Must. Be. Meaningful.

I’ve started several blog posts that I haven’t finished. Percocet took over and I couldn’t think. And everything I write seems ridiculous. Trite. Meaningless.

I don’t have anything to add to the cancer narrative. I can’t add any original observations.

I’ve started reading two breast cancer memoirs. I finished the first chapter of one of them and now I can’t decide if I want to continue reading it. Her story is compelling and she’s honest, and I’m sure it is a worthwhile read (several people highly recommended the book), but I really can’t relate to the beginning of her story.

She went to a strip club when she found out she had breast cancer.

While many women have written about their experience, certain things about the disease are very personal. And how you feel about your body is an issue with this disease. How society feels about your body is part of this disease.

All of this makes certain aspects of the disease hard to talk about. Near impossible for me. Im happy to tell you about drains and medications and tissue expanders and chemo. That’s the easy stuff.

I keep dreaming about strange rooms, houses, apartments, filled with stuff, so much stuff that I keep realizing there is more stuff in them than I thought and someone or people come in and take the stuff away. In the dream, I can’t decide what to do, but I’m surprised at all the stuff and surprised that people want to take it away from me, and half the time I’m not dressed properly so I can’t do anything because I’m trying to find my clothes.

It’s something like that.

Imagination Fail

oncologist bunny

Eight days until surgery.

I’ve got my post-op shirts and even two small post-op pillows. One pillow is recommended for the drive home from the hospital. It will go between the seatbelt strap and me. I’ve seen post-op pictures of others to give me an idea what to expect. I’m getting my house in order, people are arranging to cook and to pick my son up for skate practice, and fundraisers have been set up.

And still I can’t quite believe this is happening.

Like when you’re a kid and you know that one day you’re going to be a grownup, but you can’t really believe it. Or your childless and decide to have a kid, having no clue as to what you’re in for. Or you get a publisher for your first book, but the book isn’t out yet and you can’t hold the book in your hands.

My imagination fails me so often. At least, it is easy to imagine these things happening to someone else, like a character in a book.

What events in your life did you find impossible to fully imagine until you got there?

Resistance isn’t always futile. Sometimes it stops progress for years.

Carl Sagan + my art!

I’ve been ignoring my blog. Maybe I mean neglecting. I’m supposed to be figuring a website for my art and all that. People ask me, “Do you have a website?” I feel most failure-esque to say, “I have a blog.” I mean, you can’t sell art on this thing. Sure, someone could leave me a comment about the art and we could go from there, but I don’t have a pretty page with all my images and stuff.

It shows a distinct lack of entrepreneurial spirit. But I did make all that art that is hanging in my show. I did make the art, frame it or come up with a way to display it, get a show date, and hang the stuff. And I’m editing my novel that my publisher is going to put out into the world in February. I’m participating in NaNoWriMo again too by the way. I’m teaching 20 hours a week. I’m going to speed skate practice. I’m illustrating a children’s book for my publisher. I’m spending time with my kid and doing most of the housework.

I’m neurotic, insecure, and obsessive. I’m not lazy.

But I cannot get myself to organize this into a proper website. I resist. I put it off. I think about and don’t understand it.

I don’t really know where this resistance comes from, but I will try to do better.

What is it in your life that you should be doing but you’re not? My list is certainly longer than just get a proper website. That’s what’s bothering me today.

Perfect Sentences and Other Lies

Some people promise to diet or to exercise every day or to be more patient. Do you do that? Swear you’re going to be different and somewhere between three minutes and three days that is all shot to hell?

Mine is that I’m going to be less neurotic.

I’ve been trying to come up with one sentence that captures the feelings/mood/idea of my novel. I felt like I’d been left alone on the edge of a mountain with the instructions to fly down or don’t come down at all and all I’ve got are some feathers and duct tape.

But really. All I have to do is write a sentence. Why I have to make it difficult is beyond me.

So, I’ve come up with a sentence. Here’s my first draft. I’m not happy with the word ‘trauma’ but can’t think of a better word right now.

Two sixteen-year-old girls, best friends, use magic and their wits to recover from trauma and to get revenge.

Thoughts?

Is that the best you can do?

