Totally Brain Dead

Posted by Joanne Huspek

First of all, for those who keep asking how to bookmark my blog, I have to admit ignorance. I have no freakin’ idea how to explain this procedure to anyone. I still don’t get Digg or any of the other nifty Internet doo-dads that track what you’re interested in. WordPress used to be easier, where if I visited a blog I liked, I could just add it to my blog roll. When they upgraded the site about a year ago, I was left without a compass. I couldn’t find that function if my life depended on it.

So, I am an Internet dummy, but I’ve never touted myself as anything but. I know enough to find what I want and to stay away from web sites I don’t want data mining me, but beyond that and email and shopping, I am a sorry excuse for a modern woman.

These days, I am totally brain dead for many reasons. First, I completed my NaNo novel and sent it out to a couple of people, both of whom liked it. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m so exhausted, I don’t really feel like working on the re-write. I know I must, but it’s hard to get in the mood. In the meantime, a stack of edited paper sits before me, calling my name.

Christmas and winter time in general come in next as major bummers. Both my kids will be in California for the holidays. I haven’t decorated a tree, and haven’t even taken the shiny sequined number (a tree) out of the basement yet. I haven’t done much shopping (I despise shopping in brick and mortar stores more than I hate Rachel Ray with the heat of a million suns) as I am giving hand crafted items for presents this year.

Snow is more than a hazard; it’s dangerous. People are angry and part of that is because they forgot how to drive in it. Grey skies are dull. Grey is dull, which is why I tend to shy away from the color (or lack of) as a wardrobe choice. I like purple.

Two of my houseplants look like they won’t survive until April. One is a giant angel trumpet. The other is a rosemary tree. Angel trumpets grow like weeds in San Francisco, where it is foggy and chilly much of the year. Why it won’t adapt to my dining room is a serious question. The rosemary comes inside right at first frost, where subsequent new growth comes out spindly and weak. No amount of grow light wattage seems to help. By the time spring rolls around, I’m nursing it along on its impending deathbed, waiting for warm weather so I can take it outside.

I believe I have ADD, which would explain my daughter having the same thing. It would also explain my life. Do I ever finish anything? Do I ever stop going from one tangent to another?

So yes, today I’m brain dead. Totally.

I think I need a certain little kitty to kick me square in the backside.

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Writing and Real Life: NaNoWriMo as a Tool

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Last month, I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the third year in a row. The premise is easy to understand; NaNo-ers are to complete 50,000 words in the thirty days of November. Each author wannabe has a page, where one can post their profile, synopsis of the work in progress, sample writing and even dream cover designs. There are forums discussing a myriad of writing topics and cheering email sent weekly. A handy graph reveals your progress and that of your writing buddies.

Writing a novel is not as easy as one may think. My first year of NaNo went poorly. I don’t think I wrote a thousand words, much less fifty thousand. My failure was in part because of “real” life. Not many of us are professional writers able to devote entire workdays to writing. Most of us have day jobs, families and other commitments digging into our writing time.

I often refer to my writing life as a clandestine tryst between me and my other love, Writing. If I find two hours of solitary silence where I can concentrate on writing, it’s a rare thing indeed. Writing involves a certain amount of guilt, especially if a week’s worth of dirty laundry is staring at you from across the room.

My other huge problem is that I’m a lazy writer and easily distracted. Writers inhabit a solitary work existence. They need to be self-starters. There is no one on the workroom floor to glare at you and yell you into production. Your only supervisor is YOU. Even going online to ask writing friends a question is dangerous for me, as I tend to wander off to other web sites and other tangents. Successful writers need a certain amount of dedication to the craft. Books don’t write themselves.

This is the brilliance of NaNoWriMo. It’s the online representation of a writer’s cattle prod.

Some participants wrongly think that the great American novel will miraculously spring from the computers of one of the thousands that use the web site as a tracking tool. Actually, NaNoWriMo is only a tool, meant to instill good writing habits. The intention is not to complete a novel in thirty days, but to get as many words down as you can in thirty days.

There is no time for editing, for thinking of the back story or for looking for grammatical errors. The idea is to plunge in and don’t look back until December 1.

That’s not to say that having a plan isn’t helpful. With my first year attempt woeful at best, I used Year Two to jumpstart the work I started a year and a half before. That work in progress started out as a stream of consciousness piece with no plan. After eighteen months of aimless meanderings, I had been stalled at Chapter 13 and hadn’t gotten to the halfway mark.

This year, I came prepared. I had a premise, I had characters with names and locations, and I knew what was going to happen and how it was going to end. I arranged my work to have thirty chapters, to coincide with the number of days in NaNo. I used to be a fly by the seat of your pants kind of writer letting my characters show me the way. I can now see where having an outline or sketch of the novel is necessary to success.

