Tips are Always Appreciated

My writing has stalled out and every day it makes me more frantic.

I sit in my normal writing spot and stare at my laptop screen. I sit in another, more desk-like spot and stare at lined paper. I go to the library, sit in an isolation desk, and stare at its walls.

It's not that I don't type or write or scribble words-- it's that the words don't coalesce into paragraphs or stories. All I get is gobble-di-gook.

On the other hand, I'm reading more.

How do I quit worrying and love the work? How do I get back in the rhythm?

This is making me wonder/worry/fret about all my life choices. Maybe I should have been a lawyer. Maybe I should have taken science classes (I've always liked science) and turned into a doctor/biologist/whatever the fuck that gets you paid and gives you something interesting to see and think about and do each day.

Not helping: my mother says I'm lazy. I'm also broke.

Is this writer's block? It's like I'm on the fucking VERGE of a tsunami orgasm, and can't-- quite-- go over the edge. Achingly horrific.

Please contribute via words of wisdom and love to the Save Sasha's Sanity fund.

Wormy Apple

This summer I taught my first all-by-myself class. I've interned in a classroom before, and subbed for an entire year, and am about to intern in another class... I've been around kids plenty.

But this was the first class I've been in full charge of, from beginning to end. It was an "ESL" class at a Korean community center-cum-cram school. Most of the kids spoke perfect or nearly perfect English, and the parents insisted on tons of tests and the driest material possible.

Sometimes I had to bullshit. Diagramming sentences? We never did that when *I* was in school. Same for some of the random grammar stuff. It seemed as though the entire purpose of the class should have been-- according to the parents, anyway-- to kill any love for or comfort in the English language, for the children. I was desperately uncomfortable with that, and had a hard time making the class valuable in a way I understood (helping the kids stretch their writing and critical reading skills) and valuable in ways the parents understood (teaching them tons of rules). I ended up dreading each class and yearning to get away, BSing through plenty of the middle-- though the kids were wonderful and the subject matter *basically* my life's work.

It felt like I was faking it the whole time. Fake-teaching.

I think the workshop leader I met today is going through the same kinds of motions. Which is why I've already done the homework-- months ago. Why she couldn't, or at least didn't, answer my question near the end of the class. Why she rushed out even though one of the other students obviously didn't understand what we'd been discussing during the session.

I can't count on her "teaching"-- maybe because she doesn't feel like doing it, maybe because she doesn't know how, and definitely because she's crazy condescending towards us. I'll have to figure out how to get the most out of this class, knowing she's just trying to fill the time and collect her checks.

Great that I came to this revelation, I guess. Great to know that she's going to be a cipher. Or at least it will be great once I figure out what to do about it, and how to learn in a class without being "taught."

In the Relm of the Smiling Grizzlies

After the glory of finding a wonderful new writing group, I coasted into my new (first, since college) class/workshop.... I figured everything would be glorious, until (of course) the workshop-ers discovered I was young and not especially "literary" and everything hit SPLAT!

Ok, so maybe it was the horrible drive there, and maybe it was the horrible drive back (where is everyone going on a Saturday afternoon?!)-- maybe the actual class won't be bad. God knows I can't give up after the one session.. I've been counting on this workshop:

1. Giving me revision guidance (I've never revised a novel-length story before, and after beating my head against the wall for months, I realize I need help).

2. Giving me a place to workshop with committed, open-minded, experienced writers.

3. Giving me a chance to meet more published writers, and hopefully, get a little guidance from them, too-- or, from the teacher, at least.

On the one hand, the group does seem serious, friendly, and interesting. And the teacher seems confident.

But on the other: she seemed so *so* so incredibly dismissive of anything without "literary" stamped across it. And at the tail-end of class she asked for questions, but didn't actually answer any (she seemed in a huge rush to leave). In fact, we didn't learn a damn thing today.

This class is costing me a few hundred dollars-- dollars which I desperately need. I'm going to stick with it, because I do think some of the writers will be valuable as "eyes"... but I've never felt like a second class citizen-- or so pre-judged-- based on 1. my age 2. my concept before.

OOOOOH wait, not true. That's exactly how I felt last time I went to an event at this writing center. Which led to a long period of shaken-up clogged-up horribly unproductive mess.

