The Excavation of Words

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I don’t know how I’ve been struck with the ambition, but I am in the middle of deep cleaning and purging my house, in advance of a monster garage sale I plan on hosting late in August.

I’m not a consummate slob. I tend to veer toward the lived-in but not dangerously germy look. Deep cleaning is something I haven’t done in the ten years we’ve been here. Just consider: a four-bedroom house with plenty of nooks and crannies, a basement full of boxes (most of which haven’t been opened since we moved), and a walk up attic bulging with the hastily packed mementos of my children’s school years. (Yeah. I didn’t oversee that operation, and I should have.)

Back at another place I wrote for online, an orange, hazy, huge toxic bubble, I remarked in a post that I had misplaced my folder of poetry, and asked the pressing question, “Where the hell is it?” The resulting comment thread blasted me for being a dumb ass, and how the hell would the Internets know where my poems were?

Even back then, my feelings were rarely hurt. Just temporarily slapped silly. I imagined I’d thrown my folder out by accident (I grew up in the Ice Age, and had only the typewritten copies, having not had the time or inclination to put the work on an actual computer, where my words could be backed up on a flash drive or by Carbonite), or maybe the guy we had staying at our home as it was being sold decided to run off with my silly scribblings.

Eventually, I chalked up my loss as a learning experience. My teenage and new adult angst-ridden lyrics and poetry forever absent, never to be enjoyed by posterity.

(Now I back up in several places and pay Carbonite for the stuff I’m apt to forget.)

Imagine my pleasant surprise last weekend. After fighting years of cobwebs and nearly retching over an army of dead bugs, I opened a box labeled “Kids Books” to find my folder of poems prominently sitting atop well-loved copies of Pat the Bunny and every book ever penned by Mercer Mayer.

Win! (clean basement) – Win! (possible garage sale windfall) – Win! (my book of poems). I momentarily died and went to heaven.

I spent an hour reading them. Most of my “poetry” was set to music. I played the guitar back then, and wrote simple songs with (what I thought were) tender lyrics about unrequited love and loss. Reading the words brought back the music, and I found myself humming. Most of my songs were god-awful, music and lyrics, but some of it wasn’t half bad.

What was most interesting that my writing voice back then isn’t that far removed from my writing voice now. The excavation of words cements the fact – in my mind – that I was destined to write.

Now, to celebrate my wonderful find, I will regale you with one of my favorites, written after a trip to Sioux Falls, SD, where we lit sparklers during a midnight tornado warning after ingesting Black Star.

 

Black Star

 

his grandpa was a cowboy, he said

you nod in silence–

your dreams are riding the range.

 

a little wine, a little smoke

helps to ease the loneliness,

shake off the chains —

lose those midnight blues.

you laugh and joke,

ha! your smiles are plastic

flowers molded from pain.

and still you choose

too much wine and smoke

the strawberry madness.

so you’re backed against the floor.

from another galaxy, he leans toward you

and shouts in a foreign frequency

heyareyouallrightdownthere?crazybroad!

o-zoned again.

 

lonesome cowboy,  roll me in your arms

just once.

i know i ruin everything good

but sometimes one kiss is all i need.

 

what space tripper? you’re returning home?

but you’ll soon return to ride the range

blue skies your rolling prairie

unlimited, weightless, darkened void.

you’re always searching for the light

in a heaven that gives no easy answers,

in a heaven where the sun

is just a black star.

October 28, 1978

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When Life Throws a Barrage of Lemons at Writers

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I’ve sort of been absent and silent on the Internet lately.

Oh, I’ve been on (a little) but I haven’t been commenting (much).

People who know me know that I’m not just a writer. I own a business, and we’re in the middle of our bread and butter season, meaning a 12 hour work day is not unheard of. I have a house which is currently undergoing renovations – let’s just say the dust bunnies are multiplying faster than the real bunnies. I have a yard in sore need of weeding. I have children – yes, they are grown, but they have problems of monolithic proportions. I’m married to a man who is not the healthiest person on earth and I can’t get him to make a follow up doctor’s appointment re: his Christmas Eve pulmonary embolism.

So in the face of a rainstorm of lemons, my writing has kinda-sorta taken a back seat.

Except for participating in Christina Katz’s 21 Moments Challenge (since February) and goading my ED for Life regarding the edit to my sequel to Virtually Yours, I haven’t been writing as per usual.

I’ve been writing, but not in a linear projection.

I’ve filled a notebook with pencil scribblings, a page and a half or so each day. A moment here, a moment there. I’ve been using my angst over certain situations as fuel. I have dissected my broken heart and used words to describe the agony, 500 words and 20 minutes at a time. I’ve written passages specifically meant for works in progress. (Good Lord, there are a LOT of them.)

