I had to admit to a friend yesterday that I was jealous of her. There she was, minding her own business, when an opportunity to write a column opened up and she went for it. She hasn’t spent the last 2 years honing her craft, writing hundreds of thousands of words, poring over her writing, worrying over content, biting nails over reviews, tearing her hair out over being ‘good enough’. She just….inquired. And was hired.

Her first article was printed yesterday. Nationwide release. It’s fabulous. I love her and I’m WILDLY proud of her but also so jealous I could spit nails and mad. At myself.

Because, while I waste time lamenting about ‘not feeling like writing’ and ‘not having ideas’, other people are just going for it. Seeing what happens. I have such a huge fear of rejection and disappointment and such a need to control the situation that I don’t even want to send anything in unless it’s perfect. Then I fester over it and tear it apart and put it back together and love it and then hate it the next day and decide not to do anything with it. The first contest I ever entered, I was shaking when I submitted it.

So I’m sitting there, looking at her byline, with her name all in print and I’m almost in tears, because I feel like I am doing nothing. And then I make myself stop that, because………..well, that’s true. I am doing nothing.  So DO something. Do all that stuff you keep saying you’re going to do and are ‘working toward’. EFF the working– Do or do not. There is no try.

Either I have to get off my proverbial ass and start writing things, and start submitting things, and stop caring about whether or not they’ll be loved or hated or rejected, or I have to be happy where I am– writing what I want, when I want to write it, with no real deadlines or articles or people breathing down my neck, down to the wire.

No matter what I do, I have to do what is best for me. When I look around at magazines that are looking for writers, I don’t see a niche I fit in. I could not care less about fashion or gossip; my music tastes are decidedly schizophrenic, haphazard, and are more a jumble of nostalgia than a music collection; I’m not a guru of anything; my finances are too laughable to write anything based on money… I can’t just up and decide that I need to be a columnist because it happened for someone else. I’m not a columnist. I’m a fiction writer.

I have such a hard time seeing all these young faces doing things, and BEING things at such young ages. Editors and writers and freelancers, some before they turn 25!  I will be 36 in just over a month. I’m a glorified secretary who fancies herself a website copywriter, who comes home and types into the darkness, who makes up stories based on real people for a subset of fiction readers. I can’t decide if that’s something I should be proud of or if I should work to change it. Even if it’s something that I enjoy, if I’m jealous of where other people are in their lives, then maybe I should focus more on work than play. More on what I must do than what I want to do. More on things I should be writing instead of the indulgent, fun writing. And maybe it gets to all be indulgent fun writing after ahwile.

I just know that I feel kind of fail-y right. I feel like I am going nowhere and I am about nothing.

I did some searching today on places where I can submit short stories. Making a list, setting some goals. Now all I have to do is write the stories. And submit them. And hope for the best.

Pen in hand,

Last night as I was tiptoe-ing through my Google Reader, I opened a post from a writer I’ve been following. She’s currently editing a book and sent out some queries and is trying to get published. She posted last night about a website that she found the is sort of an auto-editor. It looks out for things like cliche’s, overused words, sentence structure, all things I wouldn’t normally look at, when I’m editing. I’m always more concerned with does it make sense, do you care about my characters, are there any misspellings?

Well. WHOA, mama. The wesbite is called AutoCrit and it does some things I’ve never seen a website DO! This is, of course, not made for a rough draft or even first pass, but if you’re past the point of seeing your faults, this will definitely show you new ones!

I love constructive criticism (concrit). I want my pieces to read the best that they can and if people can see where there is a flaw, I want to fix it. I don’t want strangers pointing out my literary failures, if that makes any sense. So, even though I had just written the beginning of a new chapter in my (hopefully) novel, I plugged in the first 800 words and waited for the result. When it popped up, my eyes lit RIGHT UP.

Suddenly I was seeing things I hadn’t ever seen before. How many times I use certain words; whether or not I used too many -ly words (I rarely do) how many times I use ‘just’ (which I’ve been trying to get away from, but in an 800 word sample I used it 8 times! EIGHT! I feel like the clouds just parted and the sun came out. STUFF I CAN DO TO MAKE IT BETTER!

Of course, that’s only the free version, which limits you to five times a day at 800 words a pop. For shorter pieces, and if you’re only concerned about the basics, it’d do you fine. I’m salivating over the option to upload up to 100,000 words in that baby and have it spit out a report.

