Not Feeling Like Writing

In the last couple of months, I haven't been at all in the mood to write. And I've taken some time away from it.

However this week and last week, I did it anyway, which is more typically my strategy.

But I did it quickly, without looking back, without being very impressed, without much giving a damn.

Then in my regular feedback group today, I read the last week's worth. (I hadn't so much as looked it over since tapping out the rough draft.)

They liked it.

They thought it worked.

Intellectually I know that working with a light touch (not caring very much) can be very effective. The writing usually doesn't sound labored, trying-too-hard.

But in the moment, writing while you don't give a damn doesn't feel like a good strategy. Not all that much fun either.

Nonetheless. I'll be at it again tomorrow.

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My Bonus Life at Doe Branch Ink: 2

Next to the last full day of the writers' retreat at Doe Branch Ink in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I've fallen into the peaceful and richly interesting routine of this extra tucked-in life.

We are six writers on these 50 acres with three rustic houses and lots of desks with views. We're all getting work done. I know because the daily reading of revisions is at four p.m.
One of our number has set up shop in the little bunkhouse where no one is sleeping this week. There's enough room for everyone to have a bedroom and a work spot elsewhere. Note Cat writing in her corner of the second floor sunroom.


This is the first time I've ever led/facilitated a group that it hasn't felt for a moment like work. It has been fun and interesting many times before; still I've always felt that I was "on" at least part of the time.

Please note: this is a bold step for me, this not-being-on. I really like it.

Also, I've plunged back into work on my own novel in progress, which I've been avoiding since I got back from New York. I'm happy with what I've gotten done, and I've liked doing it. See view from my writing table.

To top it all off -- and who would have predicted this -- I've come to a slightly different and very exciting religious understanding since I've been here. Credit that to Mahan, who left just the right book on the coffee table and then talked with me about it later.
What changed for me was not so much new experience or new information, but seeing how my own beliefs fit together and fall into a long tradition. Makes me feel less out on a limb. Though I've always claimed to like being out on a limb, it's nice to be able to scamper back up to a central trunk.

And did I say that the food is excellent? Last night's pasta and pesto (catered by Zuma in the wee metropolis of Marshall) dazzled us all. I should have taken a picture.

Bold Bonus Life Tip # 7: Expect unexpected outcomes.




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Nina Vida's Bonus Life

I was just Friended by a writer in California I haven't met, Nina Vida. (We have lots of friends in common.) I looked at her page and was inspired.

It begins: "When I'm tempted to look at life as a series of successes and failures I remind myself that the journey is all."

Note: she became a writer at 50 and now has seven books out from major publishers, most recently The Texicans from Soho Press (with a Starred Review from Publishers Weekly. And she looks about 51, maybe.

Also on her page: "Don't let anyone tell you you're too old to do something you want to do."

This is a woman who is packing in an extra life or two.


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I Write Like Margaret Atwood?

Should you be in the mood for a hilarious compliment to boost your boldness factor, go get your writing "analyzed" at I Write Like Margaret Atwood.

All you have to do is paste in a few paragraphs and the site's software speedily decides what well-known writer uses similar word choice and syntax.

I ran across it on a Facebook entry this morning and hurried straight to the site.

I learned that I am very versatile. I pasted in a few grafs from three of my novels.

In my first Revelation, about a Chapel Hill minister who hears the voice of God, "I Write Like H.P. Lovecraft." Wikipedia reminds me that this early 20th century writer of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror is known especially for "the subgenre known as weird fiction.

Lovecraft's guiding literary principle was what he termed 'cosmicism' or 'cosmic horror'..."

In my second, Sister India, "I Write Like Jonathan Swift." Jonathan Swift!! Remember Gulliver's Travels? How is it that I write like a turn of the 18th century British satirist, preacher, and pamphleteer? Probably because the narrating main character is an American woman who has taken to Indian English.

And I've happily learned that in my recently completed "Blue Serpent Rising," "I Write Like Vladimir Nabokov." This pleases me. I can live with this. In fact, I think it would make a nice blurb. My "Blue Serpent" and Lolita do have some interests in common.

Go give it a try and report back who you write like. One way or another, it's likely to give you an emboldening burst of energy.




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Bold Benares #8

What, you might ask, is bold about the Indian city of Benares or Varanasi--(other than being the setting for my novel Sister India)?

It sits by a holy river, the Ganges, which purifies the sins of sunrise bathers, draws millions of devout visitors, and floods regularly high up the city walls. It is the city of Shiva, Hindu god of both creation and destruction. Since it is the auspicious place for a Hindu to die, dead bodies carried on stretchers are a steady traffic. It is believed to be a microcosm of "sacred India"and the first created bit of land, the Hindu Eden. It's the world's oldest continually inhabited city. The gods themselves bathe in the water here. That's a lot to live up to.

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Bold Benares #7

Another of my favorites from Varanasi (or Benares) where I spent a winter doing research for my novel Sister India. I like it because of the angle of the light, the feeling of motion, and again the sisterhood image of the two women. And the red.

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First Day of School

Sylvan setting; bold students.
I'm teaching a one-week fiction-writing class for adults on the summer-lovely campus of Meredith College in Raleigh this week. Today was the first day.

Sometimes people in a newly formed group hang back a little at being among the first to read from their work, or the first to comment on someone else's work.

Not these ten women. They launched in from the first instant, and didn't seem to think anything of it. Promises to be a good week.

Today we talked about plot, what makes a story a story. (Answer: a main character with an urgent problem that has to be resolved in spite of dreadful obstacles, internal and external, by the end of the story. And the problem needs to be one that threatens the character's identity, her sense of who she is.)

I've taught at this annual writing week before, but hadn't planned to do it this summer. And then my friend who was scheduled to teach had to drop out. I dropped in. (Bold of me, yes?)

Tomorrow: developing characters from the inside out. These ten bold women already know a lot about that.

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Sunlight Shining Through Cobalt blue

Simply because my new novel is called "Cobalt Blue" and I'm in a novel-aggrandizing mood...



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Updike on Creative Courage

My model when I first began writing fiction was John Updike. I studied those Rabbit novels down to details of tenses and pronouns. More important, I found and find his work unsparingly honest and amazingly observant. His kind of writing requires an unflinching hand.

So I finally this week got around to reading his memoir in essays, Self-Consciousness, which has sat like hoarded chocolate on my to-read shelf for quite some time. Here he turns his famous scrutiny on himself, and does so in a manner that is neither self-aggrandizing nor self-deprecating. He manages balance while navigating the story of himself and his family and marriages, his world-view and his dental work.

Kirkus Reviews said the work is "A neat masterpiece of literary undressing." That reviewer said it well. And what a feat such a book is.

In it Updike deals directly with the subject of telling the tough truth and how he gears up to do it, in fiction and nonfiction. In short: he relies on a higher power.

"What small faith I have has given me what artistic courage I have. My theory was that God already knows everything and cannot be shocked. And only truth is useful and can be built upon. From a higher, inhuman point of view, only truth, however harsh, is holy."

I agree with all of that. And yet, I still flinch...at how my fellow lower humans may respond. Maybe he does too...and then writes it down anyway.

What philosophy (or self-help gimmick) helps you muster courage for your work?


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