Tag writing

Time won’t give me time*

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With all this extra time I should be writing more, right? I should be reading more, binging more shows, baking, organizing my house, learning a new skill. I’m not. I don’t know where the time goes, really. In the beginning it was spent watching daily news briefings, mindlessly scrolling through social media, and feeling hopeless. Recently? Who knows.

I’ve become an expert at wasting time.

Does that count as a new skill?

I’ve started a blog post in my head more times than I’d like to admit, but nothing ever gets to the page, and I wonder if perhaps it is because my brain can’t seem to handle more than bite-sized information lately. I no longer plan meals for the week, no longer coordinate who needs to be where/when, no longer need to hold a hundred things in my head because those hundred things have all been canceled.

Last night my critique group met for the second time during the pandemic. I’m embarrassed that I have had nothing to share, nothing to show for my three months with hours of empty afternoons to write. Part of the issue is that the space where I normally write became my home office, and as much as I love my day job, its accessories and post-it notes are not inspiring. The other part? I’ve been tired, and sad, and listless.

But I want to write.

I need to write.

My novel waits, eager for the next scene. It has become impatient.

Today, I set out to write something, anything. I wrote a journal entry that turned into a poem, and while somewhat gloomy, helped shake off some of the cobwebs and remind me of the healing power of words. I’d love to hear what you think, and to hear about all the things you haven’t been doing with all your extra time.

BRUISED

Sometimes,
the weight of everything
crushes me.

Husband asks what’s wrong
and I try to explain –
but the words all sound
trivial.

Each tiny problem
seemingly insignificant
until you pile them
all together
and begin to
suffocate.

He wants to compartmentalize –
take each one and solve it,
or if we can’t solve it,
push it aside like the basket
of bread at dinner.

He tells me to
control what I can control.

Therein lies the quandary.

There is so little
I can truly control.
So little predictability,
routine,
normalcy.

The only thing left are my reactions,
which – if I’m being honest –
are out of my control
most days.

For some,
these tiny,
insignificant things are
much larger,
much heavier.

Loss of work,
Illness, death,
Fear that pulls like a riptide.

I have suffered only one of these.

I am lucky.

But, whenever I stop
to think about that luck,
the weight of other people’s suffering
sits on my chest and refuses to budge.

We will crawl out
from under this.

We must.

With scars and bruises that may
never truly heal.

 

*the title of this blog post comes from my favorite Culture Club song, Time (Clock of the Heart)

Alphabetic Exploration of a Virus

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Last weekend a friend and colleague who teaches Creative Writing sent me a challenge:  write a poem where each line begins with the letters of the alphabet in succession. Back in my teen angst poetry writing days, I did something similar as a dedication to a good friend. It rhymed, was full of goofy inside jokes, and had the sappiest ending:

Y is for You at Cornell in “Vet style”
Z is for NaZ where I’m missing your smile

When I sat down to write the abc poem last weekend, I knew it had to address what’s been going on in the world — the dark, hopelessness we are all feeling. The uncertainty of each day, of what the future holds. Here is what I came up with:

Alphabetic Exploration of a Virus

Alone. The only way to
be safe, to stop the
contagion.

Don’t trust your neighbors.

Everyone is at risk
as we are all
forced inside.

Gone are feelings of
HOPE.

Instead we
journal our deepest fears,
keep our
loved ones distant, hold onto
memories like moments that may
never happen again.

Once upon a future,
when the danger has
passed, when the
quiet streets
return to their
steady pulse of life, only
then will we
understand how deeply the
virus changed us.

Humans full of
worry, a global community turned
xenophobic.

Can our
youth—the risk-taking Generation
Z—help us rebuild?

The Writer’s Road

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So you want to be a writer, eh? What are your qualifications? Creative introvert with an active imagination and a flair for the dramatic who lives mostly in her head? Perfect. Wait, what’s that? You struggle with self-esteem? Stand by for crushing rejection. Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it. Plagued by jealous feelings? You should probably steer clear of social media. Hold on — you’ll need a platform, and thousands of followers. Have trouble making friends? There’s a hashtag for that.

