writing

Why Write?

The other day I picked up a book of essays and found a paragraph that made me cry because it so perfectly explains how I feel about blogging. The book is Leaping: revelations and epiphanies by Brian Doyle. In the section I read Doyle is trying to answer the question “Why write?”

Why then? Why do I write?
Because I see little stories everywhere and I like to catch them and show them to other people much as a child catches a moth and exhibits it with glee to friends and passersby.

Yes. That is exactly why I blog. I read that quote and my heart unfolded because Doyle’s words are exactly right. It fills me with joy to see the exact words that describe my experience. It also makes me a little sad, because I did not say them. Now that I’ve found the perfect words, to use other words feels paltry. This means that any time I answer the question “why blog” I will have to use Doyle’s words instead of my own. I wish I could have found my own perfect words.

I am aware that I probably will write my own perfect words in the future, because experiences evolve. Doyle’s words are perfect at this moment, but in a year, or two, or ten, my experience of blogging will have changed shape. It will need different words and Doyle’s words will not change. Then I will need to find new words to describe this different experience. I will make my own words again. Or perhaps at that distant juncture I will trip across another set of perfect words to describe my experience of writing. Or perhaps the perfect words will describe some other aspect of my existence. With all of these writers out there trying to explain everything, it is inevitable that someone has already wrapped words around my experiences. If I search hard enough I could find it. When I contemplate this, I begin to wonder why I bother writing at all. It has all been said before, hasn’t it? Even this question is not original to me. Doyle asked it and answered it with a quotation from the writer James Boswell who also asked the question then answered it thus:

Every size of readers requires a genius of corresponding capacity. Some minds are overpowered by splendor of sentiment, as some eyes are offended by a glaring light. Such will gladly contemplate an author in humble imitation, as we look without pain upon the sun in the water. Every writer has his use.

Every writer has her use. Sometimes the use of my writing is merely my own personal joy in finding the right words to wrap around my meanings. Sometimes my words become the perfect words to describe an experience for someone else. I must also contemplate the fact that not everyone is a writer. It is hard for me to picture since written words are so integral to my thinking and because the majority of people with whom I spend time are writers in some capacity. But there are out there people for whom words are difficult. There are people who depend upon writers to give words to their experiences. There are people for whom discovering the perfect words is a godsend because they can’t make the words themselves. Sometimes my words end up being those perfect words. This always astounds and awes me. It is not like I have given a gift, but more like a gift passed through me and I am merely touched by the passage. And so I scribble in the hopes that I will be similarly touched again as my words touch others.

And as I write, I discover things I did not realize I knew. I began this entry to talk about a set of perfect words which encapsulated my reasons for blogging, but in the process of writing I have discovered whole vistas of reasons that are not contained in the quote about capturing small stories. Already the words are no longer perfect.
But they are still good, and I will borrow them from time to time as I am speaking or writing about blogging. When I do, I will credit Doyle for writing them which is the only gift I can give him in return for the lovely words he shared with the world at large. I do not know if the rest of Doyle’s book will prompt as strong an emotional response as his prologue about writing, but I look forward to finding out.

Professional Jealousy inside a Marriage

A few weeks ago, in preparation for an online interview, Howard invited his fans to ask him questions. One of the questions asked was more appropriate for me than for Howard. The question was “How does Sandra feel about all the attention you have been getting lately?” I presume the attention referred to was Howard’s front page appearance in our local paper and a couple of lecture invitations. The first thing I need to make clear is that Howard getting more public notice than me is not a new development in our marriage. He has always been more in the public eye. For most of our marriage I liked it that way. The real difference lately is not that Howard is getting more attention (although there is a bit more lately), but that I am somewhat visible instead of completely invisible. So how do I feel about being primarily noticeable as the support crew rather than on my own creative efforts? Am I ever jealous of Howard’s fame?

The short answer is that I am always happy for him. I love to see him succeed. I know how hard he works and I know that the attention he gets is not more than he deserves. When Howard is happy, I am happy. Additionally, I love Schlock Mercenary and anything that helps it grow makes me happy as well.

This answer is true, but it is not complete. It accounts for 95% of my reaction whenever Howard gets public acclaim. The remaining 5% is made up of much more selfish voices, whose responses are complex and layered. Yes this small percentage of me sometimes feels jealous. All human beings want to be recognized for their efforts. We all want praise and respect. It is very natural to want more for ourselves when we see an abundance being showered on someone else.

