What Place Does Writing Have in Your Life? by Elizabeth Mitchell

Kait’s opening post this Round contained a quote from John Wooden as quoted by James Scott Bell.  In part, Wooden said, Don’t worry about trying to be better than someone else. . . . You have no control over that.  Instead try, and try very hard, to be the best you can be.  That you have control over.

 

Ever since I joined ROW80 8 Rounds ago, I have struggled with comparing myself to others, so Wooden’s advice seemed targeted at me and my green-eyed monster. So many in the group have published, write very well, work diligently at the craft, and in many ways have the fire in the belly that denotes dedication. Me?  The fire doesn’t burn in the same way.

 

About a year ago, I accepted a more complicated day job; it offered good pay, excellent benefits and life in an interesting part of the country. More immediately, I wasn’t in a place to strike out as a writer. After several months of juggling the two lives, I was bemoaning my difficulties to an instructor in WANA International, who replied with, “It’s okay to be a hobbyist.”

 

Her words entered my brain like liquid nitrogen, freezing the speech center, while I sputtered to myself, “I’m not a hobbyist, I’m a writer.”  After some thought, I realized that writing is an avocation for me, done for the love of writing. I  am proud to be counted with many writers who held day jobs while practicing their avocation.

Although William Carlos Williams is better known as a poet, he was a pediatrician; Peter Mark Roget of thesaurus fame was also a physician. Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive. Geoffrey Chaucer had an active career as a bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat until his death. The Renaissance poet Veronica Franco was a cortigiana onesta, an intellectual courtesan. Not all writers had demanding day jobs. Brian Jacques was a milkman, and I can well imagine that he treasured the freedom to think about his novels.

 

So how do I become the best hobbyist writer I can be? Perhaps not surprisingly, in the same way I would become the best professional writer I can be, with a few differences. I cannot be lazy because writing is “only” my avocation.  It is an avocation that requires hard work, honing the craft, writing and editing and rewriting. I write because I want to make people think, recognize the human struggles I am describing, and think some more.  None of this sounds very different from what I hear from many of you.

 

There are differences, to be sure, but they seem to be in terms of time and product. It takes me a long time to write.  I try to write before work, but sometimes all that comes out is dreck.  I also edit while I write.  It makes sense to do that in the day job, so I live with the difficulty of turning it off with my avocational writing.  It does mean that I would set myself up for frustration if I joined NaNo or Fast Draft, or any of the other quick-writing tactics that many in this group have found helpful.

 

Another difference is that my product  can be anything I want to write, and not a means to put bread on my table.  It is freeing not to worry what an agent, the market, or my freelance client will think of my work.  I don’t always get to write what I want in the academic arena, so it is freeing to be able to play in the sandbox with my fiction/creative non-fiction.  It means I can be experimental and write, say, steampunk, or my horror piece about sentient boxes.

 

As Wooden said, all we can control in life is to be the best we can be. What “best” entails is up to the individual; only you know if you have done your best.  I used to wince when my sons’ teachers would write something about doing their “personal best” on their papers, but I now understand the philosophy behind it. Many of us in ROW80 have advocated finding the habits and goals that work for you.  I will now add finding who you are; find what place writing has in your life;  what place you are able and willing to give it; and own that place, whether it be best-selling author or hobbyist. No matter which you are, you are in good company. I can only speak for myself, but I am proud to embrace my amateur status.

~*~

Elizabeth Mitchell

Pulling Out of a Deep Stall by Elizabeth Mitchell

Lena Corazon’s New Year’s post tolled the midnight bells for me, counting fear and doubt and perfectionism. Lena tells her doubt monster to take a flying leap, an attractive option, but mine often flings its paralyzing venom deep in my soul, sinking me into negative self-talk, doubt, second-guessing, and seclusion. In addition to the strength of character such negativity has fostered in me, I’ve learned some tricks to fight the paralysis.

When life, fear, perfectionism, or doubt, stalls us, what can we do? I’ve found that sitting in one place on the ice, gunning the engine, only wastes gas and carves the ruts deeper.

Shake things up. Try something different. Go outside your comfort zone.

Do you always write in a linear fashion?  Try a scene that calls you without worrying where it fits in your outline. Sink your teeth into the fight scene that doesn’t happen for a few chapters–go on, no one will know.

Are you a pantser who can’t figure out where a character is going? Throw your character into any situation and see what happens. I had great fun with a character reacting to being stranded in a bad cell phone coverage area.  Did it matter that my character lives in 1945? I learned his pressure points, even if the story had to give him something else infuriating.

Are you a plotter who can’t make the next plot point gel? Have a conversation with a character. Find out what food she likes, or ask her about her first prom date.  She might give you a scene or subplot that makes the story sing.

