Round 3 Wednesday Check-in 7

Hi all!

How about some more Wednesday cheer…  oh and a serious question from yours truly about the upcoming Round 4?

First, today’s cheer…

As some of you may know, things have been a little cray-cray here at Chez Mabee as we plot our move (first one in almost 20 years) to New Jersey.  It’s a project, and we have a few other projects to deal with just to make it happen.  That said, in the midst of all the doing and more doing, a local ROWer, Elizabeth Anne Mitchell, has helped with emotional support (and lots of writing encouragement even if we aren’t always posting our achievements).  So here’s my cheer to you, Elizabeth

Did I say I have a question for you about Round 4?  Well, I do.  You see, in addition to plotting a move and renovating our house, we’ve also got a decently long trip overseas happening right at the beginning of Round 4.  I can set up some pages, but I can promise to be here to run most of them after the first two weeks…  and that just isn’t fair to all of you.  The big issue is the linky….  so, would you all be okay with using the comments or the Facebook thread for your check-ins for Round 4?

If you hadn’t seen the FB thread, our delightful Denise Young will be hosting many of the blog posts for that time (that Thank You is for you too, Denise).

Think that’s it for today…

Oh! Here’s your linky for today:

What Keeps Me Coming…

What keeps me coming back to RoW80

by Elizabeth Mitchell

To my surprise, I realized a few days ago that I have been in RoW80 for six and a half years, having joined for Round Three in 2011. In that time, I have only officially sat out one Round, although, if I am honest, I have been spotty about my accountability in several other Rounds. However, I found that I did not come close to meeting my goals in the Round I sat out, while in the ones where I hung in despite missing check-ins, I got more accomplished than I did on my own.

Therefore, accountability is among the reasons, and perhaps the most immediate one, that I have participated in RoW80 all these years. Having to admit in writing that I spent far too much time bingeing on Netflix or playing video games means that I often will do some writing to avoid the self-inflicted shame.

Flexibility in that accountability is the second reason that I keep returning to RoW80, “the challenge that knows you have a life.” Since July 2011, I have changed day jobs, moved 1,146 miles, rented one house, bought another one, gotten tenure, written four esoteric academic articles, and suffered various slings and arrows of life. The ability to adjust goals when life happens is unusual in many challenges (NaNo, for all its positive values, does not care what life hands one in November), and invaluable to me.

However, the third reason I have remained in RoW80 all these years is the community. When I joined in 2011, I was living in interior northwest Florida, 40 miles away from the nearest RoWer, and more than 100 miles from any local groups of writers. I am lucky now to live in a place with a vibrant and supportive chapter of RWA, a wonderful NaNo group that meets throughout the year, not just in November, and a couple of RoWers who live close enough to meet often. Even so, the online community of Row80 is special to me. I would not have joined NaNo or RWA without my involvement in RoW80. I have made several friends through RoW80, and I am often surprised to realize that I’ve never met them in person. The group is supportive and generous with its time and expertise.  Having a tough time with a plot point or how a piece reads? We have a lot of experts in the group. Send out a hail on the Facebook page or post a link to your blog and you will receive help. In the way that some communities have, RoW80 has its own spirit, its own ethos, that has not changed despite changes in admins and added formats.

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. Since I have been knocked down by life in the past five years, I can say with experience, don’t undermine yourself by feeling apologetic for not getting enough done, or being laid low by life. Just keep working on it,  knowing you have support, not judgment or negative criticism. Many years ago, I was struck by a statement in a RoWer’s goal post. C. M. Cypriani wrote, “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.” I agree wholeheartedly.

 

Round 2 5th Sunday Check-in

Now that we’re in the middle of the round, it might be a great time to look over our progress and see if what we’re doing is working for us.  If you’re like me, pure pantser, yet struggling to keep track of it all… maybe you might want to take a page from Fallon Brown and try corralling that chaos.