The occasional pang of jealousy is greatly reduced by the knowledge that without my help, Howard could not accomplish what he does. I am essential to his business, creative, and emotional processes. I know it. Howard knows it. And he expresses appreciation for it frequently. Therefore any success that Howard attains, is also my success. Howard is not shy about publicly giving me credit even if the public doesn’t pay much attention. I would probably feel much differently if Howard did not constantly praise and credit my efforts. He knows all that I do. I know all that I do. It is enough. This is the same emotional curve that many editors and creative support crew must ride. Private satisfaction rather than public acclaim carry the day.

Harder to manage emotionally is the comparison between my own creative efforts and Howard’s. I write stories, I write a blog, I’ve published a book, but none of these things have earned even a tiny fraction of the attention that Howard’s work earns on a daily basis. This is not for lack of trying on Howard’s part. He is very good about bringing my things to the attention of his fans, but he can not make them love what I do. I’ve had to accept that his audience is not my audience. My work does not get to piggyback on the swell of his success. Part of me grieves over this. It would be so much nicer if my efforts for Schlock Mercenary allowed me to skip some of the establishing steps for my own creative work. But careful reflection has made me glad that I can not piggyback. This way if my work ever does succeed I know it does so on its own merits rather than on Howard’s.

So then the question becomes am I ever jealous of the time I spend on Schlock Mercenary that I could be spending forwarding my own creative work? Of course I am. I’m also jealous of the time I have to spend doing dishes, playing with kids, eating, and sleeping. All of these things take their turn being what I desire most to do. They all are part of me and part of the things I love doing. If I could empty my life of these things, I could fill my days with writing. I could push forward a career as an author. Perhaps someday I will be able to push harder on the writing, but that is not what I need to focus on now. Emptying my life would probably empty my writing as well. Besides, I love the editorial work I do for the Schlock Mercenary books. It taps into and satisfies a piece of my creative psyche that is not touched by writing words alone. As we’re able to afford employees, I’ll probably hand off the shipping and office manager type work, but I suspect I’ll hold on to the editorial tasks.

One thing I do get jealous of is Howard’s convention attendance. Only “jealous” is not the right word. I don’t want to go instead of him. I want to go along with him. I want to meet the amazing people he gets to meet and share in the fun times. But this sadness does not drive a wedge between us because it is my choice. We could arrange for me to go much more often than I do, but I choose to stay home and provide stability for the kids. Knowing that it is my choice rather than some external denial makes staying home easier to bear. I also know that in the long term I will be able to go more often. Conventions will always be there, but the time for me to care for my young children is finite. I must care for them now, knowing that the future will have more public gatherings for me.

The most important thing to note is that the 5% of me that dissents about celebrating Howard’s success never sticks around for very long. I might feel it in passing for an hour or a day, but never longer than that. It comes in a flash and leaves just as quickly. On the few occasions it does not depart quickly, Howard and I have discussions where I air my feelings. Invariably Howard makes clear how important I am to him and how much he loves my creative work as well as me. And when I look into his eyes, I know he means what he says. Somehow compared with that, public acclaim seems a very unimportant thing indeed.

Life the Universe and Everything Symposium at BYU

Attendance at LTUE was the highest I’ve ever seen it. as usual, I met marvelous new people and reconnected with friends whom I seldom see. Also as usual, several exciting new possibilities have opened up as a result of the conversations. Now I need to follow up on those possibilities and bring them to fruition.

At the end of the convention a group of 21 people all went out for dinner. It was a delight to gather so many wonderful people in the same place. I had to duck out early. My departure was triggered by a phone call from Gleek, but honestly I’d reached fatigued burn out. I was listening to conversations more than participating and from talking to Gleek I could tell that the kids had reached a burn out of sorts as well. Kiki had two five hour babysitting stretches two days in a row, and her patience was stretched. The other kids were also over tired. So I came home and used the last bits of my energy and motivation to trundle the kids off into bed.

Now I’m really looking forward to Conduit in May.

Writing community

Sometimes you arrive at a place that you have never been before and it is like arriving home. Finding the local Science Fiction/Fantasy creative community was like that for Howard and I. We were instantly enfolded and welcomed. The process continues year after year as we attend local events. Each time I meet new people who are delightful and witty. Each time I walk away having learned something new or with a course of action to pursue. There is not enough time in these events for me to have all of the conversations I’d like to have.

LTUE has one more day tomorrow. After that I am like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight. I go home and put away the nice clothes to don my mommy gear. Then I will only have shining memories of all the delightful people and laughter. Unlike Cinderella, I’m not completely sorry to be back to normal because I know there will be another shiny convention to come and I will get to see all the people again. I’ll get to find out how they are doing and where their projects are. I will get to laugh and make jokes. It is all wonderful and invigorating, but it is also exhausting. I am glad to come back home where I can rest. I am glad to just sit in the quiet with my laptop and think.