But first, I have to FFFFIIIINNNIIISSSHHHH IIITTTTT. GUH! I cannot seem to get going on this thing. I think I’m freaking myself out by thoughts that this might actually turn into a book. I waiver between thinking it’s really very good and I’m impressed with myself and then thinking it’s so dumb, no one will want to even look at it. Put it away and move on. No matter what, I don’t want my parents to know about this book. They are religious and it is…. It’s uhm. Explicit. Holy Gah… if my mom ever…*passes out*.

Hoookay. Well. Since I have a book to write, I am going to skiddadle and get to writing. I’ve written about 1000 words this weekend, which is completely underwhelming for me. I’ve found everything to do BUT write, and it shows.

Pen in hand,

Every Friday I post five questions. You answer them on your blog and then post your link so other people will read it. Write as much or as little as you want. Use it as a prompt, if you wish! Then, link back to the diary so’s people know where they can see everyone else’s answers. Simple. as. that.

Have some fun, answer some questions! The Friday Five

I don’t drive an extravagant model of car. I mean, I drive a KIA. It’s worth $6.99.

I don’t have a lot of clothes. The clothes I do have aren’t anywhere near designer or anything.

I don’t particularly like really fancy food. In fact, the fancier the food, the less I probably like it.

A great night out, for me, is hanging with some friends, having a slice or two from Fellini’s Pizza, and then watching a bad movie on cable.

So why, when it comes to writing, I try to get all fancified, I don’t know. But it isn’t working. So I need to get back to what worked. and what worked was being simple.

Simple meant one, singular goal: To improve my craft and skill at the art of telling a story. I have done that, by mere consequence of writing more and reading more, but it used to be that I would pick out a trait that I didn’t like about my writing, or read an instructional book on writing and put those skills to work. That was why I was writing such things as fanfiction and drabbles and snippets and such and such. It wasn’t so much the story– though it was, some, the story– it was the skill.  I was inspired to improve on certain things, one skill at a time.

Was I writing effective dialogue? Showing, not telling? Eliminating adverbs? Using descriptive imagery? Creating more effective transitions between people, or events, or gaps of time?

Simple meant enjoyment:  writing to enjoy the process, to enjoy reading it back, to enjoy hearing how others liked reading it or how it impacted them and in what ways they could relate. Lately, it’s like dragging myself to the computer, and I avoid writing because  I just no longer enjoy doing it. It’s now more pressure on myself to ‘finish the project’ and not enjoy writing and learning and changing and growing.

So, what happened? Twitter. Yeah, it seems harmless… but it’s sort of made writing not fun.

What happens when I  get on Twitter, and find all these fellow writers and authors and god-bless-it, really talented people, is that I start to look inward. And I compare my work to theirs. And I start picking things apart that they do better than I do. Or worse, at the risk of sounding conceited– but they’re the ones with a book deal, not me. Or I see people I truly adore and admire just pushing forward and making dreams come true, and I can’t even find a more useful term to use than ‘nod’ or ‘wink’ or ‘shrug’… I’m so tired of my characters shrugging and sighing. It bothers me that I can’t be more descriptive in that way.

So, I read and try to soak in what other authors are doing and try to divine some skill.  I write and I write and I edit and I write and I edit and I write. And I follow all these people and read all these blogs and join all these forums and attend all these chats and follow all these @people and……….yet I am not improving and not getting anywhere but frustrated. My writing life is so complicated, now. So stressful, now. I’ve become aware that I’m subconsciously competing to be in the ‘me too’ crowd of cool kids.

Who am I kidding? I was NEVER cool! Why, in my 30′s, would I think I could or should be?  Why, when what I really am is quiet and solemn. I have always kept to myself. Been very quiet. I have always read a lot and wrote a little. I have always acted out scenes in my head. I have always talked out chapters out loud in the car while people around me thought I was nuts for talking to myself. And I have always not cared how crazy I look because what are the odds I am going to see them again and secondly– it was working.

So I… UNfollowed some folks– some great folks, don’t get me wrong but…. I had to simplify.

Some I unfollowed for personal reasons– irreconcilable differences, we’ll call them. But some I unfollowed because the focus of their journey was not encouraging to me, it was frightening and distracting and I thought I was a failure because I wasn’t there, where they are, in their journey.  Or it was because the focus of information and advice were toward a genre or subject matter that I just couldn’t relate to.

I kept a few people because where they are is where I am or where I’m aiming to be. Their focus is on the craft and the skill, on expecting more from yourself and not accepting failure or a half assed lackadaisical effort. Their tweets weren’t about information I can’t do anything with, right now. Their tweets are about relevant, useful information, inspiration, direction, motivation and personal experience– right now.