Is the length of a scene paralyzing you?  Write a piece as flash fiction. I had a scene that kept getting maudlin; focussing on the smallest moment of the heartbreak made the scene better.

Are none of these hints working? Perhaps you need more of a break. Relax. Read a book; let yourself analyse it if you want to, or let yourself be pure reader.  There’s a lot of brain function simmering in the background–don’t underestimate what you see as “wasted time.”

Pay it forward.  Offer to beta read, or line edit, or be the sounding board of a fellow writer. The ROW80 community offers these ways to pay it forward, and more.  Drop an encouraging word to a few of the participants.  Be a mentor, a cheerleader, or a sympathetic ear.

If you can’t stand the thought of doing something writing-related, just reach out.  Most of us are toiling away in our physical or mental writers’ garrets, and would delight in another’s company.
I cherish the friends I have met through this challenge, and have received far more than I have given.

~*~

Elizabeth Mitchell

Figure Out What Works By Elizabeth Mitchell

During the break between Rounds Three and Four, I read a couple of thoughtful  explorations concerning the plethora of confusing writing advice out there. Claire Legrand wrote this post, and our own fearless leader, Kait Nolan, responded and expanded here.

If you’ve been around the writing blog circuit at all lately, you know what they are talking about: the constant stream of “write each day. . . don’t write every day . . . plot everything before you start . . . don’t even outline because it ruins the freshness of creativity . . .  you must write at least 3 books a year . . . how fast you write doesn’t matter, but how well you write does.”

As Claire and Kait point out in their posts, none of this advice is a magic bullet. It does not matter if you are a pantser, a plotter, or a puzzler (a nod toRuth Nestvold for that handy appellation). It does not matter if you write every day or only every weekend. It does not matter if you write 250 words at a go, or 8K.

What does matter? Having goals, figuring out your own way of reaching them, and transforming those ways into habits.

To quote Kait again, this time from her opening post for this Round, accept failing small.  Accept that the habit won’t stick the first day out of the gate and be okay with that. In other words, get out of your own way.

If you’re new to ROW80, let me introduce myself.  I used to have a black belt in getting in my own way–if I wasn’t perfect, I was a failure. Not surprisingly,  I found a lot of things that don’t work for me, until I started listening to myself instead of every other writer on the planet.  I’m still finding what works for me and making habits out of those discoveries. But what I have found is the desire to  get out of my own way.

If you march to a different drummer, whether it be writing 250 words every day of the year, or writing 20k one day out of every thirty, embrace it, sing with it, soar with it.

The beauty of ROW80 is that it is “the writing challenge that knows you have a life.”  I’d like to add, “and your own way of writing.”

~*~

Elizabeth Mitchell

Believe in Yourself by Elizabeth Mitchell

When I sat down to write this post, I realized that I joined ROW80 in July 2011.   Perhaps the best testimonial I can offer shows how I have changed in the past year of Rounds. My first stab at a biography a year ago reveals so much. I wrote, “. . . hiding a deep, dark, secret life as an inveterate scribbler . . . she feels it is time to nourish her secret life.” Although my past year has lived up to “the writing challenge that knows you have a life” in tossing obstacles in my path, I have grown more as a writer in this push-me, pull-you year than in any of the past.  How? Due to the support of this community of writers, many of whom I consider friends.

In my first post last year I said I could not share my fiction and creative non-fiction writing with my colleagues at my day job. I spent a lot of time doubting the small, still voice telling me I was a writer; I threw chunks of academic prose down its maw, but the voice persisted, whispering its dissatisfaction. I worried what I wanted to write was not important, earth-shattering, or mind-opening enough. I worried no one would read it, which is somewhat comical from an academic writer whose works have had at least ten readers. Worse, someone might read it and not like it. However, I was very tired of hiding my writing in corners and desk drawers.  Also, I am small, mean, and grouchy when I don’t write. Today, I can say that not only friends and family know that I write, but many of my day job colleagues.  I have a large document hanging on my cubicle wall that says I am a writer.  I believe it now.

A year ago, I gave three reasons why I had joined ROW80.  The first was the community I had observed during a couple of weeks of lurking. I had no idea how important this community would be to me.  I suffered stage fright at first, especially when I found that many ROWers had published, more had substantive works in progress, and it seemed everyone was much farther down the path than I was.  However, I quickly saw no one judged me on how much or fast I produced, but on what I had to say and whether I was committed to saying it.

