NaNoWriMo

In case you don't actually know  more or haven't spoken to me in more than a week, today started National Novel Writing Month, known affectionately as NaNoWriMo. During the month of November, writers are encouraged to take on the impossible/insane/fruitless task of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. Every year hundreds of thousands of people across the country and around the world attempt this task, and every year hundreds of thousands fail while some tens of thousands manage to produce 50,000 words that must be edited, proofread, or completely rewritten before anything comes of them.

Every year for the past 4 or 5, I have participated in this exercise in insanity, and only once have I succeeded in writing the full 50,000. Granted, I write more than that on a fairly regular basis these days. Every week I have work assignments that fall between 10,000 and 20,000 words, and I write regularly on my novel and various blogs and journalling projects that are designed to keep my writing muscles flexed. So one would think that 50,000 words would be nothing.

Ha!

HA! I say to you smug know-it-alls who have never attempted such a task. NaNoWriMo regularly kicks my sorry ass and proves to me that there's a reason I'm an aspiring novelist instead of a published one. Writing 50,000 words on a single manuscript inside of a month requires the creative juices that most muses will never bestow. It requires determination beyond even what is required to finish a graduate degree. And try doing both at the same time! (Actually, don't. There is probably a good reason I quit the program that year.)

Make no mistake. NaNoWriMo is intense. More people fail this task than fail to make it to the gym every week in January. More fail to write 50,000 words than fail to count their calories every day for a full week.

It's hard.

But it's also inspiring. I've spent the last two or three weeks preparing myself for this mad sprint, readying my plots and character ideas, figuring out where my novel wants to go so that I was ready to hit the ground running. Just these few weeks of intense preparation and brainstorming have allowed me to accomplish more of my writing goals than anything else this year. Last night, when NaNoWriMo launched at midnight, I was actually able to write almost 5,000 new words, finishing my first chapter and beginning my second. I haven't done that much work on the damn thing since I started writing this story over the summer.

If you have any task you've been dying to accomplish but have lacked the motivation and system of deadlines that would allow you to actually accomplish it, I encourage you to use NaNoWriMo as a template. You don't have to write 50,000 words. You don't have to write at all. November can be your month for accomplishing impossible tasks. Take on a new challenge. Have you wanted to knit all of your friends scarves for Christmas? November is perfect for that. Want to learn a new language? Become conversant by December 1st.

My husband is actually joining me this November with his own project. He's creating a graphic novel based on the Decemberists album Hazards of Love and he's documenting the endeavor at http://jameshazards.blogspot.com/. I'm so excited that he's joining me on this journey, and I really hope he keeps with it. I think that by having both of us setting these impossible goals, we'll be able to hold each other to it. He'll encourage me to get my writing done instead of finishing up the latest season of The Borgias, and I'll make sure he sticks to his goals instead of playing another season of FIFA.

Now, because I know I"m using this blog entry for procrastination from getting into Chapter 2, I should wrap up. Wish us luck! And go and encourage James in his project as well. I'm looking forward to seeing what he comes up with. :)

Science in Science Fiction

My current work in progress is actually my first foray into real hard science fiction. Usually I prefer writing urban fantasy and fantasy, because there's so much less research involved, and frankly I read a lot more urban fantasy than I do science fiction. However, earlier this year, I decided I wanted to write a space opera about a group of individuals in the middle of an interstellar war.

Since I know little about war and even less about physics, that meant I had to do a lot of research. I'm basing a lot of my political climate and structure of the war on the events and intricacies of World War I, making that part of the novel much easier to write.

My trouble was with the physics. You see, if I'm going to even read science fiction, I want to have it fit together in a plausible and workable way. No hand-waving and warp drives for me unless they're grounded in some actual theories and research. So in developing my world, I've had to understand a number of things about the possibility of anti-gravity, propulsion systems for quick space flight, and even the bending of space time for warp drives in order to make interstellar flight even possible.

I've been reading all sorts of stuff, fitting together recent discoveries at the Large Hadron Collider with basic understanding of gravitational forces and magnetic propulsion systems. Richard Feynman and Frank Wilczek have been my gurus, and I've been peppering my science-minded friends with questions about spin, mass, and charge in order to develop a realistic and potentially workable theory of anti-gravity and propulsion.