I recently moved into a new apartment. It’s bright and beautiful, and it has a second bedroom– I’ve never had a two bedroom before.  This bedroom will become my writing space. I’ll be unpacking and then doing a little traveling but when I come back, I’ll be very excited to set up my space– a space  where I will sit down at the computer with my character board before me,  my story line/ plot notes at my right hand and a cup of coffee at my left, and finally  get back to what was working for me– writing simply. Simply writing.

That? Is exciting to me.

Kind of makes me want to write something!

Test test test testing!!!!!!

Testing Windows Live Writer as a desktop application for WordPress. Pretty neat! We’ll see how it looks when its published, though.

And Happy 4th!!

It just occurred to me tonight that I haven’t blogged since last week, but I set up this blog to be my writing blog and not a personal one (because my personal life is so boring even *I* am not interested in it, let alone enough to write about it. There’s nothing exciting about ‘got up, went to work, came home, wrote, went to sleep’. Meh) and I haven’t really had much ‘writey’ things to blog about. And, I find that I can either write, or I can blog about writing. I’d rather write, so I’ve been plugging toward completion on my WIP. Soon, these voices will stop talking to me (or each other) in my head, and I can move on to some other voices.

I recently finished a writing class and I’d like to take another one, so I’m on the hunt for something I can do online or via correspondence that doesn’t cost 17 million dollars. I got a lot out of the class I took, namely the correct terms for things I’ve been doing instinctively, and tried to break some bad habits (like adverbs). I picked up tips on effective story telling, drawing the audience in and even a great chapter on dialogue. I wrote a few pieces for the class as well, short snippets that are somewhere along the weekly posts I was doing.

I’d like to take another because, well frankly, I feel like I need to be pushed a bit harder. Of course, I’m scared of being pushed harder, but right now while I’m not being pushed, I think I need it. I review my twitter list several times a day and sometimes I’m just so jealous at the talent I see. People working hard on 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 12th books, plugging away at them and offering great advice. I feel so way behind everyone else and like I’m the kindergartner looking at the big kids playing from behind the gate on the playground. Wishing I was a big girl and could play, too. Why doesn’t anyone tell new authors that you can’t become Mark Twain in a year? That whole ‘this looks easy’, thing that famous authors do is very misleading and deceiving, inside my brain. I know it takes hard work and a lot of rejection, but the notion that I ‘can’ write makes me want to just pop out something and be world famous, simply because I write. It’s just way more than that, I’m learning. Like 1% talent and 98% skill and about another %1 good luck. Or voodoo, which ever you believe.

The funny thing is that when I started writing, I wasn’t writing to be read. I was writing to write. Because I saw other people do it, and thought ‘Well, I could do that!’ And so I did. And it was awful. But instead of giving up, I started something else and that wasn’t too bad. And then I wrote something else and I was kind of proud of that. And then I wrote something else, and someone noticed and now I have a (very) small group of people that will read what I write. And progressively, everything I write gets better, to the point where I look back at what I thought was awesome and cringe. I feel like the ‘practice’ has been really great, and it has even changed my mindset, to where I’m not longer ‘nowhere near thinking about being published’ to actually thinking of writing something and, hopefully with help from my author friends, seeing if it’ll float. And if it doesn’t, cool. But it doesn’t hurt to see.

So, I was going to write tonight, but I feel like if I’m not ‘at it’ by 8, it’s not going to happen. I’ve been coming home and getting lost in the internet and twitter, trying to keep up with this great big world of information and articles and advice and tweets and hash chats and such and I’m just overwhelmed. I need to simplify. Maybe unplug. And just write. I remember when I would come home from work and LUNGE for the laptop and pound out a few thousand words. Now it’s like pulling teeth to get 500 words some days. I wonder what does that?

It’s been a rough week at Chez M. I’m not a crazy fan or anything (right, the mark of a crazy fan is someone that says they’re not a crazy fan) but Michael Jackson’s sudden death was very jarring for me. Kind of surreal at first, but then seeing Janet Jackson brought a swell of emotion for me. We lost one of my brothers very suddenly just a little over a year ago. It’s very VERY hard to get back to what you think ‘normal’ is… I’m kind of still not there yet. I was looking forward to going home and spending some time with the family, the nephews, and sit around and say the things I was too distraught to say over a year ago. There’s just… such a fog and you don’t realize what you’re doing or saying and a month later you won’t remember much. It’s just foggy and I remember wishing I could reverse time, and undo it and bring him back. He was young, 22 and thought he was invincible. I can’t say I understand what it’s like to lose someone like Michael but I know what it’s like to lose a cherished, loved family member, a brother, someone who ‘got’ you and you were close to. I feel for her, and for the entire family. I really don’t know how they’re making it day to day– my parents were simply devastated, and continue to be.