You have to do what works best for you. Some may say so much organization will wreck creativity. But without it, I can’t even focus enough to tap into that creativity.  — When Chaos Descends

Be true to what works and doesn’t…  you can’t fix problems you don’t see.  Be “who you are” not what you want to be, as Elizabeth Mitchell says:

…let your voice ring true through all your writing, both on the blog during Row80 check-ins and in your longer creative writing efforts. A passion for a subject lights up the core of the writing done about it, and is mesmerizingly attractive. — Be Who You Are

You can do this.  Just let us know at the linky:

Rising to the Challenge by Elizabeth Mitchell

Kait’s opening post challenges all of us to make progress on our goals every day, suggesting a very neat wordcount and accountability tool called Pacemaker. She justifies the challenge clearly, “If your goal is 1,000 words a day and you only manage 250, that’s 250 that you didn’t have before and your brain stayed at least a little bit in the story. THAT is what I want to reward this round–ANY consistent progress toward your goal, no matter how small. Whether you’re chipping away at that final word count by inches or feet, I want you to make an effort to do something each and every day.”

 

I have long been a believer in working on something every day. When I taught French, I was amazed how much my students forgot during semester breaks. I’m not a neuroscientist, but I believe that daily work creates pathways that make future work easier. I know that the languages I use more often come much more easily to me than the ones I haven’t read or spoken in months.

 

I’ve mentioned before in posts on this blog about writing every day. I realize that isn’t for everyone. However, I know how hard it is for me to revisit something I haven’t thought about for a while–rereading and refreshing my memory. Although even I am too young to have had to pump well water, the expression of “priming the pump” is still valid. I will bet that those who argued against my suggestions think about their writing every day, daydream about what their characters look like, or eavesdrop in a coffee shop for plot twists. I’ve seen comments about characters demanding attention, or the proliferation of plot bunnies, so I am sure most of you have your writing close to the surface most of the time. Note that Kait doesn’t say “write every day,” but “do something each and every day.”

 

My two major difficulties are life and procrastination. The latter sings its siren song to me all the time, “Tomorrow’s soon enough. You’re tired right now.” It goes hand in hand with my perfectionism, which says in my ear, “Don’t do it unless you can do it perfectly.” To which I respond, “A plague o’ both your houses.” I am going to repeat two phrases to myself: “Start where you are,” and “You can’t edit a blank page.” I need to learn about dialogue, but that’s okay, that is progress toward my goal.  And I need to put words on the page, even when they are not perfect, or even when my surroundings are not perfect.

 

At the moment I am writing this post, I have a garage piled to the ceiling with boxes and furniture, I am living out of a suitcase, and I have been without internet for a little bit longer than a week. It would be easy for me to claim the impossibility of writing, and to be totally honest, I have surprised myself. I am writing by hand, but I am writing.

 

Kait acknowledges life difficulties in the opening post for this Round, but gives no quarter, “Stop letting everything else in your life come first. No excuses.” Darn her, she’s right. No matter how crazy my life may be, I do have the time to scribble a few sentences from a half-remembered dream, or an insight that occurred in the shower. I have created three projects on Pacemaker for the Round, and am continuing to learn how best to use it.  I agree with Kait, that what I do with my time is a choice, and I choose writing. After all, I can always procrastinate with the laundry.

 

What are you doing to meet Kait’s challenge?

~*~

Elizabeth Mitchell

Fear of Failure by Elizabeth Mitchell

Kait talked about bravery in her opening post for Round Two. I want to build on Kait’s thoughts, because I needed to break it down for myself.  When I think of bravery in writing, I think of Malala, persecuted for writing about her views on educating women,  or Salman Rushdie, targeted for writing about Mohammed. Thus, my instinctive response, although I agree wholeheartedly with Kait, is “Nope, not me, there’s no opportunity for me to be brave.”

However, when I think more deeply about it, I find that there are small acts of bravery in writing at all.  The writer whose memoir may not paint a family member in the best light, or may not align with other family members’ sanitized history of a loved one; the writer whose day job as a kindergarten teacher may be jeopardized by her writing erotica; the writer who stares into the shadows of her own soul to find all sorts of uncomfortable monsters there. All these situations require bravery.

Then Kait really shot me in the heart, with “You have to be brave enough to fail so that you can LEARN.” I’ve always been the square peg, resisting the round hole with every cellulose fiber, but that is not failure, that is resistance, which can require bravery. Being open to failure is a different kind of bravery. I am the mistress of opting out. When friends convinced eight-year-old me to climb to the high dive, I teetered on the edge, panicked, then fought my way back down past all the people crowded on the ladder, ignoring the lifeguard’s admonition to jump and be done with it. Funny how one’s upbringing surfaces in such unexpected ways. My father would brook no failure. He did not know of Star Wars or Yoda’s famous dictum, “There is no try. There is only do,“ but it could have been emblazoned on his coat of arms. I find it hard to accept failure as a learning experience, although I know logically that it can be, and is not the end of the world. Without the possibility of failure, I am paralyzed just like I was on that high diving board decades ago. It is only with accepting failure that I am freed from my paralysis. If I truly feel what I have to say that is important, I must gather all the grit I can muster to put it out there.  Does it scare me enough to raise the fine hairs on the nape of my neck? You bet it does.