The atmosphere at this center might just be wrong for me; it's so stodgy, and you can cut the desperation there with a knife. All these grizzled gray-heads running around looking anxious and WAY too smiley. There aren't any schools around here with programs I can actually afford, and the community writer's groups are generally too loosey goosey-- I'm usually the most experienced person in them.

Of course, I seem to be at least one of the most experienced people in this workshop, too.

How horrible is that? By experienced, I mean that I've churned out a lot of material, participated in a lot of workshops (and writers' groups, at this point), read all the how-to books and articles, belong to all the forums, have gone as far as I possibly can on my own, in terms of learning craft, stretching myself, and committing myself to writing. Of course, I've never published anything outside of school, and feel like a gigantic failure.

Maybe I should start some kind of (online?) group for young writers? Only 22-25 year old's allowed? What's the solution? Who can help? Why must everyone be falsely smiley and seething with jealousy? Or alternatively, so dismissive they barely look you in the face? Why can't everyone just chillax a bit?

Though, when all these "literary" premises could be solved by giving the protagonist a weed stash maybe I shouldn't be surprised that everyone seems so anxious and uptight.

I knoooooooow (she whined)

The story I'm working on has no plot. It's great otherwise.

How do I get it a plot, and STAT?

All the storylines I come up with fit all right but.... nothing's clicking.

What happens next? How do you get a piece onto its "skeleton"?

IN YO FACE

I got rejected today.

The poor pathetic piece was a five-hundred word thought/question/wonder-blob that I liked and thought was fun.

I sent it to a magazine that 1. doesn't pay 2. is notoriously hard to get into. But their pass has sent me reeling. Why is rejection so hard?

I'm great with criticism, especially of my writing. I'm the veteran of a hundred workshops, and must have a face that begs for advice. But even when I'm feeling good, a rejection like this crushes in my chest.

Not that I've had so, so many "passes"-- I barely submit. But each one hurts so much.

*This* is why I want to go to grad school. I don't know why my friends and professors seem to like my writing, or why nobody outside of academia wants to publish it. And since publishers/magazines won't help, guess I'll have to ask a larger portion of academia.

(Maybe problem solving isn't my gift).

Nevertheless, I'll push on. Submit twice a week forever. Because I've seen too many people commit to other people or making a living or blah blah and let their actual dreams drift into the ether, and because giving up certainly doesn't work. Still, there comes a point when you have to wonder if you're the Rudy of the writing world.

I wish I knew: do editors read my submissions for one line, snarl, and toss it aside? (Of course, they must. For time management above all. They prioritize like anyone else).

Will hard work and perserverance get me more than busted up knees, the broken nose, the self-indulgent, denial-lined memories?

Quick: Where's the Crook to Get Her Offstage?

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill kept me up all night.

It's the story of an 11/12/13 year old girl growing up in Montreal's red light district. She's got a junkie father, dead mother, and lots of neighborhood friends. Sort of Maniac Magee for grown ups. And without the race stuff.

It's a beautiful book: chock full of interesting images and insights. It reads like you're in a mystical child's head.

BUT-- the last eighth almost ruins it. It turns into a saccharine, weirdly Victorian social novel. Duex Ex Machinas creak around, and I half expected the kid to succumb to opium addiction or willful drowning.

AND-- by that point, I was gritting my teeth because there is a metaphor in LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE PARAGRAPH. The metaphors are beautiful and true and blah blah, but they're also coming so fast it's a fucking metaphor blizzard.

The novel is definitely worth reading-- I got it out of the library and am thinking of buying it just to see it on my shelf. But O'Neill, couldn't you have kept it together for fifty extra pages? Or just chopped them off wholesale? Not everything needs to be tied with a bow. It's ok to just stop if the character's arc is over. There needn't be redemption and hope and coming together and all that Happy Holiday crap.

I wish I had stopped before the last eighth, but otherwise it's the book I wish I'd been smart enough to write.

Pain and Perfection

Why is the inner critic such a fucking BITCH?

Can't she just shut the fuck UP sometimes?

Why must she comment on every little thing I do: oooooh, that's ok, for *you* I guess, but it could be better!

I'm drowning her in words to shut her up. 5k/day. Hopefully, I'll kill her outright.

(And that's a perfectly good use of the word "hopefully." It's a minor clause, and creates a certain tone for the sentence. (Many) grammarians agree: it's part of the "honestly" and "frankly" group).

Bye-bye bitch (until I need you again, at the end of the story, and during draft two of my novel).