Category: Uncategorized

Writing vs being a writer

I ran into a quote from Alex Haley, author of Roots, that I wish I could find again. It pointed out that it was better to love writing than to love being a writer, because when you love being a writer, you’re in love with the trappings of fame and money. 

And that’s what happened to me — I fell in love with chasing publication, with chasing a vision of fame. And, not finding it, I wanted to let my writing go.

I’m finally starting to get back into writing again. Just in time to go on a trip where I’m not going to get much done.

I’m still working on a short story, Hands, about one of my characters in Prodigies. It’s a background story, one of those “what influenced this character” ideas, but it also reflects some of today’s issues with white nationalism. I have the bare bones all written (ok, mostly written) and put together into a Word file, and I now have to smooth and develop and finesse it. A lot like sitting over a finished first draft of a novel, but shorter.  I’ve already written another from Prodigies, although it’s more of a character sketch, called Tanabata. 

Short stories aren’t as “sexy” as novels. They don’t become national best-sellers, and they don’t make money. But they get my name out there, and they can give little drops of affirmation.

I’m also packing up for a road trip — by train. It’s my annual moulage gig for New York Hope. I think I’ve mentioned this before. But train travel is fun for writing — either in the observation lounge where the scenery passes by, or in the sleeper car. 

Review: Rocketbook with Frixion (not Flexion) pen

I got my Rocketbook with Frixion pen yesterday and decided to give it a whirl. It’s a thin notebook with slippery-feeling pages with a bar code in the corner.

Writing on it with the Flexion pen was the smoothest experience I’ve ever had writing. My fears of scratchy writing were based on Frixion markers, which are scratchy and pale on paper. The pen, a rollerball, has none of these problems. There’s no grid or even visible dots to guide one’s writing, yet my lines were almost perfect because of, apparently, the smoothest of the writing surface.

Scanning took a little more effort. Instead of clicking a few buttons and sending the scan to Dropbox, I had to scan the pages one at a time, click a few buttons, and mail it to myself to get a digitized copy, as scanning to Dropbox yields only a scanned and not digitized copy. That’s no big deal.

I found the optical character recognition (OCR) is slightly less sensitive than the Moleskine+ setup. I believe this comes from using a scan rather than a camera to digitize. It would work better, I’m sure, if I printed rather than used my idiosyncratic writing. I have to think about whether I can print fast enough to get my thoughts out, or if the slowdown is to my advantage.

The book erases cleanly with a microfiber towel and a touch of water. This is an advantage and a disadvantage, as most of us don’t carry microfiber towels with us. But those pages are perfectly clean to use again.

So here’s the breakdown for the Rocketbook/Frixion pen:

Advantages:

  • Smooth writing
  • Renewable
  • Destination setups 
  • Much less expensive
Disadvantages:
  • Slightly less clear OCR
  • A little (only a little) more convoluted to use
  • Need to send to mail to digitize
I’m going to play with both for a while, but I’m biased toward the Rocketbook right now because of its cost and the fact that I can erase pages after I’m done with them. The deal breaker will be if it can’t catch up with my handwriting or if I can’t improve my handwriting to make it clearer.

Moleskine+ vs Rocketbook — let’s see

I’ve been writing at best sporadically the past few days, experimenting with something that I really haven’t done much of, and that’s composing in a notebook.

I generally compose on the computer because my advisor for my dissertation program strongly encouraged this. I like composing on the computer because of my anal-retentive tendencies which get riled up by editing on paper. I hate scribbles. I hate white-out. I hate crossing things out neatly. And forget about pencils, because they smear. I want a pristine page with pretty handwriting, and I will tear out a page and rewrite if that’s what it takes. I waste a lot of time and a lot of paper. 

Hence, my consumer experiment. I have a Moleskine+ pen I bought with a settlement from Barnes and Noble a few years ago. The original pen didn’t function well, so I just got a replacement that does work. This pen, plus a proprietary marked notebook from Moleskine, allows one to write while the camera in the pen records keystrokes, and these pages can be digitized through OCR and sent to Dropbox (or other places) to be repaired as needed — the OCR is not perfect, but it handles my idiosyncratic writing well. 

