While Waiting for Class

I write this while sitting at a table in Northampton Community College cafeteria. I’ve just finished my supper – turkey sandwich and carrot cake (well it WAS carrot….).
I watch the next generation walk around me, chattering or listening to iPods and feel the “odd woman out”.
I’ve been an on again, off again NCC student for nearly forty years. I originally “went back to school” after getting my RN, a couple of years before Heather was born. After that blessed event I continued, sporadically.
I really didn’t want a BSN. I wanted to be in academia. I wanted to be around people who wanted to learn. Okay, I know….a community college? Well, that was what I could afford all those years ago – before my growing pregnancy kept me from fitting into the small desks.
Life eventually intruded and I never got the degree – but I continued to darken NCC’s doors.
Almost twenty years ago I was back at NCC taking an adult ed class on “writing your first novel”. (Note: Twenty years and three novels later – still unpublished). Juilene McKnight was the instructor and she became a friend. Google her or look her up on Amazon – she’s published.
Tonight I’m back again – this time for a CSI course – something different – something I thought might help my mystery writing – but mainly I wanted something different.
Juilene used to say that everything was “grist for the mill” – every experience, every emotion are all things that can be mined for one’s writing.
I’m taking two other classes: How to be an eBay Powerseller and How to Start Your Own Pet-sitting Business. Heck – I’m not going to be an RN forever.
But I will be a writer forever and most writers need a second income.
Selling on eBay or scooping kitty poo – don’t care. As long as I have time to write.
And maybe take another class – history, I think, or English Lit…..

Another muscle

So perhaps flexing my narrative muscle didn't work out quite the way I hoped (what with my failed New Year's Resolution). However, I am excited about a new project.

My best friend in the whole wide world is a very talented musician. The reason we became friends more than 10 years ago now was due to our mutual love of music and our thought that we were rock stars (you know, a natural thought when you're belting out Indigo Girls in your dorm room).

Over the years we've been in less than successful bands together and even recorded a CD. Well, that is she was gracious enough to allow me to guest vocal on it and a couple of the songs were collaborations. She's going to be working on some new stuff now and hopefully hitting the studio in the foreseeable future. And she's asked me to collaborate again!

I haven't written this way in years. I actually thought I might be too happy to effectively do it. However, I'm happy to report, the inspiration is always there and it doesn't have to come from a depressed girl in Doc Marten's wearing her sleeves way too long.

Slacker Virus

I hate being sick. I think it could probably fit into Mitzi's "why women are so hard on themselves" entry. (Feel free to take this topic on, Mitz)
I'm used to taking care of not only myself, but, particularly since starting my freelancing work, taking care of the homefires.
I'm not going to get too far off track here, but my husband has really been pitching in and while I've had fevers ranging between 100.5 and 102.2 degrees.
I haven't been doing much work and it's occurred to me that I didn't consider this. I don't get sick very often and never considered "sick days" into my business plan.
However, in my illness I have discovered poor grammar around every corner. And, believe me, I'm no grammarist.
Example: People who use good as an adverb. It's not! It's an adjective. So, if you're talking about how someone "does," don't say good. It's well, dangit!
Example: "Do not chew or crush before swallowing." How does one crush or chew a tablet after swallowing?

Changing Hats

I was thinking about this in the shower.
Yesterday I spent the day reading and writing. In other words, I spent the day being a "writer" - because reading is an important part of that.
I feel wonderful when I write something that I think is more than adequate - almost good. Why do women hesitate to give themselves the credit they deserve? But that's for another time. I enjoy that great feeling - maybe the enorphins get released then...who knows? But I realized that's one of the times I feel the most alive - when I'm writing.
Today I have to "change hats" - go to the "day job" - do what I have to do to make the money to pay the bills so I can have the time to write, to get that great feeling.
Somehow I have to make that great feeling last through the day until I can get back to writing - to when I can change hats again.

Making It Work

I'm ripping apart two old novels. Reworking the conflict, shortening prologues, lengthening prologues, shortening again, changing characters, reading pages out loud.

I have the timelines for two other half-finished books in my head. I also have the second Elizabeth Peacock mystery series book sitting in my computer, ready for a rewrite.

I have to make it work. I have to rewrite the two "old" novels to get to an editor who expressed some interest in my work. I have to work on the two "stand-alones" because I think they're both "commercial". I have to get the second book of the mystery series written because I want the second book done when I sell the first.

To make it work, I'll just have to work on it everyday. I have to go back to thinking that writing is my second job.

I have to make it work. I'm 60 - if not now, when?

Could it be?

I was out of my office all day Monday. When I log back in Tuesday, I have three messages for work! Woo hoo. Maybe there's something to this whole freelance thing, this whole writing thing.

This is despite me slacking on the self-promotion. This is still, by and large, my already-established network.

I start to feel excited and I hear from a close family member, "Oh, yeah, we saw somewhere that most of the people who work out of the home are, guess what, freelance writers!" I think to myself, "OK, are you trying to kill my buzz." But I decided to take another tack. I said, "That's fine. As long as I'm getting enough to pay our bills, anyone who wants to do this is welcome to."