Writing in this way is not advised. I prefer to have chunks of time (at least three hour blocks) dedicated to fleshing out my stories. However, I’m giving myself a one-time pass for using the patchwork tactic. Partially because it seems to be working, and partially because I *think* there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.

In the meantime, I have a notebook of moments, scenes, dialogue, sketches, rants, that I can draw upon later.

After all, summer’s almost over. When I finally snag an afternoon of solitude, I’ll be prepared.

Lemonade, anyone?

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Finding Inspiration Everywhere

Posted by Joanne Huspek

While I feel writing is my artistic outlet, there are times where producing actual writing is hampered, by real life, by other interests and responsibilities, by the lack of time. This happens to be one of those two week periods where finding a good, solid block of writing time is just not possible.

It’s not that I’m lazy – well, yes, I’m kind of lazy, although I’m trying to reform myself. It’s not like I’m lying around eating bonbons and watching daytime TV (which I guess is now NOT soaps and might be Judge Judy). I work – a lot, in fact, it’s a holiday and I’m taking a break from work right now (and the phone is ringing off the hook! Shouldn’t they be barbecuing or something?) I have a huge house and a bigger yard that I maintain on my own (with the help from the other half), and there are other commitments that eat into time. It’s not unusual, in fact, you could say that outside influences are a prevailing factor amongst us “struggling” artists. It’s a monumental struggle to create.

Still, you can find inspiration everywhere.

I force myself to do writing prompts. I’m currently doing 21 Moments (I’d link you, but this month will be the last set). Short writing prompts are the easiest. They take about 30 minutes to complete, perfect for those days where a block of three or four hours just doesn’t exist.

Even without the prompts, life gives you plenty of opportunities to explore your creative side. I have a huge vegetable garden, and have had to devote many days recently (thank heavens the days are sunny and clear!) to tending it.

At my age, I rather enjoy gardening. There’s something organic about the human hand digging in dirt, getting rid of the weeds, planting new material and seeds. There’s an order, a certain Zen about it. It’s the circle of life, and hopefully in a few months, I’ll be able to bring the fruits of my labor to the table. In the quiet of the early morning hours, I can entertain entire conversations in my head, play out plots and scenes, and think about the larger picture.

During breaks, I scribble down the meat of the moment. I’ll uncover it later, and use it in my writing.

It might seem strange, but I find cooking gives me a similar artistic charge. Many modern people think cooking is a bore, that it takes a lot of time, that you can nourish yourself a lot quicker through a drive-through or with ready-made meals. Not me. Home cooking takes a little forethought but it’s not difficult. There’s a care and love in making a meal, and the machinations always translate into tasty literary morsels. In fact, I’m working on a story with food as an underlying theme.

(I used to be able to write at work; unfortunately, things are more stressful now than they used to be.)

Art can be born of any action. The artist has to take a germ of an idea and go from there.

Any art takes a commitment. The artist has to be able to carve out time from the day to create.

It’s a daunting task, but you can find inspiration everywhere.

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And Now a Few Words That Have Nothing to Do With Writing

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I am currently armpit deep into a MS with a beginning and a middle but no end, and waiting on my Editor for Life to provide feedback for another finished novel. My head is full of [too many] words. So I guess I’ll just unleash a rant on a completely unrelated subject.

Equality and the Fairness Issue

For some reason, there’s been a lot of emphasis put on the “virtues” of being “equal” or “fair.” I really don’t get it.

I know. I’m old. I’m a freaking dinosaur. I’m definitely not hip. I’m so opinionated that I’m politically incorrect. I’m also busy with my own pursuits; I don’t have time to luxuriate in new (maybe imagined?) slights.

There seems to be some consensus that if only the playing field were level, people would be happy. If only minorities could get a special dispensation for being minorities, they could get into college. Or if only the Evil Rich One Percent would give away all their money, the poor wouldn’t be poor. Even our President and our Pope says we have to do something about income inequality.

If only we could get special consideration for our shortcomings, no matter what they are.

If only, if only.

(Let me say right here, right now, that I’m several shades of minority, I’m a woman, and I’ve been on the dole – for three months, the worst three months of my life. So I’m not an over-privileged white person who has never had to struggle.)

It’s not fair! *stomps foot* Remind you of something? Like a headstrong toddler who wants candy NOW or a defiant teen who wants a later curfew? As if demanding “fairness” will make the world right.

The world isn’t right; it was never right. It’s not going to be right, ever.

Life is not fair, so what?

I might be in the minority, but the purpose of life is not to get everything you want. The purpose of life is to work for everything you want. It’s to take your struggles, puzzle out a solution, and come out on the other side a better person.

The past might be a bad thing, full of heartbreak and injustices. So what?

At what point do you drop the past and journey into the present (and the future) on your own two feet?

One should build (positively) on the mistakes of others, instead of falling back on the negatives of the past.