Over the past few weeks I thought I had a brilliant idea about using energy to animate a special kind of matter or condensate. The matter would in turn either behave as though it had much greater mass and attract bodies to it in a way comparative to gravitational pull, or it would behave in the opposite way, pushing an anti-gravity force against the gravitational fields of other objects. This matter would then form the basis for both gravity systems on spaceships and as a propulsion system to navigate through space by pushing and pulling on nearby large interstellar bodies.

This was all a theory, until today.

While reading up on a science fiction writers' forum, I found evidence that my brilliant theory could work with some research that is actually currently being explored by Eagleworks Laboratories and NASA. Using vacuum particles and anti-particles that pop into and out of existence in the Quantum vacuum that occupies space-time, scientists theorize that they could develop a propulsion system that actually propels against the vacuum condensate itself.

I think that if I can extrapolate further, the theories on vacuum fluctuation density could be used as a gravitic force as I've theorized it. With the right energy levels, the density of the Bosons and virtual particles could become both an independent energy source, and enable manipulation of weak and strong force, giving us both means of both pushing and pulling matter against other matter.

What do you think?

Enough with the Confessional Posts

Apparently drunk Sara vacillates wildly between agnostic and lost to disgustingly sentimental. But at least she's consistently confessional.

I really need to set up a block on Blogger that keeps me from posting under certain conditions. That would stop the rambling stream of consciousness postings that I keep delivering here.

So, my apologies. I'll try to limit the rambling confessional posts a bit. Maybe then I can come up with some actually interesting things to write about.

Marriage and Divorce

I don't know why I still keep a Facebook page. I guess it's part about some career options, part about keeping in touch with those I would never contact otherwise, and part voyeurism. I get to see some of how the other half lives, some of how the unlucky in love lives, and how some who have way too much in common with me lives....

Every time I hear about another friend getting divorced after 1 year, 3 years, 7 years, I think it will never happen to me. And yet, they seemed so happy. They made it work. When everyone said it would fall apart, they lasted. Until they didn't.

They married too young, I say. They didn't know each other. They were in love with the idea of being in love. They didn't plan for changes. They didn't know that it would take hard work. They didn't realize that people change and that they would change as much as their partner would, and not necessarily in the same direction.

And then I insist. It won't happen to me.

This month marks six years for me and my husband being together, almost  two and a half married, beyond the full 15 for being friends. Every day that goes by I hear about another failed relationship, and I think "Hell no. Not mine." Because, I think, we know how to weather the hard stuff. We know how to face the difficult times. Hell, we've faced a lot of them, and we've emerged stronger.

We'll be better than that.

But I can't deny it. Every time I hear about the divorce of another couple that I thought was solid ... I panic a little bit. Every day, I think about how I can make my husband know that i love him. Every day, I wonder whether I'm taking advantage of the goodness I have in my life. Every day, I think that the mistake I've made will be something that will make me less in my friends', in my family's, and most of all in my husband's eyes. And I go through a moment of panic.

It's a right-brained person's mind, right? Every mistake is the last mistake. If I forget to vacuum because I was busy following my dreams of writing... If I forget to pack the bookshelves because I was making a too elaborate dinner that I ultimately burned and we now have to order pizza... If I forget to switch over the clothes and now he has no gym shorts to wear to the climbing gym ... As a right-brained person, it's all I can do to keep those things straight. It's also, simultaneously, all I can do to keep from assuming that my failure to meet those relatively tiny goals will result in ultimate discard. If I can't remember the barest things that keep a life functioning, why am I worth holding on to? The couch is covered in cat hair? I've failed. The chicken is undefrosted and we have to resort to Ramen and hotdogs? Failure as a wife....

And it's absurd to think it will get easier with children. They'll keep us up. They'll interfere with housework, dreams, with our work, social lives, our family life, and everything else we can imagine in our life right now. How does anyone think a marriage can survive that?

They do. Many marriages grow thinned, stressed, and unloved in the course of bringing children into the world. You can't blame them. It's completely understandable. Children are never less than a burden. They're exhausting. They're harder than anything we've ever faced before. Yet they're never less than a blessing, either.