Kait’s post made me realize that I do not learn as much as I could because I do not try.  Failure takes all kinds of bravery and boatloads of it. Failure requires investment and “skin in the game.” Now I have to ignore how scared I am of failure,  because it is the only way I will learn. I commit to embracing bravery this Round, and will revise my goals to reflect that commitment.  Who’s with me?

~*~

Elizabeth Mitchell

Be Who You Are By Elizabeth Mitchell

Last Round, I had a comment exchange with Gloria Weber, who is also a sponsor this Round, about letting our possibly geeky interests be part of our blogs, without worrying what others thought about them.  The exchange has resonated with me since that time. Although I am not generally ashamed of my more pedantic interests, I have downplayed them in my blogs, saving them for the academic writing I do for my day job.  However, they are an intrinsic part of me, my voice, and my brand.  In fact, my trying to write what I think others want to read has more often led to my not writing anything. I have also been convinced that no one else is interested in the topics I enjoy writing about, but that conviction is belied by the continued amount of interest in the nerdy posts I have allowed myself since I began blogging nearly five years ago.  Therefore, I promised myself that this Round, I will be more genuine, nerdy side and all.  I spent years studying language and literature, so why not show my interests in my blogs?  It is my voice; whether I try to hide it or not, it will come out.  I plan to stop fighting it, to stop worrying about what people will think.  Those who don’t enjoy it, won’t read it.  No harm done.

 

These ruminations have some practical application to Row80, too. So many times I have heard participants say that they cannot think of what to write for their check-in, or that they cannot possibly write two check-ins a week, because an accountability listing is not very interesting.  I have two suggestions, based on my new decision to let my nerd out of the back room, and on several RoWers who do a good job blending a check-in with their regular blogging.

 

Include some analysis of why you succeeded, or why you failed to meet a goal.  While it is true that sometimes it is as mundane as “I was too busy,” or “I made myself sit in the chair and write 5 out of 7 days,” there are many times when this analysis unearths a habit to cultivate or choke, or a set of circumstances to institute or avoid. I found out I can write in the middle of chaos, with football games blaring from the next room, but that I cannot write on break at work, for example.

 

Fold your check-in into a regular post.  You can delineate the check-in with typography from the rest of the post so that a reader can read just the check-in or the whole post. I find that even when I only read the check-in on a first pass, I often go back to read the rest of the post, and enjoy the glimpse into the diverse interests of the group.

Therefore, I encourage you to write about what interests you, and to let your voice ring true through all your writing, both on the blog during Row80 check-ins and in your longer creative writing efforts. A passion for a subject lights up the core of the writing done about it, and is mesmerizingly attractive.

~*~

Elizabeth Mitchell

Productive procrastination by Elizabeth Mitchell

Although I have gotten much better in the past couple of years about putting myself in the chair and just writing, I still have those times when I would rather not.  At those times, I call upon the power of productive procrastination.  What is that?  It is the art of getting something done while feeling as though one is playing, or avoiding “real” work.

 

Instead of turning to a computer game, or falling down the rabbit hole of Facebook, I turn to the following tricks:

Interview my characters about their childhood. Did my shero hate her younger sister for stealing her father’s attention from its rightful target, and does she still fall into the trap of attention-seeking behavior? Did my hero get pummeled by an older brother, so that he instinctively looks out for the weaker guy?

 

Describe my hero in excruciating detail, especially that lock of curls that keeps falling into his eyes, or how the shade of his eyes change when he’s stuck in traffic. Does he care about how he dresses, or does everything the man puts on make him look edible?

 

If I can’t stand another moment with my characters, I turn to flash fiction prompts. There are many sites, including flash fiction prompt generators.  A google search will bring up many fruitful possibilities. Cleansing the palate with a good antagonist or unpleasant character often helps me fall back in love with my characters.

