The in-between time

I've been a little scarce around these parts because I've been pouring my writing energy into a certain writing project. That project has now reached the milestone I was aiming for, so I get to come out of my cave, blinking, and see what's going on in the world. I will be scarce for another week or so while I pursue another, non-writing, interest.

But while I'm here, I'd like to speak about this in-between time, this break in a writer's life. I used to jump almost immediately from one project to another, as if I were trying to outrun ... something. I don't know what. Sometimes that jump can be eager, an excitement to start the new thing, but for me I think it was more about fear, about losing a day or not staying relevant or something. Now I savor a break. I have more trust that the next project will bubble up when it's ready, and in the meantime it's OK to reacquaint myself with the world beyond my keyboard.

Enjoy your time, whether you're inside or outside of the writing cave at the moment!

Lists

It doesn't surprise me that there is such a thing as a "list poem." I'm a big fan of lists--I could hardly navigate my way through a week without them--and there are some lists that do evoke the poetic. I've always loved lists of colors (as in a watercolor paintbox, a box of crayons, a clothing catalog, paint chips). A menu is a mouth-watering list. A trip to the airport offers a horizontal list poem as I walk past other gates to get to mine, reading the destinations off the gate screens and mentally adding an exclamation point to each: Honolulu! Phoenix! San Francisco! Denver! Seattle!

I snuck a list poem of sorts into my third novel, Until It Hurts to Stop, when the main character muses over the names of mushrooms in a field guide. Tree names, bird names, and wildflower names are just as satisfying. (I used to pore over a flower book that included in its offerings "viper's bugloss," "blue vervain," and "butter-and-eggs." What more could a word person ask, than such names?) The challenge in a creative list, such as a list poem, is deciding what to include and what to leave out, and how to arrange the items. But sometimes I just enjoy the lists I stumble across in the world as found poems.

Thankful for the window

Before I set up the writing office I have now, I read or heard somewhere that your desk shouldn't face the window. It should face the wall, because a window is too distracting.

I've been grateful a million times that I ignored that advice. The window over my desk shows me trees in all seasons. It has shown me spiderwebs glistening in the sun, and squirrels jumping through branches. I have seen ice and rain, a bat, birds and insects of all kinds. Cicadas have clung to the screen, and fireflies have drifted past to blink their lights at the green lights on my computer.

But what about writing? you may ask. Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing here? Haven't I just proven how distracting a window is?

For me, it's the kind of distraction that has enhanced my writing rather than blocked it. Something about facing a blank wall felt stifling, like a punishment. (This is just me; it isn't so for everyone. Many writers may find a blank wall a perfect canvas for their imaginations.) This window of mine reminds me there's a world out there, the world I'm writing about. It gives me breathing room, a view of nature. I spend a lot of time staring at a computer screen. Every now and then I need to lift my eyes to the greenery out my window.

What's your favorite feature of the place where you write?

What kind of writer am I?

When people say they want to be writers, that can mean many things; there are many kinds of writers to be.

There's journalism, technical writing, advertising. There are educational materials and novels and poems, mysteries and biographies, memoirs and instruction books, screenplays and short stories. At some point a writer gravitates toward a genre and an audience.

Along the way, writers also discover what they expect and hope for in terms of pursuing commercial success. There are writers publishing their own work, bringing out multiple books a year, figuring out how to get their work edited and marketed and formatted. There are writers who publish poems in a local newsletter for free and find it a happy addition to their lives, but they make their living in other ways. There are writers whose chief aim is to do something new with language or form, and writers whose chief aim is to reach a large general audience.There are writers everywhere along these spectra, writers with many different goals.

My own expectations and desires have changed over the past few years. I've come to see how much writing vs. everything else (editing, marketing, selling, teaching, etc.) I want to do. I've come to learn where I want writing to fit into my life. I've come to the point where what I have and what I want are much more closely aligned. I've thought about how I want to spend my time and energy.

Sometimes I read writing advice about how writers have to do X, Y, and Z to be successful, when what the advice-giver really means is that X, Y, and Z gave him the kind of success he wanted. There is a natural variation in whether X, Y, and Z will produce the same results for every writer who wants that brand of success. But before that, a writer can ask: Is that the career I even want? Or does my ideal career look somewhat different?

Thoughts while line editing

What did I mean by that?
I'm going to have to rewrite this section. Needs tension.
Used that word three times in this paragraph. How about a synonym?
I still love this scene.
That character needs to sound more natural.
I will shrink this page of exposition down to a potent, useful nugget.
Ah, there's a typo.
Didn't I give that character a different first name earlier on?
Delete.
I'm going to finish sooner than I thought!
This is going to take longer than I thought.