Try if you must

When I was eight, I started running street races, from 5K to 5 miles. I hated running when I first started. It was my father's idea, and a way to get me out of my shell. I felt it obligatory and ridiculous, but I also started getting recognition—the trophies rolled in for the 10 & under category. People were easily impressed by me because I was super small and super goofy looking with my bright red hair, odd fashion sense, and hexagon glasses (the picture below depicts a good fashion day for me), and I was finishing these races. I'm not sure the running itself brought me out of my shell, but it did teach me a lot about the difference between doing a thing because you love it and doing it because it's what you're supposed to and it brings you recognition. It also, oddly, taught me a lot about the value of kicking back. 

I bring this up because I have been thinking a lot about writing and what motivates people (both who identify themselves as writers and those who don't) to do it. I came to writing in the opposite way that I came to run competitively. I just started writing because I loved it—no one asked me to, there was no secondary goal—and I could care less if anyone else read what I wrote because the process was in of itself a reward. It seemed to offer the same sort of healthy escapism that reading did when I wrote fiction and something more transcendent when I tackled nonfiction. It became a way to let it out, whatever it was from day to day.

For some (some would argue the lucky ones, but I’d say the durable and hardworking ones), writing begins to be recognized. It wins the writer awards and becomes a sort of performance sport as solicitations come in and the writer's end goal suddenly becomes publication. I recently began thinking again about trying to find an agent and really holding back any work from being published online for a while, and I'm thinking this because I am rather tired of the submission process. I want to write for the writing's sake for a while. At least for a few months, to see how it goes, and I know I need to relax in order to do so.

Running those races was always nerve shaking to me, and though I would feel good after the race most of the time, I also became overly obsessed with collecting trophies and beating my last time. As I got older, the trophies became harder to earn. I began straining my body by pushing myself in training and I found myself worrying for nights leading up to each race. I studied techniques and cross-trained. I did it all, and still, I seemed to be losing ground. Each race was more frightening and more disappointing than the last. I was getting a little faster, but the world around me was getting much faster.

The day finally came, one race day morning, when I decided I didn't give a damn. I woke up and made the conscious decision to take it easy. My father and I arrived at the Tomato Town Trot, a five mile race that was becoming an annual tradition, and I felt no nerves because I had decided that this race didn’t count. I didn't worry about placing in the race, and I didn't think about my time. I just ran. I talked to other runners, and I enjoyed the scenery. 

I had run many races by that time, and I had never enjoyed any part except crossing the finish line. Well, that and the ceremony at the end. Running was work. It was serious business. I never accepted water from the sidelines because I knew drinking water would take precious seconds off my time. I was focused and caught up in the competition. But this race, for the first time, I took the water. Hell, during the Tomato Town Trot, I even walked for a moment to drink my water. It was like I wasn't even trying. I finished that race in well under 40 minutes. This had been my goal for over a year, I was ten, and I'd finally done it. This was the race in which I began to enjoy running.

In a way, I think it's important to find this point in a writing career, where it's not about stockpiling publications, but writing for writing's sake. At least it's important for me. Perhaps it’s a good way to look at life in general. I welcome publication, and will continue to share my work with those interested as I'd hope writers whose work I enjoy and admire will, but my goal when writing is only to write. And I think in making this decision consciously, a writer can somehow manage to both kick back and move forward.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!! 

Oh, and since I was at the Spurs game last night: Go Spurs Go!!!

I wish you all a beautiful week.

Don't Think About It, Jen

It's a wonderful thing that the process of publication has become more obtainable to the average Joe or Jane.  One needn't watch the nepotism of literary families from afar, reading some works with awe and others with a cinched brow, wondering why, and knowing that s/he will never infiltrate the circle, no matter the talent or drive.  Now, beginning outside of a circle is still tough, but doable.  Small publishers are finding lower costs and taking on new voices in a desire to find the next best thing.  And, if a writer is truly confident (and in a financial position to do so) s/he can even self-publish, which I suppose was always around but is now a more consumer-friendly process.

OK, so publishing is more obtainable.  This is good because it allows a greater variety of voices, not just the mentally tormented upper-class or literary namesakes.  BUT it also means that it can be very, very tempting to publish prematurely.  To write a book for the sole purpose of publication.  This, to me, is pointless.  Publication should be something to consider after the work is birthed, in my humble opinion, anyway.  Publication is a side effect, a privilege of having written a damn good story.

My point?  The art of writing can only be fully realized if it is done for it's own sake.  When I wrote Musical Chairs, I didn't think of publication because I didn't know it was an option.  I thought, the business would come later, if at all.