 

If I can’t stand the thought of fiction, I will write a letter of complaint about my day job, or a poison pen letter to someone who has drawn my ire. Surprisingly, I have found that something from these vituperative diatribes will plug into a scene, or, at the least, give me insight into these emotions when a character needs to express them.

 

If you would like to know how much you are writing during your creative procrastination, or want to limit the amount of words you are writing, http://750words.com/ is very helpful with these pursuits.  Also, our fearless leader, Kait Nolan, gave a link to her awesome word count spreadsheet in the opening post for this Round.

 

All right, say that no form of writing appeals, defeated by boredom or just the normal stubbornness of the muse. Turn to other creative pursuits:

Create a playlist of music your shero loves, or that defines her in some way.

Create a pinterest board of what clothing your hero would wear, or what his house would look like.

Draw your shero, her house, or her dog.

 

Still cannot endure thinking about your characters?  Play music, sing, draw, paint, quilt, knit, or anything you enjoy that taps into your creative brain.

 

I am constantly surprised by how other creative pursuits loosen the clog in my writing brain, and help refill the well. I am convinced that there are no bulwarks between the segments of my creative brain, but all creativity sloshes around in a way that would sink the Titanic. I am also surprised by how much these other pursuits feed into my writing, and in fact are pouring words in the window when I have shut the door tight and refuse to think about writing at all.

What do you do when you play or avoid working on something?  Do you find creative pursuits help or hinder the return to the computer keyboard?

~*~

Elizabeth Mitchell

Ars Longa by Elizabeth Mitchell

That lyf so short,

the craft so long to learne,

Th’ assay so hard, so sharp the conquerynge.

The Parliament of Fowls 1. Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400).

Chaucer is paraphrasing Hippocrates, taken most likely from Seneca’s Latin rendering, “Ars longa, vita brevis,” in De Brevitate Vitae sect. 1. (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, edited by Elizabeth Knowles. 5th edition, Oxford University Press, 2001).

One misunderstanding I hear many people voice is if one can get enough words on the page, one can write a novel.  Often those same people point to Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants as a NaNo novel, as if it sprang in galley proof off her computer screen on November 30^th.  I do not know Sara Gruen, but I do not believe she e-mailed the draft to an agent on December 1^st. However, I continue to meet far too many people who think their first draft is their last draft, although humans have known since the time of Hippocrates (circa 460-357 BCE) that art is difficult to master. Our own Beth Camp wrote this wonderfulpost about her multiple drafts this past winter, and Julie Rowe has this post on the focuses of the seven to eight separate drafts in her revision process. Yes, that is not a typo: seven to eight drafts. Therefore, I hate to disappoint, but writing 50,000 words in a month, or even a year, does not mean one has a ready-to-publish novel at the end of composition.

So, am I counseling giving up?  Not at all. I do counsel being realistic, in that any piece of writing will take learning, rewriting, more learning, more rewriting, in what will come to feel like an endless cycle worthy of one of Dante’s circles.

My other piece of advice comes from another clause of the quotation: “That lyf so short.” Start now. Life is short, and each year picks up velocity for me in some manner explicable only by science fiction. I have also had far too many object lessons on the fragility of life in the past two years. There is hard work to do, and eternity stretches before no one on earth.  My advice? Believe me, I am giving myself this advice as much as I am you, gentle reader. If you have a story to tell, start telling it, even if badly, even while learning to make it better, because time waits for no man, woman, or child.

~*~

Elizabeth Mitchell

Own Who You Are By Elizabeth Mitchell

I grew up in the bad old days when properly brought up ladies did not boast. How that plays out in real life is one diminishes one’s accomplishments, but also turns away compliments. So when I hear, “Nice writing,” I reply with, “It’s nothing special.” It’s the writer’s equivalent of responding “This old thing?” to a compliment about a dress. August McLaughlin said some very nice words about a review I wrote of her Girl Boner podcasts.  My instinctive reaction came immediately to the fore, and I deflected her praise. Finally I realized it was impolite to reject her kind words, so I managed to say thank you.

 

Most of my family knows nothing about my writing, partly because it would be boasting to do anything to call attention to myself, or to talk about my accomplishments. I spent a lot of time conflicted about my writing, but I scribbled in notebooks in solitude and put them in drawers away from sight. It remained a secret conflict for decades.