Writing is so solitary. We all need the chance to see that we are not alone, that others have the same struggles. We need to talk and laugh and celebrate accomplishments. But then we need to go back home and get back to work, because without the work there is nothing to celebrate.

Rambling thoughts on a writing contest

In January I participated in a forum writing contest called Weekend Warrior. It lasted five weeks. Each Saturday morning three prompts were posted. Participants had until Sunday evening to write a story of 750 words or less. It was a good experience, but it was very hard on me. I had to quit after the third week because I’d completely drained my emotional reserves while simultaneously neglecting a bunch of house/family stuff that I felt guilty about. The scheduling for the contest was all wrong for me. If I spend Saturday feverishly writing, I end up growling at the kids who are home all day. The growling was even worse because we were all stuck inside due to icy weather. Saturday is also the day that I usually focus on getting the house clean, so my house clutter intensified over the course of three weeks. Then there was the fact that my stories were being scored against other stories. Week after week I had to face the fact that I’m not as good at this as I want to be. I wanted to wow people and I never did. In the end I had to stop. I had to rebalance myself and realize that mid-January was probably not the best time to try to stretch myself in this particular way.

And yet it really felt good to lose myself in the writing. It was fun to have a scheduled time to turn my brain over to story and plot percolation. And the deadline gave me the impetus to truly schedule the time. In theory I’m trying to make Thursday mornings my writing time, but in practice I frequently fill the time with other things instead. Next week will be completely absorbed by getting Scrapyard finished. Then there will be LTUE. Maybe after that I can settle the schedule back down. I just counted and I have five finished stories waiting for revision. I also have two projects partially drafted. It would be nice to get some of these out where they have a chance at publication. If I had not participated in the Weekend Warrior contest 4 of those stories would not exist.

The small traps in which I catch myself

It is strange the assumptions I can find lurking in my own brain.

I was watching a talk by Elizabeth Gilbert (Author of Eat Pray Love) and I was suddenly struck that here was a woman who has a glowing writing career and she has probably never written a single word that qualifies as Science Fiction or Fantasy. It was as if a door in my brain had opened to whole new possibilities in writing. You see, I know lots of writers, but they are overwhelmingly writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Add to that the fact that whenever the child Sandra pictured writing books, the books she pictured were Fantasy. Somehow these things combined in my head to make only my Science Fiction and Fantasy writing count. This is ludicrous. This is particularly ludicrous because in the wide world of writing and publishing, genre fiction is regarded as a tiny eddy in the great river. And yet I have been telling myself that I did not do any writing last year. Get this, I wrote a blog entry almost every single day, and yet somehow in my head those did not count as writing. The non-genre writing that my friends did counted, but somehow I was discounting my own.

And suddenly a door has opened in my head, and I realize that there are many kinds of writing that I want to do, of which Science Fiction and Fantasy are only a part. They may not even be the larger part. I want to write essays, and blog entries, and articles, and who knows what else. With this new widened perspective I peer back into the past and I remember that even child Sandra was not Fantasy Only. I remember the Children Lost on an Island adventure. I remember the couple of teen lit projects. I remember those final essays of high school which technically met the assignment, but baffled the teacher because he wasn’t sure how to grade them. I am not one thing. I am many things. I’ve always been many things. In fact this is one of the difficulties I constantly face. I want to chase all the shiny possibilities simultaneously.

And so I need to reach out more. I need to start to familiarize myself with publishing outside the eddy of genre fiction. I need to read more books that don’t contain spaceships or magic. Not all at once, because there is value and comfort in the familiar, but enough that I keep expanding my horizons. I suspect that the expansion will improve all of my writing, even the stories with magic and space ships.

And now I have yet another shiny possibility that I want to chase down right now. Instead I have stored it here so that I can find it again once I’m done scrambling to get the Schlock book done.

Birthday Story

Each year on my birthday I post a story here on my blog. This year January was a little bit crazy and I was not able to polish up the story they way I would like, but I still want to post something. So I’ve decided to post a completed draft of a story that I’m still working on. Because it is a draft, there are likely all sorts of continuity errors and typos. Those are the kind of things that will be fixed in future drafts. The story can be found behind the cut below. The prior years’ stories can be found through these links: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008

Thoughts on Short Stories for Young People

I was thinking today about the lack of short stories for teens and pre-teens. Since I prefer speculative fiction, I was specifically thinking about the lack of Science Fiction and Fantasy stories for those age groups. Younger groups have short stories in abundance since all picture books are short stories with pictures. Some picture books are delightful for all age groups. But where are the stories that are just for the teens and pre-teens.