I'm talking to myself here.... Let me explain why:  I have a few hundred pages worth of short stories, and I've found the little devilish version of myself on my right shoulder, barking that I should work on it because it would be publish-worth sooner.  The little creative, angelic version, on the other hand, is telling me to work on Absurd Hunger, which won't be done for a year or two or three, because this is the project that consumes my artistic self right now and it is likewise a project that would be compromised if I abandon it for the short story collection, which promises sooner publication.  Absurd Hunger is a work I want to spend years on.  I want it to be exactly what I envision, not one word short, and I will follow my favorite writers' examples (Jeffrey Eugenides, Vladimir Nabokov, Jonathan Franzen and others who have not compromised their vision for the business, despite their opportunities to publish (I say this because of interviews I've read by these particular authors)) and work on it for ten years if I must, to get it where it needs to be (God, I hope it doesn't take ten years!) to ensure that it's wholly my own work and not the hodgepodge of my vision and an editor's over-worked hand.

I'll follow my writing instincts, but I just had to share... I figure if I write it publicly, I'll have to live up to it.  And, to acknowledge the distraction, the lure of publication, gives it less power.  I've rushed into things my whole life.  But right now, I don't have the luxury.  One day, perhaps I'll write full-time and won't have to make such difficult choices.  But for now, while I'm working full-time and writing on the side, it's a crucial choice.  Should I feed creativity or should I feed the dream of being a writer?  No easy choice, but I chose art.

Writing Diary: Finding Voice

I enjoy interviews on craft and the writing life, especially by those writers I especially admire.  This way, if I ever meet them I wont feel compelled to ask questions they've heard a million times "What's your writing regime?" "How did you get published?" "What's your inspiration?" .... I hate blending in.

Anyway, lately one topic seems to come up often in these interviews that's especially interesting (and elusive): voice.  The question that usually precedes this topic is "What's your advice to new writers?"

In Zen in The Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury describes years of in which he confessed that most of his stories were mere immitation of his favorite writers' voices.  He says a writer doesn't truly begin to create worthwhile stuff until finding his or her unique and distinctive style, and this comes not from writing x number of word in a lifetime but from digging deep and creating from the source within.  Repetition leads to nothing more than cliche, overdone work.  It's lifeless and dishonest.  Writing, Bradbury argues, is about finding the emotion and questions that drive us to the pen or keyboard.  Once we realize what this motivation is (Bradbury cited numerous childhood nightmares), we've tapped into the thing that matters.

But how does this happen?  Is finding one's voice similar to finding religion, finding our lost keys or finally getting the punchline of that joke?  Is there a moment when everything just clicks and the writer just knows, from some mysterious and complex series of events, that he's ready.  Then everything created after this revelation is somehow better, really ours?  Or maybe it's like finding one's voice more like a journey that we must take and once we've overcome certain obstacles and pushed through certain blocks, we've earned it.

Somehow, I think that finding my own writing voice came not from writing but from living through certain things that I knew I had to confront and question circumstances that perplexed me even though I lived through them, possibly even perservered.  For me, voice is really something to be found on the page in every piece of writing, to be found again and again, whether through metaphor in fiction or analysis philisophical questioning in nonfiction.

In an interview from The New York Times Magazine, December 5, 1976 Joan Didion says "I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means."  This is one of my favorite quotes about writing because I think Didion provides a clear answer.  I interpret her reasoning to mean that we must all write to figure things out, not to emulate or repeat, not to make great plotlines or sketch dynamic characters: those things come. 

Because I have this sort of philosophy abou the writing voice, I think I agree with those writers who say go find your own voice.  Because like it or not, MFA or no, hot shot literary friends or not, a writer will either find her voice or she won't.  When I write I do so to explore myself and the those things that I find particularly perplexing about the world around me, be this in fiction or poetry or any other genre; I don't write what I know--if I wrote about what I knew, I wouldn't write nearly as much!--but what I want to know, and the rest seems to take care of itself.  Voice, in this sense, is the consequence of genuine, unabashed curiosity.  This can never be cliche.

.....Musical..Chairs .......

Notes on Publication

I've been asked to participate in a panel discussion about the pursuit of publication.  Details on this event, which will take place at San Antonio College, can be found here.  In preparation for this discussion, I've been thinking a lot about what it really means to pursue publication.  And although I plan to focus mostly on the ways to take a completed piece of writing from the archives of a personal computer to the eyes of a public, the idea that so many people desire publication is what's weighing heaviest on my mind.

In collecting my thoughts and compiling a solid list of resources to share with the writers who will attend this event, I began to reminisce about my own feelings on publication, and how these feelings have changed since I've earned a small list of print and e-credits for my writing resume.  I have to say, my perspective has changed dramatically.