Since that Real Life thing is a constant, budgeting time wisely is of utmost importance. There were only two days in November when I couldn’t write, and one of those was Thanksgiving. I knew in advance and adjusted my writing schedule accordingly. Even with the two days off, I reached the 50K goal on November 29 and finished the novel on December 1.

My book has flaws and some gaping holes but only because I was writing as fast as I could. After letting the piece ferment for a week or two, rewrites will come next.

I hope to continue using my newfound writing schedule, but knowing my history, I’m sure I’ll return to slacker writing soon enough. Still, I would recommend NaNoWriMo to any aspiring novelist. It’s not perfect, but at least it will get the words out, and that’s the first step.

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Adventures in Writing: Kicking Your Muse to the Curb

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I’m sometimes asked by fellow aspiring-to-be-published novelists how I can write so prolifically. I make it a point to write something every day. Sometimes it’s work on my novel, sometimes it’s a well-crafted and pointed business letter or a scorching missive to my state representative, and sometimes it’s just the blog. My friends question where I get my ideas at all and once I’ve corralled them into one general area, how can I possibly get them heading into the same direction. Do I have a Muse?

The answer is short and sweet: There is NO such thing as a Muse.

Getting anything accomplished, including the task of writing, takes blood, sweat, tears and more tears. If you’re the type who is waiting for inspiration from some diaphanous illumination that will lead you by the hand into your creative heart, you’ve got another thing coming.

In my earlier incarnation, I used to believe in the power of the Muse. It’s true that I’m my most creative when my life is full of conflict and drama. I wrote my best poetry when in the throes of freshly minted love affairs, the last being about twenty-five years ago just after I met my husband. The day-dreamy existence is a fine one for word crafting of any type.

However, the altered state doesn’t work for everything. Serious writers have to adhere to a schedule. I know this because I waffle in that netherworld between writing for fun and the alternative. It’s a great hobby to bandy about words and be the cause of conversations – it’s the birth of your baby. The re-writes, corrections and critiques are infinitely more difficult but part of the total equation – that is called whipping your child into shape.

I am an admittedly lazy writer. There are the rare times when I’m on fire, but truthfully speaking, I can initiate more ways of procrastination than anyone I know.

In order to get anything done, I had to kick the idea of my Muse to the curb and join the ranks of the real, working world.

Here are a few tips from a person still struggling with time management issues:

  1. Set up a daily time for writing. For novel writing, I need at least two hours of quiet time, and the best time for me is between 2 and 5 p.m. Early in the morning doesn’t work for me; neither do late nights.
  2. Set up a daily minimum word amount. It can be as little as twelve sentences a day. For others, it can be a word total. (Mine is usually 1,000 words or more.)
  3. Surround yourself with other writers. If you can’t find a local writing group, there are plenty online. Only with reassurance from others in your same situation will you be able to overcome the hurdles.
  4. Even if you don’t feel like writing, JUST WRITE. It doesn’t have to be polished and worthy of the Pulitzer. Jot down your most mundane thoughts while standing in line at the grocery store. My new thing is to write down catchy names or phrases in my notebook so I don’t forget them later.
  5. Tell yourself you can, and you will. Mindsets can be changed, but only you can change your own.

Finally, remember that writing is hard work, not unlike digging up your yard (by hand) to replace it with a vegetable garden. Don’t rely on something as fleeting as a Muse to get it done. It may seem daunting, but writing well is not an unattainable goal.

Posted in music, violin, writing, women, life, people, rewriting, womens literature | Tagged , , 3 Comments

Those Writers On Fire

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I subscribe to several email blasts from writers, agents and publishers. I also belong to Romance Writers of America and the local Detroit chapter of RWA. I receive upwards of 100 different emails about writing each day.

What can I say? I need constant information.

What really bowls me over about the writers is that they can pump out pages and pages each and every day. Chapters and chapters every week!

Not using this as an excuse, but I have a challenging day job. If I get an hour to myself, it’s a rare thing. There are so many things I want to do in addition to the many things I have to do that I have to priortize.

For example, manicures are low, low, low on the list. My nails haven’t seen polish in over a year.

Shopping is low on the list, especially the kind of shopping that involves walking into a brick and mortar building. I’d shop for groceries online, but we don’t have that here.

TV is also low. My husband likes to have it on, mostly for background noise. He also loves golf and fancies himself a newshound, so the TV is on the Golf Channel or a news channel. I need one thing from the TV: I want to know if it’s going to snow (rain), how much and for how long.

On the other hand, food is a high priority. I’m a food snob. My one pleasure is a good meal accompanied by a nice wine. Mix in a few friends and you have a perfect setting. Since food preparation is a labor of love, it tends to take some time.

Laundry and housecleaning are necessities, not priorities. They fall mid-way on the scale.

I am trying to make writing more of a priority and less a diversionary game.

For those who don’t know me well, I’m a lazy person. Yes, and I used to be a world-class procrastinator too, until I rediscovered writing. I’m not young. That’s why my motto is “I’m writing as fast as I can!”

A person cannot write without time.

You need time to get into the mood, to get into the zone. Sometimes if I know I have a couple hours of free time, I’ll begin getting into the zone a half hour or so before. I slip into the character and begin to see the world through her eyes. It helps for when I’m confronted with the blank screen on my laptop.

I’m the type who needs quiet. If the dog wants to sleep on my feet, that’s okay, but other than that, I don’t want people around. It’s hardest to write on airplanes, easier in airports, and painless once you get away from home. I make the most progress in hotel rooms. I recently spent four days in California getting my daughter back into college. Even though I had a commute from LA to San Diego County each day, I managed to pump out ten pages. Ten whole pages!

*celebratory dance*

That’s a lot for me.

I thought I had become proficient in time management, but when I read about these work-aholic, prolific writers on fire (many of whom have small children), I feel inadequate.

Perhaps I shouldn’t measure myself against them.

Or maybe I should use them as a tool to get motivated.

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Writer Manufactured Time

Posted by Joanne Huspek

That sucking of air you just heard was the sound of relief now that summer is finally over.

The “day job” seasonal madness is pretty much behind us. I can’t imagine being as busy as we were this summer all year round. The thought of it is staggering, but it’s also something I’ll probably not have to worry about. The kids are going back to school next week and we can take a collective breath and use September to catch up.

This is not to say that my time-sucking day job eliminated any possibilities for writing. As a writer, I’m finding it necessary to carve out stretches of time for myself to devote to the craft.

In addition to the various articles written for Blog Critics and Associated Content, I have sped along on my chick-lit-y novel and then was waylaid by an idea tossed out by my friend and constant writer’s nag, the Fluffy Little Cat. Out of our conversation was born another novel on the same story, a YA tale as told by the daughter.

This one’s been fun, and I’ve already tested out Chapter One on my niece, who happens to be “that” age. She gave it a thumbs up and wants to read more. (Ah, the silent sound of applause… just enough encouragement to keep me going.)

And I am finding more and more that writing is a craft, not one to be taken lightly. I have many good ideas and can easily write on the fly, off the top of my head so it seems, but to hone those ideas and make them perfect? That’s what I need to achieve.

I recently read the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He’s the one that examines the 10,000 hour rule. The 10,000 hour rule is the theory that in order to do anything well, one needs to devote that amount of time to the endeavor. It equals about 20 hours per week for ten years.

It makes sense for musicians, athletes, actors, journeymen carpenters, why not for writing?

Unfortunately for me, I started late and I have a lot of catching up to do. My problem is that there is no way on God’s green earth that I can find 20 unadulterated, quiet hours a week to write, not with my schedule. If I can find two hours a day, it’s a momentous occasion worthy of celebrating with pitchers of margaritas.

Back to the busy summer: despite the rigors of a new internet platform on the “day job,” the daughter home from college, and a shortage help, I make the time to write.

I leave for home early, I shop online so I don’t have to run to stores. I try to budget my play time and make use of what’s left over, extremely difficult for a world-class procrastinator like me.

It’s tough, it’s brutal, it’s not easy, but it’s the only way. It’s the Yellow Brick Road from wannabe to writer.

Posted in editing, music, violin, writing, women, life, people, womens literature, writing 4 Comments

Being Politically Incorrect

Posted by Joanne Huspek

This might have nothing to do with writing, or it might have everything to do with writing.

Through my travels in real life and online, I am finding that I am politically incorrect.

Now, I’ve always been politically incorrect. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.

It all started in high school, although things were bubbling around before that. I’ve always been opinionated, and my opinions are strong. It got me into major trouble in high school, where I wrote for the school newspaper. I tended to pick topics that didn’t sit well with many students and teachers. I once wrote a scathing editorial about the use of millage dollars to improve the athletic department, and hey, where were similar funds for the art department? (There weren’t any.)

The football team and the coach hated me. If looks could kill, I’d have been six feet under long ago. I believe that’s why I got a B in biology that semester. (The coach was also the science teacher.)

Old age has done nothing to temper my opinions or my loud mouth. Even when I wasn’t writing creatively, I was writing letters to the editor. Editors to papers, editors to Cosmopolitan, Crawdaddy and Rolling Stone magazines. I was writing letters to companies that wronged me, to restaurants where the service was substandard, to utility companies and to elected officials. I still do all of that, and with the internet, now I do more.

Of course, I try to be respectful of the other side of  issues. My job on earth is to learn, and if I can’t see something the first time (like algebra or violin), I look at it again from another perspective. I care a lot about the city, state and country I live in. I care a lot about our culture. I can’t help not to care as it’s my responsibility as a citizen.

However, I won’t roll over and play dead if we disagree.

Within other realms of my writing, I am finding that perhaps to get published it might be nice if I toned down my opinions. You know, be extraordinarily politically correct.

I had an email exchange with an online editor I work with. He asked me to write an opinion piece on something that happened in the news based on a comment I made to another article. I wanted to, because I have strong opinions but found a part of me didn’t want to attract attention to myself that might be negative. Anything I say or write could be construed as something else entirely. Much as I’m bitchy, in actuality I’m really not negative. Just passionate.

In the end, I wrote the piece (or a variation on what he wanted) because of one rule I have. It is: I must be true to myself. Being true to myself is why I couldn’t continue with journalism for a major in college. To write journalistically would mean I would have to lay aside my feelings, and I can’t do that.

Perhaps if I got a thumbs up for my work despite my beliefs in other areas I could stop looking over my shoulder at the shadow of my personal beliefs.

For creative writing, it’s different. Perhaps when I finish writing the two novels I’m working on now, I’ll feel differently. Editing novels is one thing but editing my soul? It just won’t happen.

Maybe that’s why I might stay a published author wannabe.

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My Junk is Not That Interesting

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Something I wrote while procrastinating…

I’ve just had a revelation.

My junk is not that interesting.

Once a year, on a weekend in mid-July, my city hosts what is billed as the World’s Largest Indoor Garage Sale. Professional vendors and regular folks who want to cast their possessions out to the public come to a parking structure and take over three or four floors. Some come from out of state just for the opportunity.

I’ve made the trek almost every year, even when I didn’t live in Royal Oak. The first time out, my now-22-year-old was just a baby in a collapsible stroller. Back in the city’s heyday, when the economy was flush and downtown merchants didn’t have to be competitive, the Garage Sale was a big deal, drawing people from all over with its carnival atmosphere. It’s where I first saw Jack Kevorkian in one of his blue sweaters, but except for that stint in jail, he’s all over town all the time.

Parking is a pretty iffy proposition here, where the streets are mostly residential and narrow. I live four blocks away so I walked. Garage Sale traffic was light this year, even though most of the downtown merchants were holding a sidewalk sale in conjunction with the big event. There was no need for the funeral home next to the parking ramp to be offering premium spaces at $5 a pop. I doubt they made much this weekend.

Garage Sale weekend is normally one of the hottest of summer. Not so this year, 2009 – the year of the Bummer Summer. Global warming be damned, the skies have been gray, foggy, and cold as much as they have been warm, bright and sunny. I had to wear a hoodie and jeans.

I’m not a garage sale fanatic but I don’t mind hitting a few every once in a while. My mother-in-law was in antique sales and schooled me on the advanced science of looking for decent junk. We would delve into the trash cans first before approaching a real sale. Most people don’t know what they are doing and have no idea about value. She was once given a box full of “trash” and spent the next three months selling it in her store, netting over $90.

I despise hosting my own home garage sales. I’ve done it a couple of times with minimal success. It’s a lot of prep work, hard to do alone (what about potty and meal breaks?) and harder to do in the rain (it’s cold and no one comes). I hate to bargain so my prices are ridiculously low. I just want the junk out of my house. Once it makes it to the garage, anything left over can’t return home. It keeps on trucking until it hits the Goodwill.

I’ve often said I should gather up my junk and do the Royal Oak Garage Sale one of these years. After all, the Chamber of Commerce does all the advertising, cutting out one expense. For the price of a stall, I would have hundreds of people milling by, thus increasing foot traffic past my assortment of bric-a-brac.

Yesterday that dream came to a crashing stop.

As I strolled by the tables yesterday, I realized the items carried little appeal. There were some interesting pieces, but none with the panache of past years’ offerings. Vinyl albums? Meh. I get my record fix when I go out to California and hit up Amoeba Records. Antique musical instruments? Hardly any. Anything that looked like it might be old or unique was grossly overpriced. Everything else was new and ho-hum and grossly overpriced. What with TV, internet, and warehouse club shopping, one doesn’t need a personal demonstration of Sham-Wow.

Many onlookers were like me, not buying, just browsing. I spent less than $10 for a few pieces to use in my jewelry-making ventures. It was largely unsatisfying.

I came home and gave my closet and garage the once-over. I don’t have much stuff, and my junk is just not that interesting. In a recession, it’s even less so. The face value of my cast-offs has declined with the stock market, housing prices, and everything else.

Maybe I’ll save it for the grandkids.

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