I like to look at life objectively, since most of the time I live in a completely absurd fantasy world. (It's not my fault. I've tried to fight it. It's in my blood. I'm a writer. It's my job and my passion.) Children are hard on a marriage. If you are not completely sure of where you sit in your relationship., children will always make it harder.

But even if you are completely secure, children can screw everything up. Babies are hard work. Toddlers are more. Children, pre-teens, teenagers, and adults are so much worse. Why would you bring any of that into the world???

And stilll.... It's exactly what we do. Why?

In part because of faith.

I have faith that no matter what, we will be fine.

My husband is a wonderful man. ...

... (Well ... there goes two hours. :) )

I've literally spent two hours writing poetry, prose, and more about why my husband is amazing, and I realize all of it would be immediately dismissed by most of you and most others would refuse to acknowledge it altogether.

Let's suffice it to say, my husband is incredible.

As far as raising children goes:

I have utter faith that we will do our best to do right by them. We will read to them, give them encouragement in their imaginations  and shut down anyone that tells them that fairies and unicorns and trolls can't exist.

We will raise them to be strong, creative, inquisitive, independent, resourceful, and imaginative.

Our children will never believe that the story ends at "The End." They will discover new ways for life to flourish, to extend beyond everything we have already prescribed. They will recognize that "Once Upon A Time" is merely an opening and a suggestion. They will know, much as their mother and father do, that "should" is recommendation, that "ought" is an arbitrary map point, and that "will" is meaningless until they exceed it.

That is what being a parent means to me. I married a man who supports all of that and more. He knows what imagination means, what dreaming can do, and what absurdity can conquer. Also, I'm pretty sure, until he sees our entire family fighting gravity on a regular basis and floating over the living room games, and debating the relative importance of projectiles in vacuumed space, and then using it against our perceived enemeies, he won't report us to the authorities. ;)

I love you, my darling. Thank you for letting me dream.

Sara

Other Work

Finally got the epic postings up on my political blog. If you're at all interested, it covers exactly why I cannot bring myself to vote for "the lesser of two evils" with either the Democrat or Republican party, especially with their current two offerings. It also explains why I am voting for Gary Johnson, who I believe embodies my own values and who abhors the other two tickets for the same reasons I do. You can find my political blog at The Sane Libertarian.

In other news, writing like a fiend! I tweeted last night how I know perfectly well that writing is a process of creation, and that I am in control of my characters and the events that happen in my book. Yet, when everything works, when the magic flows, and when the writing just fits, it always feels more like a process of discovery. There's nothing quite like this feeling of uncovering the secrets of a world, especially when that world currently exists nowhere but in your own head.

Creation is exhilarating. I can't imagine doing anything else.

Redirect to Other Blog

If you don't follow any of my other blogs, I do write on some other topics elsewhere. For instance, I am currently writing over at The Sane Libertarian a series of short essays (or one really long essay over multiple posts) explaining my personal voting philosophy, how I got to it, and why I am voting for a third party this election.

If you're interested in politics at all or just want something else to read that is not hyperbolic slavering over or terror because of one of the political candidates, I think it should be interesting reading. It's pretty long, though, so if you hate politics or really don't care, feel free to ignore it.

Otherwise, I should be back to some more writing about random things here in the next few days. I've been doing some good fiction writing and trying to figure out how to balance life, art, health, and commerce without losing my mind. It's fun learning to juggle!

Nominating My Husband for Sainthood

Ha.

I should absolutely know better.

No sooner do I announce my intentions to rededicate myself to writing with an eye to the future, but the present comes crashing down. This morning my husband's car died in a most spectacular fashion. His was supposed to be the reliable car (in light of my car's own consistent stalling/electrical problems). And the clutch basically collapsed, luckily before he got out of the parking lot at our apartment.

It looks like it's going to cost almost 2/3 the car's actual value to fix it.

He took my car in to work, and we evaluated our options.

So today, instead of writing, instead of going to the gym, instead of all my grand plans, we dealt with life.

This is probably my fault. I set a plan to be completely selfish with my artistic endeavors, and I, of course, generate a cosmic road block that says: "Not so fast!"