And here, for my own personal rant of things that aren’t fair:

1. It’s not fair that my ancestors were Native American. It’s not fair that my great-grandfather had to take my grandmother (when she was a toddler) and hide her in the northern bogs of Minnesota to escape the Bureau of Indian Affairs and their plan to put them on a reservation. It’s not fair that for much of her life my grandma couldn’t vote, hold property, or drink alcohol because she was 1/2 Chippewa.

2. It’s not fair that the male members of my Greek grandfather’s family were killed by the Turks, and that he had to travel across the ocean all by himself to start a new life in America.

3. It’s not fair that my father had to join the Army to escape poverty. It’s not fair that after he married my mother, she had to wait in the immigration line for two years and accumulate 4 inches of paperwork to come here and become a citizen.

4. It’s not fair that I had to quit college before finishing my degree. It’s not fair that eating and putting a roof over my head became more important than my education.

5. It’s not fair that my health insurance is so high (even though for an old lady, I’m in fairly good shape) that I’ll probably have to work the rest of my life just to be able to afford it.

6. Speaking of that, it’s not fair that I’ve worked since 16 (actually 13, if you count the time spent working for my father in his gas station) and that I’ll NEVER be able to retire.

7. It’s not fair that I have to pay taxes. It wasn’t fair that my tax dollars couldn’t fund a decent school system and we had to pay out of pocket of our kids’ education, or that our tax dollars aren’t enough to repair the city-owned sidewalk in front of our house and we’ll have to pay for that ourselves. Or that we pay exorbitant fuel taxes to keep the roads up, but they’re still like driving on the moon. (I wouldn’t mind taxes, if I could see a return on investment that wasn’t lining some millionaire politician’s pocket with retirement possibilities.)

I guess I could throw a couple more trivial unfairness issues on that shit pile, ones that have to do with writing. It’s not fair that I don’t have unlimited time to write, or that I don’t have a wonderful agent, or that I’m not traditionally published, or that I’m not sitting on a pile of writing-related money.

*********This part of unfairness rant over. It didn’t feel good, so it was likely not worth it.************

My husband (who is very wise) says that for some the whole “fairness” issue is not one of leveling the field, but rather it’s borne out of jealousy. Whipping out fairness (or unfairness) is the easy fall-back explanation for everything not right in your world. It’s a way of blaming everyone else for your woes, instead of working toward fixing the problem on your own. You can give people whatever they want, but you can’t give them happiness, or equality. These things come from within.

As for me, I’m going back to doing what I do best: making my own world better, despite my shortcomings, my history, and my circumstances.

And I’ll be happy no matter how unfair life is.

 

 

 

 

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How Writing is Very Much Like Painting and Other Arts, Bad News For a Pantser Like Me

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I am currently in the middle of writing the first draft of my fifth (!)* novel.

As with my first effort, Finding Cadence, I’m starting out with a load of vague ideas and a kinda-sorta story line. I have characters, and they all have their own problems (i.e. baggage). I have a situation, which will eventually culminate with a show down of sorts on the biggest, most iconic bridge in America, hell, probably the world (the Golden Gate). Other than that, I have a notebook and a pencil and a bunch of scenes. At this point, I’m letting my imagination do the talking and walking. Somewhere later on, I’ll have to tie these people together and resolve their problems.

This, my friends, is known as the “pantser” method of writing a novel. Being a pantser means you don’t write outlines (because you’ve never been able to stomach them), you don’t use 3×5 cards or sticky notes (because it’s a waste of cardboard and you know how I love trees), and you don’t do any preliminary work, like figure out who your characters are (because you are an artiste and why should you bow to convention?).

Yeeee-ah…

I’ve also written novels using loose outlines and sketched out story lines for my characters way in advance. Consider my Virtually Yours books, where I’ve got a lot of characters and thirty days worth of time to get the story finished a al NaNoWriMo. Thirty days is nothing. I don’t have time to mess around with pretty prose or inner character angst.

Having done both pantsing and outlining, I would agree it’s much easier to proceed when you have a plan. It’s still not foolproof and writing a novel is still daunting, but the work seems to flow more seamlessly.

Writing is a lot like painting a picture. Having done a fair amount of painting (since I was an art major, once, a long time ago), I can say that my best work started out with sketches. Stream of consciousness painting can work, but it’s more like creating without a clue. (It can be done, it’s just a different journey.)

As we all know, I’m a rebel artist. I resist convention. I currently design jewelry, and I’m sassy during class demonstrations.** I have taken pantsing to a new pinnacle when it comes to metals. Me, sketch out a design? You’ve got to be kidding me.***  There is a downside. Oh, if you could only see my scrap-junk-failed projects drawer…

Pantsing is a very interesting way to write a novel. It takes longer and it’s fraught with landmines. You might have to write and rewrite to achieve the desired result.