 

I was at my brother’s wake when my secret came into the open. As I reacquainted myself with my nephew’s mother-in-law, she said, “Oh, you’re the writer.” I wanted to fall through the floor, or insist, “Not me,” but part of me refused to deny it. I don’t know to this day how my brother knew my secret. For a second, I was angry at him for telling his friends about me, but I quickly realized he must have been proud of my baby steps toward being a writer. Instead of denying it, I stood up a little straighter, and said, “Yes, I’m the writer.”

 

Exposing ourselves as writers swirls many feelings into conflict. Many of us are introverts, and uncomfortable with exposure. Publishing makes us vulnerable to the bad review, but the good review has its own danger, where one feels the pressure to keep writing more good books as the audience begins to expect them. And even if one writes well, one has to write fast, before the audience moves on to another author.

 

Even before we have published a work, we twist ourselves in knots over the pressure to succeed by building and keeping an audience. Another lesson from my childhood was I had to hide how smart I was, since I didn’t have beauty to cover for my brains. Since my inner nerd rampages through my writing, I worry that my posts and my fiction are too boring.

 

Also, writing carries its own vulnerability, because one has to look deep into oneself, to contemplate the wounds and scars within.  I realized I was not alone in this struggle when Shan’s post appeared, writing about the exact podcast on which I based my review of August’s podcasts, and talking about how hard it was for her to be vulnerable.  I opened my blog reader this morning to find that Shan has written a followup post where she describes how the comments and social media reaction to her earlier post are encouraging her to continue her baby steps to self-revelation.

 

With all the support I’ve gotten in the past from the RoW80 group and other writers, I’m slowly coming out of my cave. I am now saying to myself, “Own who you are.  Tell the people who matter to you that you are a writer.” It’s scary after so many years of hiding, but I believe it is a necessary step to writing with more authenticity and embracing the vulnerability that accompanies writing. I encourage all the RoWers to assess when one is hiding for whatever reason, and to make a small step to come out to the lip of the cave with me.

~*~

Elizabeth Mitchell

Being Accountable by Elizabeth Mitchell

Kait’s opening post https://aroundofwordsin80days.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/are-you-author-or-victim/

this Round hit a nerve, I admit.  She points out that making excuses, feeling like a victim, is a choice.  The crux of the problem is the safety of being the victim, because you have someone or something else to blame. I admit, I play it safe far too often.  The day job, the family, the dogs, or just being too tired or empty-brained, all get in the way of getting my writing done.

 

However, no one has all the time in the world to do what they want, so choices must be made. If writing matters to me, I will get up early, stay up late, or not watch that TV show (curses to on-demand television).  “If something blows up your plans to write, you need to revise them.  MAKE some time to make up for the lost work time,” Kait says, and she is spot on.  RoW is a supportive place to be accountable, and to keep one from being too hard on oneself as well.

 

Another arena I often act like a victim is how I compare myself with others. I sometimes suffer from jealousy when I look at other RoWers’ goals and word counts. I am a slow writer, seldom able to lock my infernal editor in the laundry room.  I always forget that comparing myself to others is apples to oranges.  Kait posted a link to Chuck Wendig’s post http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/04/08/counting-words/

about word count and comparisons.  If you don’t follow his blog, think about doing so. I will give the caveat that, as my late mother-in-law would have said, he swears like a sailor. Even if you find strong language offensive, his posts are always interesting, and often grounding.

 

In the word count post, Mr. Wendig celebrates a day of writing 10,000 words.  He then immediately addresses the twinge of jealousy that hits some readers, including me, calling it bs.  Compare with yourself, not others.  Much as it hits me as the 90’s “personal best” my kids heard in school all the time, he’s right. “Sometimes, writing is a game of inches. Sometimes it’s a act of great, clumsy leaps. You gotta take pride in the small steps as much as in the big jumps.”

 

Mr. Wendig links to a plan  http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/02/20/how-to-push-past-the-bullshit-and-write-that-goddamn-novel-a-very-simple-no-fuckery-writing-plan-to-get-shit-done/ to get the writing done. If I write 350 words a day five days a week, with weekends off, I would have the first draft of a novel at the end of a year.  With a little bit of found time, and found effort, I would be closer to my goals.  His last advice resonates: “Shut up and write.”

Who will jump into the accountability pool with me?

~*~

Elizabeth Mitchell