However, now that I sit to think about it, it's infinitely appropriate. No writer that I have ever heard of or known has had the chance to sit back and luxuriate in the privilege of writing. Not until they've sacrificed and waited and toiled for the privilege.

I've had it easy.

My husband has been so wonderful in encouraging me to pursue my dreams. He actually asked me not to get a full time job, but to concentrate on those things that make me happy, to pursue a career as a writer, even if that meant that we gave up the guaranteed second income.

Frankly, we've really made that work. We've excelled even. We may pay a little too much for rent right now, but we enjoyed dinners and drinks out with friends, trips out of town, expensive gym memberships, and very little sacrifice, all on a single income. Sure I brought in a few handfuls at a time. My work in politics helped  a lot with that, actually.

To have the chance to do almost nothing but work on my own vanity projects and creative endeavors with no immediate hope of monetary return was a luxury. One that I really don't deserve and haven't earned yet.

But I will.

We have to figure out how to fix this car with very little in savings and still find a way to move into a new place in about two months. That means we have to come up with a few thousand dollars out of the blue to pay for the necessity of this car and a deposit on a new place while we wait for our current place to cough up our security deposit in the three month time limit they have under the law. It's not going to be easy, but I'm going to take on extra writing for pay, maybe look at a part time job, and cut back on a few extravagances we've enjoyed in the past few months.

That's right. Because of my husband, the saint, I barely have to give up a thing.

I don't know if you know how incredibly amazingly lucky I am to be married to such a person.

I do.

Prioritizing and Narrowing Focus

At the end of August I finished a campaign that had dominated a lot of my free time over the past summer. Though I wasn't the campaign manager of this particular campaign, I was advising the campaign manager and producing all of the written content and branding for the campaign (except in a few very unfortunate mailings that the candidate outsourced to a very partisan consultant).

I learned a lot of things about politics and local government that have made me a lot more jaded on the topic. I may explore some of these lessons either here or in another blog, but suffice it to say, I think that is the last campaign I will be actively involved in for a good while to come. The political arena is too caught up in things that I think are unimportant and unhealthy for a normal, sane, and functioning human being. Immersing oneself overmuch in that cesspool can generate not just a slimy sheen of cynicism, but also a good deal of soul sickness if one lingers.

I don't want that for myself.

So I've been re-prioritizing several elements of my life. Hence I've been maintaining some distance from my blogs and from several other forms of social media. I took a hard look at what I want in my life, at the person I want to be, and the things I want to accomplish. I've started a new diet and committed to going to the gym multiple times a week. I'm trying to improve my overall health. I also want spend more time with people I care about. However, one of the most important things I noted was something that I really shouldn't be overlooking.

I've concluded that for a writer, I don't write enough.

That may sound silly to some of the people that know me. I'm constantly working on some project, writing for clients, and experimenting with writing prompts. I probably put in upwards of 30 hours of writing a week.

That's really not enough.

I waste entirely too much time doing other things that don't contribute to my overall goals. I have projects that desperately need to be finished and developed instead of pushed aside for the latest shiny idea. I need to diversify my writing and publish in multiple arenas. I need to engage in more free-writing with daily prompts to exercise my writing muscles and develop my skills as a story teller. Granted, I'm not trying to build a platform here for any publication or marketing purposes, but I even need to blog more, even if just to get myself pumped and ready to go with my other writing.

So, this is me committing publicly to writing more. I've already done well with my new diet, filling my fridge with fresh produce and lean meats. I'm still sore from my third gym trip in three days, and can't wait to go back tomorrow and attempt this project route I've got on a bouldering wall. I've got plans to catch up several groups of friends over the next few days as well as my family, and I'm hoping to catch up with a few more when I can find a break in my schedule. :)

Now, it's time to write more. I've completed my writing goal for a client and gotten a head start on tomorrow's batch. I've written almost 600 words here, and I've done some research for one of my bigger projects. Tomorrow, before I go to the gym, I'm going to start with a writing prompt or free-write for at least half an hour to get my thoughts going. That way, I can marinate on some ideas while at the gym.

Enough putting off improving myself. I'm starting now.

Leeroy Jenkins!!

