Category Archives: Writing

Shaking It Up

After only an hour of sleep last night, I’ve been a bit stunned all day – just not quite with it.

So I did what I used to do when I needed a boost: I moved furniture around.

No, not everything; just my desk. I turned it 90 degrees (that’s a square for those with new natal chart knowledge) to the wall. It doesn’t stick out into the dining room as far as I thought it would, and I’m quite pleased. Besides, with it exposed like this, I’ll be less likely to let stuff pile up on it.

Oh, that’s not the only thing I did today; I took a couple of hours and sorted through about ninety-eight pages of notes on the trad-vs-eclectic Craft book I’ve been working on. In the end, after it sorting it into about seven different files of related topics, I realised that I’m going to just sit down and start writing it one day.

Drown, Gasp, Drown, Gasp, Plus Birthday Recap

A couple of years ago, Skippy told me to be like the cork: sure, you get drowned by breaker waves, but you can just pop right back up again.

Fine. But you know, being a bloody cork means drown, gasp, drown, gasp…

Kind of like how I defined reincarnation during a recent study session before our priesthood exam: Lather, rinse, repeat.

Birthday summary: tea in bed. Phone call from my parents. Open gifts from parents. Watch cartoons. Go window shopping – window shopping because not one of our medieval stores had anything spectacular. I did get a Japanese bamboo roll pillow, though, and I am now an official Lush fan. That was my present from my husband: carte blanche in the Lush store. Mmm. Bath bombs, bubble bars, massage bars, soap, powder, face scrubs… my bathroom now smells like Lush, which is pretty darned all right in my book. Then sushi for dinner, where the staff gave me a piece of cheesecake for dessert. Anyone who knows me knows that cheesecake isn’t my thing. They’re always so kind, though, so I looked at my husband and said, “I’m going to eat some of this.” It turned out not to be such a sacrifice: it was the lightest, non-cheesey cheesecake I’ve ever tasted, more creamy than anything else. Then we went home and had a bottle of my dad’s amazing red pinot noir.

This morning, I woke up way too early, and wrote a short story before nine AM. I know; I think I must be sick, too. (Yes, Ceri, it’s on its way…)

Writing Notes

Things I forgot to mention, which I ought to:

I wrote three-quarters of a short story on Friday, after my crisis. I’m usually in agreement with the whole “who says an artist needs to suffer in order to create?”, but lately it seems I need some sort of traumatic emotional upheaval in order to calmly sit down later on and whip something off. Word total for Friday: a very respectable 2,510.

Today, while the power was off (muttergrumblegrr) I researched and made lots of dialogue notes for that potential collaboration project. Out of the blue, I also wrote five and a half poems. (A half, because it’s not in its final draft yet.) Dedicated readers will remember my odd yearnings to be writing poetry this past spring (not that I had poems in mind, I just wanted to be engaged in the act of poetry writing). I find poetry very peaceful. Mind you, it’s also distilled emotion, which is like handling fire and ice at any time, and even more dangerous in my frustrated and fragile hands these days.

It’s even more special, because I started a new notebook. It’s Coptic-bound, with a Japanese print of a plum tree in blossom on it, and the pages are a dark ivory colour. I use my dip pen with black ink, too. Of course, it’s all to recopy the original pencil scribblings in my current notebook of ideas, complete with cross-outs and arrows indicating line rearrangements and so forth.

However — poetry. Goodness. I believe the last time I wrote poetry was around eleven years ago.

Enthusiastic Endorsement, Complete With Muppet Nods

Some of my regular readers might not click randomly on links, so I want to draw your attention to t!, a man I’ve known for thirteen years. Long ago, we bonded over Shakespeare, Star Wars, pasta, and the Muppets.

[…] The real magic was on The Muppet Show.

It wasn’t aimed at kids. At least one third of it was musical numbers. It was vaudeville, on the medium that killed vaudeville. For those who could still appreciate vaudeville. Adults. But their children knew the Muppets, so we watched Kermit in his night job, when he wasn’t reporting for Muppet News.

And we got show tunes. Stand up comedy. And awful, awful puns. Plus just about every other entertainment staple you can think of: Stuntmen, jugglers, science fiction, hospital drama, sportscasting, westerns, educational science films (?!), Grand Guignol, a piano man, a full orchestra, a modern rock band, even heckling for crying out loud, and all of it aimed over our heads like a boomerang fish.

So what happened? We raised our heads.

He’s perfected the art of debating, pushing his limits and yours to force growth, and he also happens to be one of the most intelligent people I know. And, like the Muppets, his writing refuses to make it easier; you have to raise your head. What are you waiting for? Go read Baker’s 12.

Yes, Yes, You Love Me, Thank You

Oh, honestly, people – I’m frustrated, not on my deathbed.

But thanks go out to everyone who left comments, e-mailed, or called as soon as they got off-line and tied up my phone for two and a half hours. Heartfelt thanks. Ceri even called long-distance from her writing retreat in Lower Prospect.

I’d be even happier if it would rain, damn it – really rain, indicating a low pressure front coming through, to break this dreadful humidity. Maybe I’ll head over to the secondhand bookstore around the corner this afternoon to look for the Dorothy Sayers books Ginger recommended for me – that ought to incite the heavens to hurl water at me, especially if I wear a white shirt.

Keeping things in perspective, I recently began to read Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo. And I thought I had problems with my back, and with mild chronic pain! Now I just occasionally feel guilty while I read it, knowing that in comparison, my health is far superior to what hers was.

I spent seven hours yesterday writing a 36 page take-home final exam (those who know will know), and to my stunned and utter incomprehension, I am still not done. It’s maybe only 80% complete, but after yesterday, I need a day away from it.

Breaking The Camel’s Back

Well, hasn’t this just been the worst twenty-four hours.

Migraines; vertigo as bad as I had it two summers ago; bad dreams where I cried so hard in anger and frustration that I woke up this morning with tears on my face; my right wrist swollen so badly that I can’t move it to write with a pen; the discovery that an e-mail of immense importance bounced back to me yesterday; and my computer has crashed not once, but twice this morning so far. I’m just waiting to see how the day gets even worse.

We won’t be going on the weekend group camping trip we’d been looking forward to, due to my current state of health as well as a variety of other reasons. On one hand, it’s probably a good thing; I can’t imagine the utter terror I’d feel if besieged by a migraine and severe vertigo in an unfamiliar environment. On the other hand, it was guilt-inducing because we’d promised lifts to a couple of people. Now that I’ve discovered that the e-mail of immense importance notifying people of this change in plans didn’t reach anyone yesterday, I am not only feeling incredibly angry (with no one or nothing to at which to direct my anger) but incredibly stressed because there’s nothing to do but get people down there, at least, although we can’t get them back.

I was looking forward to this, damn it. I was looking forward to seeing good friends there too.

I’ve been experiencing feelings of inadequacy in my work, as well. I can’t seem to do anything right, or anything write. I’ve re-read work and been turned off by most of it, especially the Great Canadian Novel. Ideas all seem like limp dead mice or tasteless dried-up apples. Nothing works.

I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of convincing myself that I’m better, that I’m happy, that I can make something useful of myself. Now I’m just angry.

If I could only turn that into something else. Words. Thoughts. Something productive. But I’m sick of trying to change things into other things that they aren’t.

How can I be burning out again? What can I be burning out from? Or did I never pull myself out of the original crash-and-burn, just pretending to myself that I was better?