When I was beginning to write, publication was at the forefront of my mind, constantly.  I associated writing with being read, as though there were no steps in-between the production and sharing of work.  And, in many cases, there weren't (let's be clear: my audience at the time consisted of my parents and teachers, both of whom felt various levels of obligation to read my work).  I remember how romantic the idea of publication was then.  I imagined seeing my name in print as a marker of success, assurance that my ideas and words mattered.  What I never considered then was the complications associated with having an audience.

When a writer is first published, the silence that follows is sobering.  At least it was to me.  I called my friends and family, sent emails to people who cared and those who I thought maybe should care, and I relished in the few cheers from those who sent back a polite and congratulatory response.  Then, I was published again; then came the first time I published for money; then the book and more prestigious publications.  And now, when I publish a story and decide to share it, although I still post on Facebook, Twitter, and send out a smaller group of emails, I'm lucky to get much response at all, and I think this is good.  Why?  Because, writing should be about the writing.

The reason I bring this up isn't so much to say I won't continue to share my words.  I'm the queen of shameless self-promotion, and this will not stop.  Rather, I bring it up because I'm realizing that I'm less inclined to share my words at all, before knowing my audience.  Sure, there are a few standbys, people who insist that they want to read everything that I write; and to those people, you have incredible and insightful taste in literature and should be commended.  But, for the most part, audiences change as much as the output, the themes that drive the output, and the journals that print it.  Some people, for instance, don't read online journals.  Others don't read print.  Some only read The New Yorker or Atlantic... or only pieces that have a certain political slant, genre or flavor.  So, what's my point?  My point is that publication is an entirely different animal than writing and that although I will be offering resources about where to submit work on Thursday, I think that each writer needs to check that inclination to submit the piece until it's finished, so that the urge to publish doesn't influence the voice.  Let the work dictate the audience, never the other way around.  That's step one, anyway.  Steps 2-10, well, they come next. 

Just some notes.

Letting Go

Over the past month, I have shared my worries and excitement concerning the publication of my memoir. To be completely honest, I was unprepared for the exhaustion that accompanies publication. I've been an emotional wreck. I fretted over the few copies of Musical Chairs that escaped with a few typos and the fear of eminent judgment and misinterpretation of my words, but this fear was not wholly due to exposure, but rather loss. You see, in releasing my book, I cannot look back. After five years of work, this is a difficult thing, to let go.

Then again, it seems that the hardest journeys are sometimes fruitful. I have no delusions about the fact that my book is still far from perfect: I make mistakes. However, publishing, releasing my work into the world, is not one of them. I wanted to be upfront about my post-traumatic publication worry because I found very little in other author's blogs about the subject. (Believe me, I looked.)

That said, I am ready to move on, creatively. Many generous writers have assured me that this anxiety is normal, especially when an author bares her soul in her writing. Yet, the reason I wrote that memoir in the first place is because I have huge respect for other memoirists: Tobias Wolff, Phillip Lopate, Vladimir Nabokov, Mary Karr, and on and on, for their bravery; their willingness to share, at many times in my life, made this reader feel less alone. It's my turn to (wo)man up.

So, while the reviews trickle in, I have decided to return to the essence of what motivated me to begin writing in the first place. It is no exaggeration for me to say that my love affair with reading and writing has saved my life, and I cannot stop now.

Today, I am coming full circle. I have begun to return to my stories, my fiction and essays, and I am ready to begin this cycle again, to begin a new book. It has always seemed the most difficult part of writing--the beginning, and so I thought I'd share this journey as well.

Armed with the store of knowledge I have gained at Bennington's Writing Seminars and the process of writing my first book, I have found solace in the fact that a new beginning seems less intimidating. I have begun free writing exercises. These have always helped me achieve a cathartic, even raw feel that drives my characters and scenes from ideas to realization. I do this in ten minute spurts, a trick I learned from a good friend Jennifer Roberts, one of the first people to support me as a writer. We used to go to a coffee shop, pick a sentence, a prompt, and set the timer, not allowing pen to leave paper for five to ten minutes at a time. What would come out was hardly a story, but these exercises sparked something more innately artistic and genuine. The essence of story. The beginning. I highly recommend this exercise and I wanted to share it. Here are the instructions, as we used them:

Grab your favorite book.
Open randomly to a page, point at a sentence.
Set the timer.
Write the sentence.
Keep going, no matter what.

Rules:
Pen does not leave paper until the timer stops, regardless of what comes out. Often, for me, this would be something along the lines of I don't know what to write, I don't want to do this exercise, I have no idea what to do, my hand itches... but eventually, something would come. It is written meditation. It is a beginning.

Cheers, to new beginnings.