Can I just say, blogging is a tool  for the weak-minded?

God bless my poor husband. Yes, I'm drunk. ... I'm rarely anything but when I sign into one of my blogs these days. But there was champagne and gin and lemon and enough to make amazing French 75s, and why would I say "no" when things are so good?

Yes

I spent three hours longer than my husband wanted discussing all the things that excite me. That's right: Shakespeare, identity, politics, Joyce, Faulkner, characterization, story themes, sexuality, and more. How could I resist?!?! I felt so old discussing such subjects with a student just graduated from high school and yet I was infected by his enthusiasm for the subject. I realized I graduated from the same subjects over a decade ago ... and yet the emotions I feel for the subject are no less diminished. We dashed back and forth between Iago and Falstaff, Hamlet and Quentin, that I felt no drag from the twelve years since I've discussed these subjects in earnest.

Does High School stick with you so much? Everything I experienced then and, (I can recall with same alacrity) despite the fact that I have had some amazing college experiences. (I just took a few minutes to address my many college experiences and I just remembered that 8-10 years later, no one cares what you did in college...) no one cares what you did in High School or Grad School for how many years in pursuit of that ridiculous degree....All that matters of your life is what you do now. (Shit! My life's blood suddenly counts???) I gave up a PhD in light of the 7 yr commitment to do a dissertation on anything I didn't care about to fit a professor's identity .....and decided to get married, live my life, and .....raise a family....

I need a drink.    Seriously, has it been so many years since I left academia?  .....       Am I really that old? I"m looking at eleven years of squandered research potential???

I feel I have nothing left to add to the conversation at this age, and yet I feel I've just begun. Shit. I'm one of them. One of those who think all experience begins beyond 30 or 40.... And yet, here I am, staring down 30, with years of education to offer and some life experiences, and yet ... memories are a mist.

Nope. That's not what I have to offer. Guess what?

You know nothing. I don't care if you're 20 or 50. We know nothing. We may have some glimpse of what Shakespeare insinuated in his works, but we know nothing. I'm looking for rebuttals.

Processing My Thoughts through Writing

It's amazing to me how just writing something out, expressing my anger and arguments on a subject through the written word, can make me feel so much better. It doesn't solve the problem, per se, but for me, writing something out is my first step in dealing with it and addressing it.

Today (and last night, to be honest) I was consumed by anger about a particular set of laws that have been proposed here in Georgia and throughout the United States. The recent attacks on women and reproductive freedoms have me completely infuriated. So much so that I have been losing sleep over the issue.

While I don't plan to stop with writing a blog post that only a small handful of people will read, it was my necessary first step. Now that I've written it, it becomes real.

It was always weird for me, that listening to lectures in high school and college, I could process information and respond to ideas, but until I wrote something down about it, until I wrote my own essay, or put the concepts down into my own words, they never really clicked for me. Writing is a way of processing ideas, of making them real. It's how I work things out, how I process them. Even if I just whiteboard an idea out and erase it immediately, what I write down there sticks with me far better than anything I listen to or encounter in any other way.

It's why writing in a journal or diary has always been a great way for me to address serious issues in my life. If I try to process it just in my head or talking it out, I can lose track of the issue. I have to write it down, make lists, compose a narrative for the issue. Only then does it really mean anything. Only then does it become real to me.

Writing is how I give life to my thoughts.

So forgive me, people in my life, if sometimes I can't deal with issues the first time I encounter them, or if I have to shut down an argument or discussion that occurs in real life. If I haven't written about it previously, chances are I can't get a handle on my thoughts. They're flitting around in my head, effervescent with their intangibility. Until I pin them down and capture them with the written word, they're not real to me.

If I've written about it previously though, I'm good to go. So watch out if you engage me on one of those issues. :)

Forcing Discipline

I am horrible at discipline. I love my work; I love writing. I really do. But half the time I am tempted to do nothing but watch the entire series of Battlestar Galactica for the fourth time or play video games or read all the books (I average more than 50 a year, and I feel like a slacker!).