You published a book! Great job. Try not to obsess over your reviews and sales ranks, and don’t go overboard with self-promotion — no one likes to hear about your book over and over. Make sure you attend plenty of author fairs and book signings — even though the only people who will buy your book are friends and relatives. It’s okay, JK Rowling lived in  her car. Surely it can’t be that difficult to strike it rich in the publishing industry. You’ll be able to quit your job any day now and focus on your writing.

Oh yeah, writing. That thing you love to do because it keeps you sane. What are you working on these days? I hope your next book is good. No pressure. We loved the first one, so don’t disappoint your fans, okay? Writer’s block? That’s just an excuse for laziness. Didn’t you say you were a creative thinker? So go, think creatively! Come up with amazing plots and dynamic characters. There’s no room for self doubt here. No, ma’am. Lock yourself in your writing space, if you have a space with a door and a lock, or maybe just put some cardboard around you while you sit at the kitchen table and pretend you don’t have a family depending on you for survival. Bonus points if there’s a pet on your lap and/or keyboard.

Most importantly, remember: this is your hobby. You do it because it brings you joy. And when something brings you down (the pile of query rejections, yet another pass on your workshop proposals, other authors finding success where you failed) find something to bring you up. I highly recommend a praise journal, where you save positive and encouraging things other people have said about your work (emails, critiques, reviews, text messages from friends and family). Spread the joy by telling another author what you love about their work.

And visit authors when they are out trying to hock their wares. It will make them smile.

author fair

Happy to have customers at our local author fair

Poems from my past

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Recently I unearthed a folder full of old poetry and other bits of brain barf with the intent of sharing it with my teen readers. Look! I wrote [bad] angsty poetry when I was your age and now I occasionally get paid to write stuff! However, while teen me felt perfectly fine sharing these poems with strangers, adult me hesitates. Some, okay most, of what I found was BAD. But I hear there’s power in vulnerability so I decided to occasionally share a few randomly selected (ha ha, right, you know I poured over this folder trying to figure out which poems sucked the least), completely unedited, poems from my past.

But first, a quick story. My freshman year in college I served on the selection committee for our school’s literary magazine. I had submitted a couple of my own poems and waited nervously for them to be read aloud and critiqued by the group. One of my poems was chosen for publication, while another got completely ripped apart. How could they do that with me sitting right there? you ask. Well, back then I used to sign my poems “VB” for Veronica Blackwood, a pen name born out of my obsession for Shirley Jackson (after the Blackwood family in We Have Always Lived in the Castle) and the fact that “Sandi” didn’t feel like a poet’s name. Being anonymous paid off… sort of. Because my real name wasn’t on the poem, it gave my group mates the freedom to expose the faults in my writing. But it also chipped away at my heart a bit. Criticism is never easy to take, but it’s even harder when it arrives entirely unfiltered.

I’m not sure the lesson I learned that day. Always use a pen name just in case people hate your work? Speak out against cruel criticism? Go home and cry into your pillow when someone hates your poetry? (Pretty sure it was option three back then.)

Or: Don’t let the haters bring you down.

One thing I’ve learned about searching through these old folders: I may have been a fledgling writer back then, but I was really prolific. There are pages and pages of poems, journal entries, and random thoughts. I wrote every day. And eventually it got me here. So maybe we need to embrace our pasts a bit more.

On that note, here’s a poem I wrote in August, 1994 while on the train to visit a friend. Unedited.

INSPIRATION SOMEWHERE BETWEEN ALBANY AND NIRVANA

The man on the train knows of enlightenment
and he speaks to my aura with his lips pursed
and his head cocked to one side
only i can’t listen because my mind is full of clouds
so instead i peer over his shoulder — watching
his red pen run its spiritual tip across the page.

The man on the train is pacing now
he must be dizzying with higher knowledge
or perhaps light-headed from stuffing white rubber into
his ears — in attempt to drown out my
contemplative bubble gum popping.

The man on the train has reached his earth-bound
destination — he exits with a glazed smile
and a cautious step — and i am left to
listen to empty giggles and morbid thoughts
while i wait for mine.