In high school I spent one year on the yearbook staff. I started the class really excited, and I ended the class hoping never to speak of it again. When my mother saw the section I’d worked on–the advertising section, which I hated but did work hard on–she said, “That doesn’t look very good. That’s the best you can do?”

Or maybe she said, “That’s terrible.”

It’s hard to remember exactly because what I remember best was the pain that went through my chest. My mother wasn’t a mother of false praise.

The ads weren’t good though. I’d struggled with designing the ads. My relationship with the teacher was a disaster since I realized I wasn’t pretty enough to warrant his attention.

Maybe that wasn’t the problem. But I knew the popular boys and girls invited him to their parties and that sometimes he went.

You probably don’t need to be told I wasn’t ever invited to these parties. But I didn’t want to go to their parties. I wanted my mother to tell me I’d done a great job, that I had talent, that I should be an artist when I grew up.

She said (and this I remember), “I wouldn’t show that work to anyone if I were you.”

Twenty-five years later and I still haven’t.

So, last night I sent my “final” draft of my novel to my publisher. (Final until I get edits backs, that is.) All I have to do is wait for her to read the rewrites and tell me what she thinks.

It’s funny how something said to you years ago can stay lodged in your brain for decades. I wouldn’t show that work to anyone.

And here’s me trying to send my novel out for the world to see. (Although, the world isn’t going to see it. A tiny group of friends and some random strangers.)

We’ll see how it goes.

Editing Rehab

my work

Hello. My name is Marta, and I’m an editaholic.
I’ve spent hours editing, gotten lost editing, and been unable to remember what I just wrote after editing. After a long night of editing, I’ve woken up with strange characters in my head. During my breaks at work, I’d be eating my lunch and sneaking in some editing. When I’m away from my editing, editing is all I can think about. And even when I get some editing done, I think I could handle a little more editing. I knew I’d hit editing bottom when I edited my story to death.

Editing: The Mutant Virus Edition

If you want to be a published author, you have to edit your work. No matter the publishing path, editing is along the way.

Sometimes editing makes me feel like I know what I’m doing. Really. I see the problem. Take my pen to it. Look at the page and see all those marks, and hey, me, I’ve accomplished something. I can even flash that paper at someone and say, “Look what I did today!” It’s a bit like showing off my latest skate injury. It hurts, but I’m proud.

But editing (writing) isn’t always like that. Sometimes looking at my work makes me feel as if a flesh eating virus has wheedled, twisted, and hooked its way from my brow to my heart. I will have to wear a veil to hide the horror of it.

Yes, I like a bit of melodrama.

But a bit like the psychological drama of showing your face to the world if you know the world won’t want to see it…the world may not want to see my writing (I type here, showing the world my writing…). Maybe it would be best to veil the words. What is the point of showing one’s self to the world? Why do we want to do it?

No, I’m not going to cover up and hide. I am going to edit and all will be fine. I am a tiny speck of space dust and my book added to the planet won’t affect the earth’s gravitational pull or anything. But eventually it will make me happy. Happy-ish. The happy-ish speck of space dust.

Sounds like a comic strip.

So, when you edit your work, how do you feel?

Investaphobia

All my eggs in one basket?

No one in the history of the universe invests money in a company knowing they’re going to lose all said money. Oh, some people may invest in losers because they know how to actually get more money later–yeah, real estate nightmare, anyone–but the plan is to make money eventually.

People lose money of course. Plans go awry. Hopes are dashed. Dreams are deferred.

I don’t really understand any of it. I confess a deep suspicion that making money without actually making anything in return feels wrong. This sort of thinking gets me nowhere and I’ll probably be a hair’s breath from living in a box and eating beans out of a tin when I’m old. Well, I’ll draw pictures on my box, so there.

Anyway, I want to be a writer. I guess I am a writer? (How does one even know? It’s not like I got a certificate saying so.)

And this has required the craziest kind of investment. Do you want to be a writer? Well, here is Book Street. How much are you going to invest?

How much time? I’ve written 8 novels and at least 80 short stories. That’s taken years. How much money have I made with my writing? $10. That’s less than a dollar per year.

(Thankfully, I like baked beans.)

Well, if you count the cost paper, ink, and postage, I think that $10. is, well, not going to cover it.