But when I have something I really should be working on, even if I want to, my creative/childish side rebels and wants to do anything but work. This is awful when you basically work for yourself. I am trying to build a brand for myself with writing. I freelance for many different companies and websites, as well as work with several graduate students on dissertations and writing projects. I run three blogs (about which you've read), am working on a novel, am world building for two more, and am beginning to draft for a nonfiction book. Not to mention the ebook/app I'm developing, the home I'm keeping clean, the meals I make, and the house hunting.

Wow I'm exhausted just listing those things!

So, in order to get any sort of work done, I have to create rewards for myself. These can be little things, like "You can take a fifteen minute web-surfing break if you finish this article," to harsh and punitive, "You may not leave the house until you finish that chapter." Sometimes I cheat myself, but I always have to remind myself that I'm the only one I'm hurting when I do so. Yes, I may want to go out instead of stay in and write; yes, I may prefer to read the latest Rothfuss offering right now. But is it worth it when I go another day without working on my own writing? (When it comes to reading Rothfuss, the answer is "SO TOTALLY WORTH IT!" but that's the rare exception.)

The rewards do work, though. I get so much more accomplished when I program in little bonuses for a job well done. Tonight, that means I got through way more than the 25 articles I needed to do today to get caught up for going to karaoke last night. That means, I get paid on time this week, can afford to pay for my sister's bachelorette party, and retain the good will of my family. See? It all works out.

So for your edification (or glimpse into the twisted structure that gets Sara to accomplish anything), I give you today's reward structure:

Today's absolute minimum: Finish five articles or you can't have a single glass of water or go to the bathroom or get up out of that chair, you lazy slug. (I didn't enforce this very strictly, but I got it done.)

No food today unless you finish at least ten.

Today's main goal: Okay, this batch has to be completely done before you leave to pick up your husband from the airport. If you fail, he's stranded at the airport, and it's all on you. Do you want to be a terrible wife? Then finish this batch!

Above and beyond: Good job getting to where you should have been yesterday. All right, we'll be lenient, five more articles and you can have a glass of wine. It's your favorite!

Keeping the momentum going: Great job! Okay, five more short articles and a blog entry (believe it or not, this is actually part of the reward), and after that and you can watch an episode of that show you love.

Still to come: Whoo hoo! Wasn't that reward nice? I'll tell you what: if you can give me five more now that you're all rested, you can take a nice relaxing bath and go through some research for your novel before bed. (Note how I plug in productivity on another project as a reward. My way of tricking myself: procrastination by working on something that needs to be done, but probably not yet. Sneaky productivity!)

And that's that. That is how I wrote 25 articles and over 8000 words today. Problem is, I need to come up with new rewards for tomorrow... Any ideas??

Two New Blogs

The point of this blog was to get me back into the habit of writing daily. Alas, that has not panned out the way I intended with my posts here being a bit sporadic to say the least.

And yet, I do write every day now!

I'm either writing for my clients, working on my novels, or now blogging on specific topics.

That's right. I'm launching two new blogs, that I hope I will post in at least three to four times a week, if not every day. They are more focused than this blog, aimed at specific target audiences and exploring variations on themes. I'm hoping that will enable me to start building platforms from which I might launch some future works.

In the meantime, they're great opportunities for me to write every day and explore things I think about a good deal.

The first is "A Sane Libertarian." In this blog I will discuss a good deal of politics from a highly educated, highly interested libertarian perspective. I didn't spend four years in college and three years in grad school to never talk about politics. And since the topic is verboten at most social gatherings, I'm going to commit to writing about it. I've got a Masters in Political Theory and American Politics from the University of Virginia, I've run a political campaign for the US House of Representatives, and I keep up with politics by reading way too many blogs and news sites. Time to make my experiences work for me.

The second blog is called "A Writer's Recipes." The first post basically sums up why I'm doing this blog: I have to lose about 30 pounds for my sister's wedding in order to shrink my well-endowed top half and fit into the bridesmaid's dress that is apparently discontinued and the last size they had.... *RAGE* .... Since I have a relatively sedentary lifestyle as a writer and I really hate to exercise--I don't run unless someone's chasing me--I aim to keep my daily caloric intake below 1200. This means modifying recipes and trying out new ones to keep from getting bored. Salads every day are unacceptable in my house, especially since my husband doesn't eat them. In this blog, you can follow my experiments, successes, and failures as I change my eating profile and hopefully my physical profile as well!