Just when I thought I had things under control, Billy Mays died. Which, you know. It’s Billy Mays, but I liked him, and his son”s tweets are so sad and stoic. It just tore at my heart. And then my mom called yesterday to tell me that my aunt died. And now I’m thinking that I just can’t take anymore. I really just can’t, so I need everyone to get healthy and stay healthy and be here, because really. I just can’t.

You know how when you look up the best ‘writer’s block’ busters, they suggest that you kill someone in the story, because that always creates drama and conflict? The people who give that kind of advice should try living it. Should try being the ones living after someone dies suddenly. I don’t find much, right now, to add to my literary achievements. Grief isn’t really propelling me toward anything moving. Despair and exhaustion isn’t giving me the scene of my dreams.

I think that’s bad advice.

And that’s all I have to say about that. Till next time,

… stuck in the middle and the pain is thunder…

The world lost an icon yesterday. Three of them this week—Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and then suddenly and unexpectedly, Michael Jackson.

Jackson’s career spanned decades, producing over 700 million albums sold worldwide, numerous sold out concert tours and the greatest selling album of all time with Thriller. From the Jackson 5 to the Jacksons to that skinny kid in loafers, tight red pants and a red leather jacket with way too many zippers and a jheri curl crooning ‘Beat it… Beat it… no one wants to be defeated’, Michael set the world on fire with his music, his bright beautiful smile, his childlike persona and great big philanthropic heart.

The tributes are rolling in and people are waxing nostalgic and celebrating his life as a musician and an entertainer. There is not an artist in the business today who was not touched or changed by Michael’s career– his work ethic, his drive, his sheer musical genius, or simply just the way he moved. I see his influence in some of today’s most popular artists—Usher, Rihanna, Chris Brown, and some of my personal favorites– *Nsync’s Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez. Even the group itself, like New Edition and Boys II Men, was a complete emulation of the Jackson 5—a brotherhood, five voices that jointly combined to create one beautiful, melodious, harmonious sound.

I was just emailing with one of my mother’s friends, with whom I am pretty close—have known her since I was 12. She was just saying how devastated she was to hear the news. Many people know that my family is very religious—my father is an Elder, my mom’s friend’s husband is Deacon and Superintendent. My mom has been known to preach a word or two herself, so I come from a pretty conservative background. Even so, when Tupac died—that hit us all hard. He was young, and talented and had something to say. And now that Michael is gone, I can’t imagine the impact that this is having on my parents. Three generations have been touched by his music—people from my parent’s era literally grew up with Michael and his brothers. I’m in my 30’s and I enjoyed the height of his career as it was happening. And my younger friends, 80’s babies, enjoy his legacy and the artists that have been inspired by him.

One of the reasons this, and the death of Tupac and James Brown and Aaliyah and Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez , and all the other musicians of color that have passed touches us in such a way is because it wasn’t that long ago that black people—Black Americans—were fighting to be considered human beings and not property. For the right to ride a bus and live among other races and sit in the same places, drink from the same fountains, eat the same food, breathe the same air. To see someone from a previously (and if you listen to pop culture, still) oppressed group of people rise up out of hard, laborious living, out of the ghetto, out of poor conditions and rise to stardom. To gain the respect of not only their own people, but people of other races. Not just in the US but WORLD. WIDE. Michael was a symbol of everything black people could be, could aspire to, could become. Amid controversy and personal turmoil, he made us proud. He made us defend him. He made us worship him.

The most torturous presence in Michael’s life, except perhaps, for his own self loathing, was the press. The ever critical, ever present blinding glare of the spotlight. He ran from it, tried to escape it but you can never escape the watchful eye of the media. Kind of sad that because they never left him alone, never let him live a normal life, never let him escape, that his legacy will live on, forever memorialized in film, in song, in print. I guess that is the silver lining. The rainbow. The bright side.

It’s hard to say, even harder to do, but I’m going to try to celebrate Michael’s life, and enjoy the memory of him that lives in my mind.

Lithe, flexible, electric, in sparkly socks and penny loafers and one glove and a Fedora. And a big, bright, beautiful, hopeful smile.

Thank you Mr Jackson, for all that you gave us. Rest in Peace.