But I’m finally, FINALLY!!, going to have my first novel, The Blue Jar published. I am happy. Happy about this fact. Make no mistake. The feeling that I’m dragging my battered carcass over a finish line is nothing compared to the feeling of knowing I have reached that finish line.

Although, it isn’t a finish line, is it?

I’ve got all those other manuscripts, and more I want to write. And I’ll write even if they move the finish line across an ocean on fire and on the other side of a mountain of knives.

But it’s a lot to ask my family. Hey, sacrifice all this money and time on my dream! But else does a person say? Don’t mind me. I’ll give up my dream because you’re here.

No. Not going to do that.

There are no guarantees. No one can predict how a book will sell. My book could sell thousands of copies or next to none. All this work, time, and money and I could still be left with an unread book. And several never-going to be read books.

What kind of investment is the writing life and why do we do it?

I think Wall Street is too risky, and yet I do this.

Hope springs eternal. And foolishly. Gloriously.

“The point is that writing, for lack of a better occupation, is good. Writing is right, writing works. Writing clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Writing, in all of its forms; writing for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And writing, you mark my words, will not only save my life, but that other malfunctioning part of me called my soul. Thank you very much.”*

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*Totally lifted from the Gordon Gekko speech in the movie Wall Street. (Though I’ve never actually seen the movie.)

The Perplexity of Others

one of my son’s projects

A fellow human being does something you don’t understand, how do you react?

It depends, probably.

Maybe you get confused, angry, or sad.

Maybe you tell yourself to keep an open mind, but maybe you’re clear on right and wrong.

I try to open my mind to another possibility. Sometimes I manage it. Sometimes not.

Now, if you read my blog, I assume you read fiction. Am I wrong?

But in the real world, I meet people who say things like, “I don’t read fiction. I only like true stories.”

A student of mine recently said she doesn’t watch movies because they aren’t real and therefore are a waste of her time.

Stories. A waste of time.

Okay, I realize I’m a fiction writer, and so my reaction is self-serving. Fine. Whatever.

And part of me does want to be reasonable and say, “Well, everyone is different and likes different things. That’s okay.”

But a less generous side of me exist. (Don’t you have such a side?) And this side says something more like, “What? What is wrong with you?”

Because, if I’m honest, that’s what I really think. Something is wrong with these people.

Don’t like fiction. What?!

My good-and-noble side battles with my I’m-right-you’re-wrong side. I fight the urge to shake these people. What did your parents do to you?!

Is it okay not to like fiction? What does liking or not liking fiction mean?

And this doesn’t even begin to touch on the people who don’t like fantasy or science-fiction. It’s not real, they say. I only like real stories.

One of my least favorite lines in the English language. I only like real stories. No matter how rationally a person says that, I hear it as only a whine.

And I know that deep in my heart I think something is wrong with that person even as I scold myself for being a jerk.

I recently watched a TED Talk (can’t remember which one at the moment) that talked about how we feel when people disagree with us. First, we think something along the lines of, “That person is stupid.” If we realize that person is not stupid but still disagrees with us, we think, “That person is ignorant. If they had all the facts, they’d agree with me.” Then we realize that the person is not stupid, has all the same facts we do, and STILL disagrees with us. We conclude, “That person is evil.”

I’m not saying I think you’re evil for not liking fiction…but…

I do think it is important to realize that normal, good people can get the same information and come to a different conclusion–and not be evil. Hard to put that into practice, don’t you think?

But I still think you’re living only half a life if you don’t like fiction.

The Scariest Part

So it begins.

I’ll edit my novel. My novel will go out into the world.

I’ve worked many years for this.

Today I told my dad that my book will be published. I never talk to him about my writing. Once, years ago, I told him I’d written a book. His only reaction was to say, “Oh. It must be about something.”

“Yes.”

He changed the subject.

I imagine he’s worried I’ve written about him. My dad doesn’t appear in any of my novels. Not knowingly anyway.

He doesn’t read, so I can’t picture him reading my novel.

But other people will read it. Even if the only people who read are my friends, people will read it. Finally.

And some of them will like it.
Some won’t.

We all know–pick any book in the world and there will be people who hate it. Who gets through life being loved by everybody?

But it will be strange to hand my book to people who know me, who’ve been waiting for this moment too, who’ve been supporting me…

Like any good adventure, this is scary and exciting.