So that's that. I hope you will consider checking them out! Let me know what you think of them, and if you want me to tackle any particular topics in either of them.

Comment on my last post:

JamesJan 10, 2012 06:43 AM

I'm very happy you are a writer

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you know how you married the right person.

My poor husband puts up with being married to a very frequently unstable, complicated, complex, troublesome person who would rather disappear into a fantasy world of her own creation. His wife dives into work and distraction with equal vigor, because she can justify both as inspiration or production. He deals with irregular sleep patterns, emotional outbursts, and unpredictable story telling as an idea works its way out of subconsciousness. His wife frequently disappears into her own head for days at a time, and yet still constantly needs reassurance that she is being supported (as it's sometimes the only connection she has to this world).

And yet he professes that he is glad his wife is a writer.

I have either married a saint or a masochist.

Either way, I love my husband, and I am so sorry for all I put him through. Zeus knows that I am a problem who is equally likely to spontaneously want to move to Montana and live on a kibbutz (as was brought up tonight) as to situate herself in a one room studio in London with no internet access just so she can write with no distractions. How that man talks me down from my crazier ideas and convinces me to channel them through my writing, I will never know. He has more patience than anyone I've met (as my father constantly reminds him). And I'm sorry, I put him through so much.

Mind you, it's not going to change any time soon... I'm going to be a challenge no matter what. But I love him. And I am so lucky that he loves me.

Don't Be a Writer

Good Advice

“You don’t want to be a writer. Trust me, if you can do anything else, do it. Writing is hard. I cannot tell you enough how much you do NOT want to be a writer.”

I’ve heard that same advice at conferences and conventions, in classrooms and chat rooms, in blog posts and in books. Almost every writer’s advice to other writers is to, first and foremost, give up.

While other industries will first tell you all the great things about their line of work, only writers will tell you up front that you’d be better off doing anything else besides writing.

It’s hard work. It takes years to get good at it; it takes even longer to get paid for it. No job will take more out of you. Trust me, you do NOT want to be a writer.

Did I listen?

Of course not. Like most people who choose this path, I thought, “I’m different. I’m going to make it. I’m not afraid of a little hard work.”

Have I ever told you that I’m just not that bright sometimes?

.

Not that Great at Listening

So now I’m a writer. I write for money. I write more often for no money. I write for people to read, but more often I feel like I’m writing for myself.

That’s what a writer does. A writer ignores the good advice that tells them to get a real job, to take a steady paycheck, to follow some dream that has some remote possibility of coming true. We quit our day jobs to pursue what we think we’re good at and what we want to get better at. We spend our free time writing thousands of words, most of which never see the light of day, and our working hours writing for others on subjects we might not care about just to pay some bills.

It turns out, they were right. Writing is hard.

As a writer you must constantly generate new content, for your blogs, your articles, your novels. You have to be on the lookout for new ideas, and new spin, sometimes for subjects on which you have already written thousands of words. In the last two months, I have written 41 articles on Blackjack; each one is unique and original. Can I just tell you how tiring it is coming up with new things to say on a subject you exhausted weeks ago?

And you have to write every day.

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Turns Out, Writing Is Hard

Writing well takes a lot of practice. Everyone thinks they can write. They write emails at work. They send each other text messages and chat online. They think writing is just an extension of that.

It is so much more. Writing well takes drafts, revisions, editing, rewriting, and then maybe scrapping it all and starting again from scratch. A single blog post may take a few hours as the writer figures out that a first draft is often rambling and without direction and requires a lot of revision. I’ve done three drafts on this post, and it’s only going to be read by a handful of my friends (if they even make it this far!).

I’m still struggling with learning how to write well. Every day I discover an article I’ve written where the words lack flow, where the thoughts stumble or fail to develop fully, where the syntax is laughable.

Every day I ask myself what demon possessed me and made me think that I could possibly be a writer. That damned muse won’t leave me alone.

So to you, I offer this advice. If you want to be a writer, don’t do it. Writing is hard. I cannot tell you how much you do NOT want to be a writer.