what's more were terrified by the cutting of the given topic umbilical cord. When I refused to budge on that point (leading guided brainstorming sessions of possible topics rather than providing even examples or lists) they soon found that the theories I was exposing them to could provide the scaffolding they needed to come up with topics on their own. Why it is that this was not immediately and painfully obvious I'm not certain I can say, but it has proven an invaluable tool to me as a teacher, and far more importantly, to my students as writers.