I smiled a little inside. Ain't no one gonna break-a my stride!

Stream of Unconsciousness

I wasn't sure how long to wait to post after April's post about Russ. Something like this so close after Heath Ledger's death makes a surreal picture of the personal and celebrity, as if one is a slanted mirror of the other. That's my only clear thought on this whole tragedy. Russ was a good guy and a Giants fan, which all good guys are.

Pausing also gave me time to analyze how I spend my time. In this election year, I spend a lot of time reading up and watching the pundits and trying to stay in the mix, if not physically, then metaphysically. But I've been giving up all this time for politics and celebrity and not watering my own creative garden.

As it were.

In fact, at this moment, I'm watching the McLaughlin Group. Not heavy television, but worthy of some attention. But I'm also blogging about life and writing, and while I may go into a tirade shouting WRONG at the top of my digital lungs, I'll give the television just the attention it deserves and ...

well, I've lost track.

If I'm to write not only consistently, but coherently, I have to practice my multitasking skills. My fellow posters here at Women Write will no doubt roll their eyes and scroll away, knowing that it may take at least another 200 to 300 words for me to find my track again and roll along.

But, Thomas the Tank Engine, I am not. And Pat Buchanan is high-larious.

I have 1000 words of a story that I can't stand.

*sigh*

File it under "other".

Choo choo.

When it hurts to write

It's been a little more than a day since we received some very sad news. It's shown me how important writing is for friendships and love.

Today it's still a difficult to come up with the right words to really express my thoughts. But still I write. Still my former colleagues and my husband and my friends write. How blessed we are to have this common language, that people have the gift to be eloquent, sensitive and loving in just a few words.

http://blog.pennlive.com/lehighvalley/2008/02/expresstimes_reporter_remember.html

I imagine it must be the same for painters, songwriters, etc. For me it's words, even if they aren't the right ones at first. I hope everyone has an outlet like mine. If you haven't found yours yet, go look for it. Try writing. Bang out a tempo on your desk. Go pick up some clay. Try anything.

To Blog or Not to Blog

That is the question--this is the answer. I'm blogging. About writing.

I'm writing a novel. It's not going well. Oh, I have plenty of ideas and once I sit down at the computer, the scenes almost write themselves. So what's your frigging problem, you ask? I write, edit and proofread all day--at my day job. Hard to focus my eyeballs on the computer screen at night.

Even though it's more writing, more nonfiction writing--maybe this blog will help my brain focus on this book. I really want to tell this story and see where it goes from there.

And another thing...

Writing cannot be done without reading.
I love long horror/suspense novels ala King.
I'm now in love with Jonathan Maberry. I just finished "Ghost Road Blues" and went right to it's sequel "Dead Man's Song."
"Duma Key" will just have to wait for me.

Ideas...

Every writer dreads this question: "Where do you get your ideas?"
Well, actually there is a software program...
No, there isn't, unless my brain is a software program.

I would like to answer that question with a question: "How do you NOT get ideas?'
I'm constantly saying "What if..."
Some of those "what if's" develop into a premise and then a basic plot and then I put butt to chair and write it. Some of those "what if's" just sort of sit in the brain and ferment.

Fermenting is good for wine and story ideas.
My software program of "little gray cells" is fermenting several stories right now.

Is the memoir played out?

I made a resolution I didn’t even begin.

I have all of my diaries from the first time I wrote down a personal story. I thought, “Hey, maybe I’ll start adapting this stuff into some type of narrative.” Basically, I was going to start on a memoir. I’m not saying that my story is earth-shattering, but I generally entertain people regaling them with stories of how ridiculous my life can be. I thought, at the least, putting this together in a more complete form could sharpen my writing skills, flex a different muscle.

I decided to spend at least an hour every day of my work week writing this. My journals (and one diary with clouds, an inspirational verse and a flimsy lock) still sit in the attic. I psyched myself out.

I think, why would anyone be interested in my life (true, I said before I was going to do this for me)? Do I want to recreate any of these painful and/or embarrassing experiences?

Setting Goals

For me, it's more than getting butt in chair.
I need to know where I'm going - or rather where I'm going with my writing.
One of my writers' groups, Pocono/Lehigh Romance Writers - www.plrw.org - encourages us to set monthly goals. My goal from last meeting was to finish the revisions on "Moonstone Magic" - my Arthurian time travel - and get it to an editor who's shown interest in my work. Unless I spend all weekend glued to the chair, fingers bloodied from pounding the keyboard, that won't happen.
But I am going to give it a shot. I take goals seriously and set small ones for myself.

My other problem: too many ideas. I've started a novella about a female ghost who falls in love with the new owner of "her" house and, after scaring off one girlfriend after another, begins to plot his death so he can join her in the hereafter. It's a comedy. Really!

And King's "Duma Key" is sitting on my coffee table, calling to me..."Mitzi, reeeead me."