The Retreat

It was fun and exhausting - even though I napped.
It was fun because I was around other writers and got input for my work. We critiqued pages and then brainstormed everyone's writing/plotting problems.
It was exhausting because I wrote and wrote - 5 pages on the WIP (work in progress) and half of the WIP's synopsis. I also developed an idea for another book - and because I didn't have any "down time" - immediately going from work
Now I need the "alone" retreat. I need to find the time to be out in the woods - alone - to think - to relax - to write.

Commitment or Being Committed

"Committed" as in sitting in a lawn chair on a grassy slope as nurses in long white uniforms, white stockings and white shoes (with a cap on top their well-coiffed head) serve you lemonade spiked with Thorazine - the "rest home" of 1940s movies.

I am definitely committed to my writing. I write something (even if it's "only" a blog) almost daily. I have three completed novels, countless short stories and essays and numerous poems. I've been published in the last three and aiming for the first.

But I'm 60 and my day job is demanding - time-wise, physically and emotionally. Sometimes all I can do when I get home (some days after 11 hours - maybe 4 of them in the car) is feed the cats, nuke supper, read snail and email and get on my jammies. I hear that writers should "hide the remote" to get writing time. I hardly watch anything on TV after work - Ghost Hunters, The Sopranos, Lost and The Office - all usually taped because I'm sleeping when they're on. I love books on tape/CD because I get my "reading" done while driving all over PA for work.

Commitment takes energy and time - not just desire.
Stop beating yourself up, Heather.
Learn from your Momma.
Take time for yourself and don't put everything into your job - no matter how much you love it or how good you are at it.

My tombstone (I won't have one since my darling daughter has been instructed to spread my ashes in a wooded area that I love) will not read: She was a wonderful RN and a great employee.
If I would have a tombstone I would paraphrase a quote from JK Rowling:
"She did the best she could with the talent - and the time - she was given."

Best of Intentions

That will be the embroidered phrase on the back of my motorcycle jacket when I join the Hell's Angels. But that's what I had when I asked my fellow contributors to come to Women Write and write about their writing experiences. What I'm not telling you is that I agreed to write at least three times a week.

No, that will be my little secret.

What I've discovered is that the hardest part of writing isn't technique, motivation, ideas or any other 30-minute seminar title. Nope, it's commitment. You need commitment to keep writing even in the face of rejection, commitment to keep writing even when the end seems so far away, commitment if you want to make writing a major part of your income. We all will face one of these in our writing lifetime, and in this one blog, you can find one, or most, or all of us at any of those slots in the spectrum.

Where do I fit in? Well, hopefully I'll make my own sliver of indigo relevant enough for more frequent postings. In the meantime, keep reading the Wreal Women Who Write.

Long time, no write...

..well, not here anyway. I've been crazy busy at work (writing and editing) and just crazy in general.

I'm also going to the retreat Mitzi talked about below and I'm also looking forward to it. I'm working on a novel, Heartbroken in Hoboken, which is humorous (I hope) women's fiction. I'm getting all my "stuff" together--stuff meaning what I've written so far, notes and research. I love research, so there's a lot of that!

Clothes? I'll throw some in my suitcase the night before we leave! As long as I'm comfortable, I won't care what I'm wearing...

Now, where was that folder with the information about flower arranging?

Sometimes you just gotta get away...

The Pocono/Lehigh Romance Writers I mentioned in an earlier post offered a writing retreat in a rental house in the mountains to its members - seven of us are going. Next weekend I'll be with fellow writers, critiquing, brainstorming, wining (whining), dining, walking in the woods and writing.

I'm even thinking about going back to Camp Taylor where I spent two days reading and revising the hard copy of Elizabeth Peacock and the Body on Abbey Road. I rented a parked RV one October. The RV sets by the pond along the path that winds its way up to the Lakota Wolf Preserve (www.lakotawolf.com). My time there was wonderful - quiet (except for the wind at night blowing tree limbs against the RV) and filled with writing, reading and wolf howls. For me: Heaven.

Sometimes you just gotta get away from all the things that take you away from writing and be with people who understand.

And sometimes you just gotta get away - period.

How many muscles are there?

Another atrophied muscle was put to work today. The news-writing muscle I left behind a while ago.

My former newspaper (the one I look back upon fondly, the one where I met dear Heather... you're still here right?) called and asked me to string a story for them. Mind you, this was not a highly lucrative endeavor, but one I took on nonetheless.

So I found myself in Supreme Court in Philadelphia today listening to a open records argument brought about by said newspaper. I found myself shaking my head at how little most folks know about what the news media does and the differences between a reputable one and one that airs cell phone video of Britney Spears' underwear.

It didn't take too long to write the actual story. And it was almost fun. I say almost because I had to get up hella early (for me) and sit in the courtroom and listen to some franchise fight, etc. before the good stuff. Though it was fun to see a lawyer publicly censured.

OK, maybe I do have a little trainwreck watcher in me after all.

Please buy my matches.......

Why do I feel like The Little Match Girl, dressed in rags, shivering in the snow with a cup of matches, imploring to passers-by to buy my matches?

Why?

Because I've been pitching Elizabeth Peacock and the Body on Abbey Road - face to face pitches at a conference and online query letters and mailed query letters.

Last year Jessica Wade of Berkely requested a partial. I was sooooo happy. One year and two follow-up emails later, I've heard nothing from her. If you don't want it, just tell me. I've been rejected before. I won't take a razor to my wrists. Honest. I take rejection very well - I've had years of practice with men.

Imagine a big sigh here. Okay, I'll keep on pitching. But I'll keep on writing. I'll pitch the Elizabeth Peacock mystery series while working on something else. I've gone back to The Change, my story that follows three women who develop supernatural powers as they go through menopause. "First Wives Club meets Charmed." Hey - that sounds pretty good for a pitch....

Please buy my matches.