So let me lay out the advantages and disadvantages of this:

Advantages:

  • The pen writes smooth as butter
  • The notebook is pretty
  • Will digitize several pages at a time.
  • Decent handwriting recognition
  • Relatively robust iPhone app
Disadvantages:
  • The pen requires charging
  • The notebooks cost $27 apiece; there are no cheaper options
  • Scribbles — even more disconcerting because they’re in a pretty notebook
I’m trying an alternative which is known as a Rocketbook, which set me back about $30. The notebook is also proprietary; but it is made of material that can be reused by either wiping or putting in the microwave (I’ve heard both). You write using an ordinary Flexion pen (An erasable/washable pen made by Pilot in many colors); other pens will become permanent. The magic is in the iPhone/Android app which does screen capture and digitizing.

The advantages and disadvantages (ahead of my trial) look like this:

Advantages (perceived): 
  • Reusable, and therefore less expensive
  • Better designed for use as a tool and not a permanent record
  • Can use with more than one pen as long as it’s Flexion
  • Could make mistakes and erase using liquid
Disadvantages (perceived):
  • Flexion pens don’t write as solidly as other pens
  • Flexion pens can feel scratchy (at least on paper)
  • Scanning must be done one page at a time.
So I will be comparing both methods to see which works the best for my drafting on paper, and furthermore, to see if there’s advantages to drafting on paper such as enhanced creativity or the ability to jot random notes down.

Live as if you’re already published

In a trance last night, my mind told me to live as if I’ve already been published.

That’s an interesting concept. My rational self wonders what it really means, though.

There are ways in which I can’t live as if I’ve already been published. For example, I can’t show off my writing to my friends. I can’t plan a book publishing party or a book tour. I can’t try to sell the nonexistent book at writers’ or readers’ conferences. 

So what does living as if I’ve already been published mean? I can take the pressure off myself; I don’t have to prove anything. I don’t have to believe myself inferior to those authors who have published books. Technically, I am an author, having published a few professional articles in my field, one opinion piece in the local newspaper, several personal essays for progressive religion publications, one short story and one flash fiction. So I can call myself an author even if I haven’t published a book.

I don’t have to prove anything. I’m already published. I’ll keep trying to publish a book, but I don’t have to anymore. I’ve accomplished my original goal.

Shedding illusions

This blog entry meditates on my horoscope from Rob Brezsny, whose horoscopes are in and of themselves meditations. It can be found here:

I have lost many illusions about writing, some of which are embarassing to admit, although I will admit them anyway.

  • I thought people would be impressed with me for being a writer.
  • I thought it would be easy to get published because I’m a good writer and because I’d been writing to refereed journals for years with little difficulty.
  • I thought my first draft was my final draft because I make very few grammatical and spelling errors.
  • I thought my talent would shine through mediocre query materials. 
  • I thought writing a blog would get me lots of followers.
  • I thought I wasn’t a real writer because I hadn’t gotten published.
  • I thought my writing must be bad because agents didn’t bite.
  • I thought I should quit writing because I hadn’t been published.
  • I thought the accomplishment was in publishing, not writing.
  • I thought writing would change my life.
I dreamed of book release parties (I still do), meetings with agents, having my picture on the back of a book cover, book signings, ex-boyfriends having to choke on seeing my name on a book cover (I have always dated nerds.) These, especially the ex-boyfriend part, are also illusion for now. I may or may never get to see the reality.

These were the illusions I have shed over the past several years. Except the last one, because I think writing must have changed my life, but not in big momentous ways.

Where to from here? 

Working on Optimism

I got another rejection today; that makes four out of 25 on Apocalypse. I might have to accept the fact that I get through this querying cycle without any offers, or even nibbles, again.

I’m not sure what to do. I suppose I can wait and query my novels again, to see if the climate has improved. Or I can self-publish, and I’m still very opposed to doing that. I don’t know if there’s an editor that can help at this point. 

I’m going to try to stay optimistic, mostly because it feels better that way. I am going to let this adversity strip me down to gold, and I don’t know what that version of me will look like, but I’m willing to go there.


Beyond Thoughts and Prayers

I don’t normally go political with this blog, but in the face of this weekend of deadly shootings in the US, I need to say something.

Why won’t Americans make wise decisions about guns, ones where we don’t assume we need guns because we don’t trust others not to have guns? The ones where we realize that our chances of getting shot at the Walmart may become as likely as getting shot in a home invasion? 