The second reason was accountability.  I am a recovering perfectionist, as well as a recovering people-pleaser, so this accountability works well for me.  I have learned one very important thing in this year, however.  If you do fall off the wagon, do not hide from this community.  I speak from experience.  I fell behind, then felt embarrassed. I stopped checking in. When I finally dragged myself back to the group, who were all whizzing along wonderfully on most, if not all, of their goals, guess what happened?  Everyone was supportive, understanding, helpful and just all around lovely.

The third reason was modelling behavior. As a secret writer, I only allowed my husband to read my creative work this past year.  An early, terribly crushing, very public humiliation in a poetry contest scarred me far more than it should have done.  But here were all these writers, smiling bravely at rejection, welcoming criticism, cutting scenes and words to make the work better, and sitting down the next day undeterred.  Many of them had goals I could manage as well.  I faltered a bit last November when everyone seemed to be tearing through NaNoWriMo, but there were still many who had slower goals.  Such is the beauty of this challenge.  It doesn’t matter if you are the tortoise or the hare, this community will support you in the race.

Here I stand, a writer supported and encouraged by the gift of this community every day. I look back astonished at where I was a year ago, and excited about where I will be in another year.

~*~

Elizabeth Mitchell

A Community of Writers by Elizabeth Anne Mitchell

The day after Round 3 ended, I was reading C. M. Cypriani’s blog post, on her official signing up for Round 4. I was struck by this statement, “Where before I wrote in solitude, I now write with friends. I enjoy sharing my writing now instead of hiding it, embarrassed, worried no one would like it. The support I’ve gathered has been phenomenal.”

Her thoughts really hit a chord with me. I think that is the biggest change in my writing life, both the reality of the community and the support I gain from it. Before I stumbled across RoW80, I had a fair amount of experience with writing. I have snatched snippets of time when I needed to think something through, get out my bile over something, or sing of joy and love. Granted, those last bits were often smarmy. Very rarely, those moments were shared with a small number of people, usually two or three. When I was in college, I wrote a poem that I was considering putting in a regional contest. My English professor convinced me to enter, and I made the final ten or half-dozen. There were three published authors invited to critique our poems; however, it was a public forum, held in an auditorium holding about 600. While the place was not full, there were at least 300 there. When my name was called, I had to come up on the stage to read my poem. Then I had to stand there while the critique was performed. For someone who had never had a poem go out into the public, it was an excruciating experience. Neither the novelist nor the essayist found much of interest in the poem, and gave it short shrift—negative, but blessedly short. The poet seemed to feel annoyed that I was wasting his time with this “boiled poetry.” He continued, but as he offered not one single constructive criticism, I have thankfully forgotten the rest of his vituperation.

After my negative experience with creative writing, I hid for years, well, decades, really. Eventually, I began to dream of having a community of writers. I had made a couple of friends who, I later found out, were also writers, and even began to share my writing with them, but as it turns out, they live in the UK. I live in the sticks, so there are no local writing groups—the closest one is 40 miles away. Stumbling over Kait Nolan’s RoW80 site was a serendipitous delight. I lurked for a bit, since I came upon it two weeks before the end of Round 2. I was immediately drawn to the support, help, and generosity of everyone in the group. Need a tip on how to work out a plot point? Send up a flag and no less than ten people will answer you, sending you links to blog posts, or titles of books that helped them. Have a day job meltdown or family crisis? No one will chastise you for not meeting your goals, but will cheer you on to start back on them as soon as you are able. Want to put an excerpt out there to see what people think? Six people will read it before the end of the day. Just feeling lonely? Go hang out at the Twitter hashtag #RoW80 and read the back and forth.

The change for me has been so complete, that I missed the first sign of it until much later. I had never done flash fiction, and never thought I would have the courage to put my fiction up in a public blog. But I entered a flash fiction challenge in late September, posted it on my blog, and didn’t even think about what a change that was for me until a week later. Did anyone laugh at me? Did I get ridiculed? No, I got a lot of very nice comments about it, which warmed me and made me seriously think about expanding the story. Granted, I’m sure it didn’t trip everyone’s trigger, but you know what? I didn’t worry about that; I was proud of what I wrote and even more proud that I didn’t give a second thought to posting it.

So I feel I have the “been there, done that,” to say don’t discredit what you can do, what you have done, what you will do. Don’t ever feel you must hide rather than make a “bad” check-in. I have checked-in when I got nothing done, because life got in the way, or I just had nothing in the well. I got so many responses, telling me that it was okay and that if I just kept plugging, the spring would flow back into the well, life would assume a state of normalcy, and it just meant I had to keep trying. As C. M. said, the support is there. It is truly support, not tearing down or diminishing. We are all here to help one another; this is one of the best support groups I have ever found, so sing out—don’t hide.

 ~*~

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell