Wednesday! 3.23.11

I was trying to figure out, yet again, what to call this wednesday segment of links and the phrase 'Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp' popped into my head. I never watched it but my friend Joyce would always bring it up in high school during lunch. That was a time in my life when my brain was very sticky and I'd pretty much remember anything. So, for that reason, Lancelot Link Secret Chimp is taking up valuable, ever dwindling space in my head. And now, I bequeath it to you.

First, he pisses Oprah off, now James Frey's going to bring down the wrath of God. Jesus wept!

I think this is a cool idea, I just wish I'd heard of it on March first instead of a week before it ends. I need NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month), I just don't think I can squeeze any editing into a week. But maybe you can? Good luck!

Finally, Laura Miller over on Salon talks about the new Bradley Cooper movie Limitless and how it relates to concepts of writer's block and the creative impulse. This is good because it makes the movie seem less stupid and fluffy, though it undoubtably is. When I take myself over to the Regal Cinema to see it, I will be telling myself I'm watching for contemporary portrayals of writer's in Hollywood. Or, wow, Bradley Cooper looks like a younger Ralph Fiennes.

The Muse and the Wall

I've been trying to do more than write in the last year and a half since I moved away from NYC, away from board meetings, away from Pret A Manger. I've been trying to build for myself a sustainable writing life. I don't want this to be a flash in the pan. I don't want you or my mother or my neighbor to check in here a year from now to find that I've taken up pig farming or pottery. I'm not starting a hobby, I tell myself, I'm building a life.

There are countless pros and cons to the writing life and you see mention of them everywhere, especially the cons. They range from lack of funds to working so hard at building an author platform that writing time dwindles.

But for me there's only one pro and one con to actual writing. The Muse and the Wall.

The Muse
In 1996 Nick Cave sent a letter to MTV Europe, thanking them for nominating him for an award, but basically telling them to withdraw his nomination. Why? He thought that participating in competative awards could offend his muse ("She might spook!")

I don't think he's being funny, though he's a strange lad, it's always hard to tell. I think he sincerely believes in his muse and is not taking any chances. I don't believe in muses per se, the grecian goddesses who bestow inspiration onto artists of all kinds. But I guess that's as good a term as any for what I sometimes experience. I call it being poleaxed because I stiffen up, I feel frozen for a second or two. An idea suddenly appears and starts to unroll in my head. It feels like it comes from somewhere else because it arrives so entirely where nothing was there before. Not all creative ideas are like this, but the ones that are make time seem to slow. It's a physical sensation too, a numbness that travels down my arms to my finger tips.

You can explain this as creative intuition, the subconscious breaking through to the conscious, but it feels a hell of a lot like divine intervention. When this happens to me, I feel amazing, excited and transported. This feeling is the best thing about being creative, about writing, regardless of what I make of that first seed of an idea. I keep writing because of that feeling.

The Wall
Okay, I'm cheating a little. There are two, different walls. The first is the wall you stumble into while you're writing, the one that wasn't there a minute ago and suddenly is there. It's too tall to scale and it goes on, left and right, forever. It's writer's block. Usually I can feel somewhat positive about the wall because I can look at it as a challenge. But sometimes it truly feels insurmountable and I'm cast into deep doldrums. I hate that feeling because even though recent history shows that I can get through it, it always threatens to derail me. I'm afraid, one day, the derailment will be permanent.

The other wall is really a curtain. See, I'm backstage with the pulleys, the wires, the trap doors and the grease paint. And everyone else is in the audience. Whether the audience likes my words or not doesn't matter, they get to experience them in a way I never can. Francine Prose talks about this in her excellent book Reading Like a Writer. I'm always at a distance from my writing, I'll never discover it like a reader will. That makes me a little sad and a little crazy. Lots of writers say they want to write the kind of books they want to read - but our own books are never really for us.

So, what one pro and one con of writing for you - what are they?

Count Back From 100....Exploratory Surgery for a WIP

Instead of writing during the four minutes my youngest was attentively watching Mr. Noodle attempt to tie his shoes, I  read Chuck Lorre's vanity card page. It's funnier and not as sad as Charlie Sheen.

I promise I won't digress into CS territory again unless either Chuck produces either the Holy Grail or Jimmy Hoffa. Sorry.

So, in an effort to jump start my writing again, I'm going to dissect it. That's not to say it's dead and needs a post mortem. I guess I could say I'll be doing exploratory surgery instead, but I don't have enough anesthesia for that. Get double gloved and start up the Stryker saw, here we go:

Problem: I'm standing with my protagonist, Fin, on the Road to Damascus. We're literally on the road. I mean, we're walking toward the Big Effing Climax. All will be revealed, except what won't and Fin will or won't accomplish what he needs to. This is IT.

Only, he's not moving. And I can't make him move. I've tried to put him on a horse, I've tried having him go on his own and with others. I've had people talk to him while (I swear this is true) he's peeing against a tree, angrily telling him that he's just not getting it, man. All of this I've deleted, which leaves Fin where we started more than a week ago. On the Road to Damascus, or more accurately, on the road to the Village.

Possible Reasons for Fin's immovability:
1) I'm scared. Now that the 'set up' is over, now that all possibilities lead to one road, I'm drying up, afraid I've made the wrong choices.

2) I don't know what Fin will do so he doesn't do anything. This isn't as daft as it sounds. If I haven't developed him deeply enough, even I might be unsure of what he will do.

2b) Subset of above, I have made Fin too much of a waffler - meaning, he himself hasn't come to terms with the world he's in and he's not achieved that moment of resolve, that moment of determination that enables the hero to GO.

3) I haven't developed the rebellion enough. I've alluded to it and explained it, but have I shown it? Is it making itself felt to the reader, or does it seem tacked on? If it isn't felt, then what Fin is walking towards won't feel like the 'big' moment.

Of course, I suspect that all of the above are true, which I guess is better than not knowing what ails you, but CRUMBS, I don't want to go back before I've finished. It feels like when you leave your house and walk down the street and remember that you've left something you need behind and you have to go back the way you came. Wait. Does that not freak anyone else out but me? I always try to go back home a different way...Anyway...

How do you know when pushing through is the right answer or if stopping and going back is the right answer? Hurry up with the answers, please. The patient is on the table and I've got him open from chin to chops!

Charlie Sheen and the Sucky Writing Week

Sigh. The way he was.

So. Charlie Sheen is a wizard.
I admit, I'm a fantasist too. I wanted to believe that Jed Bartlett was the real president of the United States so badly that from 2000-2008, I'd have dreams about it. But even I can't believe Charlie's 'clean' - despite being the fruit of the most sacred Martin Sheen loins. He's having the worst week yet, though he doesn't know it yet. The come down is going to be a welt-raising bitch slap.

Why am I writing about Charlie Sheen? Because I felt like it, and because I'm trying to avoid writing about writing. Last week was the worst writing week I've experienced in a long time. It just sucked. Literally, sucked the life and joy right out of me. It started off with a vague malaise where I'd think, "Hmm. Maybe it's not going so well...Never mind! I'll just push on!" It ended with a deep, self-pitying depression leaving me on the floor, face planted next to my charcoal drawing of a three-toed sloth, telling my husband that the only decent thing for me to do with my WIP is to use it as kindling. He reminded me that since I hadn't printed it out yet, that wasn't a good idea.

No he didn't. He would never say something meanly snarky like that, that was what I would have said to myself. What my good, kind, husband unleashed on me was a soothing cloud of sense and logic, support and love. I tried my best to ignore it and sulk anyway.

Instead of what I usually do on bad days, which is try, try again the next day, this time I just shut down. Didn't write for nearly six days, didn't post and didn't think about my little, fragile WIP world. I just put a lid on it and walked away. Frankly, I was afraid if I didn't do that I might go in there and start ripping shit up.

This week, I think, is better. I'm posting. And I'm thinking about writing and the writing world. And I'm trying not to be such a tissue paper mess. We'll see how it goes.

What do you do when your writing world falls apart? I know, I've asked this question before. I just like hearing the inspiring responses.