However, if you’re open to constant change, it is definitely a way of discovering infinite possibilities.

Either way, I’m writing.

__________________________

* I know. Can you believe it? I got from an opening line to a “The End” four frigging times? Unbelievable!

** Ask my teacher, Mary. She will give you an extended run down of what a horrible challenging student I am.

*** That sound you heard was my butt hitting the floor, as I fell of my chair, laughing my ass off.

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Thanking Those Who Have Helped Along the Way

Posted by Joanne Huspek

acknowledgmentsA shot of my Acknowledgments Page, FINDING CADENCE

As a writer, there are some forms of writing that I enjoy more than others.

For example, I relish writing scathing letters to editors and politicians, angry rants to restaurants that have done me wrong, or other customer service related diatribes. That’s because when the emotions are riled, the juices flow easily.

I used to be quite the letter writer back in the day, before the Internet and text messaging. I’d buy beautiful stationery or artistic greeting cards to bleed my feelings onto. Now I don’t have the time to write in this way. (I wonder if Hallmark has experienced a dip in sales???) Thank you, social media, for making my life easier.

And yes of course, I like writing my stories. Writing fiction is the most fun a person can have while sitting in one place.

I don’t mind writing query letters, although thinking about doing so used to give me the willies. Now, writing a synopsis – no, I get no enjoyment at all from that – I don’t know when to stop, and forget about outlines. Can’t stand them, never could.

The one part of the novel I most enjoy writing? It has to be the Acknowledgments page. This is the one page where I can thank everyone who has helped me along the way. After all, not everyone is online, not everyone reads my blog and sweats alongside me while I’m laboring with my stories.

I actually start writing my acknowledgments while I’m working on my novel. In the case of FINDING CADENCE, it was so I wouldn’t forget who helped me, how, and why. This was a novel with many twists and turns, and I had to be reasonably certain that my premise and situations were plausible. I asked for and received so much help along the way. It was a long way, too, and with my advanced age, I tend to forget what I ate yesterday, not to mention who gave me insight or answered my questions. Writing things down is the only way to go.

I’m a very firm believer of paying it forward, and also paying it back. In a world where courtesy and appreciation seem stretched thin, a public display of thanks takes so little time and means so much.

Next up…paying it forward.

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I Can’t Help But To Write What I Know

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I had written a blog post a month or so back (I’d look for it and link it, but it’s Monday and I’m busy and besides that I’m totally lazy) where I had admitted (more or less) that my novels are based on my own personal experiences.

No, not just the experience of the places, or using people I know to sketch characters, but my own experiences that have touched me so deeply that I could not possibly remain unchanged. Love, loss, grief, misunderstandings, the entire gamut of the human condition.

I piled a heap of trouble on my protagonist in Finding Cadence, but I didn’t have to go far to look for conflict. There are stories all around us, ones that burn and chafe and scar, that make us angry enough to eat rusty nails or joyous enough to have us sob like babies. All you have to do is open your eyes and pay attention, and to open your heart and feel, even if the feelings are devastating.

After he’d read my post, my Editor for Life either emailed me or text messaged me back (I can’t remember) with “What? This is you?”

I’ve been working with the man for four years. What could I say?

Well, yes. And, no. And, duh.

I’m not a tall, leggy blond like Cadence, and while my son is a talented pianist, my husband isn’t a trust fund baby who left me nearly destitute when he died. (My husband is still alive, thank you, and in real life grew up poor and struggling.) But these are my options as a storyteller: I get to pick and choose. I get to take a whim of a story and embellish it or tear it down all I want. I get to hide what I know.

It took a long, long, long time to write this story. That’s because Cadence was my first completed novel. I knew what I wanted to say (sort of) but lacked the skills to say them at all, much less with any style and grace. The result was truly God-awful. I spun it past a few editors, one who wanted me to change the entire storyline. I couldn’t go there; I couldn’t envision the ending being any different than it was.

In the meantime, with classes, and reference books, and editors, and beta readers, with writers who helped by slapping me upside the head every once in a while, with conferences and workshops, I managed to weave together a [halfway-decent-if-I-do-say-so-myself] coherent story. Beginning, middle, end. Story arcs. Hidden themes. A reveal at the end. Maybe not “happily ever after” but at least a light at the end of the tunnel and some growth.

In working on the writing craft, I’ve found that telling subsequent stories gets easier. I’m thinking the next novel (about broken souls who end up in San Francisco and mend through their relationships) won’t take two years to finish or five years to edit and re-write.

The point of this convoluted blog post is that I have to write what I know. My own emotion and soul is the only thing I have as an artist. To try to be someone else would not only be foolhardy, it wouldn’t work at all – at least, not for me.

It’s all fiction, yes, but beneath the words you’ll find a thread of truth.

That’s the key. It’s what I know.

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