My suspicion, one which others share, is that guns are too thoroughly woven into American mythology and thus in American consciousness for us to disarm easily. Our existence started with a guerilla war of colonists against the mother country. We took land from its rightful owners through firepower, we fought wild animals on our journey westward, hunted our own food … Guns are as much a part of the mythology as log cabins and wagon trains.

I don’t think it’s inevitable that we give up on gun control completely. We should ban weapons designed to deliver a barrage of bullets in a very short time — our ancestors didn’t have those. They’re not needed for hunting. They have been banned before, and deaths from guns decreased by 40%. Since that ban expired, deaths from guns increased by about 240%. The only reasons people want them is for status, for fun (it is fun blowing things up), and for killing people.

We could require gun owners to lock their guns up when not in use, with stiff penalties. Granted, no penalty is as stiff as the death of children from playing with an unattended gun, but these deaths don’t seem to prompt families into locking up their guns. 

We should require background checks — not just for mental illness, but felonies, domestic violence, reports of violent ideation. These should be reciprocal from state to state or federally managed. I understand that gun owners are afraid to be put on a “list”, but there should be a responsibility gun owners take when taking on a lethal weapon that can be used for multiple deaths quickly.

Most of all, however, we need a new mythology in the US, one which supports ingenuity, creativity, adaptability, and community. These qualities are represented in our history — settlers needed to rely on each other to survive, vibrant and colorful communities developed across the country, we learn and adapt from our trespasses in the past against those not like us (at least I hope so).  We have to find a way to make the American Dream accessible to everyone, so that guns are seen as superfluous to our identity.


I need to remind myself

I didn’t write yesterday, because I was busy with getting set up for the beginning of the school year. The hard part’s done — all online class presence is sorted out and in order with due dates accurate, the syllabus pristine, and all that. 

I’m also in the middle of a miserable summer cold that’s been hanging on, so I’m a bit dopey.

I confess that I haven’t written in a while. A week at least, what with the classes and the queries and the cold and the like … I haven’t written more than a half hour to finish a story. I will try to write today, because writing. Even if I only write a couple paragraphs, I need to write.

I need to remind myself that I’m a writer.

The Changing Seasons of the Academic Calendar


It’s August first, and I can feel the season change even though it’s warm outside. That’s because I base my seasons on the academic calendar, and there are only three seasons: fall semester, spring semester, and summer.

I’m approaching the end of summer right now, so I’m beginning to prepare for fall semester, updating my online classwork, getting a new work computer, finishing up my internships, cleaning up and rearranging my office (already done!), setting up my calendar … the rhythm of life changes.

Fall semester is the beginning of my calendar, as it brings new things: A shiny new school year, new students, beginning meetings (ok, not everything about the new school year is wonderful). It also embraces football (American) tailgates, dressing up for Halloween, the feast of Thanksgiving, the Christmas season and its associated rituals on a college campus. 

Spring semester starts with winter — the Christmas snow is now slushy and dirty, the beginning of the semester meetings seem like same old same old, and Valentine’s Day as a holiday just doesn’t measure up to Christmas. But then come Spring, and the unexpected: the Northwest Yeti comes out of hiding, there’s a big cow statue in front of the Hy-Vee grocery store, art installations spring up like mushrooms, and students plunge into the chilly waters of Colden Pond for charity. 

Then we come back to summer, where things slow down, and faculty spend their summers teaching abroad or taking on interns or taking summer classes or teaching short, intensive summer classes. And going on vacation. My summer has been spent supervising interns, taking a class for my certification in Disaster Mental Health, doing moulage (simulating physical injury and illness for training purposes), and taking a mini-vacation. And writing. 

So that is my year, and the signs of a seasonal change keep popping up: the announcement of beginning of semester meetings, the back-to-school sales, discussions of how well our football team may do this year (we have one of the best Division II teams in the nation, which for those of you in other countries would be like a lower division soccer league), and emails from students trickling in. 

It should be a good year.

******************

Yesterday was a tough day — two rejections (one agent, one submission of a short story). I don’t feel so bad about the short story rejection, because I think my choice of genre (fantasy) might keep my work from being accepted by some markets. And there’s a lot of competition.

I need to toughen up about agent rejections. 

I truly believe at this point that I’m getting rejections because of something as simple as fashion, and I will believe that until someone says otherwise. I’m willing to improve, but I’ve improved as much as dev editors, beta readers, publishing coaches, and my own judgment have allowed me to.

Please wish me luck. I’m serious.