I’ve heard other people comment on this gap before. I’ve heard people argue that teens and pre-teens just aren’t interested in short fiction. I don’t believe that is true. I think that they would be very interested in short fiction if there were a delivery mechanism that could get them the fiction that is appropriate to their interests. Teen female readers of the Twilight saga would almost certainly devour short vampire fiction if they only knew where to find it. Teen video game playing boys would probably love to see short fiction placed in those worlds as well. In fact I would argue that the growing popularity of Manga is due in part to the fact that it is short fiction. With short YouTube videos and short television segments, we’re all being trained to acquire our information in snippets. It seems that short fiction should blossom.

In fact I think that short fiction would be a boon to teachers who are trying to help reluctant or struggling readers. Sometimes struggling readers are emotionally and intellectually ready for more complex stories, but they are daunted by the size of the books they must read in order to get those stories. I have this problem with my son frequently. It would be nice if there were a huge array of short fiction available so that these readers could get a taste of the kinds of stories they might like and so that they have the chance to find joy in fiction.

I’m certain that the gap is not for lack of willing writers. I know writers who would happily write YA and middle grade short fiction if there was only a market to receive it. I suspect that there are magazines and e-zines out there who would be happy to buy the short fiction if only people would buy their zines to read it. But teens aren’t buying and neither are their parents. This is where the discussion leads naturally to “New Media.” Using Facebook and MySpace and Twitter to attempt to popularize short fiction is a fascinating experiment that I expect to see occurring in the years to come. I know that some magazines are already sending out adult fiction via Twitter. It would be interesting to have a kids twitter story feed. I wonder if it would be more effective to have the fiction be more user-generated like the lolcats site. Fiction for teens by teens. I know when I was a teen writer, I would have loved to have a place to submit my stuff and get feedback. Are there online communities structured specifically for teen writers? That would be an interesting experiment as well.

Most of this is not stuff that I desire to experiment with. I don’t want to administrate a teen writing website. I’m sadly clueless about using Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. The piece I do intend to experiment with is writing short fiction for YA and middle grade readers. I have one of each in my house with two more on the way. I want to write stories that my kids will enjoy reading. I want to create worlds where they want to be immersed. This world immersion is one argument against short fiction for these age groups. They don’t want to fall in love with a world or some characters only to have it be done a few pages later. Perhaps a series of short stories might be the answer to that. I don’t know what the long term plan for the stories will be. I don’t know that I can ever get them distributed widely, though I’d love to put them into the hands of as many kids as will love them. Perhaps I’ll create a section on my website specifically for sharing the stories. But for now I just need to focus on writing stories that I enjoy writing and my kids enjoy reading.

Updating the website

I did some maintenance work on my website today. Mostly I was updating things to make sure that information is current and accurate. I also grabbed some of my blog entries from the last year and posted them as essays. Other blog entries I’ve grabbed because they could be good essays with some revision. It is always nice to read something I wrote and feel that it is good. The one that stood out to me today was The Battle of Dinner. I like having a collection of the my best essays where I can find them easily. Even better is knowing that there is a bunch of other stuff I could have put up, but didn’t because I did not want to flood the page.

I need to get more stories up there. Muse in the Pipes is going to have to stand alone for 2008. That was the only piece of fiction I finished last year. This year I’d like to have more finished fiction to post on the site.

Thoughts on a competition

My writer’s forum is hosting a five week long flash fiction contest. I decided to participate this year. The first of five stories was due this weekend and judged this week. I want to write a long post describing my process in creating the story. I also want to examine my emotional reactions to the feedback. Unfortunately I can’t, because one of the facets of the contest is that entries are under a pseudonym until the contest is complete. If I talk in detail about my experiences, I will likely give away which story is mine to other forum members who also read this blog. I do not know if I’ll be able to complete the contest because I have other commitments that are more important to me. I don’t know if I have it in me to write five complete stories in five weeks. I also don’t know if I have it in me to ride the emotional roller coaster for that long.
The stubborn, competitive part of me wants to prove to everyone that I can do it. As if completing the contest earns me cosmic writer points, proving to everyone (and mostly to me) that I’m a “real” writer. I also really want to write a story that earns the respect of these people whom I respect. But I don’t know that these are reasonable goals to set myself upon. I also know that I am tired. If I push my writing too hard it will burn me out. It is more important to me to write and complete a birthday story than for me to write four more pieces of flash fiction which will probably not win the approval I’m seeking anyway. And then there is the voice which asks why I am seeking exterior approval at all, isn’t my own satisfaction enough?

Sigh. Once again my brain is a noisy place.